The Gnostic Bible: Gnostic Texts of Mystical Wisdom form the Ancient and Medieval Worlds

LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 263

They were alive when they offered them,

and then they died.

They offered us dead to god,

and we lived.

ONCE THERE WAS NO BREAD

Before Christ came there was no bread in the world,

just as paradise, with its Adam, had many trees

for nourishing animals but no wheat for humans.

Once we nourished ourselves like animals,

but when the perfect Christ came,

he carried bread down from heaven

so we could eat like humans.^11

RULERS AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

The rulers thought they had done everything

alone, but in secret

the holy spirit on her own accomplished it all.

SOWING TRUTH

Truth from the beginning is sown everywhere.

Many see it sown. Few see it reaped.

MARY AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

Some say the holy spirit inseminated Mary.

They are wrong and don't know what they are saying.

When did a woman ever get a woman pregnant?^12

Mary is a virgin and no powers dirtied her.

11. On Christ bringing bread from heaven in the Gospel of Philip, see manna and Christ as
    bread from heaven in John 6.


12. The spirit is considered feminine in Semitic sources, and in texts such as Gospel of Thomas
    101, the Secret Book of James, and especially the Gospel of the Hebrews, in which Jesus refers to
    his mother the holy spirit.