Introduction: Sethianism vis-à-vis Valentinianism

Two major dissident sects of Christians were relatively hidden from history until discoveries in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, including the Berlin Codex and the Nag Hammadi Corpus. The latter is comprised of twelve codices plus several leaves from a thirteenth. Included therein are forty-five separate titles, with some duplication. Prior to the discoveries, scholars were aware of such Christians, those who were ostracized as heretics, but material that accurately described who they were and what they believed was scarce. In fact, much of the knowledge we had was based on commentaries written by the clergy of the Catholic Church (the heresiologists including Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius,) clearly not objective sources. In this work, I’d like to explore the differences between two of the main groups often in opposition with the Orthodox, the Valentinians and the Sethians. The codices mentioned have given us a glimpse into how diverse the beliefs of the Christian community were at the time.

The Valentinians were a part of the Orthodox Christian community; they attended church services and often led them. Additionally, though their beliefs often incorporated traditional doctrine, they practiced their own tenets separately. This secret teaching conflicted with the views of the proto-orthodox. However, the Nicene Council of 325CE put an end to some of the more esoteric beliefs of this school.

The Sethians appear to have been much less likely to be concerned with the activities of the proto-orthodox. We know that this Sect, as defined today, was a fusion of the Barbeloites and the Sethites, two smaller schools of thought that have been combined by scholars. The Sethites held the biblical character Seth from Genesis (who was born after Cain and Abel) in such high regard as to position him with Christ himself. I find the Barbeloite branch to be much more intriguing, and we’ll delve deeper into this subject throughout this work. Going forward, whenever I mention the Sethians, it’s the Barbeloites being referenced. Later, I make the case that the Sethians were the Johannine secessionists, and I devote an entire Section to this group after discussing The Gospel of John. In fact, I believe this wing of the Johannine School represents the evangelist’s original intent.

The Valentinians likely fused the Sethian concepts into their beliefs. However, some of the original texts, particularly The Apocryphon of John (ApJohn,) seem to have been rewritten entirely. Thus, additional treatises were drafted that relied on Sethian tenets that were woven into the respective Valentinian works.

Rather than describing the Father solely in mysterious, negative-theology terms, which paradoxically he really should be for means of clarity, the Valentinians attempt to canonize the notion by way of using softer descriptions in addition to a subset of this negative-theology, such as “in his sweetness.” Though I believe that the Father does in fact encapsulate such expressions, I prefer the strength of the Sethian/Barbeloite and potentially Johannine secessionist exposition of his character: ineffable, incomprehensible, incorruptible, illimitable, unsearchable, immeasurable, invisible, eternal, and unnameable.

My preliminary thought is that I am a Johannine Sethian, though I’ll revisit this discussion repeatedly. As Princeton’s Elaine Pagels says on p. 162 of The Origin of Satan, “Those who have ‘the Spirit of truth within them’ refuse to enter into marriage, business, or any other worldly entanglements, in order to remain an ‘undominated generation’, ‘free to devote themselves to the Holy Spirit.’”

Some of the New Testament is critically important; many of the works discovered in Nag Hammadi Egypt in 1945 are also key. I will attempt to piece this puzzle together in this work, and I believe that tenets of the Johannine School are crucial. Ultimately, I will put forward my take on what I am calling The Protennoia Johannine Secessionist Canon.

Johannine Secessionist / Sethian / Valentinian?

The Valentinian’s middle-ground, attributing elements to both the Father and the Demiurge (which we’ll get to in more detail,) driven by their relative positioning as a sort of midpoint between the Orthodox and the Sethians, was an ineffective attempt to canonize this whole movement. Thus, to a certain extent they failed Original Christianity by sending it further into the realms of heresy than it ever might have been. However, this could be a good thing, in a reverse-logic fashion, as it did promote the overall concepts and treatises to the point we’ve discovered them in the twentieth century. It’s possible such works never would have been saved by the Pachemonian Monks in such a fashion without Valentinian tactics, as much as I might personally disagree with some of their tenets. What can be said is that their attempts were no match for the heresiologists such as Irenaeus of Lyon and Epiphanius.

The discourse from the University of Exeter’s Alastair Logan regarding the positioning of the Valentinians vis-à-vis the original “falsely so-called Gnostics” of Irenaeus is very key to this discussion:

p. 9 of Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy: “The reference in [Irenaeus’ Against Heresies] 1.11.3-5 and elsewhere to Valentinian claims to be ‘more gnostic than the Gnostics’ must be seen in this context of primal emanations: the Gnostics, Irenaeus is claiming, were the first to develop the concept of emission of mental states or attributes of the Father like intelligence (nous) and reason (logos) as hypostases. The various Valentinian attempts to posit prior emissions and entities to these is to try to outdo these Gnostics—their spiritual ancestors!” I’d argue that the Barbeloites were the original group, who again I am referring to as the Sethians as a whole.

