Paulo Coelho

Stories & Reflections

Hymn to Isis ( 3rd or 4th century AD )

Author: Paulo Coelho

(I used the text below as the foreword of my book “Eleven Minutes”)

For I am the first and the last

I am the venerated and the despised

I am the prostitute and the saint

I am the wife and the virgin

I am the mother and the daughter

I am the arms of my mother

I am barren and my children are many

I am the married woman and the spinster

I am the woman who gives birth and she who never procreated

I am the consolation for the pain of birth

I am the wife and the husband

And it was my man who created me

I am the mother of my father

I am the sister of my husband

And he is my rejected son

Always respect me

For I am the shameful and the magnificent one

discovered in Nag Hammadi, 1947

( one hour after I posted this text here, Methaper wrote me: “Sorry Paulo, but this original koptic text Nag Hammadi Codex NHC VI,2 is 3rd-4th century “AD”, not “BC”. It has the greek-koptic Titel βροντη “bront锝 and is NOT explicitely an hymn to goddess Isis, even if some historians regard it as “not impossible”.Kindest regards Metapher”)
(thank you, already corrected)

.

Subscribe to Blog

Join 16.9K other subscribers

Stories & Reflections

Social

Paulo Coelho Foundation

Gifts, keepsakes and other souvenirs

Souvenirs