Gospel of Truth · 9 of 18

The Parable of the Nightmares

1.Then what is it that he wanted to make him imagine about himself?

2.That, “I have come to exist like the shadows and phantoms of night.”

3.When the light shines on the terror this one has borne, he knows that it was nothing.

4.This is why they were ignorant of the Father, he being the one whom they saw not.

5.Because there was terror and commotion and uncertainty and double-mindedness and discord, a multitude of illusions were active through these, and a multitude of empty deceits, as if they were in a profound slumber, finding themselves inside a nightmare: either a place to which they rush headlong, or, being helpless, they arrive after pursuing others, or they attack, or they are attacked, or they plunge from elevated places, or they fly upwards into the air, lacking any wings.

6.Furthermore, now and then, (it is) as though some kill them, despite there being no one in pursuit of them, or it is they who kill those next to them, on account of their being rendered impure by their blood.

7.When those who bear all of this awaken, they see nothing, (namely), those who suffered all of these troubles, given that these things were nothing.

8.In this way, those have expelled ignorance from them like sleep, because they deem it as nothing, and neither do they deem its other deeds as actual deeds.

9.They instead abandon them behind them like a dream in the night.

10.The knowledge of the Father, they yearn for (it) as if it were the light.

11.Thus has each one behaved, like someone asleep while being ignorant, and thus has he arrived at knowing, as if awakening, and good exists for the one who will repent and awaken,

12.and blessed is the one who has opened the eyes of the blind, and the Spirit, who rushed after rousing him, chased him.

13.Reaching out his hand to the one lying on the ground, he assisted him to his feet, because he had not yet stood up.