The Gnostic Mystic — The Perfect Gnostic
The 'perfect Gnostic' (the teleios — the complete, mature one) is the Gnostic ideal of the fully realized human being — one whose recognition of the divine spark has transformed every dimension of their being.
The teleios (complete, perfect, mature) is the Gnostic ideal of the fully awakened human — one whose Gnosis has penetrated beyond intellectual recognition into every dimension of their being: their thoughts, emotions, relationships, and actions all flow from the recognition of their divine nature and of the divine nature of all things. The teleios does not abandon the world but sees it clearly — recognizing the Pleroma in the material, the divine spark in every apparently material being. Their actions arise from wisdom (gnosis) and compassion (agape) — not from the compulsions of the false self that the Archons constructed. The Gospel of Philip describes this ideal: 'No one will hide a large valuable object in something large, but many a time one has put incalculable wealth in a thing worth a cent. So it is with the soul. It is a precious thing that came to be in a contemptible body.' The teleios knows the value of what dwells within the apparently contemptible body — both in themselves and in others.
The perfect person will flee from wickedness and seize the good. He will not fear any man — he has seen the Son of Man.
Philosopher Iris Murdoch's concept of 'moral vision' — the capacity to see clearly what is before one, free from the ego's self-serving distortions — parallels the Gnostic teleios's way of seeing: freed from the Archons' false constructions, the perfect Gnostic sees reality as it is rather than as the ego's fears and desires construct it.
Nag Hammadi Library
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- What Gnosticism says about illness and the body failing
Philip's image is that nobody hides something valuable in something large; incalculable wealth gets put in a container worth a cent. The teleios is the person who knows what the cheap container holds, in themselves and in everyone else. A failing body, on that reading, has not changed in value at all.