Tripartite Tractate 4

1[. . .] the Church exists in the qualities and attributes in which the Father and the Son exist, as I have stated from the beginning. It subsists, therefore, in the births of countless aeons. By the qualities and the attributes in which (the Church) [exists], (the aeons) also give birth in a way beyond counting. This is because these (aeons) [constitute] (the Church’s) union which they [form] with each other and [with those] who have gone forth from [them and] with the Son, for whose glory they exist.

2It is impossible, therefore, that mind would conceive of <them>, he being the perfection of that place. Nor can speech describe them, because they are unspeakable and unnameable and ungraspable. It is only they who can name themselves and who can conceive of themselves, because they are unrooted in these places. Those in that place are unspeakable, uncountable in the system [that is] both [the mode] and the dimension, the rejoicing, the joy of the unbegotten, nameless, unnameable, ungraspable, invisible, inconceivable one. This is the fullness of paternity, so that his riches are a birth.

3[] [. . .] of the aeons dwelt eternally in thought, because the Father was as a thought and a place for them. Their generations once established, the one in total control desired to take hold and bring forth what was deficient in the [. . .], and he brought forth those who [were within] him. However, because he is [the way] he is, [he is] a spring undiminished by the water abundantly flowing from it.

4While they dwelt in the Father’s thought, namely, in the concealed depth, the depth knew them, yet they could not know the depth in which they dwelt. And it was impossible for them to know themselves, or for them to know anything else. In other words, they dwelt with the Father, their existence not being for themselves. Instead, they existed only as a seed does, and so it was found that they existed as does a fetus. As with a word he begot them, as they subsisted in spermatic form, while those whom he was going to beget had not yet reached existence from him.

5[] The Father was the one who first thought of them. He sowed a thought as if it were a spermatic seed, not just that they could exist for his sake, but so they could exist also for their own sakes, that they could then exist in his thought as a cognitive entity, and that they could exist also for their own sakes. So that they could know what exists for their sakes, he generously [bestowed the] initial form, and that [they could] know [who the Father] is who exists for their sakes, he granted them the name of Father through a voice declaring to them that whatever exists, exists by that name, which belongs to them. This is owing to the fact that they attained being because of the exaltation that dwells in the name, (an exaltation) they failed to recognize. While a fetus, an infant has what is sufficient for itself, not yet seeing who sowed it. Their only task, therefore, was to search for him, recognizing his existence, constantly desiring to discover what exists.

6However, because the perfect Father is good, and just as he did not <close off> himself to them to make them exist eternally in his thought, but instead granted that they could attain existence for their own sakes, too, so also he gave them the gift to know what is, namely, the one who knows himself eternally. [] [. . .] obtain form [to know] that He Who Is exists, just like people who, when they are born in this place, enter into the light so they can see those who begot them.