THE GOSPEL OF PHILIP
1 A Hebrew who makes someone else a Hebrew is called a proselyte.
But a proselyte does not always make other proselytes.
Authentic beings are who they have always been,
and what they engender is authentic:
simply becoming who one is.
2 The slave desires freedom; the extent of his master’s wealth is of little importance.
The Son, he who is Son, possesses the heritage of the Father.
3 To inherit from the dead is to die, to inherit from the living is to live.
The Living One gives us birth and death as our heritage.
The dead do not inherit; how could they inherit?
If the dead were to inherit from the living, they would live.
4 Atheists do not die, because they have never lived.
Only those who hold to the truth know what life is.
They may well fear death, because they live!
5 The Presence of Christ creates the new world;
He brings order and beauty among us;
death recedes.
6 When we were Hebrews, we were orphans, knowing only our mother; becoming Christians, we discover both our mother and our father.
7 Those who sow in winter reap in summer; winter is this world, summer is the world of Openness. Let us sow in the world, so as to harvest in summer.
To pray is not to prevent winter, but to allow summer.
Winter is not a time of harvest, but of labor.
8 Without seeds, the earth bears no fruit;
indolence is not the Repose and Power of the Shabbat.
9 Christ came to deliver some and to save others.
He made strangers his own;
in their differences, they manifested his will.
It is not only at the time of his manifestation
that he made an offering of his life,
but since the beginning of the world that he gave his life in offering.
In the hour of his desire
He came to deliver this offering held captive.
It had been imprisoned by those who steal life for themselves.
He revealed the powers of the Gift,
and brought goodness to the heart of the wicked.
10 Light and darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers and sisters. They are inseparable.
This is why goodness is not always good,
violence not always violent, life not always enlivening,
death not always deadly . . .
All that is composite will decompose
and return to its Origin;
but those who are awake to the Reality
without beginning or end know the uncreated, the eternal.
11 The words we give to earthly realities engender illusion, they turn the heart away from the Real to the unreal. The one who hears the word God does not perceive the Real, but an illusion or an image of the Real.
The same for the words Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Life, Light, Resurrection, Church, and all the rest. These words do not speak Reality;
we will understand this on the day
when we experience the Real.
All the words we hear in this world only deceive us.
If they were in the Temple Space [Aeon] they would keep silent
and no longer refer to worldly things,
in the Temple Space [Aeon] they fall silent.
12 There is a name which is not heard in the world: It is the name that the Father gave to the Son; it is above everything, it expresses the Father. The Son would not be near the Father if the Father had not given him his name. Those who bear this name within them do not speak of it.
Those who do not bear it within them know nothing of it.
The Truth makes use of words in the world
because without these words, it would remain totally unknowable.
The Truth is one and many,
so as to teach us the innumerable One of Love.
13 High spiritual powers [arkón] wanted
to deceive humanity, because they saw goodness
engendered in Him.
They took the name for goodness
and applied it to what was not good;
words become deceitful,
and then are joined to that which is without being and without goodness.
They alienate with simulations and appearances;
they make a free person into a slave.
14 These harmful powers do not want human beings to be saved; they instill in them a taste for sacrifices; people then offer animals to these powers; what was living becomes dead, and their offering becomes a murder. But the Anthropos39 who offers himself to God can be killed: he is living.
15 Before the coming of Christ there was no bread in the world.
In paradise, there were many trees to feed the animals;
humans fed themselves like animals.
There was no wheat
when Christ, the fulfilled Human, came;
He brought bread from heaven
so that humans would know a human food.
16 The high spiritual powers [arkón] thought that it was through their power and their will that they did what they did; but it was the Holy Spirit which, through them, worked its own desire in secret.
The truth is sown everywhere, existing since the beginning;
some see it at the time it is sown,
but few still see it at the time of harvest.
17 Some say that Mary was impregnated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, but they do not know what they say.
How could the Feminine impregnate the feminine?
Mary is the virgin silence [parthenos]
which no evil power defiles or distracts;
she abides as the immaculate silence,
incomprehensible to the Hebrews, to the apostles, and to all those who claim to be sent.
The Teacher would not have said: “My Father who is in heaven,”
if he had not been engendered by another Paternity
than the one he had from his earthly father.
18 The Teacher said to his disciples:
“. . . Enter into the house of the Father,
but bring nothing, and take nothing that is there.”
19 Yeshua is a hidden name, Christ is a manifest name.
Yeshua cannot be translated into any language,
His name remains Yeshua;
Christ can be translated as Messiah in Hebrew and in Syriac, Khristos in Greek;
each according to their tongue.
The Man of Nazareth is the visible of the invisible.
20 Christ contains all: man,
angel, mystery, Father.
