Laws in the Treatise on the Resurrection

The Treatise on the Resurrection was translated from Nag Hammadi Codex I, 4; it is believed to date from between 179 and 200 A.D. Translator Malcolm L. Peel notes that the text asserts that "Immediately following death a 'spiritual resurrection' of the believer occurs, involving ascension of a spiritual body of invisible 'members' covered with a 'spiritual flesh' " (The Nag Hammadi Library, page 50). This is an accurate mystical doctrine. We have used the Peel translation for this list.

The Son of God was Son of Man; he embraced them both, possessing the humanity and the divinity, so that on the one hand he might vanquish death through his being Son of God, and that on the other through the Son of Man the restoration to the wholeness might occur; because he was originally from above, a seed of Truth, before this structure had come into being." Treatise on the Resurrection, Codex I, 4

The Solution [Christ] appeared so as not to leave anything hidden, but to reveal all things openly concerning existence – the destruction of evil on the one hand, the revelation of the elect on the other. – Treatise on the Resurrection, Codex I, 4

The Savior swallowed up death, for he put aside the world which is perishing. He transformed himself into an imperishability and raised himself up, having swallowed the visible by the invisible, and he gave us the way of our immortality. – Treatise on the Resurrection, Codex I, 4

If we are manifest in this world wearing him, we are his beams, and we are embraced by him until our setting, our death in this life. – Treatise on the Resurrection, Codex I, 4

We are drawn to heaven by Christ, like beams by the sun, not being restrained by anything. This is the spiritual resurrection which swallows up the psychic in the same way as the fleshly. – Treatise on the Resurrection, Codex I, 4

The thought of those who are saved shall not perish. The mind of those who have known him shall not perish. – Treatise on the Resurrection, Codex I, 4

The visible members which are dead [the physical body] shall not be saved, for (only) the living members which exist within them [the spiritual body] would arise. – Treatise on the Resurrection, Codex I, 4

"Resurrection is no illusion; it is more fitting to say the world is an illusion, rather than the resurrection. – Treatise on the Resurrection, Codex I, 4

The resurrection is the revelation of what is, and the transformation of things, and a transition into newness. For imperishability descends upon the perishable; the Light flows down upon the darkness, swallowing it up; and the wholeness fills up the deficiency. These are the symbols and the images of the resurrection. – Treatise on the Resurrection, Codex I, 4

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