The Stranger's Book 59

Often called Allogenes ("the Stranger", "one of another race"): Stranger prays with his disciples on Mount Tabor, rejects Satan's temptation, is caught up in a bright cloud, and is taught how his soul will pass the Powers of Desire, Darkness, Ignorance, Death, the Kingdom of the Flesh and the Foolish "Wisdom" of the Flesh on its way up to the Father. A Gnostic work, probably of the 3rd century AD, preserved only in Coptic as the fourth tractate of Codex Tchacos, the same codex as the Gospel of Judas; it is a different text from the Allogenes of Nag Hammadi Codex XI. Badly damaged: pages 59-66 survive, then an unknown number of pages are lost, then one final fragment. This is Mark M. Mattison's public-domain translation; chapter numbers are the manuscript's page numbers (59-66) and each paragraph is a verse. The last chapter (67) is that final fragment: its real page number is lost, so 67 only marks its place at the end. His section headings are not reproduced; square brackets mark gaps and restorations. Not part of any church's canon.

1"My [son, let's pray to God …] to the Father of all the ages, to send us a spirit of knowledge to reveal the mysteries, so that we may know ourselves; specifically, where [we've] come from, where we're going, and what we need to do to live."

2And they left and went up on a mountain called 'Tabor.' And they knelt down and prayed, "O Lord God, the One above all the great realms, the One who has no beginning and no end, give us a spirit of knowledge to reveal your mysteries, so that we may know ourselves; specifically, where we've come from, where we're going, and what we need to do to live."