(4) It came to pass then, when Jesus had heard Mary say these words and knew that the disciples had heard and had begun to let go, that he encouraged them and said unto them: "Grieve no more, my disciples, concerning the mystery of, the Ineffable, thinking that ye will not understand it. Amēn, I say unto you: That mystery is yours, and every one's who will give ear unto you, so that they renounce this whole world and the whole matter therein and renounce all the evil thoughts therein and renounce all the cares of this æon. "And that mystery knoweth wherefor the four-and-twenty mysteries of the first Thrice-spiritual have rent themselves asunder and wherefor they are called the four-and-twenty spaces of the first Thrice-spiritual and wherefor they have come forth from the second Thrice-spiritual. "And that mystery knoweth wherefor the four-and-twenty mysteries of the second Thrice-spiritual have rent themselves asunder and wherefor they have come forth from the third Thrice-spiritual. "And that mystery knoweth why the four-and-twenty mysteries of the third Thrice-spiritual--that is the four-and-twenty spaces of the third Thrice-spiritual--have rent themselves asunder and wherefor they have come forth from the Fatherless. "And that mystery knoweth wherefor the five Trees of the first Thrice-spiritual have rent themselves asunder and wherefor they have extended themselves, standing one behind the other and moreover bound one to the other with all their orders, and wherefor they have come forth from the Fatherless. "And that mystery knoweth wherefor the five Trees of the second Thrice-spiritual have rent themselves asunder and wherefor they have come forth from the Fatherless. "And that mystery knoweth wherefor the five Trees of the third Thrice-spiritual have rent themselves asunder and wherefor they have come forth from the Fatherless. "And that mystery knoweth why the Fore-uncontainables of the first Thrice-spiritual have rent themselves asunder and wherefor they have come forth from the Fatherless. "And that mystery knoweth wherefor the Fore-uncontainables of the second Trispiritual have rent themselves asunder and wherefor they have come forth from the Fatherless. "And that mystery knoweth wherefor all the Fore-uncontainables of the third Thrice-spiritual have rent themselves asunder and wherefor they have come forth from the Fatherless. "And that mystery knoweth wherefor the first Thrice-spiritual from below--those who belong to the orders of the One and Only, the Ineffable hath rent itself asunder and wherefor it hath come forth from the second Thrice-spiritual. "And that mystery knoweth wherefor the third Thrice-spiritual--that is the first Thrice-spiritual from above--hath rent itself asunder and wherefor it hath come forth from the twelfth Pro-thrice-spiritual, which is in the last region of the Fatherless. "And that mystery knoweth wherefor all the regions which are in the space of the Ineffable, and all those in them, have expanded themselves, and wherefor they have come forth from the last Limb of the Ineffable. "And that mystery knoweth itself, wherefor it hath rent itself asunder to come forth from the Ineffable,--that is from That which ruleth them all and which expanded them all according to their orders.

(6) "The third mystery of that Ineffable on the other hand,--the man indeed who shall accomplish that mystery, not only if he [himself] cometh forth out of the body, will he inherit the kingdom of the mystery, but if he complete that mystery and accomplish it with all its figures, that is if he go through with that mystery and accomplish it finely and pronounce the name of that mystery Of its efficacy. over a man who cometh forth out of the body and hath known that mystery,--let the former have delayed or rather not have delayed,--one who is in the dire chastisements of the rulers and in their dire judgments and their manifold fires,--amēn, I say unto you: The man who hath come forth out of the body,--if the name of this mystery is pronounced on his behalf, they will hasten quickly to bring him over and hand him over one to another, until they bring him before the Virgin of Light. And the Virgin of Light will seal him with a higher. seal, which is this [ . . .?], and in that month will she let him light down into the righteous body which will find the godhead in truth and the higher mystery, so that he inherit the Light-kingdom. This, therefore, is the gift of the third mystery of the Ineffable.

(4) "The rest of the patriarchs and of the righteous from the time of Adam unto now, who are in the æons and all the orders of the rulers, when I came to the region of the æons, I have through the Virgin of Light made to turn into bodies which will all be righteous,--those which will find the mysteries of the Light, enter in and inherit the Light-kingdom." Mary answered and said: "Blessed are we before all men because of these splendours which thou hast revealed unto us." The Saviour answered and said unto Mary and all the disciples: "I will still reveal unto you all the splendours of the Height, from the interiors of the interiors to the exteriors of the exteriors, that ye may be perfected in all gnosis and in all fulness and in the height of the heights and the depths of the depths."

