Page 443 - Demo

4271.The secret words that the Saviourspoke to Judas Thomas which I, even I, Mathaias, wrote down, while I was walking, listening to them speak with one another.2.The Savioursaid, \will reveal to you the things you have pondered in your mind.3.\yourself, and learn who you are, in what way you exist, andhow you will come to be. Since you will be called my brother, it is not fitting that you be ignorant of yourself. And I know that you have understood, because you had already understood that I am the knowledge of the truth. 4.So while you accompany me, although you are uncomprehending, you have (in fact) already come to know, and you will be called 'the one who knows himself'. For he who has not known himself has known nothing, but he who has known himself has at the same time already achieved knowledge about the depth of the all. 5.So then, you, my brother Thomas, have beheld what is obscure to men, that is, what they ignorantly stumble against.\6.Now Thomas said to the lord, \ascension, and when I hear from you about the hidden things, then I can speak about them. And it is obvious to me that the truth is difficult to perform before men.\7.The Saviouranswered, saying, \how can you hear about the things that are not visible? If the deeds of the truth that are visible in the world are difficult for you to perform, how indeed, then, shall you perform those that pertain to the exalted height and to the pleroma which arenot visible? And how shall you be called 'laborers'? In this respect you are apprentices, and have not yet received the height of perfection.\8.Now Thomas answered and said to the Saviour, \are not visible, but are hidden from us.\9.The Savioursaid, \too, those that are above [...] things that are visible, but they are visible in their own root, and it is their fruit that nourishes them. But these visible bodies survive by devouring creatures similar to them with the result that the bodies change. Now that which changes will decay and perish, and has no hope of life from then on, since that body is bestial. So just as the body of the beasts perishes, so also will these formations perish. Do they not derive from intercourse like that of the beasts? If it, too derives from