The Apocryphon of John (ApJohn) 3-4, the extremely noteworthy Sethian work, further describes the Father as follows, pp. 106-107 of James M. Robinson’s The Nag Hammadi Library:

“And I [John] asked to know, and he [Christ] said to me, ‘The Monad is a monarchy with nothing above it. It is he who exists as God and Father of everything, this invisible One who is above everything, who exists as incorruption, which is in the pure light into which no eye can look.”

“He is the invisible Spirit of whom it is not right to think of him as a god, or something similar. For he is more than a god, since there is nothing above him, for no one lords it over him. For he does not exist in something inferior to him, since everything exists in him.”

IV 4, 9-10: “For it is he who establishes himself. He is eternal since he does not need anything. For he is total perfection. He did not lack anything that he might be completed by it; rather he is always completely perfect in light.”

“He is immeasurable light which is pure, holy, and immaculate. He is ineffable being perfect in incorruptibility. He is not in perfection, nor in blessedness, nor in divinity, but he is far superior. He is not corporeal nor is he incorporeal. He is neither large nor is he small. There is no way to say, ‘What is his quantity?’ or, ‘What is his quality?’ for no one can know him. He is not someone among other beings, rather he is far superior. Not that he is simply superior, but his essence does not partake in the Aeons nor in time. For he who partakes in an Aeon was prepared beforehand. Time was not apportioned to him, since he does not receive anything from another, for it would be received on loan. For he who precedes someone does not lack that he may receive from him. For rather it is the latter that looks expectantly at him in his light.”

“For the perfection is majestic. He is pure, immeasurable mind. He is an Aeon-giving Aeon. He is life giving life. He is a blessedness-giving blessed one. He is knowledge-giving knowledge. He is goodness-giving goodness. He is mercy and redemption-giving mercy. He is grace-giving grace, not because he possesses it, but because he gives the immeasurable, incomprehensible light.”

“His Aeon is indestructible, at rest, and existing in silence, reposing (and) being prior to everything. For he is the head of all the Aeons, and it is he who gives them strength in his goodness. For we know not the ineffable things, and we do not understand what is immeasurable, except for him who came forth from him, namely from the Father. For it is he who told it to us alone.”

The Gospel of John (GosJohn) represents strength, love, and incomprehensibility to a large degree—similar to ApJohn. Trimorphic Protennoia (TriProt) is another treatise that is written in the same vein. Collectively the works seem to be pertinent to groups such as the Johannine secessionists. In my opinion, the Valentinian texts do not approach this strength, other than The Gospel of Truth (GosTruth) that was most likely written by Valentinus himself, thus at a very early date and closer to the source (circa 150AD.) Valentinus was most likely an adherent to the Apocryphon in his time. The Valentinian movement in general was stronger on message the farther back in history we go. It wasn’t until further development of this creed did things get convoluted.

As scholar Paul N. Anderson says in his work John 17–The Original Intention of Jesus for the Church on p. xxix, and he is referencing the scholar Says Meeks: “Regarding the historical setting of Johannine Christianity, Käsemann’s view of the community under the Word [in his work The Testament of Jesus] has enjoyed a stronger reception, although not all are convinced. On his view that John’s church is more in the mainstream of the late first-century movement than on the periphery, Schnelle, Brown, and others concur. John’s presentation of Jesus as the Christ serves as a link between a synoptic-like Jesus tradition and emerging Gnosticism rather than being rooted in early Gnosticism connected with baptistic traditions. Thus, it is John who is the proto-Gnostic, not John’s sources.”

Thus, some believe John in the primary proto-Gnostic (meaning before the Gnostics,) and this links with Irenaeus’ extensive discussion of the original Gnostics (the Sethians.) Other scholars have given this role to Paul, and he may well have been the proto-Valentinian. John, however, appears to have come first, and this school is not at all the same as that of the Paulines. As we’ll see later, the Fourth Gospel was most likely akin to a living document for most of the early years of Christianity, and even the final was not final as additional edits were made after its initial release circa 90CE according to most scholars. In other words, many believe that the Pauline letters were the earliest treatises written, but that assessment does not account for the vast body of oral tradition, which clearly also was a written work in progress, that goes back to the Christ event itself. I’ll address this issue later in the Honing the True Canon Section.

Anderson later quotes Yale’s George MacRae from his work in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion 38:3 (1970, ) p. 332: “In a word, it must be said that Käsemann’s interpretation of John places it at least one important step further along the road to Gnosticism than its structure and its attitude toward tradition would seem to allow.”

