The Thunder: Perfect Mind

A New Translation and Introduction

Copyright © Hal Taussig, Jared Calaway, Maia Kotrosits, Celene Lillie, and Justin Lasser, 2010.

Preface:

This evocative, gender-bended, and ever-twisting self-portrait in the ancient document The Thunder: Perfect Mind sustains itself for some nine pages of papyrus. Sometimes commanding the scene like a goddess, other times disdained and thrown down in the dirt, she keeps challenging those around her. Still other times, she shape-shifts into a masculine form or intentionally contradicts conventional expectations of her previous utterance.

Like many other important ancient scripts, The Thunder: Perfect Mind was discovered in rural Egypt, where the dry air inhibits decay of ancient material. Thunder belongs to the increasingly famous Nag Hammadi collection of what appear to be mostly early Christian documents, all found in the same jar in the hills above the Nile. It is likely that the Nag Hammadi documents had been collected by an early desert monastic community. Found in the mid-twentieth century and translated within several decades afterward, these documents were initially published in English in 1977, but only accessible to the general public within the last generation. Thunder was one of 52 Nag Hammadi documents.

Thunder has nevertheless already distinguished itself in public consciousness. It stands vigil at the beginning of award-winning novelist Toni Morrison’s works Jazz and Paradise. Umberto Eco also cited it in his novel Foucault’s Pendulum. Julie Dash’s award-winning 1991 feature film, Daughters of the Dust, opens with a long citation from Thunder. Its text also anchors a 2005 film by Jordon and Ridley Scott, whose shortened version has appeared widely as a commercial for Prada women’s fashions. Numerous music groups and composers have set Thunder to music.

Curiously enough–and in contrast with the Gospel of Thomas, the other document from Nag Hammadi known more broadly to the public–Thunder has never been published in book form in English. The Gospel of Thomas has been published as a single book in at least 20 editions. This work marks the first book-length publication and treatment of Thunder in English.

This book has four major purposes:

1. To make the text of this extraordinary ancient work available to as broad a public as possible. This text in translation is presented in the opening section of the book.

2. To provide a translation of this work that does careful justice to the original Coptic and whose English is fresh and poetic in keeping with the poetic quality in the Coptic.

3. To introduce basic historical and literary contexts for the study of this text on any level.

4. To reflect on the powerful meanings of Thunder in relationship to society, gender, violence, and identity through the ways in which it has been written and performed.

This book also provides an extensive annotated translation that allows scholarship for the next several decades to be aware of technical issues within the Coptic, that helps readers take into account variant translations and meanings not reflected in the main translation, and that offers additional historical and literary information for the understanding of this text.

This project originated in a year-long Coptic study at Union Theological Seminary in New York. It is also a part of a longer-range effort at Union to provide advanced study in the literature of early Christianity without regard to canonical boundaries or prerogatives.

Preface to the Translation:

In translating The Thunder: Perfect Mind, we wanted to create above all a crisp, readable, and evocative piece of writing in English that reflects Coptic meanings (and their implications) responsibly. We wanted to avoid a “trendy” translation that serves particular contemporary interests at the expense of important ancient meanings. But we also wanted to go beyond strictly literal renderings or antiquarian attachments such as replicating exact syntax. In this vein, treating Thunder as a poem was crucial to us, and while literalisms can be useful to a certain point, respecting the text as poetry means also honoring the metaphorical, associative, and evocative functions of both English and Coptic.

There are a number of aspects of Thunder, though, that demand very specific representation in English. The poetic nature of the text meant retaining, for example, some of the alliteration and rhyme (though not in the very same phrases as the Coptic), and attending to the shifts in tone and content through stanza breaks. On the other hand, in order to keep the lines as sharp as possible, words that function to aid or indicate performance in an ancient context (the words “and” or “for/since”) were eliminated unless they were necessary syntactically or gave a cue in meaning.

Translating grammatical gender in Thunder was also a task that required meticulous treatment. As we elaborate in various places throughout this book, gender has been universally under-translated in Thunder, and so we have attempted to address the various difficulties involved in translating the often subtle, often palpable gender play throughout Thunder. The “I am” (anok te/pe) structure was most difficult in its understated and elusive reference to gender. While we believe this structure contributes meaningfully to Thunder with regard to gender, we decided not to translate the gender in these phrases. We found no feasible way to include it without destroying its subtlety, and inadvertently weakening some of the more emphatic interests in gendered language. Otherwise, we have never translated neutrally where the text cites a gendered “one.”

