During the 1984-85 school year, I had the opportunity to study the Coptic language and to read some of the Nag Hammadi texts. I first translated Thunder: Perfect Mind in 1985. It sat unpublished in my notebooks until I finally typed it up in 2003, making minor revisions as I entered it. I made a few more revisions when it was published by Ecclesia Gnostica Universalis in 2008. In posting this version, I compared the 2008 version with the 2003 text and reverted a few phases which I’d gotten better the first time around. The last paragraph (italicized) is my own initiated reconstruction of the original ending which I wrote for the 2008 publication, replacing the clearly altered or appended ending in the extant text.1 Enjoy!
— Skye Love Hill, January 13, 2019.
From the Power was I sent forth, and unto those who remember me have I come, and I have been found within those who seek me. Behold me, ye who remember me, and ye who listen, hear me.
Ye who await me, receive me within yourselves, yet do not fail to see me with your eyes, and do not turn your voice against me, nor your ears. Do not be unaware of me in any place or at any time. Listen! Do not ignore me.
For I am the beginning and the end. I am the blessed and the cursed. I am the whore and the priestess. I am the wife and the maiden. I am the mother and the daughter. I am the Manifestation of my Mother.
I am the barren one whose children are many. I am she whose feasts are many, yet I have not taken a husband. I am the midwife and she who prevents birth. I am deliverance from the pains of childbirth.
I am the marriage and the giver in marriage, and it is my husband who has received me. I am the mother-ear of my barley-father, and the harvest-sister of my husband-man, and he is my seed. I am the serving-maid of him who brewed me. I am the Lady of my Children.
Yet he anointed the womb, before time, as for birth; and he is my seed, within time, and my power springs from him. I am the wand of his power in his youth, and he is the staff of my old age, and whatever he wills come to pass through me.
I am the silence that no one knows, and the insight that is everywhere. I am the sound that they sing forever, and the word that they always know. I am the Calling of my Name.
Why do you love those who hate me and hate those who love me? You who deny me, declare me! And you who declare me, deny me! You who speak truly of me, lie about me! And you who lie about me, speak truly of me! You who know me, forget me! And you who know me not, remember me!
For I am knowledge and ignorance. I am shame and shamelessness. I am innocence. I am guilt. I am courage and I am fear. I am troubled and peaceful. Listen to me! I am she who is belittled and she who is great. Take to heart my poverty and my wealth.
Do not exalt yourself when I am cast upon the earth, for you will find me among those that are to come. Nor see me on the burial-heap and leave me lying there, for you will find in me the kingdom. Nor see me cast out with those condemned as Apocrypha, and you will learn from me. But do not waste me on those who are deficient in understanding.
For I, I am kind and I am cruel. Beware! Do not hate my yielding nor love my discipline. In my weakness, do not abandon me, and fear not my power. Why do you despise my fear and curse my pride?
For I am she who abides in all fears, and the strength in trembling. I am she who is weak, and I heal in a place of pleasure. I am simple and I am wise.
Why have you hated me in your councils? Because I will be silent among the silent, or because I will stand forth and speak? Why then have you have you hated me, ye Greeks? Because I am a barbarian among barbarians?
For I am the Sophia of the Greeks and the Gnosis of the Barbarians. I am the Law of the Greeks and the Barbarians. I am she who has many images in Egypt and who has no image among the Barbarians.2 I am she who has been hated everywhere, and she who has been loved everywhere.
I am she whose name is Life, and whom you have called Death. I am she whose name is Order, and whom you have called Anarchy. I am she whom you have pursued and she whom you have seized. I am she whom you have sown and she whom you have reaped.
I am she before whom you have been ashamed, and you have been shameless before me. I am she who does not keep the sabbath, and I am she whose feasts are many. I, I am godless, yet I am she whose god is great.
I am she whom you have known, and you have scorned me. I am unlearned, and from me all learn. I am she whom you have despised, yet you remember me. I am she from whom you have hidden, yet you are revealed to me. But whenever you hide yourself, I myself will be revealed. And whenever you appear, I myself will hide from you.
Take me from Sorrow into Understanding, and Understand me from Sorrow. Take me within yourself in places which are ugly or incorruptible, and turn from those who are good as well as from those who are evil. Without shame, take me to yourselves shamelessly. Without shame, chastise my limbs.
Come, rush into me, ye who know me and my daughters, and establish the Great Ones among the little creatures.3 Come forth into childhood, and do not hate being small and little.
And do not separate the Great from the Small, for the Small are formed by the Great. Why do you curse me and honor me? You have chastised, and you have had mercy.
Do not distinguish me from the First. And do not exclude anyone nor turn them away, even one who has turned you away, and know him not.
I know the First, and those who come after know me. But I am Mind, both active and at rest. I am the Knowledge of my asking, and the discovery of those who seek me, and the command of those who invoke me, and the power of the forces in my knowledge of the Angels, who have been sent by my Word, and of the Gods in their Aeons by my Counsel, and the Spirit of every Man exists with me, and that of every Woman dwells within me.
I am she who is honored and praised, and I am she who is despised and scorned. I am peace, and because of me comes war. And I am both a visitor and a citizen.
I am substance and I am essence. Those who are not intimate with me do not know me, and those who are consummate with me are those who know me.
Those who are near me have been ignorant of me, and those who are far from me are those who have known me. On the day when I am near you, you are far from me. And on the day when I am far from you, I am near you.
…
I am controlled and uncontrollable. I am the joining and the dissolution. I am the enduring and I am the release. I bend down upon the earth. Come unto me!
I am judgment and forgiveness. I, I am sinless, and the root of sin is measured against me. I display myself lustfully, yet I am disciplined within.
I am the sound which is heard by all, and the speech that cannot be grasped. I am a mute who does not speak, and my words are many. Listen to me meekly, and learn from me with effort.
I am she who cries out, being cast out upon the face of the earth. I bake the bread with my mind inside. I am the Knowledge of my Name. I am the one who cries out, and I listen.
…
I am she who is called Truth, and iniquity dwells in me. You honor me yet you whisper against me. Ye conquered judge your conquerors, but both the judge and the judgment are within you. If you are condemned by this one, who will acquit you? If you are forgiven by him, by whom could you be bound?
For your inside is out and your outside is in. Your outside is in and your inside is out: it is the visible and you are clothed in it.
You who listen, hear me! And you who know me, learn my words! I am the listening which comprehends all. I am the speech which is incomprehensible. I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name. I am the shape of the letter and the mark of distinction.
I shine forth in both the light and the darkness. To all those who see me and all those who hear me is great power given. The name does not change, it is the name of the one who created me. I will speak his name and you will see his words: then behold!
The writing is complete.
- In various places, this translation departs from literal translation and rather tries to convey the initiated understanding in English. The Christianized ending or addendum has been omitted, and an attempt to reconstruct the original ending has been made based on the few words which remained of it. This reconstructed ending appears in italics.
- This suggests that Barbarians mean Jews.
- The sense here is the willed incarnation of the Ancients or Saints of the Church into new life as the children of the community.
— Translation copyright 1985, 2003, 2008, 2019 Skye Love Hill