apocryphon

the teaching of the mysteries hidden in silence

and those he taught to john:

it happened one day when I,  john was going up to the temple arimanios approached me and said,

  Where is your teacher, the one whom you used to follow?

I said "He returned from which he came."

The pharisee said, This nazorene deceived you with error. He filled your ears with lies and  shut your hearts. He turned you from the traditions of your fathers.

I turned from the temple to a mountainous and desert place asking how and why was he sent by his father?  Who is his father?

He told us that the aeon is modeled on the indestructible but he did not teach us about what sort the latter is.

While I was thinking these things, the heavens opened and the world quaked.

I was afraid and  saw a child standing by me.

When I saw him, he became like an old person and he shifted his semblance, becoming like a servant. These semblances before me were not multiple beings but there was only a single likeness having many forms in the light.

And the semblances appeared through each other and had three forms.

He said to me,  Are you are a stranger to this likeness? 
I am the one who is undefiled and unpolluted.

I have come to teach what exists and what has come into being and what must come into being so that you will under­stand the things which are not apparent and those which are appar­ent, and to teach you about the immovable generation of the perfect Human.

The Monad is a monarchy without any­thing existing over it.  It exists as the invisible, imperishable and it is not appropriate to consider it to be like the gods. For It is more than divine without anything existing over It.

It alone is eternal since It does not need anything.  It is totally perfect, does not lack anything. It is always completely perfect in light. It is inscrutable, ineffable and unnameable because there is no one before.

It is neither corporeal nor incorporeal.  It is not such that one could say that It has quantity or quality.  It does not participate in the aeons or in time (as a constitutive part of them). It does not receive anything from another.  

It is one who gazes at Itself alone in Its light that sur­rounds It, which is the spring of the living water.

In every way It gazes upon Its image, seeing it in the spring of the Spirit, willing in Its lightwater which is in the spring of the pure lightwater which surrounds It.

Its thinking became a thing.

She who appeared in Its presence in the luminescence of Its light, was revealed. She is the first power who came into being before them all. She appeared from Its thought, the Pronoia of the All, her light, the perfect power, that is the image of the perfect invisible vir­ginal Spirit,

She became a womb for the All because she is prior to them all, the Mother-Father, the first Human, the holy Spirit, the triple male, the triple power, the triple named androgyne, and the eter­nal aeon among the invisible ones.

It begot a spark of light in a light resembling blessedness, but it was not equal to Its greatness. This one was only begotten of the Mother‑Father who had appeared.
He is his only offspring of the Father the pure light.

And he stood in Its presence while It poured upon him.  After receiving the Spirit he asked to be given a fellow worker, which is Mind. And It stared. And in the invisible Spirit's act of staring,

Mind was re­vealed.

Thought willed to create a work through the Word of the invisible Spirit, and his Will became a work. And he was revealed with Mind and Light. And the Word followed the Will.

And the All was firmly founded through the will.

And from the foreknowledge of the perfect Mind through the revelation of the will of the invisible Spirit and the invisible Spirit named the perfect Human.

And the invisible one gave him an unconquerable intellectual power.

And she surrounded him with a luminous cloud.

And he withdrew from her and abandoned the place where he had been born.

And he was stupefied in his Madness, the one who dwells within him, and he begat some authorities for himself.

He ordered everything in the in­destructible pattern.

And the source of these demons who are in the whole body is fixed as four: heat, cold, wetness, dryness. And the mother of them all is matter.

And all the angels and demons labored until they had created the psychic body.

And their product was completely inactive and motionless for a long time.

'Breathe into his face by your spirit and his body will arise.'

And into his face he blew his spirit, which is the power of his Mother.  The power of the Mother went into the psychic body that they had made according to the likeness of the one from the beginning.

The body moved and gained power, and it was luminous.

And in that moment, the rest of the powers became jealous for it was because of them all that he had come into being and they had given their power to the human.

Yet his understanding was stronger than those who had made him. When they understood that he was luminous, could think better than they did, and was naked of evil, they picked him up and threw him down into the lowest part of all matter.

But  the Mother-Father sent a helper to Adam. She is  luminous who was called Life. It is she who aids the whole creation by toiling with him, guiding him by correction toward his fullness, and teaching him about the descent of the seed and teaching him about the path of ascent, the path which it had come down.

The  light was hidden in Adam in order that the powers might not know,

And the human appeared because of the shadow of the light which exists within him.

They took some fire, earth, and water. They mixed them together with each other and the four fiery winds. And they wrought them together and made a great disturbance.

And they enclosed him in the shadow of death in order that they might yet again form from earth, water, fire, and spirit a thing from matter, which is the ignorance of the darkness, desire, and their counterfeit spirit.

This is the tomb of the molding of the body with which the robbers clothed the human, the chain of forgetfulness.

And he came to be a mortal human.

This is the first partition. The  light who was in him will awaken his thinking.

They placed him in paradise. They said  'Eat in idleness for their delight is bitter and their beauty is licentious  Their delight is deception and their trees are impiety.   Their fruit is an incurable poison and their promise is death.

And in the midst of paradise they planted the tree of their life.