Similarly, past translations primarily have read Thunder as speculative or cosmological in ways that support a “Gnostic” categorization for the text. While Thunder’s philosophical concerns are clear, we have also found that it has strong investments in making meaning for its particular social situations. So where words or phrases suggest primarily concrete or “earthy” meanings, we have heeded those meanings rather than presume cosmological meanings (“when I am thrown onto the ground” as opposed to “when I am cast out upon the earth” [15.2–3]).

Regarding lacunae in the manuscript and word reconstructions made by scholars, we have made our own decisions for each of these on a case-by-case basis. Some careful and important work has already been done on textual reconstruction of Thunder, most of which we have accepted. It was nevertheless vital to let ambiguous lacunae stand, because of the text’s tendency to surprise the reader with unanticipated turns in meaning and syntax.

Translation is a task that necessarily gives and takes away potential for meaning. We tried to be conscious of our gains and losses at every stage, and we have provided annotations (in the “Annotated Coptic Text and English Translation,” beginning on page 102) to track where our decisions have been disputed among us or where our decisions might be better understood by readers. We hope that this translation offers an opportunity to scholars as well as artists, those who pray texts as well as casual readers, to rethink both Thunder itself and the circular safety of the canon.

The Thunder: Perfect Mind

I was sent out from power

I came to those pondering me

And I was found among those seeking me

Look at me, all you who contemplate me

Audience, hear me

Those expecting me, receive me

Don’t chase me from your sight

Don’t let your voice or your hearing hate me

Don’t ignore me any place, any time

Be careful. Do not ignore me

I am the first and the last

I am she who is honored and she who is mocked

I am the whore and the holy woman

I am the wife and the virgin

I am he the mother and the daughter

I am the limbs of my mother

I am a sterile woman and she has many children

I am she whose wedding is extravagant and I didn’t have a husband

I am the midwife and she who hasn’t given birth

I am the comfort of my labor pains

I am the bride and the bridegroom

And it is my husband who gave birth to me

I am my father’s mother,

my husband’s sister, and he is my child

I am the slave-woman of him who served me

I am she, the lord of my child

But it is he who gave birth to me at the wrong time

And he is my child born at the right time

And my power is from within him

I am the staff of his youthful power

And he is the baton of my old womanhood

Whatever he wants happens to me

I am the silence never found

And the idea infinitely recalled

I am the voice with countless sounds

And the thousand guises of the word

I am the speaking of my name

You who loathe me, why do you love me and loathe the ones who love me?

You who deny me, confess me

You who confess me, deny me

You who speak the truth about me, lie about me

You who lie about me, speak the truth about me

You who know me, ignore me

You who ignore me, know me

I am both awareness and obliviousness

I am humiliation and pride

I am without shame

I am ashamed

I am security and I am fear

I am war and peace

Pay attention to me

I am she who is disgraced and she who is important

Pay attention to me, to my impoverishment and to my extravagance

Do not be arrogant to me when I am thrown to the ground

You will find me among the expected

Do not stare at me in the shit pile, leaving me discarded

You will find me in the kingdoms

Do not stare at me when I am thrown out among the condemned

Do not laugh at me in the lowest places

Do not throw me down among those slaughtered viciously

I myself am compassionate

And I am cruel

Watch out!

Do not hate my compliance and do not love my restraint

In my weakness do not strip me bare

Do not be afraid of my power

Why do you despise my fear and curse my pride?

I am she who exists in all fears and in trembling boldness

I am she who is timid

And I am safe in a comfortable place

I am witless, and I am wise

Why did you hate me with your schemes?

I shall shut my mouth among those whose mouths are shut and then I will show up and speak

Why then did you hate me, you Greeks?

Because I am a barbarian among barbarians?

