The Thunder, Perfect Mind

NHC VI, 2

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, 2. The Nag Hammadi texts were written in the fourth century, subsequently buried, and then rediscovered in 1945. In this tractate, a divine feminine speaker delivers a monologue filled with paradoxical statements, a common feature of esoteric texts.

This translation from the Coptic is by Samuel Zinner and was edited by Mark M. Mattison with the generous support of Other Gospels. Chapter and verse enumerations have been added by the translator.

Symbols

[ ]   Gap in the text (known as a “lacuna”)
( )   Editorial insertion to clarify the text
< >   Editorial correction of a scribal error
[13]  Page number of the Coptic codex (hyperlinked)
1 Note

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

[13] I was sent forth from [the] Power,
and have come to those who meditate on me,
and have been found among those who seek for me.
Look at me, you who meditate on me,
and you obedient ones, obey me. 1  
You who expectantly wait 2 for me, embrace me,
and send me not away from your sight,
and make not your voice hateful to me, nor your hearing.
Be not ignorant of me in any place or at any time.
Be on your guard; be not ignorant of me,
for I am the first and the last.

First “I Am” Speech"

I am the honored and the scorned.
I am the whore and the holy.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am <the mother> and the daughter. 3
I am the limbs of my mother.
I am the barren one whose children are many.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have taken no husband.
I am the midwife and she who bears not.
I am the comfort after my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and my husband gave birth to me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband,
and he is my offspring.
I am the servant of him who possessed me. 4
I am the ruler [14] of my offspring,
who, however, [gave birth to me] before the day of my birth.
And he is my offspring born [on] time,
and my power is from him.
I am the staff of his power during his youth,
[and] he is my rod when I am old,
and whatever he wants will come to pass for me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the thought whose remembrance is great.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearances are many. 5
I am the utterance of my name.

Heed Me

Why do you love those who hate me
and hate those who love me? 6
You who deny me confess me,
and you who confess me deny me.
You who speak the truth about me lie about me,
and you who lie about me speak the truth about me.
You who know me, be ignorant of me,
and those who have known me not, let them know me,
for I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and pride.
I am without shame; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and peace.
Heed me: I am the disgraced and the great.
Heed my [15] poverty and my wealth.
Be not arrogant toward me when I am cast down on the ground,
[and] you will find me in [those who] will come to be.
And when you look [at] me on the dung-heap,
do not abandon and leave me cast out,
and you will find me in the kingdoms.
And do not despise me when I am cast out among the disgraced,
and when in the lowliest places, laugh not at me,
and cast me not out among those killed in violence.

I, however, I am merciful and I am cruel.
Be on your guard!
Hate not my obedience and love not my self-control.
When I am weak, forsake me not,
and fear me not when I am in my power.
For why would you despise my fear and curse my pride?
I, however, am she who is found in all fears,
and I am strength in trembling.
I am she who is sick, 7
and I am well in a pleasant place.
I am without sense and I am wise.
Why have you hated me in your counsels?
For among the silent I shall be silent,
and I shall appear and speak.

Second “I Am” Speech

[16] Then why have you hated me, you Greeks?
Because I am a barbarian among [the] barbarians?
For I am the wisdom [of the] Greeks
and the knowledge of [the] barbarians.
I am the judgement 8 of [the] Greeks and of the barbarians.
[I] am the one whose image is great in Egypt,
and the one without an image among the barbarians.
I am the one hated everywhere,
and the one loved everywhere.
I am the one they call “life,”
and the one you call “death.”
I am the one they call “law,”
and the one you call “lawless.”
I am the one you have persecuted, 9
and I am the one you have seized. 10
I am the one you have scattered,
and you have gathered me together.
I am the one in whose presence you have been ashamed,
and you have acted shamelessly toward me.
I am she who keeps not festival,
and I am she whose festivals are many.
I, I am godless,
and I am the one whose God is great.
I am the one on whom you have meditated, 11
and you have rejected me.
I am uneducated,
and they learn from me.
I am the one you despised,
and you meditate on me. 12
I am the one from whom you have hidden,
and you appear to me.
When you, however, hide yourselves,
it is I who will appear.
[17] For [when] you [appear],
I [will hide] myself from you.

Embrace Me

Those who have [...] without sense [...],
remove me [from] their [understanding], from grief. 13
And you embrace me from understanding [and] grief,
and embrace me from wretched and ruined places,
and rob from the good even if in wretchedness.
From shame, embrace me shamelessly;
and from shamelessness and shame,
put to shame my limbs within you.
And draw near to me, you who know me,
and you who know my limbs,
and establish the great ones among the small, first creatures.
Draw near to childhood,
and despise it not because it is small and it is slight.
And turn not away great things, little by little, from small things,
for the small things are known from the great things.
Why do you curse me and honor me?
You have wounded and you have been merciful.
Separate me not from the first ones, [18] whom you have [known],
[and] cast not [out] anyone [nor] turn anyone away.
[...] turn you away and [... know] him not.
[...]. What is mine [...].
I know the [first ones] and those after them [know] me.

