The Prayer of Thanksgiving

NHC VI, 7

The following translation has been committed to the public domain and may be freely copied and used, changed or unchanged, for any purpose. It is based on the Coptic text of Nag Hammadi Codex VI, 7. The Nag Hammadi texts were written in the fourth century, subsequently buried, and then rediscovered in 1945. In addition to the Nag Hammadi version translated here, this communal Hermetic prayer to God the Father also exists in Greek and Latin.

This translation from the Coptic is by Samuel Zinner and was edited by Mark M. Mattison with the generous support of Other Gospels.

[63] This the prayer that they spoke:

“To you we give thanks!
To you is every soul and heart lifted up,
O tranquil name, [64] honored with the name ‘God,’
and praised with the name ‘Father.’

For to everyone and everything is the fatherly compassion and tenderness and love,
and every possible instruction that is sweet and clear,
imparting to us mind, speech, knowledge.

Mind: that we would understand you.
Speech: that we would explain you.
Knowledge:  that we would know you.

We rejoice, enlightened by your knowledge.
We rejoice, because you have revealed yourself to us.
We rejoice, because when we were in the body
by your knowledge you made us divine.

The thanksgiving of the one who reaches you is this one fact:
that we know you.
We have known you, O light of the intellect.
Life of life, we have known you.
Womb of every created being,
we have known you.
The pregnant womb bearing the essence of the Father,
we have known you.
Eternal continuance of the Father who begets,
in this way we have worshiped your goodness.

One favor we ask:
we wish to be preserved in knowledge.
And one shelter we [65] desire:
that we stumble not in this manner of life.”

Having said these things in prayer, they embraced one other, and they departed to eat their holy, bloodless food.