The Apocryphon of John (also the Secret Book or Secret Revelation of John) is a second-century Sethian Gnostic revelation in which the risen Christ appears to John, son of Zebedee, and tells him the hidden history of the universe: the unknowable Monad and its first thought Barbelo; the Aeons and Four Luminaries; the fall of Sophia; the birth of the Demiurge Yaldabaoth; the making of Adam by the Archons; and the long struggle between the light hidden in humanity and the rulers' Counterfeit Spirit. It is the fullest surviving statement of classic Gnostic myth, and the most important single source behind this wiki's Gnostic pages.[1]
Manuscripts and date
Four Coptic copies survive: three from the Nag Hammadi Library (Codices II, III and IV) and one in the Berlin Codex (BG 8502), bought in Cairo in 1896. They represent at least two editions. The long version (Codices II and IV) includes a lengthy excerpt from a "Book of Zoroaster" listing the angels who built the human body, and the short version (Codex III and the Berlin Codex) lacks it.[1] Bentley Layton counts four distinct ancient editions once Irenaeus's summary is included, "a measure of the importance and timeliness of the work for ancient gnostic Christianity."[2] Irenaeus of Lyons described teachings very close to its myth in his Against Heresies (c. 180–185), so its core is at least that old. The translator Frederik Wisse notes that the book "was still used in the eighth century by the Audians of Mesopotamia."[2]
The Berlin Codex's edition had bad luck. Carl Schmidt's edition was nearly printed in 1912 when a broken water pipe at the printer's destroyed the run; war and Schmidt's death delayed it further, and the text was not published until Walter Till's edition of 1955.[1]
The story
The vision
John, grieving after a Pharisee mocks his faith, is met by the Savior, who appears as a child, an old person and a servant, "a (single) [li]keness [having] many forms in the lig[ht]," and says, "I [am the Father. I am] the Mother. I am the So[n]." (Square brackets mark letters restored by editors where the papyrus is damaged.) The rest of the book is that teaching, framed at the end as a secret: "Cursed be any one who should exchange these things for a gift."[3]
The Fullness
The supreme principle is the invisible virginal Spirit. Its thought becomes Barbelo, "the first Thought (Protennoia) of Its image... the Mother-Father, the first Human, the holy Spirit," who becomes "a womb for the All." From the Spirit's gaze into Barbelo comes the self-begotten Christ, and from him the four Lights, Armozel, Oriael, Daveithai and Eleleth, each with three Aeons.[3] (See Pleroma, Aeons, Barbelo, Four Luminaries.)
Sophia and the lion-faced serpent
Sophia "willed a likeness to appear from within herself without the will of the Spirit... and without her partner." What emerges is "a model of a lion-faced serpent. His eyes were like flashing fires of lightning." She hides him in a luminous cloud and names him Yaltabaoth.[3] He steals her power, begets the rulers, and declares that he is God and "no other god exists except me," in the long version's wording, "since he is ignorant of the place from which his strength had come."[3] (See Yaldabaoth, Archons.)
The making of Adam
A voice from above reveals the image of the first Human on the waters. The rulers say, "Come, let us create a human according to the image of God and according to our likeness." Seven powers supply seven soul-substances, and 365 angels build the body limb by limb; the long version names them one by one from a "Book of Zoroaster." The body lies motionless until the Mother's envoys trick Yaldabaoth into breathing her stolen power into it. Adam shines, and the jealous rulers imprison him in a material body, "the tomb of the molding of the body... the chain of forgetfulness."[3]
Epinoia, Eve and the tree
A luminous helper, the Epinoia of light, "who was called Life," is hidden within Adam. The rulers' paradise is a trap: "their delight is bitter and their beauty is licentious." The true "tree of the knowledge of what is good and evil" is the Epinoia herself. The Savior says, "I set them right so that they would eat," and appears "In the form of an eagle... on the tree of knowledge... so that I might teach them and awaken them from the depth of the sleep."[3] Eve is formed when Yaldabaoth tries to extract Adam's power, and when Adam sees her, "He became sober from the drunkenness of the darkness."[3] This reverses the usual reading of Genesis: eating from the tree is awakening, not sin.
The rulers' counterattack
Yaldabaoth defiles Eve and fathers two sons, a bear-faced Eloim and a lion-faced Yawe, whom he names Cain and Abel. He then sows desire and "supplied them from his counterfeit spirit." The rulers join with Sophia to beget "bitter Fate, which is the last of the counterfeit chains", which binds all creation "with measures and times and seasons." They plan a flood, and finally send angels disguised as human husbands, having "created a despicable spirit in the likeness of the Spirit who had descended."[3] (See Counterfeit Spirit.)
The call to awaken
The book closes with a hymn in the voice of Pronoia, who descends three times into the darkness and "the prison of the body" and calls: "Whoever hears, arise from lethargic sleep!... I am the Pronoia of the pure light; I am the thought of the virginal Spirit... Arise and remember that you are the one who has heard, and follow your root, which is I, the compassionate."[3]
Themes
- A reading of Genesis. The Apocryphon repeatedly corrects Moses ("It is not like Moses said"), recasting the creator of Genesis as an ignorant copyist and the forbidden knowledge as the Savior's gift (the snake itself, in this version, teaches only desire).[3]
- Salvation by remembering. The rulers' weapons are sleep, forgetfulness and imitation. The savior's cure is to wake people and remind them of their "root."
- A strongly feminine divine. Barbelo, Sophia, the Epinoia/Zoe and Pronoia are the principal actors of rescue; Yaldabaoth's arrogance is always answered by a feminine power of light.
- Who is saved? The dialogue near the end holds that the Spirit of Life "will descend upon every human being," and that even a soul led astray by the counterfeit spirit may, after death, be held by the rulers "until it awakens from forgetfulness and receives knowledge."[3]
In the Alien Archive
Ancient Gnostics were not writing about extraterrestrials; these are thematic parallels offered in the Archive's spirit of playful inquiry.
- Draconians and Reptilians — Yaldabaoth is a "lion-faced serpent" ruling a hierarchy whose seven chiefs bear animal faces, two of them serpentine, one with seven heads. He can "masquerade" with "a multitude of faces." The Archive's hierarchical, shape-shifting reptilian overlords are the closest modern echo.
- Anunnaki — Creator-rulers who fashion humanity and set themselves up as gods, as the Archive's "builder gods" and "genetic engineers" are said to have done.
- Hybrids and Clones — The Archons build a body from a copied template, part by part, then produce "copies of the bodies" through reproduction. The Apocryphon is perhaps the ancient world's most detailed "engineered human" story.
- Mimic Entities and Shadow Entities — The rulers' counterfeit spirit, made "in the likeness of the Spirit," and their angels disguised as human mates. See Counterfeit Spirit.
- Artificial Probes — Fate (Heimarmene), an impersonal planetary system that binds souls "with measures and times and seasons," is the text's image of a mechanical control grid.
- Lady of Light — The luminous feminine who descends, heals and awakens: Barbelo, Epinoia and above all Pronoia, "the remembrance of the Pronoia," who calls the sleeper to "arise."
See also
- Sethianism
- Barbelo
- Sophia
- Yaldabaoth
- Archons
- Counterfeit Spirit
- Four Luminaries
- Nag Hammadi Library
- Hypostasis of the Archons
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Apocryphon of John — Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Apocryphon of John — Early Christian Writings (Peter Kirby), quoting Bentley Layton and Frederik Wisse. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 The Apocryphon of John (Long Version), trans. Michael Waldstein and Frederik Wisse — The Gnostic Society Library (gnosis.org). Accessed 2026-09-19.