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We've already got one, actually!
flourished around 200-600Ad. The Barbelite system are one which revere the creative feminine aspect of the first emanation or expression of the Unknown Godhead - this emanation are a Syzygy, a harmonious cycle of counterparts ; the primordial Syzygy contained two parts - Forethought and Word, Barbelo being the forethought, or First thought of the First Mind which is contained in the Unknown Godhead and are unrevealed except for Thought and Word which are the generative powers in the cosmology of most Gnostic Systems ; the second part are Autogenes which is Word and self-generation : out of the first Syzygy comes a second, the Apocryphon of John tells us of her generation;
"And his [thought performed] a deed and she came forth, she who had
[appeared] before him in [the shine of] his light. This is the first [power
which was] before all of them (and) [which came] forth from his mind,
She [is the forethought of the All] - her light [shines like his] light -
the [perfect] power which is [the] image of the invisible, virginal
Spirit who is perfect. [The first power], the glory of Barbelo, the
perfect glory in the aeons, the glory of the revelation, she glorified
the virginal Spirit and it was she who praised him, because thanks
to him I she had come forth. This is the first thought, his image;
she became the womb of everything for it is she who is prior to
them all, the Mother- Father, the first Man, the Holy Spirit,
the thrice-male, the thrice-powerful, the thrice-named androgynous
one, and the eternal aeon among the invisible ones, and I the first to
come forth."
This suggests to us that these gnostics, who adhered to a system paying reverance to Barbelo and seeing in her the first principle of Creation possible to comprehend - held the feminine in high esteem, to the churchfathers this were synonymous with "heresy" no matter what virtues these people held or not. Other sources, these funny books written by people who find it very prosperable to use their academic titles to produce incorrect and sloppy books about a subject virtually no-one except their colleagues in the trade knows about - suggest that the Barbelites were one uniform group of gnostics and that they practiced obscene rites involving the ingestion of human semen and menses - but this is just repeating the very questionable allegations of Ephiphanius of Salamis, one of the least trustworthy of the anti-gnostic polemical churchfathers. When the Bruce Codex came across to our side of the world and the Pistis Sophia got published we found passages ascribed to Jesus were he warns against the filthy practice of sprinkling human semen on the wheat and ingesting it for good health and as a symbolic act, this practice if we identificate it correctly stems from agricultural pagan rites supposed to bring forth a good harvest and nothing else - he warns against it to the extent that we can smell the brimstone of "hell", the result he says, will be rebirth into the unredeemed world when the soul arrives at the seat of judgment in the last of the Aeons, the Aeon of the Virgin (Barbelo) - it is beyond any doubt and question that the Books of Ieou and Pistis Sophia are from the Barbelite System, and that its authors can be said to be Barbelognostics, if so - the allegations of Ephiphanius is either misdirected or indeed, false, as most of his accusations.
It's not bad, really - a divine representative of 'FORETHOUGHT' - contains the barbelith futurist and creative spirit quite well I think... Maybe I should try and find a picture of her from somewhere...? |
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