Untitled Gnostic Work of the Bruce Codex

Contents

Translated from Schmidt's German (route 3); the German is not published. The work breaks off at the end of the codex.

Reading pages: 1–8 · 9–14 · 15–21 · 22

1. 1The untitled text begins, in mid-sentence, with a description of the first Father of the All as the self-begotten depth, the first spring and the first sound, indescribable and incomprehensible.
2. 2The second place, the Father and Demiurge, is described in the image of a cosmic figure whose outstretched hands reveal the cross; from him come the Monad, the Ennead and the twelve depths, ending in the Truth, the mother of all the aeons.
3. 3The second Demiurge creates the Pleroma with four gates, each with its Monad, helpers, powers and a three-faced overseer, and the passage describes the hidden Only-begotten and the way a thought is carried up through the aeons.
4. 4Another place called the depth holds three fatherhoods: the hidden God, a second with the five trees and the only-begotten Logos at a table, and a third with the Silence, the spring and the All-mother of the Ennead.
5. 5In the immeasurable depth a sonship called Christ the Examiner, with twelve faces, seals each one with the Father's seal; the place has twelve springs of eternal life, and Christ contains the All.
6. 6Setheus stands in the midst of twelve Fathers, each with three faces, and twelve others crowned with rays of the light of the hidden Only-begotten surround his head.
7. 7The writer says the Only-begotten hidden in Setheus can be described only by those who have seen him, such as Marsanes, Nicotheos and Phosilampes; he applies Psalms and John 1 to him and describes the praise of the All; then Setheus sends the spark that brings the light down to matter.
8. 8Guardians named Gamaliel, Strempsuchos and Agramas are sent to help those who believed in the spark of light.
9. 9The Indivisible wears a crown of 365 kinds of life, for which embodied souls pray; his realm contains the God-begetting land, the All-mother and a basket on which the prayers of creatures are laid, and the twelve righteous ones praise the Only-begotten.
10. 10Three further Enneads with baskets, the immeasurable depth with twelve fatherhoods and five powers named Love, Hope, Faith, Knowledge and Peace, and Aphredon's basket of prayers are described; the Thrice-powerful receives a sonship too bright for the Pleroma to bear.
11. 11When the Pleroma is shaken, the overseer re-establishes the aeons, the Thrice-powerful comes forth, and Setheus sends a Logos-Demiurge with crowned powers, who becomes Lord, Saviour and Father of those who believe.
12. 12The Mother orders her worlds after the pattern above, setting up the Forefather, the Self-father and the first-begotten Son, who makes the pure part of matter into the city called Incorruption and Jerusalem; the Existent is separated from the Non-existent, which is evil in matter, and the Forefather's powers and names are listed.
13. 13The list of the names of the power given to the Forefather is completed, with their interpretations, and the angel revealed with them is named Doxogenes and Doxophanes.
14. 14The Forefather receives powers and the crown of fatherhood, speaks in words of Paul and seeks to turn the All back to the hidden Father; the Mother rejoices and, through the thrice-begotten power, receives from the hidden Father a crowning mystery.
15. 15The Mother sets up the Self-father over the aeon of the Veiled One, and those who flee from matter, following the saying about leaving all and taking up the cross, receive a ninefold gift, know the true God and become perfect.
16. 16The Mother's first-begotten Son receives a garment containing all bodies, broods over matter like a bird over its young, brings forth species from it, gives them the law of love and worship, and leads them out of darkness.
17. 17The Mother of the All and the powers sing a hymn to the One Alone, unknowable except by his will, who begot man in his own mind, and the Mother asks him for power to make her offspring know him as their Saviour.
18. 18In answer to the Mother's prayer the infinite spark comes forth from the Man, is praised by the powers of the Pleroma, and makes their hymn into a veil surrounding their worlds.
19. 19The Lord of glory divides matter into a right-hand region of life, light and rest and a left-hand region of death, darkness and suffering, gives the right to those who worship him, and promises them that they will become gods.
20. 20The offspring of matter pray for authority to create aeons and for bodiless spirits to dwell in them; the separating powers build the realms upward from the air-earth through places of repentance and sojourning to the aeons of Sophia, where Pistis Sophia and the living Jesus are.
21. 21A damaged section describes the unknowable Father, who made himself a place for his members and was praised as three who are one, and who formed the Man, member by member, after the pattern of the Pleroma.
22. 22The Man of God is praised in a long litany to the Father of the light as above every infinite, incomprehensible and unknown power, the one in whom the All exists and who bounds all things while none comprehends him; the text breaks off.