Tripartite Tractate 27

1The Father knew him beforehand, because before anything else existed he dwelt in his thoughts, where he possessed also those for whose sakes he revealed him. He placed the deficiency on what perdures for passing periods of time, for glory to his Fullness. The fact that he was unknown caused him to display his kindness [by giving knowledge of himself].

2[] In this way, he obtained knowledge regarding him as a manifestation of his benevolence and the revelation of the wealth of his sweetness, which is the second glory. And so, he has thus been manifested also as the cause of ignorance, even though he produces knowledge, a concealed and ungraspable wisdom in which he preserves the knowledge until the end, when the Totalities will have exhausted themselves in their search for God the Father, whom no one has found out by their own wisdom or power. He deigns to grant them knowledge of the great gift of the excellent thought by unending thanksgiving to him. From his unshakable counsel, he reveals himself eternally to those who through his will were deemed deserving of the knowledge of the Father, who in his nature cannot be known, and in whose foreknowledge planned that they could obtain knowledge and every good thing that accompanies it, together with tasting ignorance and its pains.

3In this way, they would come to taste evil things and could train themselves through them [. . .] for a time, so that they could obtain the [enjoyment of good things] for eternity. [] They expose themselves and are constantly rejected and slandered by their enemies, considering this an adornment and a wondrous mark of exalted things. This was to make it clear that the ignorance of those ignorant of the Father was of their own doing, in contrast to his power that made it possible for them to obtain knowledge of him.

4This knowledge is appropriately called “the knowledge of all possible thought” and “the treasure.” And to increase knowledge even more, it is the revelation of those who were known in the beginning, and it is the path toward union and the pre-existent one. The result is that those who increase in greatness are those who have forsaken the greatness designated for them in the plan of salvation in accord with the (divine) will, so that the end could be like the beginning.