(99) Woe to you who set at nought the words of the righteous; for ye shall have no hope of life.

(5) And then there shall be bestowed upon the elect wisdom, And they shall all live and never again sin, Either through ungodliness or through pride: But they who are wise shall be humble.

(6) This word shall be thy shield and thy spear, whether thou ridest on peace or on war. With this word, thou shalt beat on this cloud and this darkness above thee. With this word, thou shall smite down all manner of thought under the cloud of forgetting. Insomuch, that if any thought press upon thee to ask thee what thou wouldest have, answer them with no more words but with this one word. And if he proffer thee of his great clergy to expound thee that word and to tell thee the conditions of that word, say him: That thou wilt have it all whole, and not broken nor undone. And if thou wilt hold thee fast on this purpose, be thou sure, he will no while abide. And why? For that thou wilt not let him feed him on such sweet meditations of God touched before.

(22) As also all Words (both the evil and the good) which were here spoken by a human Tongue, they continue standing in the Shadow and figured Similitude, and the good reach Paradise in the Holy Ghost; and the false [evil] and wicked Ones reach the Abyss of Hell. And therefore it is that Christ said, Man must give an Account of every idle [or unprofitable] Word; and when the Harvest comes, then all shall be separated. For the Scripture saith also, That every one's Works shall follow them, and all shall be tried by the Fire of Nature; and all false [or evil] Works, Words, and Deeds, shall remain in the Fire of Nature (which shall be the Hell;) at which, when the Devils hear it, they tremble and quake.

(11) "The word is like a grain of wheat. When someone sowed it, he had faith in it, and when it sprouted, he loved it, because he saw many grains instead of just one. And after he worked, he was saved because he prepared it as food and he still kept some out to sow.

(105) And now I know this mystery, that sinners will alter and pervert the words of righteousness in many ways, and will speak wicked words, and lie, and practice great deceits, and write books concerning their words.

(100) But in those days blessed are all they who accept the words of wisdom, and understand them, And observe the paths of the Most High, and walk in the path of His righteousness, And become not godless with the godless; For they shall be saved.

(1) Yea, I will speak forth; hear ye; now listen, ye who from near, and ye who from afar have come seeking (the knowledge). Now ponder ye clearly all (that concerns) him . Not for a second time shall the false teacher slay our life (of the mind, or the body). The wicked is hemmed in with his faith and his tongue!

(95) And now I say unto you, my sons, love righteousness and walk therein; For the paths of righteousness are worthy of acceptation, But the paths of unrighteousness shall suddenly be destroyed and vanish.

(50) And He is righteous also in His judgement, And in the presence of His glory unrighteousness also shall not maintain itself: At His judgement the unrepentant shall perish before Him.

(51) And their purification is sincerity, on that you may depend. The witness of word consists in speaking the truth, The witness of acts in keeping one's promises. If the witness of word lie, its evidence is rejected, And if the witness of act play false, it is rejected. Your words and acts must be without self-contradiction "Your aims are different," and you contradict yourselves, You sew by day, and tear to pieces by night. How can God listen to such contradictory witness, Unless He be pleased to decide on it in mercy?

(3) His cheer and his words should be full of ghostly wisdom, full of fire, and of fruit spoken in sober soothfastness without any falsehood, far from any feigning or piping of hypocrites. For some there be that with all their might, inner and outer, imagineth in their speaking how they may stuff them and underprop them on each side from falling, with many meek piping words and gestures of devotion: more looking after for to seem holy in sight of men, than for to be so in the sight of God and His angels. For why, these folk will more weigh, and more sorrow make for an unordained gesture or unseemly or unfitting word spoken before men, than they will for a thousand vain thoughts and stinking stirrings of sin wilfully drawn upon them, or recklessly used in the sight of God and the saints and the angels in heaven. Ah, Lord God! where there be any pride within, there such meek piping words be so plenteous without. I grant well, that it is fitting and seemly to them that be meek within, for to shew meek and seemly words and gestures without, according to that meekness that is within in the heart. But I say not that they shall then be shewed in broken nor in piping voices, against the plain disposition of their nature that speak them. For why, if they be true, then be they spoken in soothfastness, and in wholeness of voice and of their spirit that speak them. And if he that hath a plain and an open boisterous voice by nature speak them poorly and pipingly—I mean but if he be sick in his body, or else that it be betwixt him and his God or his confessor—then it is a very token of hypocrisy. I mean either young hypocrisy or old.

