(45) Yet there is found in the Original the most horrible and [fierce or] strong Birth, viz. the Harshness, Bitterness, and Fire; of which we cannot say, that it is God; and yet it is the most inward first Source of all, that is in God the Father; according to which, he calls himself, an angry, zealous [or jealous] God. And this Source (as you find before in the first three Chapters concerning the Original of the eternal Birth) is the first Principle, and that is God the Father in his Originality, out of which this World has its Beginning.

(2) But there is yet this difference [to be observed,] that Evil neither is, nor is called God; this is understood in the first Principle, where it is the earnest Fountain of the Wrathfulness, according to which, God calls himself an angry, wrathful, zealous God. For the original of Life, and of all Mobility, consists in the Wrathfulness; yet if the tartness be kindled with the Light of God, it is then no more Tartness, but the severe Wrathfulness is changed into great Joy.

(35) It presents indeed the Wrath of God to itself, and trembles at its Fall, but it knows not what has happened to it; it only presents the Disobedience before itself, and makes [as if] God was an angry malicious Devil, that cannot be reconciled, having indeed put on the Garment of Anger (in Adam and Eve) on to itself in Body and Soul, and has set itself (against the Will of God) in the Bath [or Lake] of Anger, on which God took such Pity [or Compassion,] that he has not spared his own Heart, to send it into the Depth of Anger, into the Abyss of Hell, [as also] into the Death and Breaking of the four Elements from the eternal holy Element, to help fallen Man, and to deliver him out of the Anger and Death.

(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.

(62) For from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden, And the Most High preserved him in the presence of His might, And revealed him to the elect.

(45) And this is the Image of God, which God created for his Glory and Joy, and no other; and let not the mad Antichrist persuade thee concerning any other [Image of God,] for there is no other. Thy Body and Soul convinces thee of it, as also Heaven and Earth, the Stars and Elements; look upon what thou wilt, all Things convince thee; and if thou dost not turn and enter into that Image to which God created thee, then in the Breaking of thy Body (when thy Mind in the Spirit of the Soul shall stand naked without a Body) thou shalt be ashamed before all Creatures; this we speak according to its high Worth, as it is highly known in the Will of God.

[For this reason] he said, “I have come to make [the lower] like the [upper and the] outer like the [inner, and to unite] them in that place.” [He spoke] here in symbols [and images]. Those who say [there is a heavenly person and] one that is higher are wrong, for they call the visible heavenly person “lower” and the one to whom the hidden realm belongs “higher.” It would be better for them to speak of the inner, the outer, and the outermost. For the master called corruption “the outermost darkness,” and there is nothing outside it. He said, “My father who is in secret.” He said, “Go into your room, shut the door behind you, and pray to your father who is in secret”—that is, the one who is innermost. What is innermost is the fullness, and there is nothing further within. And this is what they call uppermost.

(60) And the Hardening is not so wholly in the Birth, that the Soul (from the Mother' Womb) should be quite dead to God, or that God did not desire it. The Anger is in the Flowing [Working or Boiling] of the Father, and the Father is God indeed, and generates his dear Heart and Love (in the Breaking of the Gate in the Habitation) out of himself. Should he then be at odds with himself, because his Anger is under the Root of his Love? Should he be at Enmity against himself? his Anger is his Strength and Omnipotence, and consuming Fire; and his Heart in the Love is his Meekness; and so now, that which approaches and enters into his Anger, is captivated in the Anger.

(21) From His displeasure He evolves a Paradise; He feels displeasure at His own acts, In this city of events He is the Lord, If He crushes His own instruments, Know the great mystery of 'whatever verses we cancel, Or cause you to forget, we substitute better for them.' Whatever law God cancels, He makes as a weed, So night cancels the business of the daytime, Again, night is cancelled by the light of day, Though darkness produces this sleep and quiet,

(48) "Behold, I have revealed to you the name of the Perfect One, the whole will of the Mother of the Holy Angels, that the masculine multitude may be completed here, that there might appear in the aeons, the infinities and those that came to be in the untraceable wealth of the Great Invisible Spirit, that they all might take from his goodness, even the wealth of their rest that has no kingdom over it. I came from First Who Was Sent, that I might reveal to you Him Who Is from the Beginning, because of the arrogance of Arch-Begetter and his angels, since they say about themselves that they are gods. And I came to remove them from their blindness, that I might tell everyone about the God who is above the universe. Therefore, tread upon their graves, humiliate their malicious intent, and break their yoke and arouse my own. I have given you authority over all things as Sons of Light, that you might tread upon their power with your feet."

