(46) O soul, persistent one, in what ignorance you exist! For who is your guide into the darkness? How many likenesses did Christ take on because of you! Although he was God, he was found among men as a man. He descended to the Underworld. He released the children of death. They were in travail, as the scripture of God has said. And he sealed up the (very) heart of it (the Underworld). And he broke its (the Underworld's) strong bows completely. And when all the powers had seen him, they fled, so that he might bring you, wretched one, up from the Abyss, and might die for you as a ransom for your sin. He saved you from the strong hand of the Underworld.

(6) The Savior was an image of the unitary one, he who is the Totality in bodily form. Therefore, he preserved the form of indivisibility, from which comes impassability. They, however, are images of each thing which became manifest. Therefore, they assume division from the pattern, having taken form for the planting which exists beneath the heaven. This also is what shares in the evil which exists in the places which they have reached. For the will held the Totality under sin, so that by that will he might have mercy on the Totality and they might be saved, while a single one alone is appointed to give life, and all the rest need salvation. Therefore, it was from (reasons) of this sort that it began to receive grace to give the honors which were proclaimed by Jesus, which were suitable for him to proclaim to the rest, since a seed of the promise of Jesus Christ was set up, whom we have served in (his) revelation and union. Now the promise possessed the instruction and the return to what they are from the first, from which they possess the drop, so as to return to him, which is that which is called "the redemption." And it is the release from the captivity and the acceptance of freedom. In its places, the captivity of those who were slaves of ignorance holds sway. The freedom is the knowledge of the truth which existed before the ignorance was ruling, forever without beginning and without end, being something good, and a salvation of things, and a release from the servile nature in which they have suffered.

(6) And, as I think, the Saviour also exerts His might because it is His work to save; which accordingly He also did by drawing to salvation those who became willing, by the preaching [of the Gospel], to believe on Him, wherever they were. If, then, the Lord descended to Hades for no other end but to preach the Gospel, as He did descend; it was either to preach the Gospel to all or to the Hebrews only. If, accordingly, to all, then all who believe shall be saved, although they may be of the Gentiles, on making their profession there; since God's pun ishments are saving and disciplinary, leading to conversion, and choosing rather the repentance thorn the death of a sinner; and especially since souls, although darkened by passions, when released from their bodies, are able to perceive more clearly, because of their being no longer obstructed by the paltry flesh.

(35) Now behold, thou beloved Soul, who art dearly redeemed by thy Saviour Jesus Christ, with his Entrance into the Humanity, and with his Entrance in the Abyss of Hell, and plucked off from the Kingdom of the Devil, in the Might of the Father, and sealed with his Blood and Death, and covered with his Ensign of Triumph, all thy Works, [both] the evil and the good which thou hast done, follow thee in the Shadow, but not in the Substance, nor in the Source, [or in the working Property.] Yet they will not be any Prejudice in the Heaven to the holy Souls, which have turned into the Regeneration in Christ, but they shall have their highest Joy concerning them, in that they have stuck in such hard Misery and Sins, and have been plucked out of them by their Saviour Christ; and from thence will arise mere Joy and Rejoicing, that they are redeemed from the Driver of their Sins, and from great Misery, and that the Driver is captivated, which tormented them Day and Night in such Sins.

(5) Therefore the Son came down from heaven, and was incarnate of a Virgin, and took upon Him all our bodily weaknesses, except sin and folly, into which Adam had cast us; and out of all His words and works and limbs and nerves, He made a cord, and drew us so skillfully, and so heartily, that the bloody sweat poured from His sacred Body. And when He had drawn men without ceasing for three and thirty years, He saw the beginnings of a movement and the redemption of all things that would follow. Therefore He said, "And I, if I be lifted up on the Cross, will draw all men unto Me." Therefore He was stretched upon the Cross, and laid aside all His glory, and whatever might hinder His drawing men.

(2) Not only do humans need redemption, but also the angels, too, need redemption, along with the image and the rest of the Pleromas of the aeons and the wondrous powers of illumination. So that we might not be in doubt in regard to the others, even the Son himself, who has the position of redeemer of the Totality, needed redemption as well, - he who had become man, - since he gave himself for each thing which we need, we in the flesh, who are his Church. Now, when he first received redemption from the word which had descended upon him, all the rest received redemption from him, namely those who had taken him to themselves. For those who received the one who had received (redemption) also received what was in him.

(6) For the Son of Man clothed himself with their first-fruits; he went down to Hades and performed many mighty works. He raised the dead therein; and the world-rulers of darkness became envious of him, for they did not find sin in him. But he also destroyed their works from among men, so that the lame, the blind, the paralytic, the dumb, (and) the demon-possessed were granted healing. And he walked upon the waters of the sea. For this reason he destroyed his flesh from [...] which he [...]. And he became [...] salvation [...] his death ... ... (4 lines unrecoverable) ... everyone [...] how many they are! They are blind guides, like the disciples. They boarded the ship; at about thirty stadies, they saw Jesus walking on the sea. These are empty martyrs, since they bear witness only to themselves. And yet they are sick, and they are not able to raise themselves.

