At Walden

While hiking one day around Walden Pond, Sanford Kantrowitz, a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies and a votary of Elaine Pagels, made a remarkable discovery. As he gazed at a giant uprooted oak, evidently felled by the previous week's Noreaster, he caught a glimpse of a small leather pouch lying exposed on the ground where the great tree had once stood. Affixed to the pouch was a piece of metal inscribed with the name Sewall. Inside was a pocket sized manuscript on vellum, about the size of the Shambhala Pocket Classics that Kantrowitz so often carried with him. There was an inscription on the inside cover, almost illegible, but Kantrowitz could make out the words "gentle boy", followed by "Virtue" and "Beauty." Later research revealed that Kantrowitz had discovered a hitherto unknown Gnostic text, transcribed by a 19th century hand, perhaps Thoreau himself. Kantrowitz began the painstaking process of reconstructing the original Greek and translating, all in preparation for a critical edition to be published in National Geographic's new series, New England Gnosticism, under the title Sewall's Gospel.

Here is the first excerpt to be released to the public:

I am a lover of Nous and the boys in the forest are my teachers.

They are like trees with roots firmly trenched in Hades.

Orpheus leads them in sweet song and I am drawn to them like a hungry cow before whom a bough or a bunch of fruit is waved. Brilliant golden Nous, the gift of great Priappus, whom having ravished me, is now become my divine darling.

I will know and be known round Attica and the whole world.