The Great Spirit, the Invisible One, the Unknowable Divine Being, the Unproclaimable Father, and the Father Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken — these are just a few of the ways the author of the Gospel of the Egyptians referred to the Unknowable Being who existed before existence. This Unknowable One is the Light of all lights, the Divine Parent, from whom proceeded the three powers in one: Father/Mother/Son (the Holy Trinity) except that they are not three, but one. Think of the Trinity as the Mother of all powers who is called Barbelo — the three-in-one. But when split into three separate powers as Father, Mother, and Son, each has eight qualities. For example, the Father's qualities are thought, word, eternal life, intellect, incorruptibility, foreknowledge, will, and androgeny.

The Son's qualities are not listed per se, but the text states that the Son brings forth seven powers, the “light” of seven voices, which, in turn, are manifested as the seven vowels or sounds from which comes the Word. Taken together, the vowels hide the name of God in an unseen symbol.

The Gnostics developed a complicated backstory for God in their Gnostic mythology to explain his emergence into being. But explaining the unexplainable must have proven difficult even for the Gnostics. The construct that the author uses to tell God's creation story in the Gospel of the Egyptians is somewhat difficult to follow. It begs the question of why one should try to explain the unexplainable. The answer is that the ever-questioning Gnostic mind could not simply accept that God was ever-existent and forever would be.

The Eternal Christ Emerges

The self-evolving First Parent (who began as the manifestation of three-in-one from the unknowable, incomprehensible One) began the process of emanating into existence a whole host of beings. Among them is a being called the Christ, but not Jesus the Christ of the New Testament. The Christ in this gospel is an eternal being (also known as a power) that came into existence through the Divine Parent's emanation. The five seals (more on which later) is another being that also emanates into existence. So to recap: The Divine Parent emanates the Christ through the Father/Mother/Son trio named Barbelo and the powers associated with them. And as with other emanations, a cycle of praising follows.

Adamas Comes to Annul the Deficiency

From the emanation of Christ, the first human being emerges. His name is Adamas. However, this is no ordinary human man like Adam as in the book of Genesis. This being is a spiritually superior version of the first man. The gospel gets a little confusing in this section because something has gone wrong with the world and Adamas must correct the problem, or, as the gospel says, “annul the deficiency.” What could have gone wrong, you might wonder. Well, remember the myth of Sophia from an earlier chapter? The Demiurge, her offspring, created the flawed material universe. Without explicitly revealing it, the Gospel of the Egyptians makes note of that “problem.”

In the Gospel of the Egyptians, Ogdoad referred to powers or deities that the Unknowable Father brought forth in silence from Himself. From these came other powers such as the Aeon of the Aeons. The Aeons made up the Pleroma of heavenly powers, which eventually led to Seth, father and savior of the Gnostics, or the “incorruptible race.”

So how does Adamas remedy the problem? Adamas has light as his potent attribute. He merges with the Word and the two form human reason. Unlike Sophia, Adamas asks permission of the Divine Parent to create a being. He emanates a son and names him Seth. The lesson for the Gnostics seemed to be that the highest good comes from work aligned with the Divine Parent rather than against that Heavenly Force.