(2) By not enduring on the power that wills Curb for his good, that man who ne'er was born, Damning himself damned all his progeny; Whereby the human species down below Lay sick for many centuries in great error, Till to descend it pleased the Word of God To where the nature, which from its own Maker Estranged itself, he joined to him in person By the sole act of his eternal love. Now unto what is said direct thy sight; This nature when united to its Maker, Such as created, was sincere and good; But by itself alone was banished forth From Paradise, because it turned aside Out of the way of truth and of its life. Therefore the penalty the cross held out, If measured by the nature thus assumed, None ever yet with so great justice stung, And none was ever of so great injustice, Considering who the Person was that suffered, Within whom such a nature was contracted. From one act therefore issued things diverse; To God and to the Jews one death was pleasing; Earth trembled at it and the Heaven was opened.

(3) For as all men were lost in Adam and all men that with work will witness their will of salvation are saved or shall be by virtue of the Passion of only Christ: not in the same manner, but as it were in the same manner, a soul that is perfectly disposed to this work, and oned thus to God in spirit as the proof of this work witnesseth, doth that in it is to make all men as perfect in this work as itself is. For right as if a limb of our body feeleth sore, all the tother limbs be pained and diseased therefore, or if a limb fare well, all the remnant be gladded therewith—right so is it ghostly of all the limbs of Holy Church. For Christ is our head, and we be the limbs if we be in charity: and whoso will be a perfect disciple of our Lord’s, him behoveth strain up his spirit in this work ghostly, for the salvation of all his brethren and sisters in nature, as our Lord did His body on the Cross. And how? Not only for His friends and His kin and His homely lovers, but generally for all mankind, without any special beholding more to one than to another. For all that will leave sin and ask mercy shall be saved through the virtue of His Passion. And as it is said of meekness and charity, so it is to be understood of all other virtues. For all they be truly comprehended in this little pressing of love, touched before.

(3) Among the men who are in the flesh redemption began to be given, his first-born, and his love, the Son who was incarnate, while the angels who are in heaven asked to associate, so that they might form an association with him upon the earth. Therefore, he is called "the Redemption of the angels of the Father," he who comforted those who were laboring under the Totality for his knowledge, because he was given the grace before anyone else.

(34) And as the Soul of Adam hung between two evil Kingdoms, between the Kingdom of this World, and the Kingdom of Hell, so Christ hung on the Cross between two Murderers; Parted asunder, or broken. and thus Christ must restore again all that Adam had lost. And as the one Malefactor turned and desired to be with Christ in his Kingdom, so the one Kingdom, viz. the earthly Man, must also turn again, and the poor Soul must enter into Christ again, through the earthly Death, and spring up again, like this Murderer, [Thief, or Malefactor,] on the Cross, who desired the Kingdom of Christ.

(71) Here we clearly find what Christ said to his Father concerning us Men; Behold the Men were thine, and thou hast given them to me; and I will that they be with me where I am, that they may see my Glory. When the Word (or Heart of God) went into the holy Ternary, there it was the Son of the Father, and also his Servant, as Isaiah says, and as it is in the Psalms; for he had [united or] espoused himself to the Element, and had the Form of a Servant; but the Word which went into the [pure] Element, was his Son; and thus he took our Soul upon him, not only as a Brother, for the Limbus of God (in the heavenly Tincture) was the Man, and that was our Lord; for the whole World stands in the Might thereof, and that Might shall sweep the Threshing-Floor of this World. And thus we are his Servants, and also his Brethren in respect of his Mother; but in respect of his Father we are his Servants; and before the Fall we were the Father's, also till his Humanity [or Incarnation,] though in the Word of the Promise [it was,] in which the faithful entered into God.

(6) Now therefore as we know, that Christ (by his Entrance into the Incarnation) has opened a Door into Heaven, into his holy Body, so that we (through a true Repentance and Confidence) may come to him and put the new white Garment of his Innocence, in his Love, upon our Souls, so we know also that the Soul stands yet fast bound with two Chains. One is the Birth of its own Life, whose most inward Root is Poison and Wrathfulness; and so the Soul being [sprung] out of the eternal Source, and having its Originality out of the Eternity, none can redeem it in its own Root of Eternity, or bring it out of the Anger, except there come one who is the Love in itself, and be born in its own very Birth, that so he may bring it out of the Anger, and set it in the Love in himself, as it was done in Christ.

