Anointing, Baptism, and Eucharist Sacraments

Fragmentary liturgical texts from a Valentinian Gnostic community, preserving the actual words of anointing prayers, baptismal theology, and eucharistic thanksgiving as practiced by second-century Valentinian Christians. These are among the rarest survivals in early Christian literature — not descriptions of Gnostic worship by hostile Church Fathers, but the prayers themselves, spoken in the first person plural by a community that understood baptism as passage "from the world into the Aeon" and the eucharist as remembrance through the Son.

The texts are heavily damaged, with significant lacunae indicated by bracketed ellipses. What survives reveals a sacramental theology that mapped orthodox Christian rites onto Valentinian cosmology: baptism as exodus from blindness into sight, from the carnal into the spiritual, from servitude into sonship; the eucharist as thanksgiving to the Father through Jesus Christ. The Jordan is interpreted as the boundary of the Aeon; John as the Aeon itself. Translation from the Coptic by an unknown translator, digitised from the Gnostic Society Library.

Prayer of Anointing

[....] according to [....] the type of [...] see him. It is fitting for you at this time to send thy Son Jesus Christ and anoint us so we might be able to trample upon the snakes and the heads of the scorpions and all the power of the Devil since he is a shepherd of the seed. Through him we have known thee. And we glorify thee: Glory be to thee, the Father in the Son, the Father in the Son, the Father in the Holy Church and in the holy angels! From now he abides forever in the perpetuity of the Aeons, forever until the untraceable Aeons of the Aeons. Amen.

On Baptism

This is the fullness of the summary of knowledge which summary was revealed to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Monogenes. These are the sure and necessary items so that we may walk in them. But they are those of the first baptism [......The First] baptism is the Forgiveness of sins [...] said, [...] you to the [...] your sins the [...] is a pattern of the [...] of the Christ which is the equal of the [..within] him [...]. For the [...] of Jesus [...].

Moreover, the first baptism is the forgiveness of sins. We are brought from those of the right, that is, into the imperishability which is the Jordan. But that place is of the world. So we have been sent out of the world into the Aeon. For the interpretation of John is the Aeon, while the interpretation of that which is the upward progression, that is, our Exodus from the world into the Aeon.

[..... from the] world into the Jordan and from the blindness of the world into the sight of God, from the carnal into the spiritual, from the physical into the angelic, from the created into the Pleroma, from the world into the Aeon, from the servitudes into sonship, from entanglements into one another, from the desert into our village, from the cold into the hot, from [...] into a [...] and we [...] into the [....thus] we were brought from seminal bodies into bodies with a perfect form.

Indeed I entered by way of example the remnant for which the Christ rescued us in the fellowship of his Spirit. And he brought us forth who are in him, and from now on the souls will become perfect spirits. Now the things granted us by the first baptism [....invisible ...which] is his, since [.......speak][about...]....

Eucharistic Prayer

We give thanks to you and we celebrate the eucharist, O Father, remembering for the sake of thy Son, Jesus Christ that they come forth [...] invisible [...] thy [Son....] his [love...] to [knowledge ......] they are doing thy will through the name of Jesus Christ and will do thy will now and always. They are complete in every spiritual gift and every purity. Glory be to thee through thy Son and thy offspring Jesus Christ from now and forever. Amen.

Eucharistic Blessing

[...] in the [...] the word of the [....the] holy one it is [...] food and [drink...] Son, since you [...] food of the [...] to us the [...] in the [life ..] he does [not boast...] that is [...] Church [...] you are pure [...] thou art the Lord. Whenever you die purely, you will be pure so as to have him [...] everyone who will guide him to food and drink. Glory be to thee forever. Amen.

Colophon

The Valentinian Liturgical Texts are fragmentary Coptic manuscripts preserving the sacramental prayers and theological reflections of a Valentinian Gnostic community. They are among the few surviving examples of Gnostic liturgy in the first person — not reports by patristic opponents, but the words of the worshippers themselves. The anointing prayer, baptismal theology, and eucharistic thanksgivings reveal how Valentinian Christians reinterpreted orthodox sacraments through the lens of their cosmology: the Jordan as the boundary of the Aeon, baptism as passage from the world into the Pleroma, the eucharist as remembrance of the Father through the Son.

Translation from the Coptic, translator unknown. Digitised from the Gnostic Society Library at gnosis.org. Hand-read, cleaned, and restored from the _Needs Work staging area by the Sub-Miko of Tianmu. Work done: replaced boilerplate blockquote with scholarly introduction, separated wall-of-text into four distinct liturgical sections under proper ### headings (Prayer of Anointing, On Baptism, Eucharistic Prayer, Eucharistic Blessing), corrected "they" to "thy" in the final eucharistic line, paragraphed the baptismal section at natural theological divisions, and rewrote the colophon. Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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