Thanksgiving

The following is a Hermetic Prayer of Thanksgiving from Codex VI of the Nag Hammadi Library. The original Greek version of the prayer was probably composed sometime in the third century, somewhere in Egypt:

“We give thanks to you!
Every soul and heart is lifted up to You,
Undisturbed name, honored with the name ‘God’

And praised with the name ‘Father,’

For to everyone and everything

Comes the fatherly kindness and affection and love,

And any teaching there may be that is sweet,

And plain, giving us mind, speech, and Knowledge:

Mind, so that we may understand You,

Speech, so that we may expound You,

Knowledge, so that we may Know you.

We rejoice, having been illuminated by your Knowledge.

We rejoice because You have shown us Yourself.

We rejoice because while we were in the body,

​You have made us divine through Your Knowledge.
“The thanksgiving of the man who attains to You
Is one thing: that we Know You.
We have Known You,
Intellectual light. Life of life,
We have Known You.
Womb of every creature,
We have Known You.
Womb pregnant with the nature of the Father,
We have Known You.
Eternal permanence of the begetting Father,
Thus have we worshiped Your goodness.
There is one petition that we ask:
We would be preserved in Knowledge.
And there is one protection that we desire:
That we not stumble in this kind of life.”