(48) And thither the second Adam (with his becoming Man) brought it in again, and [there] as a loving Child it was bound up with the Word of God, in Love and Righteousness; and there the new Creature (out of the Element) came to be the Body of the Soul. For in the new Creature of the Limbus of God, the Soul was holy, and the earthly Essence (out of Flesh and Blood) clave to it, in the Time of the earthly Body; which [Essences] Christ (when his Soul with the new Creature went into Death) left in Death, and with the new Body in the natural Soul he arose from Death, and triumphed over Death; as hereafter you shall see the Wonders concerning the Death and Resurrection of Christ.

(42) Therefore the Body of Christ is inferior to the Deity; and in these our human Essences he suffered Death, and his Deity of the holy Man in the pure Element entered together also into Death, and bereaved Death of its Power, and separated the natural Soul (which Christ commended to his Father, when he died on the Cross) from the Kingdom of this World, also from Death, from the Devil, and from Hell, in the strong divine Might [or Power,] and opened a Gate for us all, who come to him and Or by. incline ourselves (with Mind and Thoughts) to him; then the Father draws our Soul (which is in him) into the pure Love of Christ; where then it puts its Imagination again through Christ P forward into the holy Trinity, and is fed again from the Verbum Domini [the Word of the Lord,] where then it is an Angel again, quite separated from the Kingdom of the Devil, and of this World, in the Death of Christ.

(66) Know who Christ is, and acquire him as a friend, for this is the friend who is faithful. He is also God and Teacher. This one, being God, became man for your sake. It is this one who broke the iron bars of the Underworld, and the bronze bolts. It is this one who attacked and cast down every haughty tyrant. It is he who loosened from himself the chains of which he had taken hold. He brought up the poor from the Abyss and the mourners from the Underworld. It is he who humbled the haughty powers; he who put to shame haughtiness through humility; he who has cast down the strong and the boaster through weakness; he who, in his contempt, scorned that which is considered an honor, so that humility for God's sake might be highly exalted; (and) he who has put on humanity.

(1) He it is who was our Savior in willing compassion, who is that which they were. For it was for their sake that he became manifest in an involuntary suffering. They became flesh and soul, that is, eternally which (things) hold them and with corruptible things they die. And as for those who came into being, the invisible one taught them invisibly about himself.

(60) Or what didst thou, who art a Christian, know [as to] how God would redeem and deliver thee from evil? What friendship and familiarity hadst thou with HIM? or what covenant hadst thou made with HIM, when God caused his Son to become man, or be incarnate, to redeem mankind? Is he only thy king? Is it not written, [Haggai ii. 7] He is the comfort of all the Heathen.

(53) And there he spoke clearly of the Son of Man, of his Humanity, and not of his Deity merely; for he says plainly, The Son of Man. But God from Eternity was not the Son of Man, and therefore no Son of Man can proceed from the Trinity; therefore we must look upon it right. If Mary had proceeded out of the Trinity, where should our poor captivated Souls have been? If Christ had brought a strange Soul from Heaven, how should we have been delivered? Had it been possible to redeem Man [without it,] what Occasion was there for God to come into our Form, and be crucified? If it could have been so, then God should instantly have separated or freed Adam from Death, when he fell. Or dost thou suppose that God is so maliciously zealous, as to be so angry without a Cause?

In their heart, the living book of the living was manifest, the book that was written in the thought and in the mind of the father and, from before the foundation of all, is in that incomprehensible part of him. This is the book that no one found possible to take, since it was reserved for him who will take it and be slain. No one could appear among those who believed in salvation as long as that book had not appeared. For this reason, the compassionate, faithful Jesus was patient in his sufferings until he took that book, since he knew that his death meant life for many. Just as in the case of a will that has not yet been opened, the fortune of the deceased master of the house is hidden, so also in the case of all that had been hidden as long as the father of all was invisible and unique in himself, in whom every space has its source. For this reason Jesus appeared. He put on that book. He was nailed to a cross. He affixed the edict of the father to the cross. Oh, such great teaching! He abases himself even unto death, though he is clothed in eternal life. Having divested himself of these perishable rags, he clothed himself in incorruptibility, which no one could possibly take from him. Having entered into the empty territory of fears, he passed before those who were stripped by forgetfulness, being both knowledge and perfection, proclaiming the things that are in the heart of the father, so that he became the wisdom of those who have received instruction. But those who are to be taught, the living who are inscribed in the book of the living, learn for themselves, receiving instructions from the father, turning to him again. Since the perfection of all is in the father, it is necessary for all to ascend to him. Therefore, if one has knowledge, he gets what belongs to him and draws it to himself. For one who is ignorant is deficient, and it is a great deficiency, since he lacks that which will make him perfect. Since the perfection of all is in the father, it is necessary for all to ascend to him and for each one to get the things that are his. He wrote these things first, having prepared them to be given to those who came from him.