1 They beheld the man. He surpassed them. Together with the entire group of angels of the archons and the remainder of their powers, they took counsel.
2 Then fire and earth combined together with water and flame. They grasped them, and the four winds, blowing with fire, were joined together with one another, and [made a loud] commotion. They led him into the shadow of death. They produced a form once again, but out of earth and water and fire and wind, that is, out of matter and darkness and lust and the opposing spirit.
3 This is the chain. This is the tomb for the mold of the body they used to clothe the man as the chain of matter.
4 This is the first one who descended and the first division, but Thought of the First Light, because she dwelt inside him, roused his intellect.
5 The chief archon brought him and placed him in paradise. He who used [to say, ‘Let it be a] delight for him,’ but in reality to fool him, because their delight is bitter, and their beauty is degenerate. Their delight is trickery, and their tree is godlessness. Their fruit is an untreatable poison, and their promise to him is mortality.
6 Regarding their tree, which they planted, ‘It is the tree of life,’ I will instruct all of you concerning the mystery of their life. It is their false spirit from inside them, to lead him astray, so that he ‹would› not experience his perfection.
7 That tree is of the kind whose root is bitter, and whose branches are shadows of death, and whose leaves are hatred and trickery, and its perfume is an anointing of evil, and its fruit is the lust of death, and its seed drinks continually of ‹darkness›.
8 Those who taste of it, their dwelling place is Hades.
9 Regarding the tree which they call, ‘so as to know good and evil,’ which is Reflection of Light, concerning which they issued the commandment not to taste, that is, obey her not, because the commandment was issued against him so that he could not gaze up toward his perfection and realize that he had been stripped of his perfection, but it was I who induced them so that they ate.”
10 I asked him: “Christ, was it not the serpent that instructed her?”
11 He grinned and said: “The serpent instructed her concerning sexual lust, concerning defilement and destruction, because he can exploit these,
12 and he was aware that she would disobey him, because she was cleverer than he, and he desired to extract the power that he had given to him, and he caused a ‘trance’ to overcome Adam.”
13 I asked him: ‘‘Christ, what is the ‘trance’?”
14 He, however, said: “It is not the way Moses said, ‘He caused him to sleep,’ but it was his perception he veiled with a veil. He caused him to be drowsy with a lack of perception, because he in fact said through the prophet: ‘I will cause the ears of their hearts to be heavy, so that they do not understand and do not see.’
Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Other Gospels public-domain Nag Hammadi Initiative translation; separate Davies harmonized translation not included.