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Manichaean Scriptures

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Light Your Lamps

 

Light your lamps , for lo, the Saviour has come;
he of the holy name, he will make revelation.
Let us quickly break the nets of the body . . . .


lo him that is bound, lest we come to a judgment.
The flesh . . . . . our Spirit is glad within us.
Come to us, blessed (?) Jesus, and make us glad.

Do not flinch or lose heart , o man : thou hast . . . . .
heedlessly what they that have flinched have done.
Do not glory now, for this is not a place of glorying:
the place of glorying is the Luminaries,
the place of rejoicing is the Perfect Man.

Many are the ships that have gone down after they were near to
mooring to the bank; a number of houses have fallen after the
parapet had been reached. So it is also, my brethren, that there
is a soul that shall fight at first and the storm arises upon it and
the waves seize it.

There is none that can fight if he is committed to both sides.
The insidious and the meddlers never find God;
but they that have shut their eyes,to the good , -
for them how greatly I care that they should repent.

Unto whom do I go that I may find his heart well-established, that he may
support the burden that is upon me?
He knows it, that it is naught but sweet.
Men have been accustomed to the Darkness and have loved the
burden of the sins; but do thou be zealous for God, my Spirit, do not
flinch within thee.

Do not seek to please men and lose . . . . . .
hidden things of shame, - bring them to the Light,
o son of God. For what is anything at all in the sight of
God save the holy?
The holy also, if they slack , shall suffer.

Be thou like the sun, o faithful man, for he does not
say : 'Fair am I', though the Lights are a thing of beauty.
But thou, if thou wouldest be like thy Father --
fair are others glorying in thee and thou holding thy peace,.
oh that the Saviour were ours : oh that we were worthy of him.

Jesus is a ship: blessed are we if we sail upon it.
The Church is a garland for which they gather in every corner:
the garland-weaver who weaves it casts roses
. . . . . .
But there are false roses that are esteemed: when thou regardest
them they are fair, when thou smellest them there is no smell at all.
Woe to thee, o false rose, for thou hast lost the garland
. . . . . . . . . .change in time.

Glory and victory to the Paraclete, our joyous Luminary ,
our sun that has risen for us, the Saviour of spirits,
the Helper of souls, and his holy Elect.
Victory to the soul of the blessed, Mary, Apa Panai, Theona.

 


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