In the Johannine corpus, all of these instances-of a perfecting into one that conveys the experience of comprehensive divine love, and of the perfection of divine love in those who love-seem to resonate with the notion of perfection through initiation into the higher mysteries of love on the ladder of love.
As those who ascend the ladder of love in Plato’s Symposium become perfected-that is, initiated into the mysteries-so the pupils at the last symposium are also perfected into one, and into the divine love. Firstly, with regard to the language of perfection, in his final prayer at the conclusion of the last symposium, Jesus states his intention to his divine Father, that his pupils “will be perfected into one” by experiencing the same divine love that the Father has for Jesus.
Amnesia the dark descent elevator full#
21 kilometres west of Athens and connected with it via “the Sacred Way” (Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.36.3), with its sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone/Kore, which was the center of-as Kevin Clinton concisely puts it-“the annual festival of the mysteries, which attracted initiates from the entire Greek-speaking world.” As I will now indicate, this language of “ perfection” and “vision,” as expressed in the phrase τὰ τέλεα καὶ ἐποπτικά (“the final perfection and full vision”) and denoting “the highest mysteries,” is also present in John’s Gospel. The mystery cults Plato refers to here are most likely the mystery cults that were especially well known in Athens: the Eleusinian mysteries at Eleusis, one of the demes of Athens, ca. With an allusion to the difference between lower and higher mysteries in the contemporary mystery cults, the higher levels of this ladder are seen as “ the final perfection (i.e., initiation, τὰ τέλεα) and full vision”-that is, “the highest mysteries”.
According to Diotima, the successive stages of spiritual generation constitute a progressive initiation into the mysteries, an initiation that takes the form of a gradual ascent on “the ladder of love,” from physical love to spiritual love, at the end of which-as we shall see shortly-awaits the full attainment of purity, contemplation of the divine unity, truth, and immortality. "John’s Counter-Symposium: 'The Continuation of Dialogue' in Christianity-A Contrapuntal Reading of John’s Gospel and Plato’s Symposium" by George van Kooten (Brill, 2019):Īpart from the intermediary character and duality of love, Diotima’s speech also brings out another aspect of love that is echoed in John’s Gospel, namely the colouring of love in the tones of initiation into the mysteries.
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