OTT (Text) -- 10

26 If one of the anchorites should wish to receive the gnosis of discernment from the Lord, let him first willingly work those commandments which are in his hands, omitting nothing, and thus, during the time of prayer, ‘let him ask’ gnosis ‘from the Lord who gives to all generously and without reproach, and let him ask doubting nothing,’ neither tossed by the waves of faithlessness, ‘and it will be given to him.’ [Jas. 1, 5–6.] For it is not possible to receive gnosis of more things when one neglects what one already knows, so that one does not by transgressing much become guilty of more sins.

And it is blessed to be a slave of the gnosis of God. For it is dangerous, really, not to do those things which are commanded by gnosis, but it is blessed if one should do all that which is taught by gnosis.

The mind, being impassioned, moves round and round and becomes difficult to restrain when it looks on the materials which are productive of pleasure. It ceases from its wandering when it has become dispassionate and when it meets with the bodiless [powers], those who satisfy its spiritual desires for it.

It is not possible to acquire gnosis, not having renounced the first renunciation, and the second and the third. And the first renunciation, then, is the voluntary leaving behind of worldly things for the sake of the gnosis of God.

The second is the putting aside of vice which comes to one by the grace of our Saviour Christ and by the pains of the man.

The third renunciation is the separation from ignorance concerning those things which naturally become manifest to men in proportion to their condition.

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