The Apocryphon of John (Secret Book of John) – The MOST Important Gnostic Gospel

The Apocryphon of John (Secret Book of John) – The MOST Important Gnostic Gospel

Prologue: The Teaching of the Savior

This text encompasses the teaching of the Savior, the revelation of the mysteries, and the sayings concealed in silence—the very words that He taught to John, His disciple. It came to pass one day, when John, the brother of James (both sons of Zebedee), had ascended to the temple, that a Pharisee named Arammanios approached him. The Pharisee asked, “Where is your teacher, whom you follow?” John replied, “He has returned to the place from whence He came.”

The Pharisee sneered, “This Nazarene deceived you all with his trickery, filling your ears with falsehoods and sealing your hearts, turning you away from the traditions of your ancestors.”

Upon hearing these words, I, John, turned away from the temple toward a desolate landscape of mountains and desert. In the depth of my heart, I lamented, questioning: “How was the Savior appointed? Why was He dispatched to this world by His Father? Who is this Father who sent Him? And to what kind of Aeon are we destined to go?” He had spoken to us of an “indestructible Aeon,” yet He never explained the nature of that realm.

As I pondered these mysteries, the Savior appeared. Suddenly, the heavens were thrown open, and the entire creation beneath the firmament glowed with an ethereal light; the world itself trembled. Seized by fear, I beheld a child standing before me. As I gazed upon Him, He transformed into an old man, then altered His appearance once more, becoming like a youth. It was not a fragmented entity, but a vision of multiple forms residing within the light, interweaving and manifesting in three distinct guises.

The Savior Comforts John

The Savior spoke, saying, “John, John, why do you marvel? Why are you afraid? Is this appearance unknown to you? Do not be faint of heart. I am He who is always with you. I am the Father; I am the Mother; I am the Son. I am the unpolluted and untainted One. I have come now to reveal to you what is, what was, and what will be, so that you may perceive the unmanifest and the manifest, and to acquaint you with the unmoving race of the Perfect Man. Lift up your face, that you may accept these truths and convey them to your companion spirits of that same unmoving race.”

The Monad

I asked to understand the Monad, and He replied: “The Monad is a unity, with nothing higher than itself. It exists as God and Father of All, the unseen One who transcends all, existing as indestructibility and pure light upon which no eye can gaze. He is the unseen Spirit, and it is improper to think of Him as a god or anything similar, for He is beyond divinity. Nothing exists above Him; no one rules over Him. He does not exist within anything subordinate to Him, for all things exist within Him. He is self-established.”

He is eternal, standing in need of nothing, for He is complete perfection. He lacked nothing that required completion; rather, He is forever, perfectly, in the light. He is limitless, as no one existed before Him to place limits upon Him. He is unfathomable, for no one existed before Him to conceive of His measure. He is unseen, as no one has ever looked upon Him. He is eternal, existing eternally. He is unspeakable, for there was no one to conceive of Him, and no one to name Him. He is light beyond measure—pure, sacred, and unstained.

He exists not confined within perfection, nor blessedness, nor divinity, but is highly exalted above these. He is neither somatic nor non-somatic. He is neither large nor small. It is impossible to assign Him quantity or quality. He is not a being among beings; He is exalted within Himself. He does not participate in the Aeons or in time, for He is the one who gazes at Himself, abiding in His own light. Because glory belongs to Him, He possesses purity beyond measure. He is the Aeon that bestows Aeons, the Life that bestows Life, the Blessed One who bestows blessedness, the Knowledge that bestows knowledge. He is the Grace that bestows grace. He is the leader of all Aeons, granting them strength through His goodness.

Barbello

We cannot comprehend the unspeakable or the immeasurable apart from Him who originated from Him—the Father. The Father studies Himself within the light that surrounds Him, which is the spring of living water. He is the One who supplies every Aeon. Gazing into the spring of the Spirit, He observes His own image. He placed His desire within this water-light, and His thought became actual. She appeared before Him within the glow of His light. This is the first Power, which existed before the All and issued forth from His mind. She is the Providence of the All. Her light glows like His—the perfect Power who is the image of the perfect, unseen, virginal Spirit.

This is the glory of Barbello, the perfect glory within the Aeons. She extolled the virginal Spirit because, through Him, she had come forth. She became the universal womb, for she exists before all: the Mother-Father, the primal man, the holy spirit, the triple-male, the androgynous one, the eternal Aeon. She entreated the unseen virginal Spirit to grant her precognition, and the Spirit agreed. When He agreed, Precognition approached and attended Providence. She then entreated for Indestructibility, and when granted, Indestructibility attended. Then came Eternal Life, and finally Truth. This is the Aionic Pentad of the Father: Providence (Barbello), Idea, Precognition, Indestructibility, Eternal Life, and Truth.

The Self-Generated God

The Father peered into Barbello with the pure light that surrounds the unseen Spirit, and from Him, she conceived. She brought forth a light-spark, an only-begotten offspring of the Mother-Father—the pure Light. The unseen virginal Spirit rejoiced at this light and anointed him until he became perfect. This is the self-generated God, Christ, whom the Spirit anointed with His own anointing. Christ requested a companion—Mind—and the Spirit agreed. Mind approached, extolling Christ and Barbello.

Mind then willed to create by means of the Logos of the unseen Spirit. The Logos followed the Will, and through this Logos, Christ the self-generated God created the All. The four Lights—eternal life, mind, precognition, and will—attended and extolled the Spirit. Thus, the self-generated God was completed alongside Barbello, appointed over the All, with every authority subjected to Him.

The Four Lights and the Aons

The four great lights attend the self-generated God:

Armisel (appointed over the first Aeon), accompanied by the Aeons Grace, Truth, and Form.

