Tripartite Tractate 12

1However, he was a <helper> and redeemer from their opinion and rebellion, because from him [comes] the conversion called “repentance.” That occurred [when] the Word [changed] his opinion and his thought. Turning away from evil, he turned toward those things that are good. After the conversion, he remembered those who exist and the prayer for the one who converted himself by what is good. He first prayed to the one who dwells in the Fullness, and remembered him, then his brothers, (both) one at a time and simultaneously all of them together, but before all of them, the Father.

2[] The prayer in unison assisted him in [his] own return <to> himself and to the Totality, because what caused his remembrance of those who had existed from the beginning was that he (himself) had been remembered. This was the distant thought that calls out from far away, returning him.

3His entire prayer and remembering comprised several powers that were in agreement with the previously mentioned limit, because nothing in his thought is barren. The powers were good and greater than those of the likeness, because those of the likeness also belong to a [dark] nature. What they became originated from an illusion involving similarity and a [vain thought] of pride, and they originated from [a thought] that knew them first. The former beings, what are they like? They are like <oblivion> and deep sleep, resembling those who have disturbing dreams, those who in their dream have <someone> pursue and trouble them. For him, the others resemble illuminated creatures who await sunrise, because they beheld in him dreams that indeed are sweet.

4At once [] the emanations of the thought <ceased>, no longer having any substance, and no longer having any honor, [for] <they> are unequal to those who pre-existed. If they were superior [to] the likenesses, the only reason for their being exalted above those was that they acted out of a good intention, for they had not originated from the infirmity that came into being, the good intention being <his who> sought for the pre-existent after praying and lifting himself up to the good. He sowed in them an inclination to seek and to pray to the pre-existent glorious one, and he sowed in them the capacity to think of [it], and the capacity to think that there was something greater than themselves that existed before they had, despite their not knowing what it was. By begetting harmony and mutual love, from that thought they acted in unity and unanimity, given that from unity and from unanimity they had derived their existence.