The canonical writings and the Apocrypha have a good deal to say about “treasures in the heavens.” If we compare the “treasures” passages in a wide sampling of these writings, including those of Qumran, Nag Hammadi, and the Mandaeans, it becomes apparent that “treasures in the heavens” is a part of a much larger picture, a “cosmist” view of the plan of salvation that was rejected by the official Christianity and Judaism that emerged triumphant in the fourth century but seems to have been prevalent throughout the Near East in an earlier period. There is no better approach to the study of this strange and intriguing doctrine than an examination of the treasures in heaven. We begin with the surprising fact that the treasures in the heavens were not allegorical but real.

That the life-giving treasures of the earth, particularly the golden grain that was anciently kept in a sacred bin, really comes from the sky is apparent to everyone. The miracle of the bounties of heaven literally pouring from “the treasure-houses of the snow, . . . the terrible store-houses” is an awesome sight and a joyous one. But without a benign intelligence to administer them, the same elements that bestow life on man can wreak frightful destruction; hence it is plain that a measure of knowledge, skill, and benevolence is necessary to convert the raw elements into useful gifts. Thus when one speaks of treasures in the heavens, one means not only the vast secret chambers of the rain, snow, and hail, but also the deep hidden wisdom and the power necessary to control them; God’s treasury is a source not only of the elements that sustain life but also of the light and knowledge that endow them with that power.

The life-giving fusion of divine wisdom with primal element is often described in religious texts as a fountain, as “the overflowing waters which shine” coming from the “treasure- chest of radiance” along with all the other shining treasures. “Thou hast established every fountain of light beside Thee,” says Baruch, “and the treasures of wisdom beneath Thy throne hast Thou prepared.” The concept is more than a figure of speech; “the heavenly waters . . . important for life on earth,” to be effectively used, must be “gathered in and assigned . . . to particular treasurehouses.” We are introduced to that physical part of the heavenly treasure in a grandiose scene in which we behold a great council in heaven being held at the creation of the world; there God, enthroned in the midst of His heavenly hosts, explains the plan of creation to them and then opens His treasure chest before them to show them the wondrous store of stuff that is to be used in making a world; but the new world is still in a preliminary state, “like unripe fruit that does not know what it is to become.” It is not until we get to the doctors of the Church, wholly committed to the prevailing teachings of the schools, that we hear of creation ex nihilo. Before then, Creation is depicted as a process of imposing form and order on chaotic matter: the world is created for the specific purpose of carrying out a specific plan, and the plan, like the Creation itself, requires strict organization—all creatures have their work assigned them in the coming world, to be carried out at predetermined times and places. When the plan was announced to the assembled hosts, and the full scope and magnanimity of it dawned upon them, they burst into spontaneous shouts of joy and joined in a hymn of praise and thanksgiving, the morning song of Creation, which remains to this day the archetype of hymns, the great acclamatio, the primordial nucleus of all liturgy.

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But why leave one’s heavenly home for a dismal earthly one? To that question, constantly reiterated in the Mandaean writings, the Gnostic answer was that we were forced to make the move as a punishment; but the “treasure” doctrine was the very opposite—we are here as a reward, enjoying an opportunity to achieve yet greater things by being tried and tested, “that each one might be promoted, according to his intelligence and the perfections of his way, or be retarded according to his wrongdoings.” This is the well-known doctrine of the Two Ways. For this reason the world has existed through the ages, says the Clementine Recognitions, so that the spirits destined to come here might fulfill their number, and here make their choice between the upper and the lower worlds, both of which are represented here. In what has been regarded as the oldest ritual document in existence, the so-called Shabako Stone from Memphis, we find the concept full-blown: “To him who doeth good will be given Life and [of] Salvation [htp]. To him who doeth evil will be given the Death of the Condemned [criminal] . . . according to that decree, conceived in the heart and brought forth by the tongue, which shall be the measure of all things.”

