Exhaltation as Deification in early Christian writings and other ancient documents

Hotlink to article on Christian Polytheism

Hotlink to article on the true doctrine of godhood

and . . .

From Hugh Nibley's "Old Testament and Related Studies" Chapter 6:

"Because of the Plan," says Codex Brucianus 96, "we are always to look upward"; from time to time there is a great coronation day, a cosmic commencement day in which all who are worthy take over their new position and receive the spaces assigned them with their crowns of advancement. Clement of Alexandria and Origen, those two earliest fathers, each having one foot in the old church and one in the new, characteristically accepted the doctrine of eternal progression at first, then rejected it when the schoolmen finally talked them out of it. In Origen's universe there are more exalted beings who leave the less exalted beings further and further behind. He compares their advancements to a series of examinations and makes much of the three degrees of glory--"three celestial levels, like the sun, the moon, and the stars." According to him, the visible world is only a small fraction of the invisible world, which in turn is only a small fraction of the potential world that is to become reality in the aeons ahead. All this from Origen, the greatest of Christian theologians before he joined the doctors, when he still spoke as an early Christian. "After death," he says, "I think the saints go to Paradise, a place of teaching, a school of the spirits in which everything they saw on earth will be made clear to them. Those who were pure in heart will progress more rapidly, reaching the kingdom of heaven by definite steps or degrees." For Origen, according to Father Danielou, evil is nothing else than refusal to accept progress. This recalls a statement from the Pistis Sophia that hell is what lies in the opposite direction from that of progress, a state of inert and helpless being. Hell is not lively; it is the opposite of action, energy, purpose, and motion. The devil has no real purpose; all he is principle of action within himself. He is apolyon, the destroyer; satan or diabolos, the accuser.

It is undeniable that this doctrine of eternal progression points inescapably in the direction of becoming like God. There are many mansions, regions, degrees, worlds, spaces, and heavens, but all have but one law. If you keep this law, you will become creators of worlds. The worlds are so that intelligent spirits might come and inhabit them and in the process and in due time become gods, since they are literally the children of God. "The sign of Divinity," says the Ginza, "is that one's glory expands." It is always increasing. It's an expanding universe, isn't it? This reminds me of a statement in the Gospel of Philip: "A dog begets a dog, a horse begets a horse." And you call yourselves the children of God? What does that mean? How can you avoid the conclusion in that case? What does a god beget? What does a god beget? Like begets like. You call yourselves the children of God. These people liked to call themselves that--the Children of Light and the Children of God.