(1) It came to pass then, when the Saviour had finished speaking these words unto his disciples, that Mary answered and said unto Jesus: "My Lord, I have heard thee say: 'He who shall receive of the mysteries of the Ineffable or who shall receive of the mysteries of the First Mystery,--they become flames of light-beams and light-streams and penetrate all the regions until they reach the region of their inheritance.'" The Saviour answered and said unto Mary: "If they receive the mystery when still in life, and if they come out of the body, they become light-beams and light-streams and penetrate all the regions until they reach the region of their inheritance. "But if they are sinners and are come out of the body and have not repented, and if ye perform for them the mystery of the Ineffable, in order that they may be removed out of all the chastisements and be cast into a righteous body, which is good and inheriteth the Light-kingdom or is brought into the last order of the Light, then they will not be able to penetrate the regions, because they do not perform the mystery [themselves]. But the receivers of Melchisedec follow them and lead them before the Virgin of Light. And the servitors of the judges of the rulers make frequent haste to take those souls and hand them over from one to the other until they lead them before the Virgin of Light."

(28) And therefore instantly at the Fall, the Word of God the Father (and in the Word the Light) through the Holy Ghost, entered into the holy Element, and into the chaste Virgin of the Wisdom of God, and made a precious Covenant, to become a Creature in this Virgin, and to take away the Devil's Power in the Anger, and to destroy his Kingdom; and this Christ would yield himself to be in the perished Humanity, and with his Entering into Death separate the Hell of the Anger, and the Kingdom of this World from us; and God the Father discovered this Word (of the promised Seed of the Woman) instantly (after the Fall) in the Garden of Eden, where instantly it gave up itself (in the eternal Espousal) into the Center of the Light of Life, and separated all the Souls of Men, who have inclined themselves, and yielded themselves up to him, in the Dying of their Bodies, from the Anger of God, and from the Kingdom of this World, and brought them into him (into the pure Element of the Paradise) into the Joy, and into the chaste Virgin of God, there to wait, till God breaks the Kingdom of this World, with the Stars and Elements, where instantly the pure Element shall be instead of the Out-Birth; and there shall spring and grow the new Body upon the Soul in the holy Element before God eternally.

(52) You must understand, Mary was to conceive in the Body, viz. in her own Body, not in a strange assumed [Body,] as the Unenlightened (who apprehend not the Kingdom of God) might interpret our Writings to mean. Besides, it is not the Ground neither, which the Ancients and those heretofore have set down (which yet went very high) as if Mary from Eternity had been hidden in Ternario Sancto [the holy Ternary or Trinity,] and that she entered at that Time only in Anna, as into a Case, [or House,] and was not of the Seed of Joachim, and Blood of Anna. They say, she was an eternal Virgin out of the Trinity, of whom Christ was born; because he came not out of the Flesh and Blood of any Man, and as himself witnesses, that he was not of this World, but was come from Heaven. He says, That he came forth from God, and must return again to God; and to Nicodemus he said, No one goes into Heaven, but the Son of Man which is come from Heaven, and who is in Heaven.

(4) "It came to pass, when the sun rose in the east, thereafter then through the First Mystery, which existed from the beginning, on account of which the universe hath arisen, out of which also I am myself now come, not in the time before my "Moreover in place of the soul of the ruler which he was appointed to receive, I found the soul of the prophet Elias in the æons of the sphere; and I took him thence, and took hi soul and brought it to the Virgin of Light, and she gave it over to her receivers; they brought it to the sphere of the rulers and cast it into the womb of Elizabeth. So the power of the little Iaō, who is in the Midst, and the soul of the prophet Elias, they were bound into the body of John the Baptizer. For this cause then were ye in doubt aforetime, I when I said unto you: 'John said: I am not the Christ,' and ye said unto me: 'It standeth written in the scripture: When the Christ shall come, Elias cometh before him and maketh ready his way.' But when ye said this unto me, I said unto you: 'Elias verily is come and hath made ready all things, as it standeth written, and they have done unto him as they would.' And when I knew that ye had not understood that I had discoursed with you concerning the soul of Elias which is bound into John the Baptizer, I answered you in the discourse in openness face to face: 'If ye like to accept John the Baptizer: he is Elias, of whom I have said that he will come.'"