21 Those who say that the Lord first died,
and then was resurrected, are wrong;
for he was first resurrected, and then died.
If someone has not first been resurrected, they can only die.
If they have already been resurrected, they are alive, as God is Alive.
22 No one hides a thing of great value in a vase which is too visible; treasures are hidden in inconspicuous pots.
So it is with the soul, which is precious,
and incarnated in perishable matter.
23 Some fear being revived while naked;
this is why they want to be resurrected in their material body;
they do not know that human beings are naked, with or without matter.
They who make themselves simple, to the point of nakedness,
are not naked.
Neither flesh nor blood can inherit the Kingdom of God.40
What is it that cannot inherit?
It is the flesh and blood with which we identify;
that which will inherit is the flesh and blood of Christ.
He said it: “Those who do not eat my flesh
and do not drink my blood have not life in them.”41
What is his flesh?
His flesh is the Word [Logos];
his blood is the Breath [pneuma];
whoever welcomes the Word and the Breath
has truly received a food, a drink, and a garment.
I pity those who say there is no resurrection.
The flesh does not resurrect,
but what is it that can resurrect,
so that we revere it?
The Breath [pneuma] animates the flesh [sarx];
there is also this light in the flesh: the Logos.
What you say, you say in a body;
you can say nothing outside this body.
You must awaken while in this body, for everything exists in it:
Resurrect in this life.
24 In this world those who wear a garment
are more precious than their garment.
In the Kingdom of Heaven, the garments
are as precious as those who wear them,
for they have been immersed in a fire and in a water that purifies all.
25 That which can be visible is visible;
that which is secret remains secret;
yet certain secrets are revealed.
There is living water in baptismal water,
and a sacred fire in oils of anointment [khrisma].
26 Yeshua did not reveal himself as he is in reality, but according to the capacity of those who wanted to see Him.
He is the Unique for all,
yet to the great he appeared great, to the small he appeared small,
to the angels as an angel,
to human beings as a man.
The Logos is the secret of all.
Some who know themselves have known it.
When he appeared to his disciples in glory on the mountain,
he was great, he was not small.
It was he who made his disciples great,
so that they would be able to see him in his grandeur.
That very day he said in his act of grace [eukharistia]:
“Thou who hast united fullness and light with Breath [pneuma],
let our image and our angel be with us.”
27 Do not despise the Sheep, for without him it is impossible to see the door.
None can approach the King while naked.
28 The sons of heavenly Man outnumber
the sons of earthly man.
Though the sons of Adam are many, they are mortal;
the sons of the realized Man [telleios] never die,
for they are constantly being reborn.
29 The father begot a son, the son did not beget a son.
Who has been begotten cannot beget.
The son begets brothers, not sons.
30 All those who are begotten in the world
are begotten by physical means;
the others are begotten by spiritual means.
Those who are begotten by Spirit [pneuma]
hope for the realization of Humanity;
they are nourished by the promise of a higher space [topos].
31 Those who are nourished by the word which comes to the mouth go toward their own realization.
The realized human is fertilized by a kiss,
and is born through a kiss.
This is why we kiss each other,
giving birth to each other
through the love [kharis, also grace] that is in us.
32 There were three who always walked with the Lord:
Mary, his mother; the sister of his mother; and Miriam of Magdala,
known as his companion [koinonos];
for him, Miriam is a sister, a mother, and a wife [koinonos].
33 Father and son are simple [aplous] names;
The Breath is a double [diplous] name, for it is everywhere:
above, below, in the visible, in the invisible.
Spirit [pneuma] becomes manifest when descending,
and unmanifest when ascending.
34 The saints make use of harmful powers.
These powers are blinded by the Breath
to believe that they are using it,
whereas they are working for the saints.
One day a disciple asked the Teacher a question
about the state of the world.
He answered him: “Ask your mother; she will speak to you of what is other [allotrion].”
35 The apostles [apostolos] said to the disciples [mathetes]:
“May our offerings [prosphora] contain salt.”
They called Wisdom [Sophia] “salt.”
Without it, no offering is acceptable.
36 But Wisdom is barren without the Son.
Hence salt is only a trace.
What nourishes them is the Breath [pneuma]
and its offspring are many.
37 What belongs to the father belongs to the son, but while he is still young, he is not entrusted with all that is his.
When he is mature, his father gives it to him.
38 Those who are born of the spirit know not where they go; the same Breath lights and extinguishes the fire.
39 Akhamoth is one reality, and Ekhmoth is another. Akhamoth is ordinary wisdom,
Ekhmoth is the wisdom of death;
to know death is a small wisdom.
40 There are animals that obey people: the calf, the donkey, and those of this sort.
There are others who do not obey, and live apart in the wilderness.
