(51) The flesh is not the life, but is a dead, inanimate being, which, when the government or dominion of the spirit ceaseth to qualify or operate therein, soon becometh a dead carcass, and putrefieth and turneth to dust or ashes.

(7) Now if the Soul eats of the clear Deity, what [Food] has the Body then? For thou knowest that the Soul and the Body are not one and the same Thing; it is indeed a [very] Body, but the Soul is a Spirit, and must have spiritual Food, and the Body must have bodily Food. Or wilt thou give the new Man earthly Food? If thou meanest so, thou art yet far from the Kingdom of God. The heavenly Body of Christ did not eat earthly Food, but the outward Body only did eat that. Is not Christ's Body now in the tholy Ternary, and eats paradisical Food? Why then shall not our new Man do so? Did he not eat heavenly Food forty Days in the Wilderness, and always afterwards? And did he not tell his Disciples at Jacob's Well, / have Meat to eat that ye know not of; and further, It is my Meat to do the Will of my Father which is in Heaven? Is the Will of God his Food, why then is it not ours, if we live in him? Has not the Deity of Christ put on the Kingdom of Heaven for a Body? Is not the pure Element (wherein the Deity dwells) his Body?

(48) You must know, that Christ, while he lived upon the Earth, and all we that are new-born in him, have and carry the heavenly Flesh and Blood in the earthly [Man,] and we carry it also in the new Man, in the Body of Christ. And when we die thus in the old earthly Body, then we live (in the new Body) in the Body of Jesus Christ, and spring up in him out of Death; and our Springing up is our Paradise, where our Essences spring up in God, and the earthly is swallowed up in Death, and we put on our Lord Jesus Christ, not only in the Faith and Spirit, but in the Virtue [and Power] of the Body, in our heavenly Flesh and Blood; and so we live to God the Father in Christ his Son, and the Holy Ghost confirms all our Doings; for all what we shall do, it is God does it in us.

(29) There be some who affirm, that a man, while in this present time, may and ought to be above being touched by outward things, and in all respects as Christ was after His resurrection. This they try to prove and establish by Christ’s words: “I go before you into Galilee there; shall ye see Me.”36 And again, “A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have.”37 These sayings they interpret thus: “As ye have seen Me, and been followers of Me, in My mortal body and life, so also it behoveth you to see Me and follow Me, as I go before you into Galilee; that is to say, into a state in which nothing hath power to move or grieve the soul; on which state ye shall enter, and live and continue therein, before that ye have suffered and gone through your bodily death. And as ye see Me having flesh and bones, and not liable to suffer, so shall ye likewise, while yet in the body and having your mortal nature, cease to feel outward things, were it even the death of the body.” Now, I answer, in the first place, to this affirmation, that Christ did not mean that a man should or could attain unto this state, unless he have first gone through and suffered all that Christ did.

(28) For this flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, but is only a seed which is sown into the earth, out of which will grow an impalpable or incomprehensible body, such as the first was before the fall. But the spirit is eternal life, which uniteth, qualifieth or mixeth with God, and comprehendeth the internal Deity in nature.

(27) But now the flesh is not the whole man; for this flesh cannot comprehend or apprehend the Deity, else the flesh were not mortal and corruptible, or fading and transitory; for Christ saith, [John vi. 63]: It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. [the spirit is the life]

(1) If you did not exist in flesh, you took on flesh when you entered the world. Why is it, then, that you will you not take your flesh with you when you rise into the aeon? What is better than flesh is what animates. What came into being because of you, is it not yours? Doesn't it exist with you? But while you are in the world, what are you missing? That is precisely what you have attempted to learn.

(72) For this body is but a husk, from which the new body grows— ["The new body grows out of the heavenly substantiality in the Word, out of the flesh and blood of Christ, out of the mystery of the old body."] —as it is with a grain of wheat in the earth. The husk or shell will not rise again, no more than it does in the wheat, but will remain for ever in death and in hell.

(7) For as this World breaks and passes away, so also all Flesh (which is generated out of the Spirit of this World) must break and pass away. Therefore now when the poor Soul must depart out of this Body, wherein yet it is generated, if then it has not the new Garment of the Regeneration of the Holy Ghost in it, and is not clothed with the Mantle of Christ, with his Incarnation, Suffering, Death, and Resurrection, in him, then there begins great Sorrow and Unquietness, [viz.] in those only which at the Breaking of their Bodies are but in the Gate, and so swim between Heaven and Hell; and there then dis Need of Wrestling and Struggling, as is to be seen by very many when they are dying.

(2) "O Shem, no one who wears the body will be able to complete these things. But through remembrance he will be able to grasp them, in order that, when his mind separates from the body, these things may then be revealed to him. They have been revealed to your race. O Shem, it is difficult for someone wearing a body to complete these things, as I said to you. And it is a small number that will complete them, those who possess the particle of the mind and the thought of the light of the spirit. They will keep their mind from the impure rubbing. For many in the race of nature will seek the security of the power. They will not find it, nor will they be able to do the will of faith. For they are seed of the universal darkness. They will be found in much suffering. The winds and the demons will hate them. And the bondage of the body is severe. For where the winds, and the stars, and the demons are cast out from the power of the spirit, there repentance and testimony come upon them, and mercy will lead them to the unconceived spirit. And those who are repentant will find rest in the consummation and faith, in the place of the hymen. This is the faith that will fill the place that has been left empty. But those who do not share in the spirit of light and in faith will dissolve in the darkness, the place where repentance did not come.

