LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 243
beguile those of the middle^7 and to make them captive. The forgetfulness of
error was not revealed. It did not become light beside the father. Forgetful-
ness did not exist with the father, although it existed because of him.^8 What
exists in him is knowledge, which was revealed so that forgetfulness might be
destroyed and that the father might be known. Since forgetfulness existed be-
cause the father was not known, if the father comes to be known, from that
moment on forgetfulness will cease to exist.JESUS IS THE FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE
That is the gospel of him whom they seek, which he has revealed to the perfect
through the mercies of the father as the hidden mystery, Jesus the anointed.^9
Through him he enlightened those who were in darkness because of forget-
fulness. He enlightened them and gave them a path. And that path is the truth
that he taught them.^10 For this reason error was angry with him, so she perse-
cuted him. She was distressed by him, and she was made powerless. He was
nailed to a tree.^11 He became a fruit of the knowledge of the father. He did not,
however, destroy them because they ate of it. He rather caused those who ate
of it to be joyful because of this discovery.
And as for him, he found them in himself, and they found him in them-
selves, that illimitable, inconceivable one, that perfect father who made all,
in whom the realm of all is, and whom the realm of all lacks, since he retained
in himself their perfection, which he had not given to all.^12 The father was not
jealous. What jealousy, indeed, is there between him and his members? For,
even if the eternal being had received their^13 perfection, they would not have
been able to approach the perfection of the father, because he retained their
perfection in himself, giving it to them as a way to return to him and as a
knowledge unique in perfection. He is the one who set all in order and in
- Possibly psychical people who, as ordinary Christians, linger in the world between the spiri-
tual and the physical. - Or "if it existed, then (it existed) because of him." Bentley Layton, Gnostic Scriptures, 254,
translates this difficult passage as follows: "and surely then not because of him!" - Christ.
- See John 14:6.
- This reference to the tree recalls both the cross on which Christ was crucified and the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil (in Genesis 2:17 and gnostic texts). - Here and elsewhere in this and other gnostic texts, all (or, the all) can refer to the realm of
all the powers, the pleroma. - That is, the members'.