(20) Now lusts and other sins are called "briars and thorns." Accordingly the Gnostic labours in the Lord's vineyard, planting, pruning, watering; being the divine husbandman of what is planted in faith. Those, then, who have not done evil, think it right to receive the wages of ease. But he who has done good out of free choice, demands the recompense as a good workman. He certainly shall receive double wages - both for what he has not done, and for what good he has done.

(24) Behold, I give you a fit Similitude in a Sower; a Sower tills his Ground the best he can, and sows good Wheat, but now there is other Seed among the Wheat, and though that was indeed wholly pure, yet the Earth puts forth Weeds among the Wheat, even Thorns and Thistles. And now what shall the Sower do? Shall he therefore reject the whole Crop, or burn it, for the Thistles and Darnels Sake? No, but he threshes it, and fans it, he separates the Weeds and Dross from it, and uses the good Seed for his Food, and gives the Chaff to his Cattle or Beasts, and with the Straw he makes Compost for his Ground, and so makes good Use of his whole Crop.

(3) 'Unblessed, surely, are the worlds to which a man goes by giving (as his promised present at a sacrifice) cows which have drunk water, eaten hay, given their milk, and are barren.'

(56) Therefore, O Man, look to it! [have a care] how you use the bestial Lust; it is (in itself) an Abomination before God, whether it be in the State of Wedlock, or out of it. But the right Love and Fidelity (in the Fear of God) covers it before the Countenance of God; and (through the Sun of the Virgin) it is regenerated to be a pure undefiled Creature again, in the Faith, if thy Confidence be in God.

(111) Since you have made fiery lust as a verdant garden, And have sowed therein the seed of fidelity, So that nightingales of prayer and praise Ever warble sweetly around this garden; Since you have responded to the call of God, And have drawn water out of the hell of lust, For this cause my hell also, for your behoof, Becomes a verdant garden and yields leaves and fruit." What is the recompense of well-doing, O son? Have ye not said, "We are victims,

(12) Far more excellent, in my opinion, than the seeds of wheat and barley that are sown at appropriate seasons, is man that is sown, for whom all things grow; and those seeds temperate husbandmen ever sow. Every foul and polluting practice must therefore be purged away from marriage; that the intercourse of the irrational animals may not be cast in our teeth, as more accordant with nature than human conjunction in procreation. Some of these, it must be granted, desist at the time in which they are directed, leaving creation to the working of Providence.

(10) This glory, which Shone forth on the face of Moses, the people could not look on. Wherefore he took a veil for the glory, to those who looked cam ally. For those, who demand toll, detain those who bring in any worldly things, who are burdened with their own passions. But him that is free of all things which are subject to duty, and is full of knowledge, and of the righteousness of works, they pass on with their good wishes, blessing the man with his work. "And his life shall not fall away" - the leaf of the living tree that is nourished "by the water-courses." Now the righteous is likened to fruit-bearing trees, and not only to such as are of the nature of tall-growing ones. And in the sacrificial oblations, according to the law, there were those who looked for blemishes in the sacrifices. They who are skilled in such matters distinguish propension (orexis) from lust (epiqumia); and assign the latter, as being irrational, to pleasures and licentiousness; and propension, as being a rational movement, they assign to the necessities of nature.

(7) [...] to mix with the [...]. For if a thought of lust enters into a virgin man, he has already become contaminated. And their gluttony cannot mix with moderation. For if the chaff is mixed with the wheat, it is not the chaff that is contaminated, but the wheat. For since they are mixed with each other, no one will buy her wheat, because it is contaminated. But they will coax him, "Give us this chaff!", seeing the wheat mixed with it, until they get it and throw it with all other chaff, and that chaff mixes with all other materials. But a pure seed is kept in storehouses that are secure. All these things,then, we have spoken.

(12) But despite its fall, the whole earth cannot satisfy the lust of the flesh; who can do its will? To him who longs for the impossible come guilt and bafflement of desire; but he who is utterly without desire has a happiness that ages not. Then give no room for the lust of the flesh to swell; blessed indeed is the thing that is not imagined for the sake of its pleasant- ness. The body is a motionless thing stirred by something without, and ending in ashes, a loathsome frame of foulness; why do I cling to it? What have I to do with this machine, alive or dead? What distinguishes it from such things as clods of earth? Alas, O thought of self, thou wilt not die! Through complicity with the flesh I win sorrow, all to no purpose; it is no better than a thing of wood, and what should avail its hatred or its kindness? It feels no love when I guard it, no hate when vultures devour it; then why do I love it? I am angered when it is treated with scorn, delighted when it is honoured; but if it has no knowledge, to what end is my toil? My friends, forsooth, are they who wish well to this body; but all men wish well to their own flesh, and why are not they also my friends? So I have surrendered my body indifferently for the weal of the world; it is but as an instrument of work that I still bear it, with all its guilt. Enough then of worldly ways! I follow in the path of the Wise, remembering the Discourse upon Heedfulness and putting away sloth. To overcome the power of darkness I concentre my thought, drawing the spirit away from vain paths and fixing it straightly upon its stay.

