Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

CRUCIFIXION OF THE CHRIST ACCORDING MANICHEANS

A symbol of the Divine sacrifice, that is, the limitation and involution of the Divine energies and qualities within forms of matter.

"Christ, the Divine Virtue, Wisdom, or Mind, came down from the Superior region to be crucified in Matter from which he again departs (Manichæan Tenets). - ALEXANDER, Bp. of Lycopolis.

Christ, being God-actual, proceeding from God-potential, descends into matter as the Divine Sacrifice from the commencement of manifestation. He contains in himself the ideas of all forms and qualities which have to be impressed in matter. He willingly involves himself within nature, and gives up his life as a glad outpouring in order that the many souls may have life and may progress. He then becomes, at the completion of involution, the Divine Archetypal Man ready to pour forth in evolution all qualities and forms of life. In the inner being of all things He lives in secret, and eventually is born, or manifests, in the human soul, where as his power increases he becomes the conqueror of the lower nature, and finally returns in his saints to his Father and Source.

"The (Mani) crucifixion was, of course, a mere semblance. This seeming transaction symbolized the crucifixion of the Soul, sunk in matter, which the Spirit of the Sun would raise up to itself. “The crucifixion of that Soul which was dispersed through all matter served but to accomplish the destruction of the kingdom of darkness." - NEANDER, Church History, p. 224. Vol. 11.

The crucifixion story was regarded as symbolical of the Soul involved in matter, which the heavenly Christ (sun) would raise up to unite with him in glory. The involution of that Soul, or indwelling Self, in the lower nature is the means whereby the negative condition of ignorance (darkness) will disappear in the light of incoming Truth.

"The pain of the lower creation is part of the grand cosmic sacrifice whereby the eternal God lays down his life that he may take it again. On the altar of the material universe that sacred life has been offered since the beginning of time, and though at present we can do no more than glimpse that for which it is done, we are justified in feeling that no life which has ever risen to the dignity of being able to suffer will be missing from the grand consummation." - R. J. CAMPBELL, Serm., Divine Justice.

"God is in all things, whether personal or impersonal, and in God they live and move and have being. And that stage of purification through which the Kosmos is now passing is God's Crucifixion; the process of Transmutation, and Redemption of Spirit from Matter, of Being from Existence, of Substance from Phenomenon which is to culminate in the final At-one-ment of the ultimate Sabbath of Rest awaiting God's redeemed universe at the end of the Kalpa.” - The Perfect Way, p. 116.

"So I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live ;' death, therefore—that is, the sacrifice of self-is equivalent to life. Now this rests upon a profound truth. The death of Christ was a representation of the life of God. To me this is the profoundest of all truths, that the whole of the life of God is the sacrifice of self. God is Love; love is sacrifice-to give rather than to receive-the blessedness of self-giving. If the life of God were not such, it would be a falsehood to say that God is Love; for even in our human nature that which seeks to enjoy all instead of giving all is known by a very different name from that of love. All the life of God is a flow of this divine self-giving charity. Creation itself is sacrifice -the self-impartation of the divine Being. Redemption, too, is sacrifice, else it could not be love; for which reason we will not surrender one iota of the truth that the death of Christ was the sacrifice of God." - F. W. ROBERTSON, Sermons, 3rd Series, p. 100.

See Also

ARCHETYPAL MAN
CHRIST
Death of BALDER
Death of LEMMINKAINEN
Death of OSIRIS
EEL-GOD
FUH-HE
IMAGE OF GOD
LAMB OF GOD
QUETZALCOATL
SACRIFICER