People work with tame animals to plow their fields, and thus are able to feed themselves
and the animals, whether tame or wild.
So it is with realized Human Beings, who work with energies that obey them.
They prepare all things to come into being.
Thus everything awakens, and is redeemed:
good and evil, right and left.
The Breath leads all things to their repose,
it aligns the energies: the obedient, the wild, and the solitary ones.
It gathers them together, so that
they are no longer dispersed.
41 The created one is beautiful, and his sons are noble.
If he had been begotten, and not merely created,
you would find his seed even nobler;
but if he had been both created and begotten—what nobility!
42 First came adultery, then murder;
murder is the son of adultery, son of the serpent;
he is a murderer like his father, and killed his brother.
The mating [koinonia] of those who are dissimilar is adultery.
43 God is a dyer;
the good dyes, known as genuine,
become one with the materials that they permeate.
This is how God acts.
He gives his own colors to his dyes,
the colors of immortality.
Thus he baptizes us in water.
44 It is impossible for anyone to see the everlasting reality and not become like it.
The Truth is not realized like truth in the world:
Those who see the sun do not become the sun;
those who see the sky, the earth, or anything that exists, do not become what they see.
But when you see something in this other space,
you become it.
If you know the Breath, you are the Breath.
If you know the Christ, you become the Christ.
If you see the Father, you are the Father.
In this Temple Space you become all things,
and you see yourself no more;
and in that All-Other you become all things, and never cease to be yourself.
45 Faith [pistis] is receiving, and love [agap
] is giving.
None can receive without faith,
and none can give without love.
We believe, and are capable of receiving;
we give so as to experience love.
Whoever gives without love experiences nothing of interest.
46 Whoever does not receive the Teacher is still a Hebrew.
47 The apostles before us called him
“Yeshua of Nazareth, the Messiah.”
Yeshua first, Messiah last, and Nazareth in between.
Messiah can have two meanings:
“The anointed one”; and “the one who gives limits.”
In Hebrew, Yeshua means “freedom,” and Nazara means “truth.”
Thus the one from Nazareth is the truth, the liberator,
and the giver of limits.
48 A pearl thrown into the mud does not lose its value, and anointing it with oil will not increase its value;
in the eyes of its owner,
its value remains unchanged.
So it is with the sons of God; wherever they are, they are just as precious to their Father.
49 If you say, “I am a Jew,” no one will be amazed; if you say, “I am a Roman,” no one will be startled; if you say, “I am a Greek, a barbarian, a slave,” it will trouble no one. But if you say, “I am a Christian,” all will tremble.
Is it possible to bear this name,
when spiritual powers are afraid of it?
50 Humanity is the food of God;
people offer human or animal sacrifices,
but those to whom they sacrifice are not gods.
51 Glass and clay vessels are made with the help of fire.
Glass vessels can be restored, because they are shaped by breath.
But clay vessels are destroyed when they are broken,
for they were born without breath.
52 A donkey hitched to a mill wheel can travel a hundred miles, but when you untie him, he is still in the same place. There are people who walk a great deal, and never get anywhere.
When evening falls, there is nothing to be seen on the horizon—no village, no creature, no higher power, no angel to be seen.
Have these people suffered in vain?
53 The work of Yeshua is to render grace [eukharistia];
In Syriac, he is called “the one who is spread out,”
for Yeshua came, and the world opened in the four directions of the cross.
54 The Teacher went to Levi’s dye works;
he took seventy-two colors [kroma],
threw them into the vat,
and when he took them out, they were white.
He said: “This is how the Son of Man has come,
like a dyer.”
55 The Wisdom [Sophia] thought to be sterile [steira] is the mother of angels.
The companion [koinonos] of the Son is Miriam of Magdala.
The Teacher loved her more than all the disciples;
he often kissed her on the mouth.
When the disciples saw how he loved Miriam, they asked him:
“Why do you love her more than us?”
The Teacher answered:
“How can it be that I do not love you as much as I love her?”
56 When a blind man and one who sees
are both in the dark, there is no difference between them;
but when they both come into the light, one sees it,
and the other remains in darkness.
57 The Teacher said, “Blessed are those who are before existing; for those who are were, and will be.”
58 The superiority of human beings is not apparent, it is a secret; this is why they can dominate animals who are bigger and stronger than they in appearance, for it is they who allow the animals to survive. If humans abandon the animals, they bite and kill each other.
They eat each other because they lack food.
But now that humans cultivate the earth,
they find food.
59 If someone goes down into the water and emerges without receiving anything,
and says: “I am a Christian,” they usurp the Name.
But if they receive the Breath, they receive the grace of the Name.
When someone receives a gift [dorea] it is not taken from them.