Per Trimorphic Protennoia: “I am the first one who descended on account of my portion which remains, that is, the Spirit that dwells in the soul, which originated from the Water of Life, and out of the immersion of the mysteries. And I spoke, I, together with the Archons and Authorities. For I had gone down below their language, and I spoke my mysteries to my own–a hidden mystery–and the bonds and eternal oblivion were nullified. And I bore fruit in them, that is, the Thought of the unchanging Aeon, and my house, and their Father. And I went down to those who were mine from the first, and I reached them and broke the first strands that enslaved them. Then everyone of those within me shone, and I prepared a pattern for those ineffable Lights that are within me. Amen.”

A Prélude to ApJohn

The myth presented in ApJohn very well could have been derived from the teachings of Simon the Magician. According to Riemer Roukema in Gnosis and Faith in Early Christianity, and I’m paraphrasing, he was recognized and worshiped by the Samaritans as the highest, literally first, God. He adds that his consort Helen, a former prostitute, had accompanied him, and that she had been called his First Thought. According to lore, Simon had redeemed the prostitute Helen in the Phoenician city of Tyre. Simon himself was said to be an incarnation of the highest God, who thought that in Helen he could recognize his First Thought or the “Mother of all things.”

The myth of Simon goes as follows: in the beginning, the highest God, the Father, had the thought of creating angels and archangels. This First Thought sprang from him, descended to the lower regions, and then brought for angels and powers. These angels and powers then created the world. However, they could not accept that they were descended from someone else. Out of envy of the First Thought which had brought them forth, they took her prisoner and shut her up in a human body. She was doomed century after century to move from one woman’s body to another. In all her reincarnations the First Thought of the Father was humiliated and shamed. She represented the “lost sheep” of the Gospel. In the meantime, these angels and powers who governed the world had no idea of the existence of the highest God, the Father.

The highest God himself came to free the First Thought from this world. He descended, but did not want to redeem her alone. Because the angels had governed the world badly, all humans had to suffer under them, and therefore the highest God also came to offer redemption to human beings generally, thereby improving their state. Redemption consisted of the knowledge of the highest God himself.

The Old Testament prophets had not been inspired by the highest God, but by the angels who had created the world. These angels had led humankind into slavery with all kinds of arbitrary commandments. However, Simon had promised to destroy this world and to free his believers from the power of the angels. People would not be redeemed by doing righteous works, but only Simon’s grace.

In the next few sections, we’ll see how Simon’s story influenced the drafters of ApJohn, and by extension TriProt.

Preliminary Thoughts on ApJohn & TriProt

I believe ApJohn was written with GosJohn in mind, as was TriProt, and in some respects it could have represented a retort on what the far right (the proto-orthodox) was teaching. Whether or not the treatise is meant to be read literally, or if it is an allegory (extended metaphor,) does not necessarily seem to matter as it does portray Christ delivering the message to John, and it dovetails with many of the Chapters and Verses in GosJohn (and sections of GosMark as we shall see.) ApJohn and TriProt both utilize mythology to express concepts, in addition to traditional Christian tenets, and we know that such mythos traditionally serves to teach lessons. Furthermore, we’re in the Land of the Spirit.

In the text, Barbelo/Pronoia represents to us the conceptual and anthropological qualities of the Father, thus his mirror image. However, regarding the Wisdom concept, or Sophia—in the twelfth Aeon (or somehow the thirteenth if you’re a Valentinian)—is the emanation from which the initial rupture occurred due to Sophia’s wanton behavior, a breach that created matter in theory, Yaltabaoth (and his subsequent Archons,) and this Universe or Realm (I hesitate to call it an aeon, even with a small ‘a.’ The TriProt correctly refers to Aeons in the Pleroma with a capital ‘A.’) As Alastair Logan of The University of Exeter states in his book Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy, p. 123: “The Apocryphon has Sophia produce her conception through the wantonness, or through her watchfulness, or through her invincible power.”

Incidentally, Sophia is identified with Epinoia in both ApJohn and the TriProt. The two are related, but not one-in-the-same. Epinoia is one of the highest spiritual concepts in the Pleroma, and the term is Greek. Some of the better translations include Direct Revelation, Divine Insight, and Divine Inspiration.

