The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: An Enlightening Compilation of Gnostic Manuscripts Revealing New Perspectives on Early Christianity, Ancient Judaism, and Greco-Roman Religions

by Unknown Nag Hammadi

The Prayer of the Apostle Paul begins with a series of invocations addressed to the Redeemer. The person uttering the prayer, identified with the apostle Paul in order to give authority to this text, affirms connections with the divine: “[I am] yours; I have come from [you]” (A, 3–6). Technical Gnostic terms are employed to portray the Redeemer by means of invocations employing the formula “you are,” repeated for four times: you are mind, treasury, fullness, rest. Except for the word “treasury,” which is translated into Coptic (aho), the terms are retained in Greek (nous, plrma, anapausis); these terms are frequent in Valentinian literature, though they are also found elsewhere. Reflections on the treasury are also found in Authoritative Discourse 28, 24, where it is said that the original home of the soul is the treasury, to which she will return and find rest.1 According to Dieter Mueller, this prayer is reminiscent of prayers of the Corpus Hermeticum (e.g., I.31–32; V.10–11; XIII.16–20) and invocations preserved in Greek and Coptic magical literature, and the beginning of the prayer recalls Three Steles of Seth 118, 30–119, 1.2