(5) [Thereon] out of the Light [...] a Holy Word (Logos) descended on that Nature. And upwards to the height from the Moist Nature leaped forth pure Fire; light was it, swift and active too. The Air, too, being light, followed after the Fire; from out of the Earth-and-Water rising up to Fire so that it seemed to hang therefrom. But Earth-and-Water stayed so mingled with each other, that Earth from Water no one could discern. Yet were they moved to hear by reason of the Spirit-Word (Logos) pervading them.

(76) When now the wrathful fire-flash awakened, and roused up the spirits of nature, which stand in death in the earth, and made them moveable by its fierce terror or crack, then the spirits began, according to their peculiar divine right, to generate themselves, as they had done from eternity, and form, figure or frame a body together, according to the innate, instant qualities of that place.

(22) Then out of the imprisoned Light a mysterious and Holy Word came forth and took its stand upon the smoking waters. This Word--the Voice of the Light--rose out of the darkness as a great pillar, and the fire and the air followed after it, but the earth and the water remained unmoved below. Thus the waters of Light were divided from the waters of darkness, and from the waters of Light were formed the worlds above and from the waters of darkness were formed the worlds below. The earth and the water next mingled, becoming inseparable, and the Spiritual Word which is called Reason moved upon their surface, causing endless turmoil.

(5) Then the darkness together with Hades took the fire. And he (the darkness) will release from himself what is mine. His eyes were not able to endure my light. After the spirits and the waters moved, the remainder came into being: the whole aeon of the creation, and their . The fire came forth from them and the Power came in the midst of the powers. And the powers desired to see my image. And the soul became its replica.

(29) Yet it did not so here, but after it was risen up in the water, in the astringent quality, it also dissembled [or played] with the astringent quality and broke out or burst forth furiously, like a thunderclap, whereby it would prove and shew forth its new Deity; and so the fire rose up, as when there is a tempest of lightning, intending thereby to be so great as to be above all things in God.

(4) E'en with these words His aspect changed, and straightway, in the twinkling of an eye, all things were opened to me, and I see a Vision limitless, all things turned into Light - sweet, joyous [Light]. And I became transported as I gazed. But in a little while Darkness came settling down on part [of it], awesome and gloomy, coiling in sinuous folds, so that methought it like unto a snake. And then the Darkness changed into some sort of a Moist Nature, tossed about beyond all power of words, belching out smoke as from a fire, and groaning forth a wailing sound that beggars all description. [And] after that an outcry inarticulate came forth from it, as though it were a Voice of Fire.

After the nature of the immortals was completed out of the infinite one, then a likeness called Sophia flowed out of Pistis, with the wish that something should come into being like the light that first existed. Immediately her wish appeared as a heavenly likeness with an incomprehensible greatness. This came between the immortals and those who came into being after them, like what is above. It was a veil separating people from the things above. Now, the eternal realm of truth has no shadow within it because the immeasurable light is everywhere within it. Outside it, however, is a shadow, and it was called darkness. From it appeared a power over the darkness. And the powers that came into being afterward called the shadow the limitless chaos. From it every kind of deity was brought forth, one after another, along with the whole place. Consequently, the shadow too is subsequent to what was in the beginning. The shadow appeared in the abyss, which is derived from Pistis, whom we have mentioned. The shadow perceived that there was one stronger than it. It was jealous, and when it became self-impregnated, it immediately bore envy. Since that day the principle of envy has appeared in all of the aeons and their worlds. But envy was found to be an aborted fetus without any spirit in it. It became like the shadows in a great watery substance. Then the bitter wrath that came into being from the shadow was cast into a region of chaos. Since that day a watery substance has appeared. What was enclosed in the shadow flowed forth, appearing in chaos. Just as all the useless afterbirth of one who bears a little child falls, likewise the matter that came into being from the shadow was cast aside. Matter did not come out of chaos, but it was in chaos, existing in a part of it.