I am the wisdom of the Greeks and the knowledge of the barbarians

I am the deliberation of both the Greeks and barbarians

I am he whose image is multiple in Egypt

And she who is without an image among the barbarians

I am she who was hated in every place

And she who was loved in every place

I am she whom they call life

And you all called death

I am she whom they call law

And you all called lawlessness

I am she whom you chased and she whom you captured

I am she whom you scattered

And you have gathered me together

I am she before whom you were ashamed

And you have been shameless to me

I am she who does not celebrate festivals

And I am she whose festivals are spectacular

I, I am without God

And I am she whose God is magnificent

I am he the one you thought about and you detested me

I am not learned, and they learn from me

I am she whom you detested and yet you think about me

I am he from whom you hid

And you appear to me

Whenever you hide yourselves, I myself will appear

For [………] you […]I myself […….] you[..]

[…….]Those who have [….]

[…..]to it […..……..]take me[………….]from within[……….]

Receive me with understanding and heartache

Take me from the disgraced and crushed places

Rob from those who are good, even though in disgrace

Bring me in shame, to yourselves, out of shame

With or without shame

Blame the parts of me within yourselves

Come toward me, you who know me and you who know the parts of me

Assemble the great among the small and earliest creatures

Advance toward childhood

Do not hate it because it is small and insignificant

Don’t reject the small parts of greatness because they are small since smallness is recognized from within greatness

Why do you curse me and revere me?

You wounded me and you relented

Don’t separate me from the first ones you[……….]throw away no one[………..] turn away no[………….]she who[…..]

I know those

And the ones after these know me

But I am the mind[…….]and the rest[………]

I am the learning from my search

And the discovery of those seeking me

The command of those who ask about me

And the power of powers

In my understanding of the angels

Who were sent on my word

And the Gods in God, according to my design?

And spirits of all men who exist with me

And the women who live in me

I am she who is revered and adored

And she who is reviled with contempt

I am peace and war exists because of me

I am a foreigner and a citizen of the city

I am being

I am she who is nothing

Those who do not participate in my presence, don’t know me

Those who share in my being know me

Those who are close to me, did not know me

Those who are far from me, knew me

On the day that I am close to you[………….]are far away

[……..]on the day that I[……..]from you[……..]

[……….]of the heart[…..]

[…….]of the natures

I am he[…….]of the creation of the spirits[….]request of the souls [……]control and the uncontrollable I am the coming together and the falling apart

I am the enduring and the disintegration

I am down in the dirt and they come up to me

I am judgment and acquittal

I myself am without sin, and the root of sin is from within me

I appear to be lust but inside is self-control

I am what anyone can hear but no one can say

I am a mute that does not speak and my words are endless

Hear me in tenderness, learn from me in roughness

I am she who shouts out and I am thrown down on the ground

I am the one who prepares the bread and my mind within

I am the knowledge of my name

I am she who shouts out and it is I that listens

I appear and[………]walk in[…………]seal of my[………..]

[…….]I am he[…………]the defense[…….]

I am she they call truth, and violation[…….]

You honor me[………]and you whisper against me

You conquered ones: judge them before they judge you

Because the judge and favoritism exist in you

If he condemns you, who will release you?

If he releases you, who can detain you?

Since what is your inside is your outside

And the one who shapes your outside is he who shaped your inside

And what you see on the outside, you see revealed on the inside

It is your clothing

Hear me, audience, and learn from my words, you who know me

I am what everyone can hear and no one can say

I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name

I am the sign of writing and disclosure of difference

And I

[……………………]light[…….]

[……..]and[……..………]hearers[……..]to you[………]

[…..]the great power.

And[……..]will not move the name...

[…..]he who created me

But I will speak his name

Look then at his pronouncements and all the writings that have been completed

Listen then, audience

And also you angels

Along with those who have been sent

And spirits who have risen from among the dead

For I am he who exists alone

And no one judges me

Since many sweet ideas exist in all kinds of sin,

Uncontrollable and condemning passions

And passing pleasures that people have

Until they become sober and go up to their resting place,

And they will find me in that place

They will live and they will not die again

☥

Allat, the Arab goddess of war (center), flanked by goddesses al-Izza (left) and Munat (right); found in Palmyra, Syria in 1932, now located at le Musée du Louvre in Paris, France. 2nd or 3rd century CE.