(14) But the delight of knowledge still falls short of the delight of vision, just as our pleasure in thinking of those we love is much less than the pleasure afforded by the actual sight of them. Our imprisonment in bodies of clay and water, and entanglement in the things of sense constitute a veil which hides the Vision of God from us, although it does not prevent our attaining to some knowledge of Him. For this reason God said to Moses on Mount Sinai, "Thou shalt not see Me."

(4) This chapter contains one of those threats (of which there are other instances) made to the gods. The speaker is in fact so identified with divinity that any evil which happens to him must be conceived as involving the same calamity to the gods and to the universe

(19) But what sort is this God? First he maliciously refused Adam from eating of the tree of knowledge, and, secondly, he said "Adam, where are you?" God does not have foreknowledge? Would he not know from the beginning? And afterwards, he said, "Let us cast him out of this place, lest he eat of the tree of life and live forever." Surely, he has shown himself to be a malicious grudger! And what kind of God is this? For great is the blindness of those who read, and they did not know him. And he said, "I am the jealous God; I will bring the sins of the fathers upon the children until three (and) four generations." And he said, "I will make their heart thick, and I will cause their mind to become blind, that they might not know nor comprehend the things that are said." But these things he has said to those who believe in him and serve him!

(11) The Lord said: It is very hard to see this form of Mine, which you have seen. Even the gods are ever eager to see this form.

(5) Before anything is visible among those that are visible, the majesty and the authorities that are in him, he embraces the totalities of the totalities, and nothing embraces him. For he is all mind, thought and reflecting, considering, rationality and power. They all are equal powers. They are the sources of the totalities. And their whole race to last is in the foreknowledge of the Unbegotten, for they had not yet come to visibility.

(3) And every God by his own proper power brought forth what was appointed him. Thus there arose four-footed beasts, and creeping things, and those that in the water dwell, and things with wings, and everything that beareth seed, and grass, and shoot of every flower, all having in themselves seed of again-becoming. And they selected out the births of men for gnosis of the works of God and attestation of the energy of Nature; the multitude of men for lordship over all beneath the heaven and gnosis of its blessings, that they might increase in increasing and multiply in multitude, and every soul infleshed by revolution of the Cyclic Gods, for observation of the marvels of Heaven and Heaven's Gods' revolution, and of the works of God and energy of Nature, for tokens of its blessings, for gnosis of the power of God, that they might know the fates that follow good and evil [deeds] and learn the cunning work of all good arts.

(2) "And the word took me to himself, from the spirit, in the first cloud of the hymen of nature. And I put on this of which the majesty and the unconceived spirit made me worthy. And the threefold unity of my garment appeared in the cloud, by the will of the majesty, in a single form. And my likeness was covered with the light of my garment. And the cloud was disturbed, and it was not able to tolerate my likeness. It shed the first power, which it had taken from the spirit—that which shone on him from the beginning, before I appeared in the word to the spirit. The cloud would not have been able to tolerate both of them. And the light that came forth from the cloud passed through silence until it came into the middle region. And by the will of the majesty, the light mixed with him, that is, the spirit that exists in silence, which had been separated from the spirit of light. It was separated from the light by the cloud of silence. The cloud was disturbed. It was he who gave rest to the flame of fire. He humbled the dark womb that she might not reveal other seed from the darkness. He kept them back in the middle region of nature in their position, which was in the cloud. They were troubled because they did not know where they were. For still they do not possess the universal understanding of the spirit.

(40) O Râ, in thine Egg, who risest up in thine orb, and shinest from thine Horizon, and swimmest over the firmament without a peer, and sailest over the sky; whose mouth sendeth forth breezes of flame, lightening up the Two Earths with thy glories, do thou deliver N from that god whose attributes are hidden, whose eyebrows are as the arms of the Balance upon that day when outrage is brought to account, and each wrong is tied up to its separate block of settlement

(4) The Father had foreknowledge of him, since he was in his thought before anything came into being, and since he had those to whom he has revealed him. He set the deficiency on the one who remains for certain periods and times, as a glory for his Pleroma, since the fact that he is unknown is a cause of his production from his agreement [...] of him. Just as reception of knowledge of him is a manifestation of his lack of envy and the revelation of the abundance of his sweetness, which is the second glory, so, too, he has been found to be a cause of ignorance, although he is also a begetter of knowledge.

(48) Yet he sows the Pearl in his afflicting Anguish, and the Devil covers it in him, that he may not know it, neither does he know himself; he sows in the Kingdom of God, and knows not his own Seed, but the Seed of Sin, and of the Hunter. And so he consents not to the Sins which he commits; but the Devil with his Followers [or Associates] overpower him, so that the Adamical Man in the Anger does that which the new-born [Man] in the holy Element wills not; now though he does it, yet the new Man in the Image does it not, but the old Man in the Anger. And therefore there is in him a continual Strife, and he runs continually to Repentance; where yet the hidden Man in the