The Gnôsis of the Light

by F. Lamplugh

There is also another Space called the Deep, where there are three Paternities. In the first thereof is Kaluptô, the Hidden God. In the Second Paternity there are Five Trees, and in the midst of them an altar. An Alone-begotten Word stands upon the altar, having the twelve countenances of the Mind of all things, and before him are the prayers of all beings placed. The Universe rejoices over him because he has manifested himself. He it is that the Invisible World has struggled to know, and it is on his account that the Man has appeared. In the Third Paternity is Silence and the Fount which twelve Anointed Ones contemplate, beholding themselves therein. In him are also found Love and the Universal Mind and furthermore the Universal Mother from whom has gone forth that Ennead whose names are Prôtia, Pantia, Pangenia, Loxophania, Loxogenia, Loxokrateia, Lôia, and Iouêl. She is the First Beyond Knowledge, the Mother of the Ennead, who completes a Decad, come forth from the Monad of the Unknowable.

Following there is another Space, more stretched out, where is hidden a great treasure which the Universe surrounds. [This Space] is the Immeasurable Deep where is an altar whereon three Powers are gathered: a Solitary being, an Unknowable being, and an Infinite being, in the midst of whom is revealed a Sonship called the Anointed Glorifier. This is he who glorifies everyone and impresses upon him the seal of the Father, who brings everybody into the eternity of the First Father who is the One, He for whose sake all is and without whom nothing is. Now this Anointed One has twelve faces, visages Unbounded, Uncontainable, Ineffable, Simple, Imperishable, Solitary, Unknowable, Invincible, Thrice-powerful, Unshakable, Ingenerable, and Pure. These Spaces, where are these twelve founts, named Founts of Reasons, full of eternal life, are called Deeps as well as the Twelve Countenances, because they have received in them all Spaces of Paternity on behalf of the Plêrômata and the Fruit which the Plêrôma emanated, who is Christ who has received the Plêrôma in Himself.

Beyond all these Spaces comes the Deep of Sêtheus. This he who is in them all and is surrounded by twelve Paternities, even in the midst of these is he. Each Paternity has three faces. The first of them is an Indivisible One, and three faces has he, Infinite, Invisible, and Ineffable faces. The Second Father has Uncontainable, Unshakable, and Incorruptible faces. The Third Father has faces Beyond Knowledge, Imperishable, and Aphrêdonian. The Fourth Father has a countenance of Silence, a face of Founts, and a visage Impalpable. The Fifth Father has Solitary, Omnipotent, and Ingenerable faces. The Sixth Father has the face of an All-Father, the face of a Self-Father, and the face of a Forefather. The Seventh Father has countenances of Universal Mystery, of Universal Wisdom and Universal Origin. Visages has the Eighth Father of Light, Repose, and Resurrection. The Ninth Father has faces Knowable, First Visible, and... The Tenth Father has Triple-fleshed, Adamic, and Pure faces. The Eleventh Father has faces Triple-powered, Perfect, and Sparkling. The Twelfth Father has a face of Truth, a face of Fore-thought, and a face of After-thought. These are the twelve Paternities which encircle Sêtheus. [Their faces] make in all a [mystic] number thirty-six. These are they from whom those of the exterior have received a seal-mark, that is why they glorify them for evermore (11).

In that Space there are yet twelve other paternities who encircle the head [of Sêtheus] and support a crown there. They dart out rays upon the surrounding worlds by the Grace of the Alone-begotten Word, concealed in him, He that is sought for.

[The passage enclosed within brackets has been so mutilated by the Coptic scribe that what follows is of the nature of a paraphrase rather than of a translation:—(As to the mysteries of the Word that are so much beyond us, it is not possible to describe them otherwise than as follows. Not possible for us, that is. It is impossible to describe Him as He really is with a tongue of flesh. There are glories too exalted for descriptions moved by thought and for intuition that comes through symbols, except one finds a master who is a kinsman of the deathless race yonder. From such an one can be learned something of the Spaces from whence he came; for he finds the root of all things. The mighty powers of the great æons of the Power that was in Marsanes have said in adoration, "Who is he who hath seen aught in the presence of His Face?" That is because thus does He manifest Himself [? the Alone to the Alone], Nicotheos has spoken of Him [the Alone-begotten] and seen Him, for he is one of these. He [Nicotheos] said, "The Father exists exalted above all the perfect." Nicotheos has revealed the Invisible and the perfect Triple-power. All perfect men have seen Him, they have declared Him and have given Him glory with their own lips) (12).] That is the Alone-begotten Word hidden in Sêtheus, He who is called the Dark Ray (13), for it is the excess of His light alone that is darkness. Sêtheus reigns by Him.

The Alone-begotten holds in His right hand twelve Paternities, the types of the twelve Apostles (14), while in His left hand are thirty Powers. Each of them emanates twelve two-faced æons after the type of Sêtheus. One of these faces beholds the Deep which is in the Interior [of the Temple of the Plêrôma]; the other looks without upon the Triple-Power. Each of the Paternities in His right hand emanates three hundred and sixty-five powers, according to the word that David spake, saying, "I will cherish the crown of the year in Thy Righteousness." For all these Powers encircle the Alone-begotten Son as a crown, illuminating the æons with the light of the Alone-begotten, as it is written, "In Thy light shall we see light." And the Alone-begotten is lifted up upon [the powers], as again it is written, "The Chariot of God is a myriad of multiplications"; and again, "There are millions of beings who rejoice; the Lord is in them" (15).

This is He who dwells in the Monad in Sêtheus, which comes from the place concerning which one does not ask, "Where is it?" She comes from Him who is before these Fullnesses. From the One and Only, even from Him has come forth the Monad, as a ship laden with all good things, or as a full field planted with every manner of tree, or as a city filled with men of every race and with all the statues of the king. Thus it is with the Monad where the Whole is found.

Upon her head twelve Monads form a crown; each has emanated another twelve. Ten Decads encircle her neck, nine Enneads are about her heart, and seven Hebdomads are under her feet, and each has emanated a Hebdomad. The firmament which surrounds her is like a tower with twelve gates, and at every gate are twelve myriads of powers; archangels are they called, or angels. This is the metropolis of the Alone-begotten Son (16).

Now it is of the Alone-begotten that Phôsilampes (17) has said, "Before all things is He." He it is who has come forth from the Infinite; He who has engendered Himself there and has no seal nor form and has given birth to Himself. This is He who is come forth from the Ineffable One, the Immeasurable One, who truly is, and in whom is found all that truly is, who is the Father Incomprehensible. He is in His Alone-begotten Son, while the All reposes in the Ineffable and Unspeakable King, whom none can move and whose Divinity no one can declare, whose kingdom is not of this world. Meditating upon Him, Phôsilampes has said, "Through Him is That-which-really-is and That-which-really-is-not, through which the Hidden-which-really-is and the Manifest-which-really-is-not exists."

He is the true Alone-begotten God, and all the Fullnesses (Plêrômata) know that it is by Him that they have become gods and that they have become rulers in this name—God. This is He of whom John has said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in God and the Word was God, and without Him was not anything made. That which was made in Him was Life."