100 quotes found
"Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."
"If those who lead you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."
"The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a little child of seven days about the place of Life, and he will live."
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered."
"I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am watching over it until it blazes."
"This heaven shall pass away and the one above it shall pass away, and the dead are not alive and the living shall not die."
"Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me with someone and tell me whom I am like." Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a just angel." Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said to him, "Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say whom you are like." Jesus said, "I am not your teacher. You have become intoxicated because you have drunk from the bubbling spring that I have tended.""
"The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will come to pass." Jesus said, "Then have you laid bare the beginning, so that you are seeking the end? For the end will be where the beginning is. Blessed is the person who stands at rest in the beginning. And that person will be acquainted with the end and will not taste death."
"When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter [the Kingdom]."
"Within a person of light there is light which lights the whole world. When this light does not shine there is darkness."
"If you do not abstain from the world you will not find the kingdom. If you do not make the sabbath a sabbath you will not behold the father."
"I stood at rest in the midst of the world. And unto them I was shown forth incarnate; I found them all intoxicated. And I found none of them thirsty. And my soul was pained for the children of humankind, for they are blind in their hearts and cannot see. For, empty did they enter the world, and again empty they seek to leave the world."
"His disciples said, "When will You become revealed to us and when shall we see You?" Jesus said, "When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then [will you see] the Son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid"."
"Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven."
"His disciples said to Him, "When will the repose of the dead come about, and when will the new world come?" He said to them: "What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it.""
"Consider the one who is alive while you are alive, lest you die and then seek to behold that one—and you will not be able to behold."
"He who knows the All but fails to know himself lacks everything."
"If you bring forth that within yourselves, that which you have will save you. If you do not have that within yourselves, that which you do not have within you will kill you."
"It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the All. From me did the All come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find Me there."
"Why have you come out into the desert? To see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see a man clothed in fine garments like your kings and your great men? Upon them are the fine [garments], and they are unable to discern the truth."
"Whoever has become acquainted with the world has found the body, and the world is not worthy of the one who has found the body."
"Why do you wash the outside of the cup? Do you not understand that he who made the inside is also he who made the outside?"
"You read the face of the sky and of the earth, but you have not recognized the one who is before you, and you do not know how to read this moment."
"The Kingdom of the [Father] is like a certain woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking [on] a road, still some distance from home, the handle of the jar broke and the meal emptied out behind her on the road. She did not realize it; she had noticed no accident. When she reached her house, she set the jar down and found it empty."
"Whoever has found the world and become rich, let him deny the world."
"Woe to the flesh that depends upon a soul. Woe to the soul that depends upon flesh."
"His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?" [Jesus said,] "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.""
"[Λέγ]ει [᾿Ιησοῦς, ὅη]ου ἐὰν ὦσιν [β οὔκ] ε[ἰσι]ν ἄθεοι, καὶ [ὅ]που ε[ἷς] ἐστιν μόνος, [λέγω, ἐγώ εἰμι μετ᾿ αὐτ[οῦ·] ἔγει[ρ]ον τὸν λίθον κἀκεῖ εὑρήσεις με, σχίσον τὸ ξύλον κἀγὼ ἐκεῖ εἰμι."
"Λέγει Ἰησοῦς, οὐκ ἔστιν δεκτὸς προφήτης ἐν τῇ πατρίδι αὐτ[ο]ῦ, οὐδὲ ἰατρὸς ποιεῖ θεραπείας εἰς τοὺς γινώσκοντας αὐτόν."
"Λέγει Ἰησοῦς, πόλις ᾠκοδομημένη ἐπ᾿ ἄκρον [ὄ]ρους ὑψηλοῦ καὶ ἐστηριγμένη οὔτε πε[σ]εῖν δύναται οὔτε κρυ[β]ῆναι."
"[T]he gnostic Gospel of Thomas relates that as soon as Thomas recognizes him, Jesus says to Thomas that they have both received their being from the same source...Does not such teaching—the identity of the divine and human, the concern with illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is presented not as Lord, but as spiritual guide—sound more Eastern than Western? Some scholars have suggested that if the names were changed, the "living Buddha" appropriately could say what the Gospel of Thomas attributes to the living Jesus. Could Hindu or Buddhist tradition have influenced gnosticism?"
"Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, New Sayings of Jesus and Fragment of a Lost Gospel from Oxyrhynchus (New York and London: for the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1904)"
"A. Guillaumont, H.-Ch. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah ʿAbd al Masīh, The Gospel According to Thomas: The Coptic Text Established and Translated (New York: Harper & Bros, 1959)"
"Thomas O. Lambdin, The Gospel of Thomas, in James M. Robinson (ed.) The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977). Digitised, and somewhat revised, for The Gnostic Society Library, The Gnosis Archive"
"Marvin W. Meyer, The Secret Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1984)"
"Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987)"
"William G. Morrice, Hidden Sayings of Jesus: Words Attributed to Jesus Outside the Four Gospels (London: SPCK, 1997)"
"The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week, three days before he celebrated Passover"
"The first is Seth, who is called Christ."
"Those [i.e., the disciples] you have seen receiving the offerings at the altar — that is who you are. That is the God you serve, and you are those twelve men you have seen. The cattle you have seen brought for sacrifice are the many people you lead astray before that altar. [. . .] will stand and make use of My name in this way, and generations of the pious will remain loyal to Him."
"Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him: Step away from the others [the disciples] and I shall tell you the mysteries of the Kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. For someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve [elements] may again come to completion with their God."
"Look, you have been told everything. Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star."
"You shall be cursed for generations... you will come to rule over them... You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."
"In the last days they will curse your ascent to the holy [generation]."
"Judas's act of "betrayal" is in fact his faithful obedience to Jesus' will."
"[Some] declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. . .They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictional history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas."
"In those days the Church decided for political reasons to include the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Bible. The other gospels were banned. It is highly logical that the Catholic Church would have kept a copy of the forbidden gospels. Sadly, the Vatican does not want to clarify further. Their policy has been the same for years – 'No further comment.'"
"This is a demonstrably late text which simply parallels a large number of quite well-known works from the more eccentric fringes of the early century Church... We are instantly fascinated by the suggestion of conspiracies and cover-ups; this has become so much the stuff of our imagination these days that it is only natural, it seems, to expect it when we turn to ancient texts, especially biblical texts. We treat them as if they were unconvincing press releases from some official source, whose intention is to conceal the real story; and that real story waits for the intrepid investigator to uncover it and share it with the waiting world. Anything that looks like the official version is automatically suspect."
"Light and darkness, life and death, and right and left are siblings of one another, and inseparable. For this reason the good are not good, the bad are not bad, life is not life, death is not death. Each will dissolve into its original nature, but what is superior to the world cannot be dissolved, for it is eternal."
"The names of worldly things are utterly deceptive, for they turn the heart from what is real to what is unreal. Whoever hears the word god thinks not of what is real but rather of what is unreal. So also with the words father, son, holy spirit, life, light, resurrection, church, and all the rest, people do not think of what is real but of what is unreal, [though] the words refer to what is real. The words [that are] heard belong to this world. [Do not be] deceived. If words belonged to the eternal realm, they would never be pronounced in this world, nor would they designate worldly things. They would refer to what is in the eternal realm."
"Truth brought forth names in the world for us, and no one can refer to truth without names. Truth is one and many, for our sakes, to teach us about the one, in love, through the many."
"The rulers wanted to fool people, since they saw that people have a kinship with what is truly good. They took the names of the good and assigned them to what is not good, to fool people with names and link the names to what is not good. So, as if they were doing people a favor, they took names from what is not good and transferred them to the good, in their own way of thinking. For they wished to take free people and enslave them forever."
"The rulers wanted to deceive man, since they saw that he had a kinship with those that are truly good. They took the name of those that are good and gave it to those that are not good, so that through the names they might deceive him and bind them."
"And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth."
