The Toll Collectors

When they apprehend [you], and you accept this suffering, a crowd will arm itself against you, so that ‹they› can apprehend you, but three of them in particular will apprehend you, those who are seated as toll collectors. They demand not only toll, but they take away souls violently as well. When you fall into their hands, one of them who is a Watcher among them will say to you: ‘Who are you, and where are you from?’ You will say to him: ‘I am a Son, and I am from the Father.’⁠a He will say to you: ‘What kind of a son are you, and to which father do you belong?’ You will say to him: ‘I am from the Father who [existed] first, and a Son who [is] inside the First-Existent One.’ He [will say] to you: ‘And [from where did you come]?’ You will [say to him: ‘From what existed at first], because I [...]. ‘[...] the aliens?’ You will say to him: ‘They are not completely alien, but they are from Achamoth, that is, from the female, and she made these when she brought down the race from what existed at first. They are, therefore, not aliens, but they belong to us. On the one hand, they belong to us because she who is their Lady is from what existed at first. On the other hand, they are aliens in that the First-Existent One did not unite himself with her at the time when she thought of making them.’ Again he will say to you: ‘Where are you going?’ You will say to him: ‘To the place from which I have come, there will I return,’ but when you say this, you will be away from their activities. When you, however, come into the hands [of the] three minions [who] apprehend [the] souls violently in that place, [...]. You will [say] to them: ‘I am a vessel [more valuable] than [Achamoth, who made you.] [...] your [...], that is, [...] over her root, will you not sober up [yourself]? I, however, will invoke the indestructible knowledge, [which] is Sophia, who dwells inside the Father, who is the mother of Achamoth. No father was apportioned for Achamoth, also [no] male [companion]. She is instead [a female] from a female. She made you without [a male], when she dwelt alone, because she was ignorant concerning those who [...] her mother, because she thought that she was the only one who existed. I, however, will shout up to her mother, and they will then fall into confusion. They will accuse their root and the race of their mother. You, however, will ascend to [those] who are yours [...].