But if someone takes it for themselves, it will be taken from them.
60 This is how it is with those united in marriage.
The mystery which unites two beings is great;
without it, the world would not exist.
What gives substance to the world is Anthropos.
What gives substance to Anthropos
is an intimate and enduring relation [gamos]
Seek the experience of the pure embrace [koinonia];
it has great power;
contemplate the Presence in this impermanent body.
61 Some of the unclean spirits are masculine, others are feminine.
The masculine ones unite with
souls who inhabit a female form;
the feminine ones mate with
souls who inhabit a male form.
None can be free with respect to these forms unless they receive
a power which is both masculine and feminine.
This is what happens in the bridal chamber
when man and woman become wed.
When immature women see a man sitting alone, they go to him, flirt with him, and distract him.
Likewise, when immature men see a pretty woman sitting alone,
they hunger for her, seduce her, and she lets herself be taken.
But if they see a man and a woman seated together,
the women do not chase after the man,
and the men do not chase after the woman.
When the image of God in us is joined to the angel,
no one dares to molest a man or a woman.
can no longer be made into a slave there.
They have risen above attraction and repulsion.
They are master of their nature, free of envy.
If someone sees such a person, they seize them and hold them.
How can one be free of the powers
of attraction and repulsion?
How can they then escape them?
Often there are those who come and say: “We are believers.”
They imagine themselves capable of escaping demons and unclean spirits.
If they had the Holy Breath in them,
no unclean spirits would adhere to them.
62 Do not fear the flesh nor be enamored of it.
If you fear it, it will rule you.
If you love it, it will paralyze you and devour you.
63 One is either of the world, or one is resurrected [anastasis],
or one is in the intermediate world.
God forbid that I be found there!
In this world there is good and there is evil.
What is good is not all good,
and what is evil is not all evil.
But beyond this world, there is something that is really evil;
it is the intermediate world, the world of the dead.
While we are in this world
it would be right to attain resurrection,
so that, free of the flesh, we know repose [anapausis],
and do not become wanderers in the intermediate world.
Many get lost on the way.
It is good to awaken from the world going astray there.
64 There are some who neither want nor are able to do evil; others want to, but do not. But it is what they want that makes them wicked, and leads them astray, even if they do nothing. Righteousness is lacking in those who want nothing, as in those who do evil.
65 In a vision, the disciple of an apostle
saw several people shut in a house
on fire, and they were attached to it.
“Throw water on the fire,” they begged.
They were told that it was impossible to save them.
The outcome of their actions was death.
This is also known as the outer darkness.
66 The soul [psyche] and the spirit [pneuma] are born of water and of fire.
It is with water, fire, and light
that the son of the bridal chamber comes into being.
the fire is then an anointing, the fire is then a light.
I do not speak of that fire without form, but of that fire
whose form is white:
a clear light which bestows beauty.
67 Truth did not come into the world naked, but veiled with images and archetypes [typos]; otherwise it cannot be received; there is a rebirth through the image of rebirth. One must truly be reborn from this image; this is resurrection.
In passing through the image, the bridegroom is led into the truth
which is the renewal of all things in their integrity [apocatastasis].
This is appropriate for those who not only know
the names of Father, Son, and Spirit,
but have integrated them in themselves.
Those who have not integrated these names within themselves
will have their names taken away.
The name of Christian is welcomed with anointing,
in the fullness and energy of the cross,
which the apostles call the union of opposites;
then one is not just Christian, one is the Christ.
68 The Teacher performed all his works mysteriously:
immersing us in water [baptisma],
anointing us with oil [khrisma],
making us capable of acts of grace [eukharistia].
He freed us and brought us into the bridal chamber [numphon].
69 The Teacher said: “I have come to make the lower realities like the higher realities, and the outer realities like the inner realities. I have come to unite them in this Temple Space, where they reveal themselves through images and symbols.”
Those who say that there is someone in the sky are mistaken, for He who has appeared has come from the depths, and He who owns the hidden things is beyond all the opposites.
It is right to say that the inner and the outer are one;
what appears to be outside the outer does not exist;
it is the outer darkness.
The Teacher said: “My Father lives in secret.”
He has said: “Enter into your chamber, close the door,
and pray to your Father who is there in secret.”42
This means: in your innermost being.
That which is inside, in the secret of all, is fullness [pleroma].
Beyond it is nothing, it contains all.
70 Before Christ, several came forth.
They could no longer return to whence they came,
but neither could they leave the place they entered. Christ came. Those who had come in, he brought out;
and those who had gone out, he brought in.
71 When Eve was in Adam, there was no death; when she was separated from him, death came. If she enters back into him, and he accepts her, there will be no more death.
