“The flaming sword is always active in the spiritual life of humanity. It calls to seekers and it repulses thieves.” Valentin Tomberg
Logion 98
Yeshua says...
The Father's realm is like a man
wanting to kill someone powerful.
So he draws a sword in his own house
and puts it through the wall
to test whether or not his hand is actually strong enough.
Then he goes out and slays the giant.
The Sword as Truth and Inner Transformation
“Sword means Truth fighting, and the ear is always used as the emotional understanding in the Gospels, as in “Blessed are those who have ears to hear”, etc., where “ears” means, psychologically, the power of emotional hearing. Jesus rebuked Peter and told him to put up the sword, and restored the man’s ear. All this has a meaning totally apart from its literal sense−based meaning; and in order to understand such things, you must get away entirely from the historical narrative and the actual picture of the events unrolled in the description. The historical description is made to represent the psychological meaning, not the other way round. The whole drama of Christ represents another meaning, and the fitting together of the historical narrative is done in view of the psychological meaning. But it is for a long time difficult to escape from the literal, natural mind in regard to such matters and to open up another level of understanding.” Maurice Nicoll, The New Man, p117-118.
“The flaming sword of the Guardian of Eden is a weapon of divine magic. This means to say that it is essentially a ‘yes’ and not a ‘no’. It is essentially constructive and not destructive. In other words, it invites, encourages and directs all those who are worthy, all that which is worthy in each person, to the benefits of the Tree of Life; and it forbids, discourages and sends away all those who are unworthy, and also all that which is unworthy in each person. The flaming sword is a benediction to those who seek the Tree of Eternal Love which is the Tree of Life, and at the same time, by the very fact that it blesses, the flaming force prohibits those who seek the Tree of Life in order to take possession of its fruits. The sword of the Holy Guardian of Eden is always active in the spiritual life of humanity. It calls to seekers and it repulses thieves.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p69.
The Sword of Division and Inner Conflict
“I came not to bring peace but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter−in−law against her mother−in−law: and a man’s foes shall be those of his own household.”
(Matt, x, 34−36.)
“This has not an external, a literal meaning. It signifies an internal upheaval, a change in a man’s whole psychology, a change in all that in him is “father”, “mother”, “daughter”, “daughter−in−law”, “mother−in−law”, and so on—in him, psychologically. All his relationships to himself must change, and this means that all his ideas about himself and his whole feeling of himself must change. A man’s household means all that is in the man himself—not his body but his psychology— the household of all the different sides of himself. All the ideas, all the attitudes, that were the “father” or “mother” of his thoughts and views and opinions and all the relationships resulting from them must change in view of the sword which is the power of truth of a higher order. Meeting this higher order of truth a man can no longer be at peace with himself as he is.” The New Man, p94.
“Now this new form of thinking, this metanoia or change of mind which the ideas of the Work can effect in you, will always go against the acquired psychology derived from your upbringing. What idea underlies this? You notice that this Work constantly says that you have to think for yourself and that the object of this Work is to make you think for yourself. Now if you think always from Papa and Mamma, you cannot think for yourself, for if you do, you will always think from opposites, such as ‘Papa never told me that’, or ‘Mamma would not like that’. Therefore in such a case you are thinking from opposites just in the same way as if you oppose your father’s thoughts again you are thinking from opposites.” Commentaries, p1373.
The Sword as the Narrow Way
“Christ did not say he came to make everything nice and satisfactory on this Earth. He said: ‘Think not that I came to send peace on the Earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ (Matt. X 34.) The conditions of the second development—the reversal or re-birth—are the important things. A smug, settled earth without acute internal struggle and searchings and contradictions on all sides could hardly be expected to produce the conditions for the second development which is internal, individual, and a matter of one’s own most real and deepest thoughts and essential feelings.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p1018-1019.
“Abba Joseph said of Abba Poemen that he said, ‘This saying which is written in the Gospel: “Let him who has no sword, sell his mantle and buy one,” (Luke 22.36) means this: let him who is at ease give it up and take the narrow way.'” Benedicta Ward, Sayings of the Desert Fathers, the alphabetical collection.
The Sword as Divine Powerlessness and Kenosis
“True power always appears as powerlessness. For it is always due to a kind of crucifixion. The ‘swords’ in question are powerful arms of true power. They are the fruits of outer powerlessness, i.e. they are forces due to crucifixion. For the guardian of freedom is, by this very fact, the victim of freedom; he has also to endure the age-old abuse of the freedom that he protects.… It is the same with the ‘flaming sword’ of the Cherubim ‘set in the east of Eden’. Here again it is divine impotence in relation to human freedom, which latter chose the way of the Fall—impotence which nourished and concentrated the ‘sword’. Thus, here is the choice which each of us is called to make: the choice between the power of crucifixion and that of compulsion. To pray or to order: Which would we prefer?” Meditations on the Tarot, p286
Logion 110
Yeshua says...
Whoever finds the cosmos and becomes rich
must ultimately let the cosmos go.
Logion 7
Yeshua says...
A lion eaten by a man is blessed
as it changes to human form,
but a human devoured by a lion
is cursed as lion becomes human.
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise.
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The New Man refer to Martino Fine Books, Eastford CT, 2019
Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
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