Third “I Am” Speech

I, however, am the [perfect] mind and the repose of [thunder]. 14
I am the knowledge of my seeking,
and the finding of those who seek for me,
and the command of those who ask of me,
and the power of powers in my knowledge
of the angels sent at my word,
and of gods among gods by my counsel,
and of spirits of every person who abides with me,
and of women who abide within me.
I am the honored and the praised,
and the one despised in scorn.
I am peace, and war has come because of me,
and I am a foreigner and a citizen.
I am the substance and the one without substance. 15
Those not in union with me are ignorant of me,
and those who share in my substance know me.
Those near to me have been ignorant of me,
and those far away from me have known me.
On the day when I am near [19] [you],
[you] are far away [from me],
[and] on the day when I [am far] away from you,
[I am near] you.

[I am ...] a lamp of the heart. 16
[I am ...] of natures.
I am [...] of the creation of spirits.
[and the] request of souls.
[I am] control and the lack of control.
I am union and dissolution.
I am what abides and I am what dissolves.
I am the one below,
and they ascend to me.
I am judgment and pardon.
I, I am sinless,
and the root of sin originates from me.
I am lust that appears outwardly,
and inside me is self-control.
I am the hearing everyone can attain,
and the speech that cannot be grasped. 17
I talk not, I speak not,
and great is the multitude of my words.
Hear me in gentleness, and learn of me in roughness.
I am she who cries out,
and I am cast forth on the face of the earth.
I prepare bread and my mind within.
I am the knowledge of my name.
I am the one who calls out, and I listen.
[20] 18 1 I appear and [...] walk in [...] seal of my [...].

I am [the judge; I] am the defense [...].
I am the one called “justice,”
and “crime” [is my name]. 18
You honor me, [you who win],
and you whisper against me, you who lose.
Sentence them before they sentence you,
because the judge and partiality dwell within you.
If you are condemned by him, who will pardon you?
Or, if he pardons you, who can detain you?
For what is inside you is what is outside you,
and the one who fashions you on the outside
is the one who formed what is inside you.
And what you see outside you, you see inside you:
It is what is visible, and it is your garment.

Obey me and Live Forever

Obey me, you obedient ones,
and learn my words, you who know me.
I am the hearing everyone can attain,
and the speech that cannot be grasped. 19
I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name.
I am the sign of the letter and what indicates division.
And I [21] [...]. 20
[...] light [...] and [shadow].
[Obey me,] you obedient ones, [embrace me]. 

As [the Lord], the great power, lives,
[he who stands] will not change the name.
[He who stands] created me, 21
and I will speak his name.
Look then at his words
and at all the writings that have been completed.
Heed them then, you obedient ones,
and you also, you angels who have been sent,
and you spirits who have risen from among the dead.
For I alone exist,
and I have no one who will judge me.
For many are the fair forms of sins,
and uncontrolled deeds,
and disgraceful desires,
and fleeting pleasures people embrace
until they become sober
and ascend to their place of repose.
And they will find me there,
and they will live,
and never die again.

Notes

1 Literally, “you hearing ones . . . hear me.” Like the Biblical “hear/hearken,” the sense is “obey.”
2 “Expectantly wait”: The Coptic, like its Biblical cognates, can mean both “wait” and “expect.” I have combined both meanings.
3 <The mother>, an emendation for the manuscript reading “the thinking one.”
4 “Possessed,” or “created”; cf. Proverbs 8:22 and the scholarly debate about the Hebrew word qnny.
5 “Word,” logos, is usually rendered “word,” but the meaning is not a single spoken word, but a discourse, a speech of many words. For a parallel to the appearance of speech, see Exodus 20:14 “And all the people saw the voices. . . .”
6 Here I adopt George W. MacRae’s emendation.
7 “Sick,” literally “weak,” but the contrast to “well” indicates the meaning here refers to sickness.
8 “Wisdom” (Greek loanword sophia), “knowledge” (Greek loanword gnosis), “judgment,” (Coptic fap=hap, semantically corresponding to Greek krisis).
9 “Persecuted”; the Coptic can also mean “pursued.”
10 “Seized,” or “grasped.” The passage might then alternatively refer to pursuing and grasping a thought.
11 “Meditated,” perhaps “professed,” as Poirier suggests.
12 “Meditate,” perhaps “profess,” as Poirier suggests.
13 Because of the lacuna the role of grief in the passage is not entirely clear.
14 “Thunder,” accepting the suggestion of Plisch.
15 “Substance,” ousia.
16 “Lamp of the heart,” following the reading of Marvin Meyer. Cf. Proverbs 20:27a, “The soul of man is the lamp of the LORD. . . .”
17 MacRae suggests the alternative reading, “I am the report that is acceptable to everyone, and the word that cannot be grasped.”
18 “Is my name,” following Marvin Meyer.
19 MacRae suggests the alternative reading, “I am the report that is acceptable to everyone, and the word that cannot be grasped.”
20 21:1-3 is lacking.
21 21:4-10 is fragmentary. I have accepted most of Meyer’s reconstructions.