(1) The everlasting and paternal wisdom saith, "Whoso heareth Me is not ashamed." If he is ashamed of anything he is ashamed of being ashamed. Whoso worketh in Me sinneth not. Whoso confesseth Me and feareth Me, shall have eternal life. Whoso will hear the wisdom of the Father must dwell deep, and abide at home, and be at unity with himself. Three things hinder us from hearing the everlasting Word. The first is fleshliness, the second is distraction, the third is the illusion of time.

If a man could get free of these, he would dwell in eternity, and in the spirit, and in solitude, and in the desert, and there would hear the everlasting Word. Our Lord saith, "No man can hear My word nor my teaching without renouncing himself." All that the Eternal Father teaches and reveals is His being, His nature, and His Godhead, which He manifests to us in His Son, and teaches us that we are also His Son.

(92) And the righteous shall arise from their sleep, And wisdom shall arise and be given unto them. [11. And after that the roots of unrighteousness shall be cut off, and the sinners shall be destroyed by the sword . . . shall be cut off from the blasphemers in every place, and those who plan violence and those who commit blasphemy shall perish by the sword.]

(366) It is better for you to be silent about the word of God, than to speak recklessly.

(9) We should mark and know of a very truth that all manner of virtue and goodness, and even that Eternal Good which is God Himself, can never make a man virtuous, good, or happy, so long as it is outside the soul; that is, so long as the man is holding converse with outward things through his senses and reason, and doth not withdraw into himself and learn to understand his own life, who and what he is. The like is true of sin and evil. For all manner of sin and wickedness can never make us evil, so long as it is outside of us; that is, so long as we do not commit it, or do not give consent to it. Therefore although it be good and profitable that we should ask, and learn and know, what good and holy men have wrought and suffered, and how God hath dealt with them, and what He hath wrought in and through them, yet it were a thousand times better that we should in ourselves learn and perceive and understand, who we are, how and what our own life is, what God is and is doing in us, what He will have from us, and to what ends He will or will not make use of us.

(4) And this is what the Son of Man reveals to us: It is fitting for you (pl.) to receive the word of truth, if one will receive it perfectly. But as for one who is in ignorance, it is difficult for him to diminish his works of darkness which he has done. Those who have known Imperishability, however, have been able to struggle against passions [...]. I have said to you, "Do not build nor gather for yourselves in the place where the brigands break open, but bring forth fruit to the Father."

(105) Be not godless in your hearts, and lie not and alter not the words of uprightness, nor charge with lying the words of the Holy Great One, nor take account of your idols; for all your lying and all your godlessness issue not in righteousness but in great sin.

(16) For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

(4) We then, having collected these intelligible Divine Names, have unfolded them to the best of our ability, falling short not only of the precision which belongs to them, (for this truly, even Angels might say) nor only of their praises as sung by Angels (and the chief of our Theologians come behind the lowest of them), nor indeed of the Theologians themselves, nor of their followers or companions, but even of those who are of the same rank as ourselves, last and subordinate to them; so that, if the things spoken should be correct, and, if we, as far as in us lies, have really reached the perception of the unfolding of the Divine Names, let the fact be ascribed to the Author of all good things, Who, Himself, bestows first the power to speak, then to speak well. And if any one of the Names of the same force has been passed over, that also you must understand according to the same methods. But, if these things are either incorrect or imperfect, and we have wandered from the truth, either wholly or partially, may it be of thy brotherly kindness to correct him, who unwillingly is ignorant, and to impart a word to him, who wishes to learn, and to vouchsafe assistance to him, who has not power in himself; and to heal him, who, not willingly, is sick; and having found out some things from thyself, and others from others, and receiving all from the good to transfer them also to us. By no means grow weary in doing good to a man thy friend, for thou perceivest, that we also have kept to ourselves none of the hierarchical communications transmitted to us, but have transmitted them without flaw, both to you and to other holy men, yea, and will continue to transmit them, as we may be sufficient to speak, and those to whom we speak, to hear, doing injury in no respect to the tradition, if at least we do not fail in the conception and expression thereof. But, let these things be held and spoken in such way, as is well pleasing to Almighty God; and let this indeed be our conclusion to the intelligible Divine Names. But I will now pass to the Symbolic Theology, with God for my Guide. 27 October, 1896.