336 LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOMVALENTINIAN
LITURGICAL
READINGS
ON ANOINTING^2
It is fitting for you at this time
to send your son Jesus the anointed
and anoint us,
so we can trample on snakes
and the heads of scorpions
and all the power of the devil,^3
since he is the shepherd of the seed.
Through him we have known you.
And we glorify you:
Glory be to you,
the father in the son,
the father in the son,
the father in the holy church,
and in the holy angels.
From now on he abides forever
in the perpetuity of the eternal realms,
forever,
until the untraceable eternal realms
of the eternal realms.
Amen.- The Valentinian Liturgical Readings: Nag Hammadi Codex XI, pp. 40,1 to 44,37, translated
by John D. Turner in Charles W. Hedrick, ed., Nag Hammadi Codices XI, XII and XIII (Leiden
& New York: E. J. Brill, 1990), pp. 142-51; revised in verse by Willis Barnstone and Marvin
Meyer. Reprinted by permission of Brill Academic Publishers. The selections are in a very frag-
mentary state, and we have arranged the fragments and presented the legible words in such a
way as to allow for an appreciation of something of their poetic quality. - Luke 10:19; see also Mark 16:18 (longer ending of Mark); Acts 28:3-6. Snake-handling reli-
gions in the present day also handle serpents.