Gospel of Philip · 3 of 13 · tr. Thomas O. Lambdin
Section 1c
And Jesus said, “Whoever will not eat my flesh and drink my blood has no life within him.” What does he mean?
His flesh is the word and blood the holy spirit.
Who has received these has food and drink and clothing.
I condemn those who say the flesh won’t rise.
Then both are wrong.
You say the flesh won’t ascend.
Tell me, what will rise so I can honor you?
You say spirit in the flesh and light in the flesh.
What is the flesh?
You say there is nothing outside the flesh.
Then rise in the flesh, since everything exists in it.
In this world those wearing garments are better than garments.
In heaven the garments are better than the wearers.
THROUGH WATER AND FIRE Through water and fire this wide realm is purified, and the visible cleaned by the visible, and the hidden by the hidden, but there are elements concealed in the visible.
There is water within water and fire in the oil of chrism.
JESUS TRICKED EVERYONE Jesus tricked everyone.
He did not appear as he was but in a way not to be seen.
Yet he appeared to all of them.
To the great he appeared as great, to the small as small.
To angels he appeared as an angel, and to humans as a human.
And he hid his word from everyone.
Some looked at him and thought they saw themselves.
When before his students he appeared gloriously on the mountain, he was not small.
No, he became great, and he made his students grow so they would know his immensity.
UNION WITH ANGELS On the day of thanksgiving prayer he said, “You who have joined perfect light with holy spirit, join the angels with us as a single image.” THE LAMB Don’t hate the lamb.
Without the lamb you can’t see the king.
MEETING THE KING You don’t meet the king if you are naked.
CONCEIVING WITH A KISS The heavenly man has more children than a man on earth.
If the offspring of Adam are many and die, how many more are the offspring of perfect beings who do not die and are born each second?
The father makes a child.
The child cannot make a son.
He has not the power to make children.
One recently born is not a parent.
The son has brothers and sisters, not children.
In this world there is a natural order to birth, and one is nourished by ordinary means.
We are nourished by the promise of heaven, from the mouth of the word.
If the word emanated from the mouth, it is perfect.
By a kiss the perfect conceive and give birth.
That is why we kiss.
From the grace in others we conceive.
THREE MARYS Three Marys walked with the lord: His mother, his sister, and Mary of Magdala, his companion.
His sister and mother and companion were Mary.
THE HOLY SPIRIT Father and son are single names.
Holy spirit is a double name and everywhere: above and below, hidden and revealed.
The holy spirit lives in the revealed.
It is concealed below.
It is above.
BLINDERS Even evil powers serve the saints.
The holy spirit blinds the powers who suppose they are treating a simple man when they are treating saints.
ASK YOUR MOTHER A student once asked the lord for something from the world, and he said, “Ask your mother, and she will give you something from another realm.” SOPHIA AND SALT The messengers said to the students, “Let our offering all be for obtaining salt.” Salt is what they called Sophia.
Without salt no offering is acceptable.
But Sophia is barren.
She has no child, and so she is called a trace of salt.
Yet wherever others are will be the holy spirit.
Her children are many.
FATHER AND CHILD What a father has belongs to his child, but not while the child is still little.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
Purification through water and fire mirrors alchemical transformation processes.
Eckhart's signature doctrine that the Father eternally begets the Son in the ground of the soul; the human interior as the actual site of the divine generative act, distinct from inner_light's static indwelling.
Nourishment comes from the mouth of the word and conception occurs by a kiss of the perfect.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The text states the visible is cleaned by the visible and the hidden by the hidden, implying structural reflection.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
A hierarchy is implied with the Father making a child who cannot make a son, and angels above humans.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
The speaker condemns those who deny the resurrection of the flesh.
The Gnostic myth of Wisdom's prolapse from the Pleroma — her unilateral desire or error producing the Demiurge and the entrapment of divine sparks in matter.
Sophia is mentioned as barren and a trace of salt, alluding to her mythological status.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
Believers are encouraged to join with angels and perfect beings, implying transformation into divine likeness.
Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.
Offerings of salt/Sophia and chrism suggest ritual engagement with divine forces.