A Fragment of the Apophasis Megale of Simon Magus

The Great Announcement.

This is the Book of the Showing Forth of Voice-and-Name from the Thought of the Great Power, the Boundless. Wherefore shall it be sealed up, and hidden, and veiled, and shall be laid in the Habitation wherein the Root of the Worlds is established.

Unto you, therefore, I say what I say, and write what I write, and the writing is this:

Of the universal Aeons there are two branches, having neither beginning nor end, springing from one Root, which is the Power Silence, invisible, inapprehensible. Of these two branches, one appears above, which is the Great Power, the Universal Mind, which pervades all things, and is male; the other appears below, the Great Thought, which is female, and which gives birth to all things.

Thus, these, set opposite each other, unite and bring forth the Middle Space, an incomprehensible Aether having neither beginning nor end. In this Aether is the Father who sustains and nourishes all those things which have a beginning and an end.

This is He who has stood, standeth, and shall stand, a male-female power, after the likeness of the pre-existing Boundless Power, which has neither beginning nor end, but exists in oneness. It was from this Boundless Power that Thought, which had previously been hidden in oneness, first proceeded and became twain. And each of them was one.

For He, when He contained Thought within Himself, was alone. Yet was He not `the first,’ though `pre-existing,’ for it was only when He was manifested to Himself from Himself that there was a `second.’ Nor was He called Father before Thought had named Him Father.

Just as, then, in producing Himself from Himself, He manifested to Himself His own Thought, so also His manifested Thought did not create the Father, but contemplating Him hid him—that is, His Power—within Herself; and thus there is a male-and-female Power-and-Thought.

Therefore, Power does not in any way differ from Thought, they being One. From the things above is found Power, and from those below Thought.

Thus it comes to pass that that which is manifested from them, though One, is found to be Two, male-female, containing the female within itself. This One is Mind in Thought; for they are in reality One, but when separated from each other they appear as Two.