(1) And Jesus continued again in the discourse and said: "It came to pass then thereafter, that at the command of the First Mystery I looked down on the world of mankind and found Mary, who is called 'my mother' according to the body of matter. I spake with her in the type of Gabriēl, and when she had turned herself to the height towards me, I cast thence into her the first power which I had received from Barbēlō--that is the body which I have borne in the height. And instead of the soul I cast into her the power which I have received from the great Sabaōth, the Good, who is in the region of the Right. "And the twelve powers of the twelve saviours

(2) And Jesus answered and said unto Mary in the midst of the disciples: "They who have received the mystery of the Light, if they come out of the body of the matter of the rulers, then will every one be in his order according to the mystery which he hath received. Those who have received the higher mysteries, will abide in the higher order; those who have received the lower mysteries will be in the lower orders. In a word, up to what region every one hath received mysteries, there will he abide in his order in the Inheritance of the Light. For which cause I have said unto you aforetime: 'Where your heart is, there will your treasure be,'--that is up to what region every one hath received mysteries, there shall he be." It came to pass, when Jesus had finished saying these words unto his disciples, that John came forward and said unto Jesus: "My Lord and my Saviour, give me also commandment that I discourse before thee, and be not wroth with me if I question concerning all with precision and certainty; for thou, my Lord, hast promised me in a promise to make revelation unto us of all concerning which I shall question thee. Now, therefore, my Lord, hide nothing from us at all in the matter on which we shall question thee." And Jesus answered in great compassion and said unto John: "To thee also, blessed John, and beloved, I give commandment to speak the word which pleaseth thee, and I will reveal it unto thee face to face without similitude, and I will say unto thee all on which thou wilt question me with precision and certainty."

(38) For the Word (by its being, given into the Element, into the virgin Matrix) is not separated from the Father; but it continues eternally in the Father, and it is (in the Heaven of the Element) every where present; into which [Element] the same Word] is entered, and is become a new Creature in Man; which new Creature] is called God. And you must here very highly and accurately understand, that this new Creature in the holy Element is not generated of the Flesh and Blood of the Virgin, but of God, out of the Element, in a total Fullness, and Union lof the holy Trinity; which [Creature] continues with total Fullness without ending therein eternally: Which [Creature] everywhere fills all, in all the Gates of the Holiness, whose Depth has no Ground, and is without Number, [Measure,] and Name.

(1) Thereafter his disciples said unto him: "Rabbi, reveal unto us the mystery of the Light of thy father, since we heard thee say: 'There is still a fire-baptism and there is still a baptism of the holy spirit of the Light, and there is a spiritual chrism; these lead the souls into the Treasury of the Light.' Tell us, therefore, their mystery, so that we ourselves may inherit the kingdom of thy father."

(49) Now then when we consider the high Mysteries, the Spirit opens to us the Understanding, that this [before-mentioned] is the true Ground concerning Adam: For his original Spirit (viz. the Soul) that was the Worm, which was generated out of the eternal Will of God the Father, and in the Time of the Creation The Son of God. was by the Fiat (after the Manner of a Spirit) created out of that Place where the Father from Eternity generates his Heart, between the fourth and fifth Form in the Center of God, where the Light of God from Eternity discovers itself, and takes its Beginning, and therefore the Light of God came thus to help him, as a fair Virgin, and took the Soul to be her Bridegroom, and would adorn the Soul with her fair heavenly Crown, with the noble Virtue of the Pearl, and beautify it with her Garment.

