Tripartite Tractate 26

1The Election shares in the nature and body of the Savior. It is like a bridal chamber because of its unity and union with him, since it was above all for its sake that Christ came. By contrast, the Calling is appointed for those who rejoice in the bridal chamber and are glad and happy about the union of the bridegroom and the bride. In this way, the place the Calling will receive is the aeon of the images, where the Word has yet to unite with the Fullness. Because of this, the Human of the Church was joyful and glad, and he hopes for her. He consists of spirit, soul, and body, corresponding to the one who made the plan of salvation.

2Within (the Human) was a human who was a unity, because he was the Totality, and he was all of them. He possessed what came from the [Father], which [] the places could receive. He also possessed the limbs we mentioned earlier. When the redemption was proclaimed, the Perfect Human immediately gained the knowledge of how to return quickly to his unity, to the place from which he originated. He joyfully returned to the place from which he had originated, the place from which he had come forth.

3However, his limbs needed a place of instruction, as is in the places prepared to provide it with the images and archetypes like a mirror, until all the limbs of the body of the Church <are joined> in the same place and receive the restoration at the same time, through the manifestation of the entire body, <…> the restoration to the Fullness.

4It possesses a primary shared harmony and union, which is the harmony belonging to the Father, until the Totalities acquire a face like his. The restoration at the end, however, <will occur> after the Totality is unveiled in him who is the Son, who is the redemption—that is, the path toward the incomprehensible Father, that is, the return to the pre-existent—and (after) the Totalities reveal themselves in that one, in the proper way, who is the path to the ungraspable, unspeakable, [] unseen, and incomprehensible one, so that it attains redemption.

5It will be a liberation not only from the control of those <of> the left, and not only an escape from the power of those of the right, whose servants and sons we believed ourselves to be, and from whom no one escapes without quickly being caught by them again. Instead, redemption is also an ascent <to> the degrees in the Fullness and to those who received names and grasped them according to the ability of each aeon. It is also an entrance into what is silent, with no need for voice, knowledge, conceptualization, or enlightenment, but (where) all things are light, all radiant without any need for enlightenment.

6Angels as well as humans need redemption, as do the image, the Fullnesses of the aeons, and the wondrously radiant powers. Even the Son himself, who is the model for the redemption of the Totality, [needed] redemption too, [] because he became human, subjecting himself to everything necessary to us in the flesh, who are his Church. When he then first attained redemption through the Word that had descended upon him, all the rest attained redemption from him by embracing him for themselves. This is because those who received the one who had (already) received naturally received what was in him.

7Among fleshly humans, redemption began [being] bestowed when his firstborn, his love, the fleshly Son, and the heavenly angels were considered worthy to form a fellowship with him on the earth. This is why he is called “the angelic redemption of the Father,” consoling those who had grieved for the sake of the knowledge of the Totality, because he was the first to have this gift bestowed upon him, before anyone else.