The Valentinians would have it that since Sophia represents Wisdom, she could not have helped herself from instigating the impossible regarding the Father. The Sethians have it quite differently in their Apocryphon. As mentioned, some call her act wanton, some (such as the TriProt) call it innocent. The key is that she did not have her consort’s consent, let alone the invisible Spirit’s, in seeking out The Father. Thus, in ApJohn she’s stuck in this Realm’s Ninth Heaven, for lack of a better term, one that was created for her within both the texts of ApJohn & the TriProt (and note the Ninth is not in the Pleroma.) Epinoia, not Sophia, asked Yaltabaoth for it to be created in the latter work:

“Now when the Epinoia of the Light realized that he (Yaltabaoth) had begged him (the Light) for another order, even though he was lower than she, she said, “Give me another order, so that you may become for me a dwelling place, lest I dwell in disorder forever.” And the order of the entire house of glory was agreed upon her word. A blessing was brought for her and the higher order released it to her.”

Thus, TriProt further elaborates on the creation of ApJohn’s 9th by explicitly stating this order was granted to Epinoia; by virtue of their identification with one another, Sophia accompanied the emanation. Ironically, Sophia was Epinoia’s custodian! Furthermore, as Harvard’s Karen King states in her book The Secret Revelation of John (SecJohn,) on p. 233: “The wisdom of the lower world is folly. Just as The Secret Revelation of John satirizes Genesis by exposing the creator as an arrogant, theriomorphic pretender [as we shall see in the next Section,] so it takes equal pleasure in parodying Jewish wisdom tradition by portraying Divine Wisdom [Sophia] as an ignorant and foolish female.”

As Alastair Logan goes on to say in Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy, there is much confusion, even within the text of the Apocryphon:

“Now the combination in the ‘Ophite’ system of Sophia’s continuing revelatory/redemptive activity which is yet incomplete, with the decisive eschatological revelatory/redemptive descent of Christ, seems to find an echo–if a confused one–in the Apocryphon with its plethora of redeeming figures and final Pronoia hymn. Thus not only do we hear of the Mother-Father or Pronoia in a redeeming capacity, but also of the Holy Spirit, Zoe ‘the Mother of the living,’ the Epinoia of light, Christ, and even Sophia, in that she has to correct her own deficiency. But textual evidence suggests that plethora may conceal an earlier, simpler picture in that the Holy Spirit, the Epinoia of light, and Zoe appear to ultimately be one and the same figure, originally to be equated with Sophia, as Janssens has claimed.”

However, I’d add that even this discussion could be partially incorrect, depending on the redaction, in that the Apocryphon explicitly equates the Holy Spirit with Pronoia, though this could have been added in a later recension. Continuing in Mr. Logan’s work:

“The characteristic ambivalence over Sophia is well expressed, as we saw, in the confusion over the existence and descent of her consort; the earlier myth has no need of this, but the figure is added both through Valentinian influence and to ease the paradox by representing the erring Sophia as entirely passive. And the figure/figures of the Epinoia/Zoe/Holy Spirit are similarly presented in terms of Sophia’s helper, better half, or consort. Not surprisingly we find various interpretations of this basic ambivalence in texts we would see as dependent on the Apocryphon. Thus Trimorphic Protennoia stresses the more passive aspect of both figures in that it identifies the Epinoia of light with the guileless Sophia who descends, produces Ialdabaoth, and then begs to be elevated.

Thus it may be that the ‘Ophite’ picture of Sophia as responsible for initial and continuing revelation/redemption, yet ultimately requiring the decisive redemptive Christ event, finds an echo in earlier versions of the Apocryphon, which later, under the influence of a Pronoia-Epinoia scheme developed round Barbelo, demoted Sophia to a more passive figure, and replaced her with a more active one (Epinoia/Zoe/Holy Spirit.)”

Some rather lurid works refer to Sophia as Pronoia’s lower half, but I’d like to explore two possibilities:

Did her wanton act represent independent action, one that was later accepted by the Father & The Totalities (i.e. the Pleroma?) Was the seed of this act deliberate, foreknown, and expected?

In other words, as a good Valentinian might say, was Error pre-generated thought by the Father or was it systematic malfunction? I don’t agree with their ultimate reasoning that since she’s Wisdom, she could not help it.

One way to approach the base-level issue is with Christ’s Illuminators. Armozel, to me, represents structure, with his Grace, Truth, and Form. Though a solid base is important, to me Daveithai’s Aeons might in fact be the highest ideals overall: Understanding, Love, and Idea. Perhaps he’s sandwiched in at Position III for camouflage purposes. Armozel could in fact solidify this entire conceptualization, Oroiael could represent the natural transition between Armozel and Daveithai with his Conception (Pronoia in some versions,) Perception, and Memory. Eleleth, the fourth and last, very well could represent the ultimate goal in one’s spiritual quest with his Aeons of Perfection, Peace, and Wisdom. As we will see in the Direct Revelations at the end of this work, the spiritual concepts shift somewhat among the Illuminators, though preliminarily a true luminary should ascertain that those included in Daveithai are what it’s all about at the base level. Wisdom (Sophia) was the last Aeon of the group, the twelfth, and you might recall that this is where the rupture occurred. Perhaps the Aeon was too far out from the Father in the Pleroma, though that seems to be suspect as all are divine. I’ll quickly mention that there’s one Pleroma in ApJohn & the TriProt (let alone GosJohn,) and this was a quite egregious error included toward the end of GosTruth: there are not multiple Pleromas. This line of thought is clearly associated with the Valentinians, not the Sethians.

