Sent from the power,
I have come
to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found
among those who seek me.
Look upon me,
you who meditate,
and hearers, hear.
Whoever is waiting for me,
take me into yourselves.
Do not drive me
out of your eyes,
or out of your voice,
or out of your ears.
Observe. Do not forget who I am.

For I am the first, and the last.
I am the honored one, and the scorned.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am the mother, the daughter,
and every part of both.
I am the barren one who has borne many sons.
I am she whose wedding is great
and I have not accepted a husband.
I am the midwife and the childless one,
the easing of my own labor.
I am the bride and the bridegroom
and my husband is my father.

I am the mother of my father,
the sister of my husband,
my husband is my child.
My offspring are my own birth,
the source of my power,
what happens to me is their wish.

I am the incomprehensible silence
and the memory that will not be forgotten.
I am the voice whose sound is everywhere
and the speech that appears in many forms.
I am the utterance of my own name.

For I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am modesty and boldness.
I am shameless, I'm ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and I am peace.

Give heed to me,
the one who has been everywhere hated
and the one who is everywhere loved.
I am the one they call Life,
the one you call Death.
I am the one they call Law,
the one you call Lawless.
I am the one you have scattered,
and you have gathered me together.
I am the godless, and I am the one
whose God is great.

I am the one whom you have reflected upon
and the one you have scorned.
I am unlearned,
and from me all people learn.
I am the one from whom you have hidden
and the one to whom you reveal yourself.
Yet wherever you hide, I appear,
and wherever you reveal yourself,
there I will vanish.

Those who are close to me
have failed to know me,
and those who are far from me know me.
On the day when I am close to you,
that day you are far from me;
on the day when I am far from you,
that day I am close.

I am the joining and the dissolving.
I am what lasts, and what goes.
I am the one going down,
and the one toward whom they ascend.
I am the condemnation and the acquittal.
For myself, I am sinless,
and the roots of sin grow in my being.
I am the desire of the outer,
and the control of the inner.
I am the hearing in everyone's ears,
I am the speech which cannot be heard.
I am the mute who is speechless,
great are the multitudes of my words.

Hear me in softness,
and learn me in roughness.
I am she who cries out,
and I am cast forth upon the earth.
I prepare the bread and my mind within.
I am called truth.

You praise me and you whisper against me.
You who have been defeated,
judge before you are judged:
the judge and all judging exist inside you.
For what is inside you is outside you,
and the one who formed you on the outside
is the one who shaped you within.

And what you see outside you, you see within.
It is visible and it is your garment.

Give heed then, you hearers,
and you also, angels and those who have been sent,
and you spirits risen from the dead.
I am the one who alone exists,
there is no one to judge me.
For though there is much sweetness
in passionate life, in transient pleasure,
finally soberness comes
and people flee to their place of rest.
There they will find me,
and live, and not die again.



This Gnostic Gospel excerpt was written between
the 2nd-4th centuries and was only dicovered in 1945.
It is now part of The Nag Hammadi Library