It is taken from The Great Announcement, a document ascribed by Hippolytus to the very beginning of the Christianized Gnosis. Strong efforts have been made to question this ascription, and to prove the document to be of a later date, but I think I have established a high probability that it may be even a pre-Christian writing (see H., i. 184).
The text is to be found in Hippolytus’ Refutation of all Heresies (vi., 18):
“To you, therefore, I say what I say and write what I write. And the writing is this:
“Of the universal Æons (Eternities) there are two Branchings, without beginning or end, from one Root, which is the Power unseeable, incomprehensible Silence.
“Of these Branchings one is manifested from Above—the Great Power, Mind of the universals, ordering all things, male; and the other from Below—Great Thought, female, generating all things.
“Thence partnering one another they pair (lit. have union—syzygía), and bring into manifestation the Middle Distance, incomprehensible Air without beginning or end.
“In this is that Father, who supports and nourishes the things which have beginning and end.
“This is He who has stood, stands and shall stand—a male-female Power in accordance with the transcendent Boundless Power, which hath neither beginning nor end, subsisting in onlyness.
“It was by emanating from this Power (sci., Incomprehensible Silence) that Thought-in-onlyness became two.
“Yet was He, (the Supernal Father) one; for having her (sci. Thought) in Himself He was alone [that is, all-one, or only, that is one-ly]. He was not, however, [in this state] ‘first,’ although transcendent; it was only in manifesting Himself from Himself that He became ‘second’ [that is to say, as He who stands]. Nay, He was not even called ‘Father’ till Thought named Him ‘Father.’