At this point, I will take a moment to mention how in my opinion GosTruth was an initial Valentinian attempt to trinitize ApJohn, and the language included therein does support many of the concepts. As we shall see, parts of the text are very well presented. Moreover, the Tripartite Tractate (TriTrac) was a desperate, and much later, attempt to trinitize the Apocryphon, most likely written well past Irenaeus’ Against Heresies—and most likely as a response. The Valentinians went through mental gymnastics in order to rewrite this most important treatise. Even ApJohn was redacted after the copy Irenaeus likely used when composing Book I, Ch 29 & 30, but there’s a difference between a redaction and a rewrite. The Sethian The Hypostasis of the Archons offers yet another perspective, and though several of the details have been shifted, it’s true to the spirit of the Apocryphon. The same goes for On the Origin of the World; it’s not as cohesively related, though it is stronger than many of the Valentinian works. For example, in this treatise Sophia is in the 6th ‘Heaven’ of this Realm, or ‘ogdoad,’ not the 9th as in ApJohn.

The anthropological/anthropomorphic principles included in the likes of ApJohn are, more or less, focused on the human race by definition. I don’t want to unduly bore the reader with discussion about other potential alien races as there are plenty of sources one can reference. However, I will stress that these elements apply across the different races across the world, hence often times scholars make the connection of Original Christianity’s close relation with Buddhism, Taoism, Orthodox Christianity, and the general category of mystery religions. In essence, Original Christianity is a fusion of all, plus the addition of some of the tenets of Greek Philosophy, Jewish Wisdom Traditions, and Astrology. As Rice University’s April DeConick has pointed out, even elements of Roman Mysticism can apply—the Hermetics, the Mithraic mysteries. The Egyptian’s Atum provides another such example.

ApJohn’s discussion of Christ has him first and foremost a spark that was the only begotten Spirit of The Father & Barbelo. GosJohn equates Christ with Logos in the Prologue. Others would include Autogenes—a process in my opinion, not a thing. More on this later. Additionally, one must keep in mind that opposed to the Archons’ Fate, the Immovable Race is subject to Divine Providence, or Pronoia him/herself. Universal energy still exists, but Providence trumps fate.

Light Vis-à-Vis the counterfeit spirit

Another concept that’s well expounded upon in ApJohn is the counterfeit spirit. An initial thought regarding this entity, for lack of a better word, is that sin generally begins to work itself out of one’s system as knowledge is acquired in a step-by-step fashion to weed out the elements this counterfeit spirit is constantly throwing at you. In this Realm, unfortunately, the counterfeit spirit is alive and well, and it’s woven into this aeon’s (small case!) fabric such that people are conflicted.

In The Gospel of Thomas (GosThom) Saying 77, Jesus says “Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” Unfortunately, the same hold’s true in this aeon with the counterfeit spirit! Perhaps it’s “The Universe’s” grand Yin/Yang as it were, or said another way akin to the Manichaean belief system of Good vs. Evil.

Regarding Saying 77, where Jesus said, “It is I who am the light (that presides) over all. It is I who am the entirety: it is from me that the entirety has come, and to me that the entirety goes. Split a piece of wood: I am there. Lift a stone, and you (plur.) will find me there,” there’s much scholarly attention:

Funk and Hoover write: “In this complex, Jesus speaks of himself in highly exalted terms, as he often does in The Gospel of John (for example, John 8:12; 10:7). But such self-reference is not characteristic of the Jesus of the synoptic parables and aphorisms. The term ‘light’ has special significance in The Gospel of Thomas (11:3b; 24:3; 50:1; 61:5; 83:1-2), and the ‘All’ is a technical gnostic term for the whole of cosmic reality (note Thomas 67). Such ideas, of course, had currency elsewhere in early Christian circles as well (note John 8:12; Rom 11:36; 1 Cor 8:6). But they are not characteristic of Jesus.” (The Five Gospels, p. 515)

Gerd Ludemann writes: “Jesus identifies himself with light (cf. John 8.12; 9.5), which is tremendously important in Thomas: 11.3b; 24.3; 50.1; 61.5; 83.1-2. Jesus claims to be mediator at creation (cf. Romans 11.36; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16). All this recalls the role of wisdom. The presence of Jesus as it is described in vv. 2-3 echoes Matt 18.20; 28.20 – but in that passage, too, there is a wisdom background.” (Jesus After 2000 Years, p. 629)