72 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
The Teacher said these words on the cross,
for he had gone to the place of separation, so as to reunite
all that had been separated in God.
The Teacher rose beyond death.
He became what he was before the separation.
His body was whole,
He had a body, but it was the true body;
ours is transient,
an image of our true body.
73 The bridal chamber
is not for animals, nor for slaves,
nor for the impure;
it is for beings who are free, simple, and silent.
74 It is through the Breath that we come into being, but we are reborn by the Christ two by two. In his Breath, we experience a new embrace; we are no longer in duality, but in unity.
75 None can see themselves in water or in a mirror unless there is light; none can see themselves in light unless there is a mirror or water to reflect them.
This is why we must be immersed [baptizai] in water and light;
the light is in the oil of anointment [khrisma].
76 There were three places of worship in Jerusalem: One was open to the west and was called the Holy; another opened to the south and was called the Holy of holiness; and the third was open to the east and was called the holy of holies, where only the high priest could enter.
Immersion in water and light is the Holy [baptism];
to be free is the Holy of holiness [atonement];
and the holy of holies is the bridal chamber [numphon], or communion.
Trust and consciousness in the embrace are exalted above all.
Those who truly pray to Jerusalem
are to be found only in the holy of holies . . .
the bridal chamber.
What is the bridal chamber,
if not the place of trust and consciousness in the embrace?
It is an icon of Union,
beyond all forms of possession;
here is where the veil is torn from top to bottom;
here is where some arise and awaken.
77 The powers can do nothing against those who are clothed in light;
they cannot see them.
All will be clothed in light
when they enter into the mystery of the sacred embrace.
78 If woman had not been separated from man, she would not die with man.
Her separation was at the origin of death.
Christ comes again to heal this wound,
to rediscover the lost unity,
to enliven those who kill themselves in separation,
reviving them in union.
79 Man and woman unite in the bridal chamber, and those who have known this sacred embrace will never be separated. Eve separated from Adam because she did not unite with him in the bridal chamber.
80 Adam’s soul is animated by the Breath;
it came to him from his mother.
When his soul and his spirit were reunited,
he spoke words that the powers cannot understand.
They were jealous of him, because they were incapable of
this spiritual union which has no hidden violence.
81 On the banks of the Jordan, Yeshua manifested
the Presence of a realm that existed before all things.
In this new generation he manifests as the Son,
then he is anointed.
A free man who was a liberator.
82 Is it permitted to speak what is hidden?
The Father of all that is united with the Silence
of woman, and he illumined it.
He manifested in the bridal chamber;
his body was born on that day when he was witness to the Union,
fruit of the merging of the Lover and the Beloved.
This is how Yeshua grounds his disciples in repose.
He is the harmony in all.
83 Adam was born of two virgins; the breath and the earth.
The Logos is born of silence,
to witness that the origin of humanity
was not simply a fall.
84 There are two trees in the middle of the garden [paradeisos]: One engenders animals, the other engenders humans.
Adam ate from the tree that engenders animals,
and became animal.
It is good to revere animals,
for they are like the first human.
The tree from which Adam ate was the tree of animals,
and it bore many fruits.
There is no lack of animal-humans,
they are many, and they revere each other.
In the beginning, God created humans;
then humans created gods.
85 This is the way of the world: Humans create gods
and worship their creations;
now their creations may revere them,
and gods worship humans.
86 The works of humans come from their power; this is why they are called energies [dunamis]. Their children are born from their repose [anapausis];
their power is manifested in their works,
and their repose in their children.
This is an image—humans produce their works with effort, and their children in repose.
87 In this world slaves serve those who are free; in the kingdom of heaven those who are free will serve slaves; those who are born in the bridal chamber are in repose. They need nothing else; contemplation suffices them.
88 In this contemplation they dwell among the bodies of glory.
89 Christ immerses them in water to purify them and leads them to their fulfillment in his Name. He said: “It is befitting to fulfill all justice.”43
90 Those who say that we first die, and then are resurrected, are wrong.
Whoever is not resurrected before death
knows nothing, and will die.
Thus those who have received baptism will live;
baptism is a great thing.
91 The apostle Philip relates that Joseph the carpenter
planted trees in his garden,
because he needed wood for his work.
The cross was made with the trees he planted,
and the fruit of his seed was hung from the wood that he had planted.
His seed was Yeshua, and the cross was the plant.
92 The tree of life lives in the middle of another garden; it is the olive tree from which the oil of anointment is drawn. Thanks to it, resurrection is possible.
93 This world is an eater of corpses.
Everything eaten here has the taste of hatred;
the truth is fed by that which is alive,
and those who feed on truth are alive.
Yeshua comes from that Space,
and he gives this food to those who desire it.
