276 LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM
IN THIS WORLD OR THE RESURRECTION
Either someone will be in this world
or in the resurrection or in the middle place.
God forbid that I be found in the middle!
In this world there is good and evil.
Its good is not good, and evil not evil.
But there is evil after this world
that is truly evil—which is called the middle.^40
The middle is death.
While we are in this world it is best to acquire resurrection
for ourselves^41
so when we strip off the flesh we may rest
and not walk in the middle.
Many go astray on the way.WILL AND SIN
It is good to leave the world before one has sinned.
Some have neither the will nor the ability to act.
Others, even if they have the will, are better off
if they do not act, for the act of the will makes them sinners.
But even if they have no will to act,
justice may be concealed from them,
whether they have the will or not.
Will, not action, is always primary.HELL
A messenger in a vision saw people
locked up in a house of fire and bound with fiery chains,
lying in a flaming ointment.
He asked them, "Why can't they be saved?"
"We did not desire it," they told the messenger,- The middle realm as the world between the spiritual realm above and the physical world
below is also treated in other gnostic texts, including the Gospel of Truth. - Resurrection is discussed in the Treatise on Resurrection.