Given that the character in ApJohn named Saklas (Yaltabaoth or Ialdabaoth, Samael) is the Demiurge, not in the platonic vain, the difference (whether real or metaphorical) with Orthodox Christianity’s Satan becomes irrelevant. Is the Demiurge Satan or is Satan the Demiurge? Wikipedia provides the following basic summary of this figure: “[It’s the] distinction between the highest, unknowable God and the demiurgic “creator” of the material. Several systems of [Sethian] thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being: his act of creation occurs in an unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to (or, at least possibly, the problem or cause that gives rise to) the problem of evil.”

However, Wikipedia very well could be incorrect as the Demiurge did not create matter as in the Platonic school, Sophia’s (Wisdom’s) rupture did according to the Johannine secessionists, along with creating Yaltabaoth. That’s why she’s stuck in this Realm’s Ninth Heaven. Saklas might have shaped the matter, but I believe the initial rupture created it (and if it’s not clear at this point, I am a Johannine secessionist.)

Per ApJohn 13:

“Then the mother [Sophia] began to move to and fro. She became aware of the deficiency when the brightness of her Light diminished. And she became dark because her consort had not agreed with her.”

“And I said, ‘Lord, what does it mean that she moved to and fro?’ But he smiled and said, ‘Do not think it is, as Moses said, ‘above the waters.’ No, but when she had seen the wickedness which had happened, and the theft which her son had committed, she repented. And she was overcome by forgetfulness in the darkness of ignorance and she began to be ashamed. (IV 21, 13-15: And she did not dare to return, but she was moving) about. And the moving is the going to and fro.'”

What exactly was her deficiency? Regarding Yaltabaoth’s creation and domain, ApJohn 9-12:

“And the Sophia of the Epinoia, being an aeon, conceived a thought from herself and the conception of the invisible Spirit and foreknowledge. She wanted to bring forth a likeness out of herself without the consent of the Spirit – he had not approved – and without her consort, and without his consideration. And though the person of her maleness had not approved, and she had not found her agreement, and she had thought without the consent of the Spirit and the knowledge of her agreement, (yet) she brought forth. And because of the invincible power which is in her, her thought did not remain idle, and something came out of her which was imperfect and different from her appearance, because she had created it without her consort. And it was dissimilar to the likeness of its mother, for it has another form.”

“And when she saw (the consequences of) her desire, it changed into a form of a lion-faced serpent. And its eyes were like lightning fires which flash. She cast it away from her, outside that place, that no one of the immortal ones might see it, for she had created it in ignorance. And she surrounded it with a luminous cloud, and she placed a throne in the middle of the cloud that no one might see it except the holy Spirit who is called the mother of the living. And she called his name Yaltabaoth.”

“This is the first archon who took a great power from his mother. And he removed himself from her and moved away from the places in which he was born. He became strong and created for himself other aeons with a flame of luminous fire which (still) exists now. And he joined with his arrogance which is in him and begot authorities for himself. The name of the first one is Athoth, whom the generations call the reaper. The second one is Harmas, who is the eye of envy. The third one is Kalila-Oumbri. The fourth one is Yabel. The fifth one is Adonaiou, who is called Sabaoth. The sixth one is Cain, whom the generations of men call the sun. The seventh is Abel. The eighth is Abrisene. The ninth is Yobel. The tenth is Armoupieel. The eleventh is Melceir-Adonein. The twelfth is Belias, it is he who is over the depth of Hades. And he placed seven kings – each corresponding to the firmaments of heaven – over the seven heavens, and five over the depth of the abyss, that they may reign. And he shared his fire with them, but he did not send forth from the power of the light which he had taken from his mother, for he is ignorant darkness.”

“And the archons created seven powers for themselves, and the powers created for themselves six angels for each one until they became 365 angels. And these are the bodies belonging with the names: the first is Athoth, a he has a sheep’s face; the second is Eloaiou, he has a donkey’s face; the third is Astaphaios, he has a hyena’s face; the fourth is Yao, he has a serpent’s face with seven heads; the fifth is Sabaoth, he has a dragon’s face; the sixth is Adonin, he had a monkey’s face; the seventh is Sabbede, he has a shining fire-face. This is the sevenness of the week.”

