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The Sophia of Jesus Christ · 4 of 11
The Reflection of the Father
1.Mary asked him: “Christ, how will that become known?”
2.The perfect Savior said: “Begin from concealed things to the end of visible things, and the emanation of Thought will itself reveal to you how faith in things invisible is to be found in what is visible, things that belong to the unbegotten Father.
3.Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!
4.The Lord of the World is not called ‘Father,’ but ‘Forefather,’ because the Father is the originative principle of those that will become visible, yet he is the Forefather without beginning.
5.He beholds himself within himself, as in a mirror, having appeared in his likeness as the divine Self-Father, and as the reflector, because he is in the presence of He Who Is, the first existent, the unbegotten Father.
6.He is in fact as old ‹as› the light that is before him, but he does not equal him in power.
7.Afterward he revealed many reflecting, self-begotten ones, of equal age and power, subsisting in glory, (even) without number, whose nation is called ‘The Generation Above Which There Is No Kingdom,’ (because) in this (kingdom) you have become visible.
8.And by these humans of the place above which there is no kingdom, ‹he› is called ‘the Unbegotten,’ ‘God,’ ‘Savior of the Children of God,’ ‘He Who Is Without A Likeness Among You.’
9.The Unknowable is full of every glory and indestructability and unspeakable joy.
10.And they are all at repose in him, continually rejoicing in unspeakable joy over his glory that never changes and immeasurable rejoicing
11.that until now was never heard or even known among all the aeons and their worlds.”
Asked of Guide
Why does the chapter call the Lord of the World a ‘Forefather’ instead of ‘Father’?
The chapter says the Lord of the World is called ‘Forefather’ because the true Father is the originative principle of what becomes visible and is “without beginning,” so the Forefather stands before created visibility as an earlier ordering. It explains he “beholds himself within himself, as in a mirror,” functioning as both divine Self-Father and reflector, which locates him between the unbegotten Father and visible beings.
That position yields a hierarchy: the unbegotten Father is the first existent, supreme and unapproachable, while the Forefather issues many self-begotten, reflecting emanations “without number,” the Generation Above Which There Is No Kingdom. This mirrors themes in other Gnostic texts like the Apocryphon of John, where emanations from a primal Father produce layered aeons and intermediary rulers.
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