Art of the Gnostic Gospels
Eternal Desire
"With a view to the permanence of the race, he [God] has implanted in males a strong and ardent desire which neither law nor custom nor any other restraint is able to destroy. For it is God’s decree…. Consequently one must understand the saying "You shall not desire" as if the lawgiver was making a jest, to which he added the even more comic words "your neighbor’s goods" [Exod. 20:17]. For he himself who gave the desire to sustain the race orders that it is to be suppressed, though he removes it from no other animals. And by the words "your neighbor’s wife" he says something even more ludicrous, since he forces what should be common property to be treated as a private possession."
(Epiphanes, On Righteousness and Justice, from Willis Barnstone’s The Other Bible, pp. 649-50, pub. 1984)
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