“But Yaltabaoth had a multitude of faces, more than all of them, so that he could put a face before all of them, according to his desire, when he is in the midst of seraphs. He shared his fire with them; therefore he became lord over them. Because of the power of the glory he possessed of his mother’s light, he called himself God. And he did not obey the place from which he came. And he united the seven powers in his thought with the authorities which were with him. And when he spoke it happened. And he named each power beginning with the highest: the first is goodness with the first (authority), Athoth; the second is foreknowledge with the second one, Eloaio; and the third is divinity with the third one, Astraphaio; the fourth is lordship with the fourth one, Yao; the fifth is kingdom with the fifth one, Sabaoth; the sixth is envy with the sixth one, Adonein; the seventh is understanding with the seventh one, Sabbateon. And these have a firmament corresponding to each aeon-heaven. They were given names according to the glory which belongs to heaven for the destruction of the powers. And in the names which were given to them by their Originator there was power. But the names which were given them according to the glory which belongs to heaven mean for them destruction and powerlessness. Thus they have two names.”

Continuing, ApJohn 11-12 extensively discusses the Demiurge; again I will stress that much of this description could represent an extended metaphor or allegory, if not parody:

“And when the light had mixed with the darkness, it caused the darkness to shine. And when the darkness had mixed with the light, it darkened the light and it became neither light nor dark, but it became dim.”

“Now the archon who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas, and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, ‘I am God and there is no other God beside me,’ for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.”

“They [Yaltabaoth & his Archons] created a counterfeit spirit, who resembles the Spirit who had descended, so as to pollute the souls through it. And the angels changed themselves in their likeness into the likeness of their mates (the daughters of men), filling them with the spirit of darkness, which they had mixed for them, and with evil. They brought gold and silver and a gift and copper and iron and metal and all kinds of things. And they steered the people who had followed them into great troubles, by leading them astray with many deceptions. They (the people) became old without having enjoyment. They died, not having found truth and without knowing the God of truth. And thus the whole creation became enslaved forever, from the foundation of the world until now. And they took women and begot children out of the darkness according to the likeness of their spirit. And they closed their hearts, and they hardened themselves through the hardness of the counterfeit spirit until now.”

ApJohn 28 And I said, “Lord, from where did the counterfeit spirit come?” Then he said to me, “The Mother-Father who is rich in mercy, the Holy Spirit in every way, the One who is merciful and who sympathizes with you, i.e. the Epinoia of the foreknowledge of Light, he raised up the offspring of the perfect race and its thinking and the eternal Light of man. When the chief Archon realized that they were exalted above him in the height–and they surpass him in thinking–then he wanted to seize their thought, not knowing that they [the Immovable Race] surpassed him in thinking and that he will not be able to seize them.”

“He [Yaltabaoth] made a plan with his authorities, which are his Powers, and they committed together adultery with Sophia, and bitter fate was begotten through them, which is the last of the changeable bonds. And it is of a sort that is interchangeable. And it is harder and stronger than she with whom the gods united and the angels and the demons and all the generations until this day. For from that fate came forth every sin and injustice and blasphemy and the chain of forgetfulness and ignorance and every severe command and serious sins and great fears. And thus the whole creation was made blind, in order that they may not know God who is above all of them. And because of the chain of forgetfulness, their sins were hidden. For they are bound with measures and times and moments, since it (fate) is lord over everything.”

Analysis of the Concepts of the Demiurge & the counterfeit spirit

Harvard’s Dr. Karen King further discusses the concepts on p. 186 of her book The Secret Revelation of John (SecJohn/ApJohn): “Narrative elaboration is frequently employed in smaller generic scenes and usually involves the addition of new information. For example, Christ elaborates extensively on moving “to and fro” (Gen 1.2) by interpreting it as a reference to Sophia’s repentance. The Secret Revelation of John frequently uses this technique to go out of the way to disparage the God of Genesis. For example, John is told explicitly that the creator god is bestial in form, even though nothing in the Genesis narrative supports such a description. Several times, Christ simply adds that Yaltabaoth is ignorant or arrogant. These charges appear to be plausible only because of the elaborations inserted into the text.

In one case, The Secret Revelation of John plays on the deep resentment some pagans felt toward Jewish exclusivity by putting the provocative words “I am a jealous God and there is no other god beside me” onto the lips of Yaltabaoth, and then ridiculing this claim by commenting, “But by announcing this, he indicated to the angels who attended him that there exists another God. For if there were no other one, of whom would he be jealous?” (ApJohn 14.2-4.) Or again, the story of Eve’s rape is added to confirm the wicked and lustful nature of Yaltabaoth. Examples of such narrative elaborations could be multiplied throughout the work. They clearly have the effect of deepening the gulf between the high God and the creator God. The framers carefully included only those materials which could be readily harmonized with the work’s overall perspective, leaving many significant materials out of their narrative. For example, Jewish wisdom literature frequently praises God for His goodness in creating the physical world–this perspective has no place in The Secret Revelation of John.”