They will not die.
94 God planted trees in a garden.
Humans lived among these trees,
they were not yet divided when they were told:
“Eat from this tree, or do not eat from it.”
The tree of the knowledge of happiness and unhappiness killed Adam;
but the tree of true knowledge, the tree of life,
enlivens humankind.
The law [nomos] is a tree which separates good and evil;
happiness and unhappiness offer nothing beyond.
It is not for humans to avoid evil, nor establish themselves in good.
When it was said: “Eat this, and do not eat that,”
that was the origin of their death.
95 To be anointed with oil is higher than being immersed in water.
It is when we are anointed, not when we are immersed in water,
that we become Christians.
Christ was called Messiah because of this:
he is “the anointed one.”
The Father gives unction [breath, light] to the Son;
the Son gives it to the apostles, and the apostles transmit it to us.
Whoever is anointed participates in plenitude;
they are resurrected; and the light, the cross, and the Holy Spirit are in them.
This is revealed to them by the Father in the bridal chamber.
96 The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father.
Such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
97 Some wished to enter the kingdom of heaven
by despising the world;
they left it, and were not Christians.
98 There are some who go into the water,
and when they emerge, they recognize the Presence in everything.
This is why there is nothing to be despised;
a king in rags is still a king.
Those who mock him will not enter into his kingdom.
Likewise, one must not mock the bread, the chalice, and the unity,44
even though they are only symbols.
99 What we call the world is not the real world; but if we could see it with the eyes of the Being who infuses it, we would see it as incorruptible and immortal. The fall consists in aiming away from the object of desire.
What we call the world has always been transient; nothing can receive incorruptibility that is not grounded in a filial relation;
if someone does not know how to receive, how can they give?
100 The cup [poterion] of communion contains wine, and also water; both are
symbols of the blood of blessing [eukharistia];
the cup is filled with the Holy Spirit, it is the cup of the realized Human Being.
If we drink from it, we enter into fullness.
101 The water of life is a body [soma].
We must clothe the living Human Being;
if someone is immersed in this water,
they shed their old clothes to put on the new.
102 A horse begets a horse,
a human begets a human,
a god begets a god;
the children of the union of Lover and Beloved
are born in the bridal chamber.
As long as the law remains, no Jew can be born of a Greek,
yet Christians come from Jews.
There is yet another race animated by the Breath:
These are the true human beings, the Sons of Man, the Sons of the Son.45
These true human beings are called to love in the world.
103–104 Wherever they are, they remain the children of the bridal chamber.
A certain harmony is possible in this world,
where man and woman, strength and weakness, unite with each other.
In the Temple Space [Aeon], the form of union is different,
although we employ the same name for it;
but there exist forms of union higher than any that can be spoken,
stronger than the greatest forces,
with the power that is their destiny.
Those who live this are no longer separated.
They are one, beyond bodily distinction.
105 Is it not necessary for those who know
this fullness to recognize each other?
Yet some do not;
they are deprived of this joy.
Those who recognize each other
know the joy [apolenein] of living together in this fullness.
106 Realization makes a Human Being [Anthropos] impalpable and invisible.
If they were visible, people would enclose them within the bounds of the visible.
To know the grace of true communion with Him,
one must be clothed in clear light.
In this light we can see His light.
107 Before leaving this world, we must become human beings inhabited by the Breath.
Whoever receives fullness without truly welcoming it
is not yet in Peace.
They will wander in the intermediate world of their incompletion.
Only Yeshua knows the end of all that is becoming.
108 The holiness of the Saints includes their body [soma].
They bless the bread and break it,
and all that they touch is purified.
How could their body not also be purified?
109 Yeshua blessed the waters of baptism,
and rid them of their power of dissolution;
this is why we can be submerged in them without dying,
and in them receive a breath different from that of the world.
When the latter breathes in us, it gives rise to winter;
when the Holy Spirit breathes in us, it gives rise to spring.
110 Whoever has knowledge [gnosis] of the truth is free [eleutheros]; the free human being is righteous.
Those who transgress are the slaves of transgression.46
Truth is our mother; knowledge [gnosis] is the promise of our union with her.
Those who do not go astray are called free by the world;
the knowledge of truth lifts their heart,
making them free of all bonds;
it is love which makes them act.
Those who have become free through knowledge
become loving servants of those who do not yet have this knowledge and freedom.
Knowledge [gnosis] makes them capable of this
because they are free, even of their freedom.
Love refuses nothing, and takes nothing;
it is the highest and vastest freedom.
All exists through love.
It does not say “this is mine,” but “this is yours.”
111 Spiritual Love [agappneumatikos] is a drunkenness and a balm;
those who are anointed by it rejoice.
