LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 337ON BAPTISM (A)
This is the fullness of the summary of knowledge,
the summary revealed to us
by our lord Jesus the anointed,
the only son.
These are the sure and necessary things,
so that we may walk in them.
They are of the first baptism ...
The first baptism is the forgiveness of sins ...
you ... your sins
a pattern ... of the anointed,
which is the equal... within him
Jesus
The first baptism is the forgiveness of sins.
It delivers us from them
into those of the right,^4
into the incorruptibility that is the Jordan.
But that place is of the world.
So we have been sent out of the world
into the eternal realm.
For the interpretation of John^5 is the eternal realm,
while the interpretation of the Jordan
is the descent that is the upward progression,^6
our exodus from the world
into the eternal realm.ON BAPTISM (B)
From the world into the Jordan,
and from the world's blindness into the sight of god,
from the carnal into the spiritual,4- In Valentinian thought those of the right are psychical people, as opposed to those of the left,
who are material people.
5- John the baptizer.
- The upward progression is the ascent to the pleroma, or fullness.