(100) Here bring in your defence, and answer for your spirit; if not, it will be condemned. For this is God's jus, right or law, which law has no beginning, and is, that the child which is generated of the mother should be humble before the mother, and be obedient to her; for it has its life and body from the mother who has generated it.

(49) But hear, thou simple mother, who bringest all the children into this world, who afterwards in their rising up are ashamed of thee and despise thee, and yet are thy children whom thou hast brought forth.

(4) But should they say that this takes place by His mother, or should they say that they, along with Christ, war against death, let them own their secret dogma that they have the hardihood to assail the divine power of the Creator, by setting to rights His creation, as if they were superior, endeavouring to save the vital image which He was not able to rescue from corruption. Then the Lord would be superior to God the Creator; for the son would never contend with the father, especially among the gods. But the point that the Creator of all things, the omnipotent Lord, is the Father of the Son, we have deferred till the discussion of these points, in which we have under taken to dispute against the heresies, showing that He alone is the God proclaimed by Him.

(2) 'And he who desires the world of the mothers, by his mere will the mothers come to receive him, and having obtained the world of the mothers, he is happy.

(3) "Mother" figuratively means Country and sustenance; "fathers" are the laws of civil polity: which must be contemned thankfully by the high-souled just man; for the sake of being the friend of God, and of obtaining the right hand in the holy place, as the Apostles have done.

(79) A woman from the crowd said to Him, "Blessed are the womb which bore You and the breasts which nourished You." He said to her, "Blessed are those who have heard the word of the Father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, 'Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk.'"

On account of this it is said concerning her that she said, I am part of my mother, and I am the mother. I am the wife, I am the virgin. I am pregnant. I am the midwife. I am the one who comforts during labor pains. My husband produced me, and I am his mother, and he is my father and my lord. He is my potency; what he desires he speaks with reason. I am becoming, but I have borne a lordly man. Now these things were revealed by the will of Sabaoth and his Christ to the souls who will come to the fashioned bodies of the authorities. Concerning these the holy voice said, “Multiply and flourish to rule over all the creatures.” And these are the ones who are taken captive by the chief creator according to their destinies, and thus they were locked in the prisons of the fashioned bodies until the consummation of the age.

(3) Then the god who created us created a son from himself and Eve, your mother. . . . I knew a sweet desire for your mother. And the vigor of our eternal knowledge was destroyed in us, and weakness pursued us. The days of our life were few. I knew that I had come under the authority of death.

(25) And as thou hast refreshed thy mother's spirit during tmyt * ne» The womb of her that bare thee blesseth thee, [My affection] and my breasts bless thee And my mouth and my tongue praise thee greatly.

(15) Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your Father."

(4) Behold my mother and my brethren! My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it. For whosoever shall do the will of God my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

(36) Now the fifth in order is the command on the honour of father and mother. And it clearly announces God as Father and Lord. Wherefore also it calls those who know Him sons and gods. The Creator of the universe is their Lord and Father; and the mother is not, as some say, the essence from which we sprang, nor, as others teach, the Church, but the divine knowledge and wisdom, as Solomon says, when he terms wisdom "the mother of the just," and says that it is desirable for its own sake. And the knowledge of all, again, that is lovely and venerable, proceeds from God through the Son.

(92) Seeing, then that the Soul of her Child was in the Holy Trinity, what dost thou think here? Seeing it went forth out of the Mother's Essences, whether might not the Holiness of the Child (especially his high Light) in the Mother shine bright and gloriously? And whether this Mother may not rightly stand upon the Moon, and despise that which is earthly, as is to be seen in the Revelation [of St. John?]

(11) Saying, "Ti]amat our mother hath conceived a hatred for us

(97) And the Invocation of the Saints, is wholly against the Nature of the first Principle. She is with God indeed, we need not to dispute that; but we should only look to it, that we also may come to her [where she is] in her Son, and then we shall have eternal Joy with her, for that she is (from the Grace of God) become the blessed of [all] Women, and that we see the green lily Twig on her, and that she is the Mother of our Salvation, out of whom Salvation is born through God. Of Purgatory.

(19) The Ideal Principles entering into Matter as to a Mother affect it neither for better nor for worse.

