RELS 117 – The Secret Revelation of John (HANDOUT)

For Full Online Translation - http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn.html

The Secret Revelation of John was the first writing to formulate a comprehensive narrative of Christian theology, cosmology, and salvation. It describes Christ's revelation of God and the divine world, the origins of the universe and humanity, the cause of evil and suffering, the nature of the body and sexuality, the path to sal­vation, and the final end of all things. At the heart of this deeply spiritual story lies a powerful social critique of injustice and a radical affirmation of God's compassion for suffering humanity.

The story describes the world as a shadowed place ruled by ignorant and malevolent beings. It exposes their lies and violence as violations of the true God's purpose, and offers sure knowledge of humanity's true spiritual identity and destiny. Divine emissaries frequent this dark world, bringing revelations and working in secret to lift the soul out of ignorance and degradation, and restore it to its rightful place in the world of light.

As the story begins, the Savior's disciple John is going up to the temple. He encounters a Pharisee named Arimanios who taunts him, charging that John's teacher has led him astray from the traditions of his fathers and now has abandoned him. John is so deeply disturbed by the Pharisee's charges that he goes out alone into a mountainous place in the desert, feeling lost and perplexed.

Suddenly the heavens open, a heavenly light shines, and the Savior ap­pears to him in multiple forms. The Savior comforts him and reveals to him the entire nature of the universe. He discloses the completely perfect and utterly transcendent nature of God the Father and describes the ap­pearance of a multitude of divine beings who derive from Him. He explains that first of all appeared Pronoia-Barbelo, the Mother. From her came forth the Son, the divine self-generated Christ (Autogenes). He brought forth four great Lights, each with three androgynous (male and female) pairs of eternal Aeons. The last of the eternal Aeons to appear is called Sophia, whose name in Greek means "wisdom."

She desired to produce a likeness of herself, but acted without the consent of the Father or her male partner (the male side of her aeonic pair). Although her intention was good, she acted in ignorance and as a result her product was an ignorant and evil being, a lion-faced serpent with eyes that flashed fire. This is the creator God of Genesis; his true name is Yaldabaoth and he is called "the Chief Ruler." Possessing only a soul but not the higher power of the Spirit, Sophia's offspring is arrogant and igno­rant of his own mother. His first act is to steal some of her Spirit in order to create seven minions to serve him along with a host of angels and arch­angels. Yaldabaoth then shapes the world below. Although he uses the Divine Realm as a pattern, the lower world is deficient like its creator.

The Chief Ruler demonstrates his profound ignorance by boasting to his minions, "I am a jealous God and there is none except me." When Sophia hears this lie, she realizes her error and repents. In an attempt to comfort her, Autogenes-Christ descends to instruct the lower creation. His luminous image is revealed in the form of a human being in the waters below, and immediately Yaldabaoth and his minions seek to possess it. They now create a human likeness according to the image that they have seen in the waters, but their molded form cannot move because it has no life in it. Surreptitiously the divine Lights persuade Yaldabaoth to breathe into the human form, and Adam becomes a living being, for the breath that Yaldabaoth breathes into Adam is the Spirit he had stolen from his mother, Sophia. Left again with only soul substance, the spiritually bereft world rulers immediately see that their creation is superior to them, and they imprison Adam in a body of flesh in order to strengthen their faltering hold over him.

As a result, humanity comes to be composed of Spirit from the mother, Sophia, soul from the psychic substance of Yaldabaoth and his angels, and flesh from the four elements of the earth. Humanity is thus made in the image of the Divine, but formed in the likeness of the lower world rulers. Enclosed in matter, Adam is temporarily ignorant of his true nature and origin, and becomes subject to passion, suffering, and death.

In order to save humanity from this fate, the divine Mother Pronoia sends down a female savior, the Epinoia of Light, to instruct Adam, en­lightening him about his true nature and the existence of the Divine Realm above. The world rulers dimly perceive her presence within Adam, but they do not understand exactly who and what she is. They foolishly attempt to remove the female savior from Adam surgically, which results in the birth of Eve, who is "bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh." Taking the form of an eagle on the Tree of Knowledge, Epinoia continues to in­struct them both in the true knowledge.

But now the world rulers try a new strategy to maintain their domination over the humans; they invent food, wealth, and labor. They rape Eve and attempt to trap humanity with sexual lust. But again they fail, for Adam recognizes his own spiritual es­sence in Eve and their sexual union produces Seth, a child in the image of the true Human. In contrast to the sexual violence and lust of the false world rulers, true sexuality consists in spiritual generation following the pattern of the Divine Realm.

At last Pronoia sends down her own Spirit of Life to instruct humanity. Those souls who receive her Spirit reject the things of this world and cultivate the Spirit within them; those who do not become subject to the counterfeit spirit which binds humanity to the power of the wicked world rulers. They chain people to fate in order to blind them further and lead them into sin and suffering. Rather than despair, however, the Secret Revelation of John offers hope, for in the end all humanity will be saved and brought into the eternal light. After a period of instruction and purifica­tion, each soul will ascend up to the Divine Realm, taking its rightful place in the Aeons of the great Lights. The situation of alienation in the world does not signal hopelessness and nihilism, because salvation awaits all those who recognize the true Spirit within, renounce evil, and grasp the living hope.

When Christ has completed this revelation, he commands John to write it down and pass it on to his fellow spirits. No longer in doubt or sorrow, John immediately goes forth to his fellow disciples and tells them everything the Savior had revealed.

Buried for more than 1500 years, this revelation has now once again come to light. What are we to make of it? The text claims to provide salvation to humanity. But salvation from what and for what?

At the beginning of the story John is filled with doubt and perplexity. By the end he is confident, knowing the truth. Like John, those who gain salvation know who they truly are, where they belong, and how to gain peace and stability in a world of violence and deception. They know that they are the undimmed light of the world, the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. Their goal is to be freed, no longer to be pawns and dupes of the powers that rule the world, but purified from all sin and evil. Baptismal ritual conveys the power of the Spirit, sealing and protecting humanity against the evil machinations of the world rulers and against all suffering.

The Secret Revelation of John's "logic of salvation" requires people to reject unjust domination in order to be oriented ethically and spiritually toward God. Its message clearly challenged the ruling order of its day, which claimed that the current arrangements of worldly power were divinely sanctioned and hence natural, just, and good.

At first, this narrative may appear very strange to contemporary readers, but its ideas are not so far removed from the version of the story adopted by other forms of Christianity and promulgated through sermons, literature, and art for centuries. The better-known Christian heav­ens are also filled with a divine Trinity (although a Father-Son-Holy Spirit rather than the Father-Mother-Son of the Secret Revelation of John), as well as angels, archangels, and all the hosts of heaven. Below, the lower world is ruled by fallen angels, headed by Satan and his demonic minions. So, too, the story of Adam and Eve replays all that is wrong with humanity, its sin and suffering. And most centrally, God acts to save humanity through the sending of his son Christ.