Those who do not belong to the community may also rejoice in it,
for they benefit from its proximity;
but if they depart from it, they lose its perfume and its unction,
and are left with their natural odors.
The Samaritan gives only wine and oil to the wounded.
Unction heals all wounds,
for love heals us of the multitude of our wanderings.47
112 A woman’s children resemble the man she loves.
When it is her husband, they resemble the husband.
When it is her lover, they resemble the lover.
Often, when a woman unites with her husband out of obligation,
yet her heart is with a lover with whom she is frequently uniting,
her offspring will resemble her lover.
You who are with the Son of God do not love worldly things;
love the Teacher, so that what you engender
will resemble the Teacher, and not some other thing.
113 Humans mate with humans,
horses with horses, donkeys with donkeys,
each species with its own.
Likewise, our breath seeks another breath,
our intelligence seeks intelligence,
and every clarity seeks its light.
Become more human, and humans will love you;
become more spiritual, and the Spirit will unite with you.
Become more intelligent, and the Logos will unite with you.
If you become more clear, the light will unite with you.
If you ascend, you will find repose in the heights.
If you behave like a horse or donkey, calf, dog, sheep, or any other animal outside yourself,
you will be capable of union with neither human, spirit, Logos, nor light,
nor with what is above, nor with what is within.
None of these realities can settle in you if you do not become like them through love.
114 Whoever is a slave against their will has the possibility of becoming free.
But the one who has become free by the grace of the Teacher,
and who has chosen to be a slave,
how could they then choose to be free again?
115 What is harvested in the world is composed of four elements: water, earth, wind, and light.
What God harvests is also composed of
four elements: faith [pistis], hope [elpis], love [agap], and contemplation [gnosis].
Our earth is faith, for she gives us roots.
Water is our hope, for it slakes our thirst.
Wind [pneuma] is the love [agap] through which we grow;
and light is the contemplation [gnosis] through which we ripen.
116 Grace is transmitted to us in four ways:
the work of the earth, the taste of the heavens,
and love and truth, which are beyond the heavens.
Blessed is the one who makes no sadness in the soul.
That one is Jesus Christ.
He comes to all places, and burdens no one.
Blessed are they who act in this way;
they are realized human beings,
and the Logos abides in them.
117 Tell us how to rectify ourselves,
how to accomplish such a great thing,
and know repose?
118 Above all, it is befitting not to make anyone sad [lupein], whether they are great, small, faithful, or unfaithful . . . then, to bring peace to those who take pleasure in goodness.
One might think to find pleasure
in bringing peace to those who do good,
but that happens beyond the play of wills.
The happy man or woman cannot oppress or cause misery;
yet sometimes others may be jealous of their peace and happiness.
This causes suffering, but it is not their doing;
their nature [phusis] is only to give joy.
119 A great landowner had sons, servants, livestock, dogs, pigs, wheat, barley, hay, grass, bones, meat, and acorns.
In his wisdom he gave to each what was appropriate.
To his children, he gave bread, olive oil, and meat;
to his servants, he gave oil and wheat;
to his livestock he gave barley, hay, and grass;
and he threw bones to the dogs and acorns and bread crumbs to the pigs.
So it is with the disciples of God.
When they are wise, they perceive the state of each.
They are not misled by outward appearances;
they consider the disposition of each soul and attune their words accordingly.
There are many animals in the world who appear in human form;
the wise one gives acorns to pigs, barley, hay, and grass to livestock, bones to dogs,
to servants he gives basic lessons;
and to his children, the teaching in its entirety.
120 There are Sons of Man, and sons of Sons of Man.
The Teacher is the Son of Man,
and the grandson of Man is begotten by him.
It was from God that the Son of Man received the power to beget.
121 He who has received the power to create is a creature; he who has received the power to beget is the son;
he who creates cannot beget;
but he who begets can create.
Yet people say: “He who creates, begets”;
but what he begets is only a creature.
They are not his children, but have his resemblance.
He who creates works in visibility, and is himself visible.
He who begets works in secret;
he is hidden, and beyond all resemblance.
He who creates, creates visibly;
he who begets, begets his children in secret.
122 None can know the day when man and woman unite but themselves.
Even the worldly embrace is a mystery;
far more so, the embrace that incarnates the hidden union.
It is not only a reality of the flesh,
for there is silence in this embrace.
It does not arise from impulse or desire [epithumia];
it is an act of will.
It is not of darkness, it is of the light.
If seen by others in the light of day, an ordinary embrace is indecent;
if the bride receives the seed of her man outside of their bedroom, seen by others, it is indecent.
She may show herself naked only to her father, her mother, the friend of her betrothed, and the children of the bridal chamber.
