| 1 | And all the angels and demons worked until they had constructed the natural body. |
| 2 | And their product was completely inactive and motionless for a long time. |
| 3 | And when the mother wanted to retrieve the power which she had given to the chief archon, she petitioned the Mother-Father of the All, who is most merciful. |
| 4 | He sent, by means of the holy decree, the five lights down upon the place of the angels of the chief archon. |
| 5 | They advised him that they should bring forth the power of the mother. |
| 6 | And they said to Yaltabaoth, 'Blow into his face something of your spirit and his body will arise.' |
| 7 | And he blew into his face the spirit which is the power of his mother; |
| 8 | he did not know (this), for he exists in ignorance. |
| 9 | And the power of the mother went out of Yaltabaoth into the natural body, which they had fashioned after the image of the one who exists from the beginning. |
| 10 | The body moved and gained strength, and it was luminous. |
| 11 | And in that moment the rest of the powers became jealous, because he had come into being through all of them and they had given their power to the man, and his intelligence was greater than that of those who had made him, and greater than that of the chief archon. |
| 12 | And when they recognized that he was luminous, and that he could think better than they, and that he was free from wickedness, they took him and threw him into the lowest region of all matter. |
| 13 | But the blessed One, the Mother-Father, the beneficent and merciful One, had mercy on the power of the mother which had been brought forth out of the chief archon, for they (the archons) might gain power over the natural and perceptible body. |
| 14 | And he sent, through his beneficent Spirit and his great mercy, a helper to Adam, luminous Epinoia which comes out of him, who is called Life. |
| 15 | And she assists the whole creature, by toiling with him and by restoring him to his fullness and by teaching him about the descent of his seed (and) by teaching him about the way of ascent, (which is) the way he came down. |
| 16 | And the luminous Epinoia was hidden in Adam, in order that the archons might not know her, but that the Epinoia might be a correction of the deficiency of the mother. |
| 17 | And the man came forth because of the shadow of the light which is in him. |
| 18 | And his thinking was superior to all those who had made him. |
| 19 | When they looked up, they saw that his thinking was superior. |
| 20 | And they took counsel with the whole array of archons and angels. |
| 21 | They took fire and earth and water and mixed them together with the four fiery winds. |
| 22 | And they wrought them together and caused a great disturbance. |
| 23 | And they brought him (Adam) into the shadow of death, in order that they might form (him) again from earth and water and fire and the spirit which originates in matter, which is the ignorance of darkness and desire, and their counterfeit spirit. |
| 24 | This is the tomb of the newly-formed body with which the robbers had clothed the man, the bond of forgetfulness; and he became a mortal man. |
| 25 | This is the first one who came down, and the first separation. |
| 26 | But the Epinoia of the light which was in him, she is the one who was to awaken his thinking. |
| 27 | And the archons took him and placed him in paradise. |
| 28 | And they said to him, 'Eat, that is at leisure,' for their luxury is bitter and their beauty is depraved. |
| 29 | And their luxury is deception and their trees are godlessness and their fruit is deadly poison and their promise is death. |
| 30 | And the tree of their life they had placed in the midst of paradise. |
| 31 | And I shall teach you (pl.) what is the mystery of their life, which is the plan which they made together, which is the likeness of their spirit. |
| 32 | The root of this (tree) is bitter and its branches are death, its shadow is hate and deception is in its leaves, and its blossom is the ointment of evil, and its fruit is death and desire is its seed, and it sprouts in darkness. |
| 33 | The dwelling place of those who taste from it is Hades, and the darkness is their place of rest. |
| 34 | But what they call the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is the Epinoia of the light, they stayed in front of it in order that he (Adam) might not look up to his fullness and recognize the nakedness of his shamefulness. |
| 35 | But it was I who brought about that they ate. |
| 36 | Was it not the serpent that taught Adam to eat? |
| 37 | The serpent taught them to eat from wickedness of begetting, lust, (and) destruction, that he (Adam) might be useful to him. |
| 38 | And he (Adam) knew that he was disobedient to him (the chief archon) due to light of the Epinoia which is in him, which made him more correct in his thinking than the chief archon. |
| 39 | And (the latter) wanted to bring about the power which he himself had given him. |
| 40 | And he brought a forgetfulness over Adam. |
| 41 | What is the forgetfulness? It is not the way Moses wrote (and) you heard. |
| 42 | the Epinoia of the light hid herself in the genes of (Adam). |
| 43 | And the chief archon wanted to bring her out of his genes. |
| 44 | But the Epinoia of the light cannot be grasped. |
| 45 | Although darkness pursued her, it did not catch her. |
| 46 | And he brought a part of his power out of him. |
| 47 | And he made another creature, in the form of a woman, according to the likeness of the Epinoia which had appeared to him. |
| 48 | And he brought the part which he had taken from the power of the man into the female creature, and not as Moses said, 'his rib-bone.' |
| 49 | And he (Adam) saw the woman beside him. |
| 50 | And in that moment the luminous Epinoia appeared, and she lifted the veil which lay over his mind. |
| 51 | And he became sober from the drunkenness of darkness. |
| 52 | And he recognized his counter-image, and he said, 'This is indeed bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. |
| 53 | Therefore the man will leave his father and his mother, and he will cleave to his wife, and they will both be one flesh. |
| 54 | For they will send him his consort, and he will leave his father and his mother. |
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Book IV - The Adam