Aeonic Life – Selections from the Gnostic Nag Hammadi Library, Part 1 of 2

The Nag Hammadi Library is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic manuscripts, also called codices, that were discovered in 1945, near the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi. Gnostics believe that a Divine spark exists within each person, through which a direct experience of God can be achieved. Now, we invite you to join us for excerpts of “Aeonic Life” from The Tripartite Tractate in “The Nag Hammadi Library.” In Gnostic terms, the Aeon represents a level of Divine perfection that came from God the Father and is without form.

“All those who came forth from Him [who] are the aeons of the aeons, being emanations and offspring of [His] procreative nature, they too, in their procreative nature, have [given] glory to the Father, as He was the cause of their establishment.”

“Now, this was a praise [...] the one who brought forth the Totalities, being a first-fruit of the immortals and an eternal one, because, having come forth from the living aeons, being perfect and full because of the One who is perfect and full, it left full and perfect those who have given glory in a perfect way because of the fellowship. For, like the faultless Father, when He is glorified He also hears the glory which glorifies Him, so as to make them manifest as that which He is.”

“All those who glorify the Father have their begetting eternally, – they beget in the act of assisting one another – since the emanations are limitless and immeasurable and since there is no envy on the part of the Father toward those who came forth from Him in regard to their begetting something equal or similar to Him, since He is the one who exists in the Totalities, begetting and revealing Himself. Whomever He wishes, He makes into a father, of whom He in fact is Father, and a god, of whom He in fact is God, and He makes them the Totalities, whose entirety He is.”

“It is He, the Father, who gave root impulses to the aeons, since they are places on the path which leads toward Him, as toward a school of behavior. He has extended to them faith in and prayer to Him whom they do not see; and a firm hope in Him of whom they do not conceive; and a fruitful love, which looks toward that which it does not see; and an acceptable understanding of the eternal mind; and a blessing, which is riches and freedom; and a wisdom of the one who desires the glory of the Father for [His] thought.”