From the Gnostic Nag Hammadi Library: On the Resurrection and the Father, Part 2 of 2

Today, we continue with a selection from the Nag Hammadi’s Treatise on the Resurrection, also known as “The Letter to Rheginos,” as well as a passage from The Tripartite Tractate. “He existed before anything other than Himself came into being. The Father is a single One, like a number, for He is the first One and the One Who is only Himself. Yet He is not like a solitary individual. Otherwise, how could He be a father? For whenever there is a ‘father,’ the name ‘son’ follows. But the single One, Who alone is the Father, is like a root, with tree, branches and fruit. It is said of Him that He is a Father in the proper sense, since He is inimitable and immutable. Because of this, He is single in the proper sense, and is a God, because no one is a god for Him nor is anyone a father to Him. For He is unbegotten, and there is no other who begot Him, nor another who created Him.” “In the proper sense, He alone - the good, the unbegotten Father, and the complete perfect One - is the one filled with all His offspring, and with every virtue, and with everything of value. And He has more, that is, lack of any malice, in order that it may be discovered that whoever has anything is indebted to Him, because He gives it, being Himself unreachable and unwearied by that which He gives, since He is wealthy in the gifts which He bestows, and at rest in the favors which He grants.” “He is of such a kind and form and great magnitude that no one else has been with Him from the beginning; nor is there a place in which He is, or from which He has come forth, or into which He will go; nor is there a primordial form, which He uses as a model as He works; nor is there any difficulty which accompanies Him in what He does; nor is there any material which is at His disposal, from which creates what He creates; nor any substance within Him from which He begets what He begets; nor a co-worker with Him, working with Him on the things at which He works. To say anything of this sort is ignorant. Rather, (one should speak of Him) as good, faultless, perfect, complete, being Himself the Totality.”