Who art Thou? the children of the world ask the Son, O my virginal soul.
For they see him walking among them like a king among slaves. And they listen to his mighty words, and do not understand. And they behold His mighty works, and are filled with fear. And they feel power going out from Him, and are bewildered.
But your Son, the fairest among the sons of men, with the pure eyes of an ox, and the calmness of a lamb, and the strength of a lion, and the sweep of an eagle, and the face of an angel, answers:
I am the Truth. I have come from truth, I bring you a gift from the Truth, and I return upon the Truth.
If there were truth in you, you would know me, and would not ask: Who art Thou?
Verily, you cannot say even who you are; how then will you understand, when I tell you — who I am?
Behold, in yourselves you are nothing, like a dream separated from the dreamer. And you are not for two seconds in time, nor at two paces in space. As when smoke drifts over the lake, and its shadow dances upon the water, so your life too is an empty and insubstantial dance of shadows.
Only this: you have not yet forgotten how to utter the word "truth," and that is all that remains to you of the Truth. The glimmering of things you call truth. As if an eternal jailer, who had only heard of the sun, were to call a firefly the sun.
Whoever knows the truth, the truth takes up dwelling in him, and he becomes one with the truth, and is not a partial but a whole man. Truth makes whole, and makes a man complete, while delusion crumbles him into pieces and grinds him to ash.
As it is impossible for the scattered ashes of a tree any longer to know the green tree, so it is impossible for you to know me.
Verily I am the Truth, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The Spirit of Truth, who is with me, He speaks through me, He lives in me. Without Him I would be nothing, as you are. But because of Him in me, I am He Who Is.
From on high I descended, like a sudden rain, to fill the dried-up riverbed, which you still always call a river.
Others brought laws, but I bring the Truth. Others cleansed the riverbed of dried mud and prepared it for water, yet they could not give water. I give water, and I fill the riverbed, and I justify the name of the river.
I have not come into your dryness to teach you how water is dug out of the earth, but I have come — living water — that the thirsty may drink me.
Nor have I come to teach you how bread is made, but to be bread for all who hunger.
Nor have I descended into your darkness to teach you how light is created, but to shine for you. Behold, even the sun — a lesser light than I — does not teach how to shine, but shines.
Nor have I come down into the senseless flickering of shadows to teach you what reality is, but to be reality, in the realms of emptiness and nothingness.
Verily, I have not come to be for you a teacher of wisdom, but wisdom itself.
Whoever does not receive me, does not eat me, does not drink me, does not breathe me, and thereby does not become one with me — he remains outside me, which means that he remains outside life and truth.