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  Wednesday, 02 March 2022
  4 Replies
  0.9K Visits
Good day to you,

Master Samael frequently uses the phrase "chocolate saints" to refer in a joking manner to people who mistakenly consider themselves to be saintly. But why "chocolate"? Obviously it's a kind of joke. But is it an inside joke in the Gnostic movement, or a word that was more widely recognised in Mexican slang?

I am asking this because when translating Gnostic works into other languages, some readers complained that the phrase doesn't make sense to them. If you know something about it that we could explain in a footnote, it might make our translations more accessible.

Thank you.
1 year ago
·
#27386
Accepted Answer
My understanding: It is candy you give to a child that has been molded into the shape of a saint. It is cheap, easy to purchase, nice to look at, but not the real thing.

It means someone who feels 'holier than thou' (to use another phrase) but in reality melts when any type of real stress comes up in life.
1 year ago
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#27343
Could you provide some specific passages or examples?

For thirty years I sought God. But when I looked carefully I found that in reality God was the seeker and I the sought. -Bayazid al-Bastami

1 year ago
·
#27366
Sure.

Hm… hoping to find some examples to send you I did a google search just now for the term “Chocolate saint” on the Glorian website and was surprised that the search came up with nothing.

The phrase “chocolate saint” appears relatively often in the Spanish language books and lectures. For example, in chapter 27 of revolutionary psychology (the publican and the Pharisee) we find it in this sentence:

“Conclusión: Los demás son malvados, injustos, adúlteros, ladrones y perversos y cada uno de nosotros una mansa oveja, un “Santito de Chocolate” bueno para tenerlo como un niño de oro en alguna iglesia.“

The Glorian translation reads:

“Conclusion: Others are scoundrels, unjust, adulterers, thieves and perverse persons; yet each one of us is a humble lamb, “a saint with a golden halo,” who is worthy to be shown as a golden masterpiece inside any temple.”

A more literal translation reads:

“Conclusion: other people are scoundrels, cheaters, adulterers, thieves and perverse but each one of us is a humble lamb, a “cute little chocolate saint”, nice to keep around like a golden child in a church somewhere.”

The Glorian translation does a good job of getting the message across in English. But the fact that my search for the phrase on Glorian website came up with zero results implies that Glorian the translation team had the same difficulty in translating the phrase into English that my team is having with other languages, and they settled the issue by just dropping the word “chocolate”.

I already asked this question to Gnostic instructors at several other schools and didn’t find anyone who knew the answer. So perhaps it’s time to give up and move on to more important work.

If you know anything about it, I would like to hear your thoughts. If not, no problem. It’s probably time for me to drop it and get back to translating.
1 year ago
·
#27386
Accepted Answer
My understanding: It is candy you give to a child that has been molded into the shape of a saint. It is cheap, easy to purchase, nice to look at, but not the real thing.

It means someone who feels 'holier than thou' (to use another phrase) but in reality melts when any type of real stress comes up in life.
1 year ago
·
#27387
Thank you.
Almustafa selected the reply #27386 as the answer for this post — 1 year ago
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