The element of opposition necessary for such a test is provided by the adversary, who in the beginning openly mocked God’s plan and set up his own plan in opposition to it. Being cast out of heaven with his followers by main force, he continues upon this earth during the set time allowed him by God’s plan (for the irony of his situation is that he is Mephistopheles, unwillingly if not unwittingly contributing to the operation of that plan), attempting to wreck the whole enterprise by drawing off as many spirits and as much material as possible into his own camp. The devil and his hosts claim the treasure for their own and attempt to pirate the treasure ships that cruise between the worlds, using the loot in the outfitting of their own dark worlds. A neglected leitmotif of the New Testament is the continuation on earth of the personal feud between the Lord and the adversary begun at the foundation of the world: from the first each recognizes the other as his old opponent and rival; they are matched at every point each claims identical gifts, ordinances, signs, and wonders; each has his doctrine and his glory and his plan for the future of the race. Above all, each claims to possess the treasure, the Lord promising treasures in the heavens while the adversary offers a clever, glittering earthly imitation: it is the choice between these treasures (for no man can have both) that is a man’s real test here upon the earth, determining his place hereafter. It is the “poor” who recognize and seek the true treasures, since they who are “rich as to the things of this world” have deliberately chosen the fraudulent imitation.

In coming to earth each man leaves his particular treasure, or his share of the treasure, behind him in heaven, safely kept in trust (“under God’s throne”) awaiting his return. One has here below the opportunity of enhancing one’s treasure in heaven by meritorious actions, and also the risk of losing it entirely by neglecting it in his search for earthly treasure. Hence the passionate appeals to men to remember their tremendous stake on the other side and “not to defraud themselves of the glory that awaits them” by seeking the things of the world. To make the “treasure” test a fair one, the two treasures are placed before us on an equal footing (the doctrine of the Two Ways), their two natures being mingled in exactly equal portions in every human being. To neutralize what would otherwise be the overpowering appeal of the heavenly treasure, the memory of its former glories has been erased from the mind of man, which is thus in a state of equilibrium, enjoying by “the ancient law of liberty” complete freedom to choose whatever it will. In this state, whatever choice is made represents the true heart and mind of the one who makes it. What conditions the Elect to make the right choice is no unfair advantage of instruction—for all men are aware of the issues involved—but a besetting nostalgia, a constant vague yearning for one’s distant treasure and happy heavenly home. This theme, akin to the Platonic doctrine of anamnesis, runs through all the Apocrypha and scriptures; it is beautifully expressed in the Hymn of the Pearl from the Acts of Thomas.

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The archetype whom all must follow in the ordinances is Adam, whose true home is the “Treasury of Light,” and who belongs with all his children “to the Father who existed from the beginning.” The preexistent Adam, “the Adam of Light,” having descended to earth fell into a deep sleep, from which he awoke with his mind erased like that of a little child. He was thus in a state to undergo impartial testing, but in his new helplessness he needed instruction. This was provided by a special emissary from the Treasury of Light, the “Sent One.” The Sent One is often a commission of three, the “Three Great Men” who wakened Adam from his sleep and immediately set about teaching him what he should know and do in order to return to the House of Light from which he had come. The Sent One may be Michael, Gabriel, or the Lord Himself, but whoever holds that office always has the same calling, namely to assist the souls of men to return to the Treasury of Light: when the Lord, as the supreme example of the Sent One, descends below to deliver the spirits that sit in darkness, they hail Him as “Son of Glory, Son of Lights and of the Treasures.” Always a stranger on earth, recognized only by the “poor,” the Sent One comes to bring a treasure, and indeed He is sometimes called the treasure, for He alone brings the knowledge men must have to return to the Father of Lights. Letters sent from above to help men in their need—the prototype of those “Letters from Heaven” that have haunted Christian and Muslim society through the centuries—being directives or pass- ports for getting to the treasure house, if not written deeds to the treasure itself (the scriptures are rated as such), are themselves among the treasures of heaven.

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This preoccupation with locus assumes a plurality of worlds, and indeed in our “treasure” texts we often find worlds, earths, and kosmoses in the plural. It is only the fallen angels, in fact, led by the blind Samael, who insist: “We are alone, and there is none beside us”! To the Sons of Light, on the other hand, there is opened up the grandiose vision of the “worlds” united in the common knowledge of Him who made them, exchanging joyful and affectionate messages as they “keep faith with one another” in the common plan and “talk to each other . . . and establish concord, each contributing something of its own” to the common interest. The members of the vast complex are kept in perfect accord by the sustaining Word of God, which reaches all alike, since it possesses “through the power of the Treasure” the capacity for traveling for unlimited distances with inexpressible speed. This Word is also the Son, who “has betaken himself to the numberless hidden worlds which have come to know him.” The messages may also be borne by special messengers and inspectors, angels with special assignments and marvelous powers of getting around, who constantly go forth on their missions and return with their reports.

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