The son appeared, informing them of the father, the illimitable one. He inspired them with that which is in the mind, while doing his will. Many received the light and turned toward him. But material people were alien to him and did not discern his appearance nor recognize him. For he came in the likeness of flesh and nothing blocked his way because what is incorruptible is irresistible. Moreover, while saying new things, speaking about what is in the heart of the father, he proclaimed the faultless word. Light spoke through his mouth, and his voice brought forth life. He gave them thought and understanding and mercy and salvation, and the spirit of strength derived from the infinity and sweetness of the father. He caused punishments and scourgings to cease, for it was they that caused many in need of mercy to stray from him in error and in chains—and he mightily destroyed them and derided them with knowledge. He became a path for those who went astray and knowledge for those who were ignorant, a discovery for those who sought, and a support for those who tremble, a purity for those who were defiled.

(124) For he also was come to this place, and would fain have had the light without obstruction or hindrance, as his own in the astral birth or geniture. But it could not be; for the wrath resteth in the fleshly birth, and must bear or endure the corruption or putrefaction in the flesh: But if the fierceness should be wholly taken away from the astral birth or geniture, then, in that [birth], man would be like God, and know all things, as God himself does.

People cannot see anything that really is without becoming like it. It is not so with people in the world, who see the sun without becoming the sun and see the sky and earth and everything else without becoming them. Rather, in the realm of truth, you have seen things there and have become those things, you have seen the spirit and have become spirit, you have seen Christ and have become Christ, you have seen the [father] and will become father. [Here] in the world you see everything but do not [see] yourself, but there in that realm you see yourself, and you will [become] what you see.

(43) O my heart, if you wish to arrive at the beginning of understanding, walk carefully. To each atom there is a different door, and for each atom there is a different way which leads to the mysterious Being of whom I speak. To know oneself one must live a hundred lives. But you must know God by Himself and not by you; it is He who opens the way that leads to Him, not human wisdom. The knowledge of Him is not at the door of rhetoricians. Knowledge and ignorance are here the same, for they cannot explain nor can they describe. The opinions of men on this arise only in their imagination; and it is absurd to try to deduce anything from what they say: whether ill or well, they have said it from themselves. God is above knowledge and beyond evidence, and nothing can give an idea of his Holy Majesty.

This is the word of the gospel about finding the fullness for those who wait for the salvation that comes from above. When their hope, for which they are waiting, is waiting—they whose likeness is the light in which there is no shadow—then at that time the fullness is about to come. The deficiency of matter, however, is not because of the infinity of the father, who came to give time to deficiency. In fact, it is not right to say that the incorruptible one will come in this manner. The depth of the father is profound, and the thought of error is not with him. It is a matter of falling down and a matter of being readily set upright at the discovery of the one who has come to what he would bring back. This bringing back is called repentance. For this reason, incorruption has breathed. It followed one who has sinned, in order that he may find rest. Forgiveness is that which remains for the light in the deficiency, the word of the fullness. For the doctor hurries to the place where there is sickness, because that is the doctor’s wish. The sick person is in a deficient condition but does not hide, because the doctor possesses what the patient lacks. In this manner the deficiency is filled by the fullness, which has no deficiency, and which was given in order to fill the one deficient, so that the person may receive grace. For while deficient, this person had no grace. Because of this a diminishing occurred where there is no grace. When the diminished part was restored, the person in need revealed himself as fullness. This is what it means to find the light of truth that has shone toward the person: it is unchangeable.

(49) Therefore he stands often in Doubt and Impatience; and in such a Man there is great Strife; he knows not himself. He sees and knows nothing else but his Wickedness, and yet is born in God; for his Spirit continually breaks the Gate of the Darkness, but then the Anger in him holds him back that he cannot enter in, but yet sometimes he reaches a Glimpse, from whence the Soul is cheered, and the Pearl is sown in a very dark Valley.

(3) And although I write now, as if there was a Beginning in the eternal Birth, yet it is not so; but the eternal Nature thus begets [or generates] itself without Beginning. My Writings must be understood in a creaturely Manner, as the Birth of Man is, who is a Similitude of God. Although it be just so in the eternal Being, [Essence or Substance,] yet that is both without Beginning and without End; and my Writing is only to this End, that Man might learn to know what he is, what he was in the Beginning, how he was a very glorious eternal holy Man, that should never have known the Gate of the strong [or austere] Birth in the Eternity, if he had not suffered himself to lust after it through the Infection of the Devil, and had not eaten of that naked and vain Man in a bestial Form, and lost the heavenly Garment of the divine Power, and lives now in the Kingdom of the Devil, in the i infected Salnitre, and feeds upon the infected Food. Therefore it is necessary for us to learn to know ourselves, what we are, and how we might be redeemed from the anguishing austere Birth, and be regenerated or born anew, and live in the new Man, (which is like the first Man before the Fall,) in Christ our Regenerator.

(16) As we are to know, that when God would manifest the eternal Mind in the Darkness, in the third Principle nwith this World, then first all Forms in the first Principle till Fire were manifested, and that Form now which comprehended the Light, that became angelical and paradisical; but that which comprehended not the Light, that remained to be wrathful, murderous, sour and evil, every one in its own Form and Essence. For every Form desired also to be manifested, for it was the Will of the eternal Essence to manifest itself. But now one Form was not able to manifest itself alone in the eternal Birth, for the one is the Member of the other, and the one without the other would not be.

(3) I visited a bodily dwelling. I cast out the one who was in it first, and I went in. And the whole multitude of the rulers became troubled. And all the matter of the rulers as well as all the powers born of the earth were shaken when they saw the likeness of the image, since it was mixed. And I was the one who was in the image, not resembling him who was in the body first. For he was an earthly man, but I, I am from above the heavens. I did not refuse them even to become Christ, but I did not reveal myself to them in the love that was coming forth from me. I revealed that I am a stranger to the regions below.

