Translated by George W. MacRae
THE AUTHORITATIVE TEACHING IS A NAG HAMMADI LOST GOSPEL (CODEX VI) found buried in Egypt in 1945. It was likely written in the first or second century AD. The discourse reflects early Christian teachings eventually banned by the Romans following the creation of the Roman Catholic sect. This text also includes some parables utilized by Jesus in his teachings. The Authoritative Teaching also explains the origin of the entity Jesus often referred to as the “soul.”
[…] in heaven […] within him […] anyone appears […] the hidden heavens […] appear, and before the invisible, ineffable worlds appeared. From these the invisible soul of righteousness came, being a fellow member, and a fellow body, and a fellow spirit. Whether she is in the descent or is in the Pleroma, she is not separated from them, but they see her and she looks at them in the invisible world.
Secretly her bridegroom fetched it. He presented it to her mouth to make her eat it like food, and he applied the word to her eyes as a medicine to make her see with her mind and perceive her kinsmen and learn about her root, in order that she might cling to her branch from which she had first come forth, in order that she might receive what is hers and renounce matter.
[…] he [dwelt…] having […] sons. The sons […] truly, those who have come from his seed, call the sons of the woman “our brothers”. In this very way, when the spiritual soul was cast into the body, it became a brother to lust and hatred and envy, and a material soul. So therefore the body came from lust, and lust came from material substance. For this reason the soul became a brother to them.