"Praised be Thou, my Lord, with a pure heart, (mšabit marai b-liba dakia)"
"When the fruit (was still) in the fruit,"
"Manda ḏ-Hiia went to Yuhana the Baptist and spoke to him:"
"Thereupon Šilmai, the master of the house, arose, went before Yathrun, the perfect man. He said to him:"
"I am the Life Who was from aforetime; (ana hu hiia ḏ-hun mn l-aqadmia)"
"Who brought me out of the house of the Life? (mn bit hiia man atian)"
"Naked they brought me into the world (arṭil l-alma atalḥ),"
"Again I feel the need and responsibility to defend our principal religious manuscript, the Ginza Rba, the Great Treasure of all Mandaeans. If you want the truth, the Ginza Rba is the backbone of our community. Without it the Mandaeans could never have survived the centuries-long atrocities, fanaticism and extremism of other nations; without it, I am sure, they would soon disappear in the near future. We should not forget that their successful resistance in the past was due to it. If you read the colophon of sheykh Salah Jabbar at the end of this book, you will see that there was a good tradition among the priesthood, namely: to look upon the Ganzibra amongst them, who has succeeded in copying a scroll of the Ginza Rba to the last word with his right hand (nasaka ḏ-kulhun ginzia b-iaminḥ), as a steadfast and reliable religious man. So they valued his knowledge and appreciated his work to a great extent and placed a crown of honour upon his head."
"Hermes: All knowledge is incorporeal, using the mind as an instrument, just as the mind uses the body. Both then come into the body, mind and matter. All things must be composed of contrast and opposition; it cannot be otherwise."
"The Word is an image of Nous, and Nous is an image of God; just as the body is an image of an idea, and the idea is an image of the soul. Thus the finest part of matter is air, of air, soul, of soul, Nous, and of Nous, God. And God encompasses all and is through all, and Nous encompasses souls, and soul, air, and air, matter. Necessity, providence and nature are instruments by which the cosmos is governed and by which matter is set in order. Now each of the spiritual beings is an essence and this essence is unchanging identity. Each body in the universe is manifold, and compound bodies, while holding this identity change in to each other. Yet they always preserve that indestructible identity."
"Furthermore, in each and every compound body there is number. For without number it is impossible for combination, composition or dissolution to occur. The One in each brings forth number and increases it, and again dissolving it, receives it into itself, while matter remains one. This entire cosmos, this great god, which is an image of the greater, with whom it is united, preserves the order and will of the Father and is the abundance of life. In this cosmos, throughout the eternal cycle of ages, which issues from the Father, there is nothing, neither of the whole nor of any part, that does not live. In the cosmos not one dead thing has come to be, is, or will be. For the Father willed that as long as it exists it should be a living being. Therefore the cosmos must needs be a god also."
"The Crown is composed of four mysteries, which are the Wellspring and Datepalm, Fecundation, Glory and Light. It is constructed of seven mysteries which are the ears, the five hasfia of the head, and the hair, for it (the Crown?) dominateth three hundred and sixty mysteries — which are the Body, of its Right and its Left. And all took shape within them and settled therein and developed into a thousand mysteries."
"Now as to these two mysteries of ziwa and nhura (radiant light and diffused light):"
"The worlds of darkness and the worlds of light are Body and Counterpart,"
"So, when the Soul came from worlds of light and fell into the body,"
"Behold and learn that betwixt Darkness and Light"
"They will no longer love this world around us, this incomparable work of God, this glorious structure which He has built..."
"Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven."
"The pious will be deemed insane, and the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good."
"No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven and of the Gods of heaven, will be heard or believed."
"But when all this has befallen, Asclepius, then the Master and Father, God, the first before all, the maker of that God who first came into being, will look on that which has come to pass, and will stay the disorder by the counterworking of His will, which is the good."
"He will call back to the right path those who have gone astray; He will cleanse the world from evil, now washing it away with water-floods, now burning it out with fiercest fire, or again expelling it by war and pestilence."
"And thus He will bring back His world to its former aspect, so that the Cosmos will once more be deemed worthy of worship and wondering reverence, and God, the maker and restorer of the mighty fabric, will be adored by the men of that day with unceasing hymns of praise and blessing."
"I, Mind, Myself am present with holy men and good, the pure and merciful, men who live piously. To such My Presence doth become an aid, and straightway they gain Gnosis of all things, and win the Father's love by their pure lives, and give Him thanks, invoking on Him blessings, and chanting hymns, intent on Him with ardent love (ii, 14)."
"But on the pious soul the Mind doth mount and guide it to the Gnosis' Light. And such a soul doth never tire in songs of praise to God and pouring blessing on all men, and doing good in word and deed to all, in imitation of its Sire (ii, 155)."
