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The first is appended to the "Poemandres" treatise, and was evidently intended to give some idea in human terms of the nature of the Praise-giving of the Powers to which reference has just been made. For, as we shall see later on, the less instructed of the community fervently desired to have revealed to them the words of this Song, thinking in their ignorance that it was some hymn resembling those of earth, and not yet understanding that it was the heavenly type of all earth-praising, whether expressed by man or animal, by tree or stone.
The first part of our hymn consists of nine lines, divided by their subjects into three groups, every sentence beginning with "Holy art Thou!" It is thus in the form of a three-fold "Holy, Holy, Holy! "-and we may thus, for want of a proper title, call it "A Triple Trisagion."
A TRIPLE TRISAGION
Holy art Thou, O God, the Universals' Father.
Holy art Thou, O God, Whose Will perfects itself by means of its own Powers.
Holy art Thou, O God, Who willest to be known and art known by Thine own.
Holy art Thou, Who didst by Word make to consist the things that are.
Holy art Thou, of Whom All-nature hath been made an Image.
Holy art Thou, Whose Form Nature hath never made.
Holy art Thou, more powerful than all power.
Holy art Thou, transcending all preeminence.
Holy art Thou, Thou better than all praise.
Accept my reason's offerings pure, from soul and heart for aye stretched up to Thee, O Thou unutterable, unspeakable, Whose Name naught but the Silence can express!
Give ear to me who pray that I may ne'er of Gnosis fail -- Gnosis which is our common being's nature -- and fill me with Thy Power, and with this Grace of Thine, that I may give the Light to those in ignorance of the Race, my Brethren and Thy Sons!
For this cause I believe, and I bear witness. I go to Life and Light. Blessed art Thou, O Father. Thy Man would holy be as Thou art holy, e'en as Thou gavest him Thy full authority to be.
"Holy art Thou, O God, the Universals' Father." God is first praised as the Father of the Universals, that is of the Greatnesses of all things, the Aeonic Immensities, or Supreme Mysteries that are plural yet one-the Subsistencies of the Divine Being in the state of pure Divinity.
"Holy art Thou, O God, Whose Will perfects itself by means of its own Powers."
God is next praised as the Power or Potency of all things; for Will is regarded by our Gnostics as the means by which the Deity reveals Himself unto Himself by the Great Act of perpetual Self-creation of Himself in Himself. "From Thee" are all things when God is thought of as Divine Fatherhood; and "Through Thee" are all things-when God is regarded as Divine Motherhood. For this Will is the Divine Love which is the means of Self-perfection, the source of all consummation and satisfaction, of certitude and bliss. The Deity for ever initiates Himself into His own Mysteries.
"Holy art Thou, O God, Who willeth to be known and art known by Thine own."
