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The Secret Book of John
Samuel Zinner, edited by Mark M. Mattison; Other Gospels · Translated text
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Chapter 12 — Codex II
1. I, however, said: “Lord, what (is) ‘she moved back and forth’?” and he grinned, and said: “Think not that it agrees with what Moses said, ‘above the waters,’ no!
2. Instead, when she had witnessed the evil that had occurred, and the theft her son had perpetrated, she repented, and she was overwhelmed by oblivion inside the darkness of ignorance, and she began to feel shame about.
3. The movement, however, is ‘to go back and forth,’ and the proud one procured a power from his mother, because he was ignorant, assuming that no one but his mother existed.
4. When he, however, saw the host of angels he had created, he then lifted up himself above them.
5. Further, when the mother realized that the garment of darkness was flawed, she then understood that her companion had not agreed together with her.
6. She repented, ⟦page 14⟧ weeping copiously, and the entire Fullness hearkened to her prayer of repentance, and on her behalf they praised the unseen, virginal Spirit.
7. The holy Spirit poured out on her from their entire Fullness, because it was not that her companion approached her (alone), but he approached her by means of the Fullness, so that he could rectify her deficiency, and she was taken up, not, however, to her own aeon, but above her son, so that she would dwell in the Ninth until she had rectified her deficiency.
8. A voice also came forth from the lofty heavenly aeon: ‘The Man exists, and the Son of Man,’ and the chief archon, Yaltabaoth, overheard and assumed that the voice had come from his mother, and he knew not from where it had come.
9. He also taught them, that is, the sacred and perfect Mother-Father, the perfect Providence, the image of the unseen one, who is the Father of the All, through whom everything came to be, the Primal Man, because in a male form he made manifest his likeness.
10. Further, the entire aeon of the chief archon shook, and the foundations of the abyss moved, and the bottom of the waters above matter was illuminated by the appearance of this image that had been made manifest, and when all of the authorities and the chief archon looked, they saw the entire region underneath them illuminated.