(14) So he who hath the whole authority o'er [all] the mortals in the cosmos and o'er its lives irrational, bent his face downwards through the Harmony, breaking right through its strength, and showed to downward Nature God's fair form. And when she saw that Form of beauty which can never satiate, and him who [now] possessed within himself each single energy of [all seven] Rulers as well as God's own Form, she smiled with love; for 'twas as though she'd seen the image of Man's fairest form upon her Water, his shadow on her Earth. He in turn beholding the form like to himself, existing in her, in her Water, loved it and willed to live in it; and with the will came act, and [so] he vivified the form devoid of reason. And Nature took the object of her love and wound herself completely around him, and they were intermingled, for they were lovers.

(1) The Glory of all things is God, Godhead and Godly Nature. Source of the things that are is God, who is both Mind and Nature - yea Matter, the Wisdom that reveals all things. Source [too] is Godhead - yea Nature, Energy, Necessity, and End, and Making-new-again. Darkness that knew no bounds was in Abyss, and Water [too] and subtle Breath intelligent; these were by Power of God in Chaos. Then Holy Light arose; and there collected 'neath Dry Space from out Moist Essence Elements; and all the Gods do separate things out from fecund Nature.

(6) Then the whole nature of this world became springing, boiling and moving in the earth, as well as above the earth, and everywhere, and began to generate itself again in all things.

(70) And when he raised up his Imagination, then he kindled to himself the Source or Root of the Fire, and then when the Root of the Fire sought for the Water, (viz. the true Mother of the Eternal Nature,) it found the stern [or tart astringent] Harshness, and the Mother in the aching Death; and the bitter Sting [or Prickle] formed the Birth to be a fierce raging Serpent, very terrible in itself, rising up in the indissoluble Band, an eternal Enmity, a Will striving against itself, an eternal Despair of all Good; [the bitter Sting also formed] the Mind to be a breaking striking Wheel, having its Will continually aspiring to the Strength of the Fire, and to destroy the Heart of God, and yet could never at all be able to reach it.

(19) Immediately the form of Poimandres changed. Where it had stood there was a glorious and pulsating Radiance. This Light was the spiritual nature of the Great Dragon itself. Hermes was "raised" into the midst of this Divine Effulgence and the universe of material things faded from his consciousness. Presently a great darkness descended and, expanding, swallowed up the Light. Everything was troubled. About Hermes swirled a mysterious watery substance which gave forth a smokelike vapor. The air was filled with inarticulate moanings and sighings which seemed to come from the Light swallowed up in the darkness. His mind told Hermes that

(19) After that fire-crack had taken place the power of the light, which at the beginning had generated itself out of the unctuosity or fatness of the water behind the fire-crack, instantly shot forth after it, like a mighty potency or power, and took the fierce fire-crack captive, and highly elevated itself aloft beyond it, as a prince and subduer of the fierceness, from whence now arose the sensibility of nature, or the planet Jupiter. The Gate of Love.

(92) "For the fire will consume all, and causes a high rising in the source, and the meekness of the light causes entity or substantiality; viz. in the eternal light it causes the water-spirit of eternal life; and in the third principle of this world it causes water, together with the existency or original of the air.

(135) When the light in the sweet water did penetrate through the astringent spirit, then the fire- flash, terror or crack of the light, when it kindled itself in the water, rose up in the astringent and hard, dead quality, and made all stirring: from thence existed the mobility.

(82) Now when the bitter fire-crack was captivated by the light, then the light in its own power pressed yet higher in the deep, till it reached into the hard and cold seat of nature. And there the power of the first going forth or rising up from the sun could not get higher, but sitting, stayed there corporeally, and took possession of that place for a habitation.

(69) But seeing the water, which is the spirit of the astral life, stood in the midst or centre of wrath, and also in death, thereupon also every body formed itself as was the birth or geniture to life and mobility. Of the Earth.

(5) Now when upon the third day the fire-flash rose up out of the light, which was shining in the sweet water, which flash is the bitter quality which generateth itself out of the kindled terror or crack of fire in the water:

(71) Now when, on the third day, the fire-flash in the water of death had kindled itself, then the life pressed forth quite through the dead body of the water and of the earth.