Oriael (appointed over the second Aeon), accompanied by Reflection, Perception, and Memory.

Davei (appointed over the third Aeon), accompanied by Understanding, Love, and Ideal Form.

Eleleith (appointed over the fourth Aeon), accompanied by Perfection, Peace, and Sophia.

These are the twelve Aeons attending the son of the mighty one. Everything was established by the will of the Holy Spirit and the self-generated One.

Pigera Adamas and Seth

From the precognition of the perfect Mind, through the revelation of the unseen Spirit, issued the Perfect Man, the first revelation, the Truth. The virginal Spirit named him Pigera Adamas and appointed him over the first Aeon, alongside the self-generated Christ. The Spirit granted him spiritual, invulnerable strength. Pigera Adamas appointed his son, Seth, over the second Aeon. In the third Aeon, the seed of Seth was placed, containing the souls of the holy ones. In the fourth Aeon were placed the souls of those who, though unacquainted with the fullness, eventually repented.

Yalabaoth

Sophia, of the reflection, thought a thought on her own, without the agreement of the Spirit or her companion. She willed to bring forth a likeness from herself. Because she possessed invulnerable strength, her thought did not remain barren. She produced something incomplete and different from her own appearance. When she saw the result, it had morphed into a lion-faced dragon form, with eyes like flashing lightning. She thrust him away, outside the immortal realms, and surrounded him with a shining cloud, erecting a throne within it so that none could see him except the Holy Spirit, the Mother of the Living. She named him Yalaboth.

This chief archon procured power from his mother and moved away from the place of his birth. He created for himself further Aeons and authorities. The first is Athos (the reaper), the second Harmas (the evil eye), and others including Kalila, Yabil, Adonayu, Cain, Abel, and Belellas. He set up seven kings to correspond to the seven heavens, and five over the deep abyss. He shared his fire with them but withheld the power of the light he had procured from his mother, for he is ignorant darkness. When the light combined with the darkness, it caused the darkness to shine, but the light was darkened.

The archon possesses three names: Yalaboth, Saklas, and Samuel. In his pride, he declared, “I am God, and there is no God other than me,” unaware of the source of his own strength. The archons created seven powers, and each power created six angels, totaling 365 angels. These powers—Athos, Elawayu, Astio, Yao, Sabayoth, Adonin, and Sabedi—represent the sevenfold aspect of the weak. Yalaboth, possessing a multitude of faces, made himself their overlord.

The Mother’s Repentance

I asked the Lord why the Mother moved back and forth. He smiled and said, “Do not think this matches the accounts of men. When she witnessed the evil perpetrated by her son, she was overwhelmed by oblivion and the darkness of ignorance. She felt shame and feared to return. The movement of ‘back and forth’ represents her turmoil.”

Realizing her garment of darkness was flawed, the Mother wept copiously. The entire fullness heard her prayer, and the Holy Spirit poured out upon her to rectify her deficiency. She was taken up above her son, to the ninth, until her deficiency was corrected. A voice emerged from the lofty heavenly Aeon: “The Man exists, and the Son of Man.” The chief archon, Yalaboth, overheard this and, in his ignorance, assumed the voice came from his mother.

The Creation of Adam

The authorities saw the shape of the image of the Primal Man reflected in the waters below. They said, “Come, let us create a man according to the image of God and our likeness, so that his image may become a light for us.” They created him by their individual powers. The first, Goodness, created a living bone; Providence created a living sinew; Divinity created living flesh; Lordship created living marrow; Kingdom created living blood; Jealousy created living skin; Understanding created living hair.

Host upon host of angels worked on this creature, limb by limb, until the psychic and material body was formed. Yet, it remained inert and without movement for a prolonged time. When the Mother wished to regain the power she had lent to the archon, she entreated the merciful Father. He dispatched the five lights down to the archons. They counseled Yalaboth: “Blow your spirit into his face, and his body will stand.” He blew his spirit into the man—the power of the Mother—unaware that he was merely transferring a power he did not truly own. The body moved and became radiant.

The other powers grew envious because the man’s intellect surpassed those who had made him. Seeing he was unburdened by evil, they cast him into the nethermost region of matter. But the merciful Mother-Father did not abandon him; He dispatched a radiant reflection, called Life, to be a helper. She instructed him concerning the descent and ascent of his seed and concealed the reflection of light within him so the archons would remain ignorant.

The Conspiracy Against Adam

The archons, realizing Adam’s intellect surpassed their own, convened a council. They took fire, earth, water, and the four fiery winds, and created a chaotic commotion. They took Adam into the “shadow of death,” attempting to reshape him from the elements of matter—the ignorance of darkness and lust. This became the tomb, the chain of oblivion, and he became a mortal man.

The archons placed him in paradise, telling him to “eat” (meaning, to remain in laziness). Their delight was a trick, their trees were godlessness, and their fruit was a deadly poison. Yet, they placed the tree of life in the middle of paradise. I will teach you the mystery of their life: its root is bitter, its branches are mortality, its shadow is hatred, and trickery dwells within its leaves. Its fruit is death, and lust is its seed. Those who taste of it dwell in the darkness of Hades.

They kept Adam away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but it was I, the reflection of light, who caused them to partake. I asked the Savior, “Lord, was it not the serpent who instructed Adam?” He laughed and replied, “The serpent taught them to taste of the tree of desire and the corruption of lust, which is the instrument of the archon to make them forget their Father and obey him. But I was the one who was in the serpent, and I raised them up to understand their true nature.”

Would you like to explore the continuation of these mysteries, or perhaps delve into the nature of the descent of the soul?