But I, I will teach you what the mystery of their life is, the plan they made with each other, the likeness of their spirit.

Its root is bitter and its branches are deaths. Its shade is hate and deception dwells in its leaves. And its blossom is the anointment of evil.

And its fruit is death, and desire is its seed, and it blossoms from the darkness.

But the tree of the knowledge of what is good and evil is the  light.

They  remained in front of it in order that he might not look up to his fullness and come to know the nakedness of his shamefulness.

But as for me, john, I set them right so that they would eat.

And I said to the Savior, "Lord, was it not the snake who taught Adam so that he would eat?"

The Savior laughed and said, "The snake taught them to eat from a wicked desire to sow which belongs to destruction in order that he would become useful.

And He wanted to bring out the power which he had given.

He brought a trance upon Adam.

And I said to the Savior, "What is the trance?"

He said, "It is not as Moses wrote as you heard. For he said in his first book that he laid him down in sleep, but rather it concerned his sensibility.

For indeed it is said by the prophet, 'I will make their hearts heavy so that they might neither give heed nor see.

Then the Epinoia of the light hid in him.

And the Chief Ruler wanted to bring her from his rib. But the Epinoia of the light is not graspable. Although the dark pursued her, it did not lay hold of her.

And he brought forth a part of his power from him (Adam). And he created another molded form in a woman's shape according to the image of Epinoia who had appeared to him. And into the molded form of womanhood he put the part which he had taken from the power of the human not 'his rib' as Moses said. And he saw the woman beside him.

Immediately, the luminous Epinoia appeared for she had uncovered the veil which had been on his understanding. He became sober from the drunkenness of the darkness and he recognized his likeness. And he said, 'Now this is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh.

Because of this, man will leave his father and his mother and he will cling to his wife and they will no longer be two but a single flesh.' For his partner will be sent to him and he will leave his father and his mother.

In the form of an eagle, I appeared on the tree of knowledge, which is their so that I might teach them and awaken them from the depth of the sleep.

For they were both in a fallen state and they recognized their na­kedness.

When Adam perceived the likeness of his own foreknowledge, he begot the likeness of the Child of the Human; he called him Seth following the way of the generation in the aeons.

And they were made to drink water of forgetfulness by the Chief Ruler so that they would not know themselves and would not know where they had come from.

I said to the Savior, Lord, will all the souls be delivered into the pure light?

He replied, These are great things that have arisen in your thinking.

It is difficult to disclose these things to any others except those who are from the immovable generation. Those upon whom the Spirit of the Life will descend  will be powerfully present, they will be saved and will become perfect. And they will become worthy of the great realms.  

The power will descend upon every human being for without it no one is able to stand upright.

After they are born if the Spirit of Life in­creases, the power comes to strengthen that soul.

I said, Lord, then when the souls of those leave their flesh, where will they go

He laughed and said to me, The soul in which the power will be­come stronger will be admitted into the repose of the aeons.

I said, "Lord, then where will the souls be who do not know to whom their souls belong?"

In those, the despicable spirit has proliferated by leading them astray. He burdens the soul and draws it into works of wickedness, and he casts it down into forgetfulness.

After it comes forth, they hand it over to the authorities who came into being through the Ruler. And they bind it in chains and cast it into prison. And they consort with it until it awakens from forgetfulness and receives knowledge. And in this way, it is perfected and saved.

I said, "Lord, how does the soul become smaller and return back into the nature of its mother or the human?"

Then he rejoiced when I asked this, and he said to me,  You have understood!  That soul is made to follow another who has the Spirit of Life in it. It is saved by that other one. Then it is not cast into another flesh.

And the angels changed their own likenesses into the likeness of each one's mate, filling them with the spirit of darkness, which they mixed with them and with wickedness.

They brought gold, silver, a gift, and copper and iron and metal and every sort of thing. And they beguiled the human beings who had followed them into great troubles.

They grew old without having enjoyment. They died without having found any truth and without having known the God of Truth.

And thus the whole creation became enslaved forever from the foundation of the world until now.

Still for a third time, (the Saviour said)

I who am the light that exists in the light  traveled in order to enter into the midst of the darkness.   I filled my coun­tenance with the light of the consummation of their aeon.  I entered the midst of their prison which is the prison of the body. And I said, 'Whoever hears, arise from lethargic sleep!'

And he wept, shedding tears; heavy tears he wiped from himself. And he said, 'Who is it who calls my name and from where does this hope come to me who am dwelling in the fetters of the prison?'

I said, `I am the pure light;  the thought of the Spirit.   Arise and remember that you are the one who has heard, and fol­low your root, which is I, the compassionate.

And I raised him up and sealed him with the light of the water so that death would not have power over him.

Behold, now I will go up to the perfect aeon. I have completed everything for you in your ears. I have told you John all things so that you might write them down and give them in secret to your fel­low spirits. For this is the mystery of the immoveable generation."

And he said to him, Cursed be any one who should exchange these things for a gift, whether for food or drink or clothing or any­thing.

These things were given in a mystery.

Immedi­ately he disappeared before him.

John went to his fellow disciples. He related to them the things which the Savior had said to him.

Jesus Christ Amen.

180 A.D.

egypt