These may enter into the bridal chamber;
others cannot hear the voice of the Lover and the Beloved, nor breathe their perfume.
They can only imagine, like dogs, the crumbs that may fall from the table.
The embrace of the Lover and the Beloved
belongs to the mystery of the Union;
and only those who have become the same as them can see them.
123 When Abraham rejoiced in seeing what he was given to see, he cut the flesh of his foreskin, thus showing us that we must overcome the limits of the flesh and of the world to become free.
Certain realities are alive
as long as they are hidden;
when they are made visible, they die.
While people’s entrails remain inside them, they are alive.
If their entrails escape, and are exposed, they die.
It is the same with the tree:
As long as its roots are hidden,
it can grow and flourish; if they are laid open, the tree withers.
Thus it is with all that takes birth in the world
of visible and invisible realities.
While the root of evil is hidden, it grows strong;
but if it is disclosed, it is already destroyed.
This is why it is said:
“Already the axe has struck to the root of the trees.”48
It will not be used to strike at parts that can grow back,
but shall strike deeply at the root, so as to destroy it.
Yeshua uprooted fear, which is the root of evil, the poisoner of our lives;
but he only uprooted a part of it,
leaving it to us to dig out our own roots,
so that each person works to uproot from their own heart
that evil which is the cause of unhappiness.
We uproot it if we recognize it,
but if we do not want to recognize
that which is wrong in us, how can we uproot it?
This bad root bears its fruits in us and in this world;
it will dominate us, and make us its slaves,
so that we do what we do not want to do
and are no longer able to do what we want to do.
Its power is our ignorance or refusal to know it.
As long as it is there, it is working:
Ignorance is the cause of all evil, and serves death.
Nothing has been or ever will be born from ignorance.
Those who live in vigilance will be happy
when the truth is revealed.
While hidden, truth is like ignorance:
It keeps to itself.
But when it is revealed, it is recognized and glorified,
for it is more powerful than ignorance and error.
It brings freedom.
The Logos said: “If you know the truth, the truth shall make you free.”49
Ignorance is slavery,
knowledge [gnosis] is freedom.
When we recognize the truth, we taste its fruits in ourselves.
When we unite with truth, it shares its fullness [pleroma] with us.
124 We know what creation reveals to us,
and call these things strong and worthy;
that which is unknown to us we deem weak and contemptible.
So it is that the realities revealed to vigilance seem weak and contemptible,
whereas they are strong and praiseworthy.
The mysteries of Truth are manifested to us
in the form of archetypes or images.
125 The bridal chamber, where Union is realized, is hidden from us; it is the holy of holies.
The veil conceals what we cannot see:
the way in which God informs creation.
When the veil is torn and the inner is made manifest,
we will abandon our house of desolation, and it will be destroyed.
But divinity, in its fullness, will not desert these places, so as to dwell only in the holy of holies;
it will not want to merge immediately into the unmixed light, the fullness that knows no lack;
it will go under the arms and wings of the cross.
This ark will be our refuge when the waters come.
If there are priests, they shall be allowed to go into the interior, beyond the veil, along with the high priest.
This is why the veil is not only torn above,
and not only torn below,
but torn from above to below;
that which is above
opens itself to us who are below,
so that we, too, enter the secret of the truth.
It is through fragile images and symbols
that we penetrate into that which is worthy of reverence and filled with power.
These relative realties are indeed trivial before the Absolute.
Glory beyond glory, power beyond power;
fullness is offered to us in the secret of vigilance;
the holy of holies is made manifest;
and through the sacred embrace, we are invited into the interior.
As long as this is hidden, unhappiness prevails;
it always poisons the seeds [sperma], and evil is at work.
But when it is manifest,
the clear light will envelop all, and everyone
who finds themselves in it will be anointed [khrisma].
Slaves and prisoners will be freed.
126 If a plant has not been planted by my Father who is in heaven, it will be uprooted.50
Those who were separated will reunite and become fertilized.
All those who practice the sacred embrace [koiton] will kindle the light;
they will not beget as people do
in ordinary marriages, which take place in darkness.
The fire that burns by night flares up, and then is gone;
but the mystery of that embrace is never extinguished;
it happens in that light of day which knows no sunset.
127 If someone experiences Trust and Consciousness in the heart of the embrace,
they become a child of light.
If someone does not receive these,
it is because they remain attached to what they know;
when they cease to be attached, they will be able to receive them.
Whoever receives this light in nakedness will no longer be recognizable;
none will be able to grasp them, none will be able to make them sad or miserable,
whether they are in this world, or have left it.
They already know the truth in images.
For them, this world has become another world,
and this Temple Space [Aeon] is fullness [pleroma].
They are who they are. They are one.
Neither shadow nor night can hide them.