"He is Himself, both things that are and things that are not. The things that are He hath made manifest, he keepeth things that are not in Himself. He is the God beyond all name - He the unmanifest, he the most manifest; He whom the mind alone can contemplate, He visible unto the eyes as well. He is the one of no body, the one of many bodies, nay, rather, He of every body. Naught is there which He is not, for all are He, and He is all (ii, 104)."
"A Hymn to All-Father God WHO, then, may sing Thee praise of Thee, or praise to Thee? WHITHER, again, am I to turn my eyes to sing Thy praise; above, below, within, without? There is no way, no place is there about Thee, nor any other thing of things that are. All are in Thee; all are from Thee; O Thou Who givest all and takest naught, for Thou hast all and naught is there Thou hast not. And WHEN, O Father, shall l hymn Thee? For none can seize Thy hour or time. For WHAT, again, shall I sing hymn? For things that Thou hast made, or things Thou hast not? For things Thou hast made manifest, or things Thou hast concealed? How, further, shall I hymn Thee? As being of myself? As having something of mine own? As being other? For that Thou art whatever I may be; Thou art whatever I may do; Thou art whatever I may speak. For Thou art all, and there is nothing else which Thou art not. Thou art all that which doth exist, and Thou art what doth not exist,-Mind when Thou thinkest, and Father when Thou makest, and God when Thou dost energize, and Good and Maker of all things (i, 105)."
"There is no one Song of the Powers written in human speech and kept secret; no manuscript, no oral tradition, of some physically uttered hymn."
"The Shepherd, Mind of all masterhood, hath not passed on to me more than hath been writ down, for full well did He know that I should of myself be able to learn all, and see all things. He left to me the making of fair things."
"Wherefore the Powers within me, e'en as they are in all, break into song. The Song can be sung in many modes and many tongues, according to the inspiration of the illumined singer."
"The man who is reborn becomes a psalmist and a poet, for now is he tuned in harmony with the Great Harmony, and cannot do otherwise than sing God's praises. He becomes a maker of hymns and is no longer a repeater of the hymns of others."
"But Tat persists; his soul is filled with longing to hear some echo of the Great Song. "Father, I wish to hear; I long to know these things!""
"For naught is there of which He stands in need, in that He is all things and all are in Him."
"But let us worship, pouring forth our thanks. For this is the best incense in God's sight when thanks are given to Him by men. (ii, 388 )."
"I went to the jordan, but not I alone,"
"I rose up from the jordan"
"Good is the Good for the good,"
"Šilmai hath baptised us with his baptism,"
"Her Sunday, her kušṭa and her alms"
"It is the voice of Manda d’Heyyi (qala ḏ-manda ḏ-hiia)"
"I saw my father, I saw him,"
"A treasure am I—Life’s Treasure! (simat ana, simat hiia)"
"The little child spoke up, saying, “I know who you are, Paul: you are the one who was blessed from his mother’s womb. I saw that you were on your way up to Jerusalem, to your fellow apostles, and it is because of this that I was sent to you. I am the Spirit, who is with you. ... It is to the twelve apostles that you are going, for they are elect spirits, and they will greet you.” ... and he saw the twelve apostles at his right and at his left in the creation, and the Spirit was going before them."
"Then as I went, the gate opened and I went up to the fifth heaven. And I saw my fellow apostles going with me while the Spirit was going about with us. And I saw a great angel in the fifth heaven, holding an iron rod in his hand, three other angels with him. And I gazed at their faces. They were quarrelling with one another, with whips in their hands, goading the souls on to the judgement. But as for me, I was going with the Spirit, and the door opened for me."
"I saw an old man ... the light ... white ... in the seventh heaven, shining seven times more than the sun. The old man spoke, saying to me, “Where are you going, Paul, the blessed one who was set apart from his mother’s womb?” But as for me, I looked to the Spirit, and it was nodding its head, telling me to speak with him. And I spoke up, saying to the old man, “I am going to the place from which I came.”"
"And then the seventh heaven opened and we went up to the Ogdoad. I saw the twelve apostles. They greeted me, and we went up to the ninth heaven. I greeted everyone in the ninth heaven. And we went up to the tenth heaven. And I greeted my fellow spirits."