The Apocryphon of John, also called the Secret Book of John or the Secret Revelation of John, is a 2nd-century Sethian Gnostic Christian pseudepigraphical text attributed to John the Apostle. It is one of the texts addressed by Irenaeus in his Christian polemic Against Heresies, placing its composition before 180 AD. It tells of the appearance of Jesus and the imparting of secret knowledge (gnosis) to his disciple John. The author describes it as having occurred after Jesus had "gone back to the place from which he came".
Summary of the text and its cosmology
The text begins with John describing his own state of grief and bewilderment after Christ's crucifixion. The Savior then appears, takes various forms, and after banishing John's fears, provides the following cosmological narrative.
The highest divine principle is the Monad. The Monad is described as a "monarchy with nothing above it". He is supreme, absolute, eternal, endless, perfect, holy and self-sufficient. However, his transcendent ineffability is also emphasized. He is neither quantifiable nor can his qualities ever truly be described. The Monad exists in inconceivable perfection.
The Monad produces from his thought a feminine divine entity or principle named Barbelo. She is described as "the first thought", and the "image" of the Monad. While Barbelo is always referred to as a "she", she is also described as both the primordial mother and father. She is also regarded as "the first man", "Holy Spirit", "Mother/Father" and described in various terms of androgyny. She is the first of a class of beings referred to as the Aeons, and an exchange between herself and the Monad brings the other Aeons into being. Additionally, the properties of Light and Mind are born from the Monad's reflection on Barbelo. Light is synonymous with Christ, also called "Christ the Autogenes". The Light and the Mind engage in further creative activity, aided by and glorifying the superior principles of Barbelo and the Monad. Together, they bring forth further Aeons and powers.
Eventually, one of the Aeons, Sophia "of the Epinoia", disrupts the harmony of these processes by engaging in creative activity without the participation or consent of the Spirit of the Monad and without the aid of a male consort. The creative power of her thought produces an entity named Yaldabaoth, who is the first of a series of incomplete, demonic entities called the Archons. Yaldabaoth, whose character is malevolent and arrogant, also has a grotesque form. His head is that of a lion while he possesses a serpentine body. Recognizing the deformed, imperfect nature of her offspring, Sophia attempts to conceal it somewhere where the other Aeons will not discover it. The act of hiding Yaldabaoth also has the result that Yaldabaoth himself remains ignorant of the upper world and the other Aeons.
Despite the fact that Yaldabaoth possesses only a single parent and was created without the consent of the Spirit of the Monad, he is powerful enough to mimic the creative processes of the superior Aeons. He creates a whole host of other Archons, each of whom share his own basically deficient character, and creates a world for them to inhabit. This world is fundamentally inferior to the world above. It is fashioned out of darkness, but animated by light stolen from Sophia. The result is a world that is neither "light nor dark" but is instead "dim". In his arrogance and ignorance, Yaldabaoth declares himself the sole and jealous God of this realm.
Recognizing the imperfection of Yaldabaoth and his counterfeit world, Sophia repents. In forgiveness of her error, the Spirit of the Monad assists the other Aeons and powers in an attempt to redeem Sophia and her bastard creation. During this process Yaldabaoth and his Archons hear the voice of the Monad's Spirit. While they are terrified by the voice, its echo leaves a trace of an image of the Spirit on the "waters" that form the roof of their realm. Hoping to harness this power for themselves, they attempt to create a copy of this image. The end result of this process is the first human man, Adam.
Recognizing an opportunity to retrieve the light imprisoned in the darkness of Yaldabaoth and his world, Sophia and agents of the higher order, referred to variously as the "plenoria" or the "Epinoia", and later as the "pleroma", devise a scheme. They trick Yaldabaoth into blowing his own spiritual essence into Adam. This simultaneously animates Adam and empties Yaldabaoth of the portion of his being derived from Sophia.
Seeing the luminosity, intelligence and general superiority of the now animate Adam, Yaldabaoth and the Archons regret their creation and do their best to imprison or dispose of him. Failing to do so, they then attempt to neutralize him by placing him in the Garden of Eden. In this narrative, the Garden of Eden is a false paradise where the fruit of the trees is sin, lust, ignorance, confinement and death. While they give Adam access to the Tree of Life, they conceal the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. According to this narrative, the Tree of Knowledge actually represents the penetration of the positive forces of the higher world and the Epinoia into Yaldabaoth's realm.
At this point in the narrative, Christ reveals to John that it was he who caused Adam to consume the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Additionally, it is revealed that Eve is a helper sent by agents of the higher order to help liberate the light imprisoned in Yaldabaoth's creation and in Adam. She is created when Yaldabaoth attempts to draw the light out of Adam. This results in the creation of the female body. When Adam perceives her, he sees a reflection of his own essence and is freed from the bewitching power of Yaldabaoth.
The narrative then details Yaldabaoth's attempts to regain control over the essence of Light. His primary scheme is to initiate the activity of human reproduction, by which he hopes to create new human bodies inhabited by a counterfeit spirit. This counterfeit spirit allows Yaldabaoth and his agents to deceive the human race, keeping them in ignorance of their true nature, and is the primary means by which Yaldabaoth keeps humanity in subjugation. It is the source of all earthly evil and confusion, and causes people to die "not having found truth and without knowing the God of truth".
Following this revelation, the narrative then takes the form of a series of questions and answers between John and the Savior. These address a number of subjects, but are largely soteriological in nature. John asks Christ who is eligible for salvation, and Christ responds with the answer that those who come in contact with the true Spirit will receive salvation, while those who are dominated by the counterfeit spirit will receive damnation. Christ also reveals his own role as a liberating agent of the higher realm, in this context. Christ, who describes himself as the "remembrance of the Pronoia" and "the remembrance of the pleroma", brings light into the darkness of Yaldabaoth's prison. Here, he rouses the prisoners to wakefulness and remembrance. Those who receive and are woken by Christ's revelation are raised up and “sealed… in the light of the water with five seals”. They are thus spared from death and damnation. This aspect of Christ's role is elaborated on more fully by Nag Hammadi Codex III, whereas it is omitted from the Berlin Codex.
This concludes Christ's message. Finally, the savior states that anyone who shares these revelations for personal profit will be cursed. The Nag Hammadi Codex III version of the text ends with the prayer, "Jesus Christ, Amen".