MANICHAEAN LITERATURE 607
So they are the masters in the watched districts
of his outer brothers. There, in the great body,
the earthquakes and betrayal happened again and again.
There is the mind's watched district,
which is the body of the flesh.
But sin looms incessantly, agitating in the body.POWERS OF LIGHT ARE GOOD
Now you understand that the powers of light are good
and the beginning and the end are unveiled to them.
Whatever they do is with good judgment.
For this reason they allow the enmity
of initial error and follow its pleasure for a moment.
Then they seize. They have acted first
with a well-tempered judgment.^31HOW MAY THE LIGHT MIND COME?
As for the other question you ask me,
how may the light mind come, this great and honored
holy one, and assume this little body of flesh?^32
Again, look, look. These gods are great and mighty.
Each is enclosed and hard pressed in the place
where he is set like trees holding to their taproot.
So this is also how each one holds his taproot.
So this is how each one has held on
to his taproot in the world and where he is set.
Now, as you already know, the world is set firm,
ordered by the five sons of the living spirit
in all its members.
Sin took this body from the land,
constructed it in its members.
It took its body from the five bodies of darkness.
Sin constructed the body. Yet its soul it took
from the five shining gods. Sin bound the soul- The triumph of the light in human life is assured.
- See Gospel of Thomas 29 and John 1.