(37) And the Will of the Heart of God in the Father, is from the Heart entered into the Will of the Wisdom, before the Father, into an eternal Contract; and the same Virgin in the Wisdom of God, in the Word of God, has in the Bosom of the Virgin Mary given itself into her virgin Matrix, and united itself, as a Propriety, not to depart in Eternity; [you must] understand, into the Essences, and into the Tincture of the Element, which is pure and undefiled before God. In that, the Heart of God is become an angelical Man, as Adam was in the Creation; and the going forth out of the Heart of God, with the whole Fulness of the Deity (out of which also the holy Spirit of God, and out of the Spirit the Virgin, goes forth) makest his high angelical Image greater than Adam, or ever any Angel was; for it is the Blessing, and the Might of all Things, which are in the Father eternally.

(84) For the Word (which God promised in the Garden of Eden) sprung [and budded] in the Light of her Life, in the Center of God; and when the Angel Gabriel (from the Command of the Father) stirred that [Word of the Promise] with the Message, then it let itself into the chaste Virgin i in the Element; and not so wholly and altogether into the Soul of the Virgin, or into the earthly Body, that she was deified. No; for Christ himself says, None goes into Heaven but the Son of Man, who is come from Heaven, and who is in Heaven; all others must go through him into Heaven; khe is their Heaven, and the Father is his Heaven; he was in the Heaven, and also (in the Bosom of the Virgin) in this World: The World was made through him, how then could it comprehend him?

(85) The Virgin comprehended [or contained him] as a Mother does her Child, she gave him the natural Essences which she inherited from her Parents; those he assumed to the Creature, which was God and Man, the Essences of his Mother (in her Virgin-matrix, out of Flesh and Blood) he assumed to the Limbus of God (out of the [holy] Element) and in these became a living Soul, without blemishing of the [holy] Element; and the Word was in the Midst; the Might [Strength,] Height and Depth of the Soul, reaches even into the Father; and the outward Kingdom of this World hung to the inward, as the four Elements hang to the [one] Element, 1 which in the End shall pass away again, and go through the Fire.

(6) Jesus,--that is Aberamenthō,--said unto his disciples: "Amēn, I say unto you: I have brought nothing into the world when I came, save this fire, this water, this wine and this blood. I have brought the water and the fire out of the region of the Light of the lights of the Treasury of the Light; and I have brought the wine and the blood out of the region of Barbēlō. And after a little while my father sent me the holy spirit in the type of a dove. "And the fire, the water and the wine are for the purification of all the sins of the world. The blood on the other hand was for a sign unto me because of the human body which I received in the region of Barbēlō, the great power of the invisible god. The breath on the other hand advanceth towards all souls and leadeth them unto the region of the Light.

(5) "But if that man hath received no mysteries and is not sharing in the words of truth,--if he who accomplisheth that mystery, speaketh that mystery over the head of a man who cometh forth out of the body and who hath received no mysteries of the Light, and shareth not in the words of truth,--amēn, I say unto you: That man, if he cometh forth out of the body, will be judged in no region of the rulers, nor can he be chastized in any region at all, nor will the fire touch him, because of the great mystery of the Ineffable which is with him. "And they will hasten quickly and hand him over one to another in turn and lead him from region to region and from order to order, until they bring him before the Virgin of Light, while all the regions are in fear of the mystery and the sign of the kingdom of the Ineffable which is with him. "And if they bring him before the Virgin of Light, then the Virgin of Light will see the sign of the mystery of the kingdom of the Ineffable which is with him; the Virgin of Light marvelleth and proveth him, but suffereth them not to bring him to the Light, until he accomplisheth the total citizenship of the light of that mystery, that is the purities of the renunciation of the world and also of the total matter therein. "The Virgin of Light sealeth him with a higher seal, which is this [ . . .? ], and letteth him in that month in which he hath come out of the body of matter, light down into a body which will be righteous and find the godhead in truth and the higher mysteries, so that he may inherit them and inherit the Light eternal, which is the gift of the second mystery of the First Mystery of the Ineffable.

(50) Now then as the Word of God is in the Father, and goes forth out of the Father into the [pure] Element, and that the same Word was given to Man again in the Fall (from out of the [holy] Element, through the Voice of the Father, with the Promise of the Treader upon the Serpent) out of Grace, in the Center of the Light of Life; so the natural Soul of Christ, with its first Kindling in its Center of the Light of Life (where the Word, with the Consent of the Virgin Mary, had set itself, by the Word in the Father of Eternity) received the Principle of the Father in the Light.