(28) Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in heaven is perfect.

(6) The father of all perfection in ye whole world is here.

The perfect human can be neither grasped nor seen. What is seen can be grasped. No one can obtain this grace without putting on perfect light and becoming perfect light. Whoever puts on light will enter [the place of rest]. This is perfect [light, and] we [must] become [perfect humans] before we leave [the world]. Whoever obtains everything [but does not separate] from this world will [not] be able [to attain] that realm but will [go to the] middle place, for that one is not perfect. Only Jesus knows the fate of that person.

(18) By fulfilling their duties, born of their innate qualities, human beings can attain perfection. Now hear from me how one can become perfect by discharging one’s prescribed duties.

(1) Here I find perfection apprehended variously in relation to Him who excels in every virtue. Accordingly one is perfected as pious, and as patient, and as continent, and as a worker, and as a martyr, and as a Gnostic. But I know no one of men perfect in all things at once, while still human, though according to the mere letter of the law, except Him alone who for us clothed Himself with humanity. Who then is perfect? He who professes abstinence from what is bad.

[Now after I] heard these things, I [too glorified] the [perfect] individuals [and] the all-perfect ones [who are unified], even the [all-perfect ones who] are before the [perfect ones.

(3) A perfected man said: 'For seventy years I have worked on myself and I am now in ecstasy, contentment, and felicity, G

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and in this state I participate in the Sovereign Majesty and am united with Divinity itself. As for you, while you are occupied with looking for the faults of others, how will you be able to taste the joy of the unseen world? If you look for faults with a searching eye, how will you be able to see the things of the inner world? You would split a hair for the faults of others, but to your own faults you turn a blind eye. Acknowledge your own faults, then, guilty though you be, God will have mercy on you.'

(7) Among thousands of men, one strives for perfection and even among those who strive and succeed, one knows Me in essence.