(19) Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.

(92) The Deity in Christ in the holy Ternary said, Eat of the Word of the Lord, and go forth from the outward Man, rest in the Kingdom of Heaven, and live in the new Man, and then the old Man is dead, for the new Man's Sake; on the contrary, the Devil said to the Soul, Thy earthly Body does hunger (because there is no Bread for it) therefore make Bread of Stones, that thou mayest live; and the strong Soul in Christ as a Champion stood and said; Man lives not by Bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the Mouth of God: And he rejected the earthly Bread and Life, and put his Imagination into the Word of God, and did eat of the Word of the Lord, and then the Soul in the Kingdom of Heaven was predominant, and the earthly Body was as it were dead for the Kingdom of Heaven's Sake; whereas yet it was not dead, but it became the Servant of the heavenly Body, and lost its potent Dominion.

(67) You must not say that whole Christ with Body and Soul came from Heaven. He brought no Soul out of the holy Ternary; the heavenly Virgin was the Soul in the holy Ternary; and that he brought with him for a Bride to our Soul, as this whole Book does treat of it. For what would it help me, if he had brought a strange Soul with him? Nothing at all. But that he has brought my Soul into the holy Ternary, I rejoice at that; and thus I can say, that Christ's Soul is my Brother, and his Body is the Food of my Soul; as he says in the sixth Chapter of John, My Flesh is Meat indeed, and my Blood is Drink indeed.

(44) For thou canst not say (when thou dost handle the blessed Bread) Here I hold the Body of Christ in my Hand, I can feel and taste it: No, my Friend, the outward is earthly Bread, from the outward Element; and the Incomprehensible in the holy Element is the Body of Christ, which (in this his Covenant and Testament) is offered to thee under the outward Bread, and that [Body] thy new Man receives; and the old [Man receives] the Bread; and so it is with the Wine.

(9) Do not expect, therefore, the carnal resurrection, which is destruction; and they are not stripped of it (the flesh) who err in expecting a resurrection that is empty. They do not know the power of God, nor do they understand the interpretation of the scriptures, on account of their double-mindedness. The mystery which the Son of Man spoke about, [...], in order that [...] destroy ... ... (2 lines unrecoverable) ... man who [...] book, which is written [...] for they have ... ... (1 line unrecoverable) ... blessed [...] within them, and they dwell before God under the light yoke. Those who do not have the life-giving word in their heart will die; and in their thought they have become manifest to the Son of Man, according to the manner of their activity and their error [...] of this sort. They [...] as he divides the [...], and they do not understand that the Son of Man is coming from him.

(14) "Wherefore," he says, "ye are justified in the name of the Lord." Ye are made, so to speak, by Him to be righteous as He is, and are blended as far as possible with the Holy Spirit. For "are not all things lawful to me? yet I will not be brought under the power of any," so as to do, or think, or speak aught contrary to the Gospel. "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats, which God shall destroy," - that is, such as think and live as if they were made for eating, and do not eat that they may live as a consequence, and apply to knowledge as the primary end. And does he not say that these are, as it were, the fleshy parts of the holy body? As a body, the Church of the Lord, the spiritual and holy choir, is symbolized. Whence those, who are merely called, but do not live in accordance with the word, are the fleshy parts. "Now" this spiritual "body," the holy Church, "is not for fornication." Nor are those things which belong to heathen life to be adopted by apostasy from the Gospel.

(39) He that was dead came forth, bound with graveclothes. Jesus saith unto them,

(80) When he was here upon Earth in the earthly Man, his outward Body was circumscribed and limited, as our Bodies are, but the inward Body is unlimited; for we also (in the Resurrection in the Body of Jesus Christ) are unlimited, yet visible and palpable or comprehensible, in the heavenly Flesh and Blood, as the Prince of Life himself is; we can in the heavenly Figure [or Shape] be great or little, and yet nothing be hurt or wanting in us; there is no Need of compressing the Parts of that Body. 81.0 dear Christians, leave off your Contentions about the Body of Jesus Christ; he is every where in all Places, a yet in the Heaven; and the Heaven (wherein God dwells) is also every where. God dwells in the Body of Jesus Christ, and in all holy Souls of Men, even when they depart from this outward Body; and if they be regenerated, then they are in the Body of Jesus Christ even while they are in this earthly Body. A Soul here in our Body upon Earth has not the Body of Christ in a palpable Substance, but in the Word of Power [or Virtue,] which comprehends all Things. In Christ indeed Body and Power is one [Thing,] but we must not understand [this of the four Elementary] Creature, [which is] in this World.

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.

(112) Jesus said, "Woe to the flesh that depends on the soul; woe to the soul that depends on the flesh."