Ode: Intimations of Immortality
by, William Wordsworth
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting
The
Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath
had elsewhere its setting,
And
cometh from afar:
Not in
entire forgetfulness,
And not
in utter nakedness,
But tailing
clouds of glory do we come
From
God, who is our home:”
Reference to, us being referred to as children of God: Hosea 1:10; Acts
17:28-29; Romans 8:16-18; John 10:35-36 (making reference to Psalm 82:6-7, as
being Sons of God)
Reference to coming to earth: Psalm 82:6-7, Midrash Tanchuma, Shemos II,
Pekudei 3, trans., Rabbi Avraham Davis, pp.404-405, 409-413 also in
Barnstone, The Other Bible, pp.26-28
and Ginzberg. Legends of the Jews
vol.1:56-58; Howard Schwartz, Tree of
Souls, the Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004) pp. 166-167
In the Ginza Rba, “Arise, go, descend to the place where there are no skinas
or worlds. Call forth and create a world for yourself, just like the sons of
perfection, whom you saw.” In, Werner Foerster, trans., ed., Gnosis II: A Selection of Gnostic Texts.
(Oxford Clarendon Press 1974) p.171; Also in the Midrash Rabbah, God takes council from the angels before creating
the world. Freedman and Simon, eds., Midrash Rabbah Vol.1:59 (Gen.R 8.7); Vol.8:28 (Ruth
R 2.3)
In the Gospel
of Thomas: “Jesus said, ‘If they say to you, Where did you come from?, say to
them, We came from the light, the place where the light came into being…’” In,
Robinson, NHL. pp.123, Gospel of Thomas (II,2) 41:49-50-42:1-6; The
Mandaeans also used “light” in describing where the soul came from,
before coming to earth: “When the Soul
came from worlds of light and fell into the Body…” E.S. Drower, The Secret Adam, A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis,
(Oxford Univ.Press 1960) p.49 (as quoted from: Thousand and Twelve Questions, p.215)
In the Manichaean Psalm Book, Adam is being greeted by an angel, called a news bearer, who is to take Adam home now that he has died. One of the first questions asked by Adam is: How are my heavenly parents, the father of light and the mother of all living. (Allberry, ed., Manichaean Psalm-Book II pp.189-199)
In the Ginza, Adam is visited by an angel to take him home now that he has
lived a thousand years, Adam objects and sends the angel to take Saureil, his
son, the angel says “come die as if you
were never created,…your soul yearns to return to the great home, from which
she came.” Ginza Left (GL) Book 1, pp.
5, 3-7, in GINZA RABBA, trans., Prof.
Dr. Qais Mughashghash Al-Saadi and Hamed Mughashghash Al-Saddi (Drabsha 2012); Werner Foerster, trans.,
ed., Gnosis II: A Selection of Gnostic
Texts. (Oxford Clarendon Press 1974) p.261: “Rise up, rise up, soul, ascend to your first earth.”
In the Discourse
on Abbaton, fol.12a: “And He
took the clay from the hand of the angel, and made Adam according to our image
and likeness, and He left him lying for forty days and forty nights without
putting breath into him. And he heaved
sighs over him daily, saying 'If I put
breath into this [man], he must suffer many pains.’ And I said unto my Father, ‘Put breath into
him; I will be an advocate for him.’ And
my Father said to me ‘If I put breath into him, My beloved Son, Thou wilt be
obligated to go down into the world, and suffer many pains for him before Thou
shalt have redeemed him. And made him to
come back to his primal state.’ And I said to My Father: ‘Put breath into
him, I will be his advocate, and I will go down into the world and will fulfill
Thy command.’” Discourse
on Abbaton, fol.12a, by Archbishop of Alexandria, in A.E. Wallis Budge, Coptic
Texts, Vol. IV, Coptic Martyrdoms Ect. In the Dialect of Upper Egypt, (AMS
reprint 1914) p.482
Midrash Tanchuma, Shemos II, Pekudei 3, trans., Rabbi Avraham Davis, pp.404-405, 409-413; The account is also in Barnstone, The Other Bible, pp.26-28 and Ginzberg. Legends of the Jews vol.1:56-58;
Book of Abraham 3:35 : "We will prove them here-with to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord there God shall command them." Joseph Smith Jr., trans., The Pearl of Great Price, (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981) p.38
In the Apocryphon of John (II, 1) 22:20-30; 23:1-10, in James Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library, p.111 (NHL) : “And I said to the savior, What is the forgetfulness…the veil which lay over his (Adam) mind”
Willis Barnstone, ed., The Other Bible, (Harper & Row) pp. 28: “But the soul is reluctant to leave her place. Then the angel fillips the babe on the nose, extinguishes the light at his head, and brings him forth into the world against his will. Immediately the child forgets all his soul has seen and learnt, and he comes into the world crying…” (Rabbi Avraham Davis, trans., Midrash Tanchuma, Shemos II, Pekudei 3, p.410; Ginsberg. Legends of the Jews vol.1:58)