(21) When they are swept aside, the water is seen; But when God unlooses not the hands of reason, The weeds on our water grow thick through carnal lust; Yea, they cover up your water more and more, When fear of God binds the hands of lust, Then the powerful senses are subdued by you, When you submit to reason as your commander Then your sleepless sense is lulled into sleep, You behold visions when broad awake, And the gates of heaven are open before you."

(50) O my son, strip off the old garment of fornication, and put on the garment which is clean and shining, that you may be beautiful in it. But when you have this garment, protect it well. Release yourself from every bond, so that you may acquire freedom. If you cast out of yourself the desire whose devices are many, you will release yourself from the sins of lust.

(39) We must then exercise ourselves in taking care about those things which fall under the power of the passions, fleeing like those who are truly philosophers such articles of food as excite lust, and dissolute licentiousness in chambering and luxury; and the sensations that tend to luxury, which are a solid reward to others, must no longer be so to us. For God's greatest gift is self-restraint.

(82) Here, O man, consider thyself well, and mind what manner of seed thou sowest into the earth, the very same will spring up, and bear blossoms and fruit for ever, either in the love or in the wrath.

(4) Here now stand the great Secrets (which we cannot see with our earthly Eyes) wholly naked and plain, and there is no Vail before it, only we are blind to the Kingdom of God; for God cursed the Earth, and said, it should now bear Thorns and Thistles, and Man should eat the Fruit of the accursed Earth. This indeed is a new Thing. He allowed them not in Paradise to eat of the earthly Herbs, but of the pleasant Fruit. And if he had eaten of the Herbs of the Fields, yet that which he had eaten, was heavenly; and when the Lord cursed the Earth, then all became earthly; and the holy Element was withdrawn, and the Fruit did grow in the Proceeding-forth of the four Elements, in the Kindling of the Fierceness, out of which Thorns and Thistles grew.

(100) On its killing the cow of the body, the source of evil. Lust says, "Why hast thou killed my cow?" It says, "Because lust's cow is the form of the body." Reason, the Lord's child, has become a pauper, Lust, the murderer, has become a lord and chief. Know'st thou what is meat untoiled for? 'Tis the food of spirits and the aliment of the Prophet. But it is attainable only by slaying the cow; Treasure is gained by digging, O digger of treasure!

(14) This type of husbandry may serve as a mode of instruction, teaching that we must cut the growths of sins, and the useless weeds of the mind that spring up round the vital fruit, till the shoot of faith is perfected and becomes strong.

(31) The Lord has said: "But I say unto you, you shall not lust." How then can he live according to God's will who surrenders himself to every desire? And is a man to decide of his own free will that he can sin, and lay it down as a principle that one may commit adultery and revel in sin and break up other men's marriages, when we even take pity on others if they fall into sin against their will? And if they regard the world into which they have come as an alien country they will not possess the truth if they have not been faithful in that which is another's. Does a foreign visitor insult the citizens and do them injury? Does he not rather behave as a guest and conform to the necessary rules, living without causing offence to the citizens? And how can they say that they alone know God when they do the same things as those who are loathed by the heathen because they do not do what the laws direct, that is, as the wicked and incontinent and covetous and adulterous? They ought to live good lives even while they are dwelling in an alien country, to manifest their truly kingly nature.

(19) For as the exhalations which arise from the earth, and from marshes, gather into mists and cloudy masses; so the vapours of fleshly lusts bring on the soul an evil condition, scattering about the idols of pleasure before the soul.

(27) But this is Man's Condemnation, that he sows only the earthly and the hellish Seed, and lets the heavenly stay in his Barn; he stays without, before Heaven, and enters not in for the noble Seed; but he gives God good Words, that he may be gracious to him, and receive him into his Kingdom, and sows nothing but the Devil's Weeds in Body and Soul. And then what new Body shall there grow? Shall it stand in the Heaven in the Holy Element, or in the Abyss? Or shall the Pearl be cast before Swine?

(16) Three are the gateways of this hell leading to the ruin of the self— lust, wrath, and greed. Therefore let man renounce these three.