Their action is not upon Matter but upon each other; these powers conflict with their opponent principles, not with their substrata- which it would be foolish to confuse with the entrant forms- Heat annuls Cold, and Blackness annuls Whiteness; or, the opponents blend to form an intermediate quality. Only that is affected which enters into combinations: being affected is losing something of self-identity.

In beings of soul and body, the affection occurs in the body, modified according to the qualities and powers presiding at the act of change: in all such dissolution of constituent parts, in the new combinations, in all variation from the original structure, the affection is bodily, the Soul or Mind having no more than an accompanying knowledge of the more drastic changes, or perhaps not even that. but the Matter concerned remains unaffected; heat enters, cold leaves it, and it is unchanged because neither Principle is associated with it as friend or enemy.

So the appellation "Recipient and Nurse" is the better description: Matter is the mother only in the sense indicated; it has no begetting power. But probably the term Mother is used by those who think of a Mother as Matter to the offspring, as a container only, giving nothing to them, the entire bodily frame of the child being formed out of food. But if this Mother does give anything to the offspring it does so not in its quality as Matter but as being an Ideal-Form; for only the Idea is generative; the contrary Kind is sterile.

This, I think, is why the doctors of old, teaching through symbols and mystic representations, exhibit the ancient Hermes with the generative organ always in active posture; this is to convey that the generator of things of sense is the Intellectual Reason Principle: the sterility of Matter, eternally unmoved, is indicated by the eunuchs surrounding it in its representation as the All-Mother.

This too exalting title is conferred upon it in order to indicate that it is the source of things in the sense of being their underlie: it is an approximate name chosen for a general conception; there is no intention of suggesting a complete parallel with motherhood to those not satisfied with a surface impression but needing a precisely true presentment; by a remote symbolism, the nearest they could find, they indicate that Matter is sterile, not female to full effect, female in receptivity only, not in pregnancy: this they accomplish by exhibiting Matter as approached by what is neither female nor effectively male, but castrated of that impregnating power which belongs only to the unchangeably masculine.

(3) Father, mother, and child constitute the natural trinity. The Mysteries glorified the home as the supreme institution consisting of this trinity functioning as a unit. Pythagoras likened the universe to the family, declaring that as the supreme fire of the universe was in the midst of its heavenly bodies, so, by analogy, the supreme fire of the world was upon its hearthstones. The Pythagorean and other schools of philosophy conceived the one divine nature of God to manifest itself in the threefold aspect of Father, Mother, and Child. These three constituted the Divine Family, whose dwelling place is creation and whose natural and peculiar symbol is the 47th problem of Euclid. God the Father is spirit, God the Mother is matter, and God the Child--the product of the two--represents the sum of living things born out of and constituting Nature. The seed of spirit is sown in the womb of matter, and by an immaculate (pure) conception the progeny is brought into being. Is not this the true mystery of the Madonna holding the Holy Babe in her arms? Who dares to say that such symbolism is improper? The mystery of life is the supreme mystery, revealed in all of its divine dignity and glorified as Nature's per feet achievement by the initiated sages and seers of all ages.

(13) Is it any wonder that You, the child, feel that instinctive reverence for THE ALL, which feeling we call "religion"--that respect, and reverence for THE FATHER MIND? Is it any wonder that, when you consider the works and wonders of Nature, you are overcome with a mighty feeling which has its roots away down in your inmost being? It is the MOTHER MIND that you are pressing close up to, like a babe to the breast.

(72) And though the child be in the mother's house, and the mother nourish the child with her food, and the child could not live without the mother, yet both the body and the spirit, which are generated out of the seed of the mother, are the child's proper own, and it retaineth its corporeal right to itself.

(68) Whatsoever we have ordained at the Convention of the chief Fathers, with the whole Consent of our Concilium [or Council,] that is holy; for it is written, Thou shalt not curse the Chief [or Ruler] of thy People. And when our Hearts (before the Light of Nature) condemn us, or that we must stand ashamed of ourselves before God, and acknowledge ourselves great Sinners, then we will invocate the holy Mother of Christ, and his Disciples, that they may pray for us, that so our Sins may not be known. When we go in Pilgrimage to honour them and perform divine Service, or Worship, then she will make Intercession, and speak to her Son for us, and pray for us, so that we may thus (in her Service) be holy; and though we stick continually in bestial Lechery, Self-honour, and Voluptuousness, yet that is no Matter, we have the Keys of Peter, and the Mother of Christ for our Assistance.