(16) And now as we understand, that Man (with the Similitude wherein God dwells) is not merely at Home in this World, much Hurts, or moves. less in the stinking Carcase, so it is manifest (in that we are so very blind as to Paradise) that our first Parents (with their Spirit) are gone out of the heavenly Paradise into the Spirit of this World, where then the Spirit of this World instantly captivated their Body, and made it earthly, so that Body and Soul are perished; and now we have the pure Element no more for our Body, but the Out-Birth, (viz. the four Elements, with the Dominion of the Stars) and the Sun only is the Light of the Body; also this Body does not belong to the Deity. God does not discover himself in the stinking Carcase [or Corpse,] but in the holy Man, in the pure Image which he created in the Beginning.

(54) And here the Light shone in the Darkness of the natural outward Body, as Saint John witnesses; he came into [or to] his own, and his own received him not, for they knew him not; but those which received him, [to them] he gave the Might to be the Children of God; they were through him begotten to the Kingdom of Heaven. For his is the Kingdom, the [Power or] Might, and Glory in Eternity. Amen.

(15) And he gave command to himself; he began to know himself and to speak with his mind, which is the father of the truth, concerning the unbegotten aeons, and concerning the virgin who brought forth the light. And he thinks about the power which flowed over the whole place, and which takes hold of him. And he is a disciple of his mind, which is male. He began to keep silent within himself until the day when he should become worthy to be received above. He rejects for himself loquacity and disputations, and he endures the whole place; and he bears up under them, and he endures all of the evil things. And he is patient with every one; he makes himself equal to every one, and he also separates himself from them. And that which someone wants, he brings to him, in order that he might become perfect (and) holy. When the [...], he grasped him, having bound him upon [...], and he was filled with wisdom. He bore witness to the truth [...] the power, and he went into Imperishability, the place whence he came forth, having left the world, which has the appearance of the night, and those that whirl the stars in it. This, therefore, is the true testimony: When man comes to know himself and God, who is over the truth, he will be saved, and he will crown himself with the crown unfading.

(20) But the innermost kernel, which is the Deity, that they can nowhere comprehend, for the wrath of the fire lies before it, as a strong wall, and this wall must be broken down with a very strong storm or assault, if the astral spirits will see into it. But the door stands open to the animated or soulish spirit, for it [the animated or soulish spirit] is withheld by nothing, but is as God himself is, in his innermost birth or geniture. Now then it might be asked, How then shall I understand myself in or according to the threefold birth or geniture in nature? The depth!

(12) a in what way he is unknowable, or sees him as he is in every respect or would say that he is something like knowledge, he has acted impiously against him, being liable to judgment because he did not know God. He will not be judged by that One, who is neither concerned for anything nor has any desire, but he is (judged) through himself because he has not found the truly existing origin. He was blind apart from the quiescent source of revelation, the actualization deriving from the Triple-Power of the First Thought of the Invisible Spirit.

(8) He is not apprehended by the eye, nor by speech, nor by the other senses, not by penance or good works. When a man's nature has become purified by the serene light of knowledge, then he sees him, meditating on him as without parts.

Certainly, if these things have happened to each one of us, it is fitting for us, surely, to think about all so that the house may be holy and silent for unity. Like people who have moved from a house, if they have some dishes around that are not good, they are broken. Nevertheless, the householder does not suffer a loss but rejoices, for in the place of these defective dishes there are those that are completely perfect. For this is the judgment that has come from above and that has judged every person, a drawn two-edged sword cutting on this side and that. When the word appeared, who is in the heart of those who pronounce it—it was not merely a sound but has become a body—a great disturbance occurred among the dishes, for some were emptied, others filled; some were provided for, others were removed; some were purified, still others were broken. All the spaces were shaken and disturbed for they had no composure nor stability. Error was disturbed, not knowing what she should do. She was troubled, she lamented, she was beside herself because she did not know anything. When knowledge, which is the abolishment of error, approached her with all her emanations, error was empty, since there was nothing in her. Truth appeared; all its emanations recognized it. They greeted the father in truth with a power which is complete and which joins them with the father.

(47) "Whoever, then, knows the Father in pure knowledge will depart to the Father and repose in Unbegotten Father. But whoever knows him defectively will depart to the defect and the rest of the Eighth. Now whoever knows Immortal Spirit of Light in silence, through reflecting and consent in the truth, let him bring me signs of the Invisible One, and he will become a light in the Spirit of Silence. Whoever knows Son of Man in knowledge and love, let him bring me a sign of Son of Man, that he might depart to the dwelling-places with those in the Eighth.

(51) And that birth or geniture the outward man neither knoweth nor comprehendeth; neither does the astral comprehend it, for every qualifying or fountain spirit comprehendeth only its innate or instant root, which signifieth or resembleth the heaven.

(12) Those, then, who choose to belong to Him, are those who are perfected through faith. He, the Son, is, by the will of the Almighty Father, the cause of all good things, being the first efficient cause of motion - a power incapable of being apprehended by sensation. For what He was, was not seen by those who, through the weakness of the flesh, were incapable of taking in [the reality].

(190) For he is asleep, and deaf to the other's voice. But the perfect spiritualist who has broken his boat He is then neither silent nor speaking, but a mystery. That marvelous one is in neither of these states 'Twould be irreverent to explain his state more fully. These illustrations are weak and inappropriate, In short, the vengeance of That Jealous One (God) When the King awoke out of his trance to consciousness, When that incomparable one looked into his quiver,