Additionally, as Rice University’s Chair of the Department of Religion April DeConick astutely points out in her book The Gnostic New Age on p. 142—the Greek actually has GosJohn’s 8:44’s first line read “You are from the father of the devil…” whereas most— if not all—English translations have it as “You are of your father the devil…” What a difference! The Demiurge and his minions created this aeon, Belias (the last Archon) may in fact be over Hades, and this might equate to the “devil.” However, the concept/ false emanation is actually attributable to the Demiurge himself. One way or another, this aeon (again with a small ‘a’) encapsulates the counterfeit spirit, and it’s our individual spiritual work that will enable its release, or said another way to diminish (if not nullify) its influence. It’s not always that simple, however, as just as [Christ] is in GosThom Saying 77, it’s metaphorically everywhere.

Supporting this position, April Deconick states in Histories of the Hidden God: “What were the [Johannine] secessionists claiming that they knew about the “true” God? Their position appears to represent an early version of the Gnostic hermeneutic that read John 8:44 as a literal reference to the Jewish God and lawgiver as the Devil’s father, while Jesus’ Father was another God. They were claiming that they knew the “true” Father, and he is not the traditional god who gave the laws to the Jews. Rather the Jewish God gave “miserable” laws to be obeyed because he himself was wicked, associated with the “darkness” and “the world.” They emphasized that the God Jesus preached was to be contrasted with the Jewish God of the Law. Jesus’ Father was a God of love who gave a “new” commandment, to love one another, while the God of the Jews was a malicious god who gave the old Mosaic laws to burden people. The secessionists appear to have been claiming that they knew the “true” Father preached by Jesus, and that the members of the church were part of a sinless generation connected to the Father by nature.”

In my opinion, this discourse expresses the notion that GosJohn, ApJohn, and the TriProt are all linked, and DeConick’s referenced Verse of GosJohn highlights this fact. Of course ApJohn & the TriProt have this Father of the Devil as Yaltabaoth. This excerpt from Deconick’s book really expresses the dissension at the time: “As I worked through this Catholic–Gnostic debate, it became clear to me that this debate was not a late development that we could sever from the production and first interpretations of The Gospel of John. Rather this debate was already raging in the Johannine Epistles written in the first decade of the second century. Furthermore, the catholic interpretation did not appear to be primary, but secondary, put into place to domesticate an older Gnostic sentiment written into the very fiber of The Gospel of John itself.”

The counterfeit spirit

What exactly does ApJohn have to say the counterfeit spirit encapsulates? Essentially, the description starts from the big picture level and whittles itself down: at the top, of course there’s Saklas himself and the Archons. But conceptually, the four greatest challenges are Pleasure, Desire, Grief, and Fear. The mother of them all is Aesthesis-Ouch-Epi-Ptoe; often matter itself is the issue. A level down reveals the following twenty-one qualities in four categories:

The counterfeit spirit Pleasure Desire Grief Fear Wickedness Anger Envy Dread Empty Pride Wrath Jealousy Fawning Similar Such Things Bitterness Distress Agony Bitter Passion Trouble Shame Unsatedness Pain Similar such things Callousness Anxiety Mourning

“All are like useful things as well as evil things.” Contrast this table with that presented in the Refinement Section; focus on those attributes included therein. In the big picture, the highest ideals are will, thought, and life. However, a word to the wise: never be sanctimonious, that is do not make comments or judgments that come across as a hypocritical show of religious devotion, piety, or righteousness. However, do make a conscious effort to evaluate the status quo in your particular situation and act accordingly.

Keep in mind that righteous anger, or indignation, is the only acceptable sort of this quality. Per Wikipedia: “Righteous indignation is typically a reactive emotion of anger over mistreatment, insult, or malice of another. It is akin to what is called the sense of injustice. In some Christian doctrines, righteous anger is considered the only form of anger which is not sinful, e.g., when Jesus drove the money lenders out of the temple.”

As GosTruth 33 states: “For you are the Understanding that is drawn forth. If strength acts thus, it becomes even stronger. Be concerned with yourselves; do not be concerned with other things which you have rejected from yourselves. Do not return to what you have vomited to eat it. Do not be moths. Do not be worms, as you have already cast it off. Do not become a dwelling place for the devil, for you have already destroyed him. Do not strengthen those who are obstacles to you who are collapsing, as though you were a support for them.”

Where and when does one draw the line between removing something or someone who clearly runs with the counterfeit spirit and not giving up? Christ even said to Peter in GosMatt 18:21, upon being asked, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you seventy-seven times.” I am not the judge and jury, but I do need to ensure that I am not distracted, or afflicted, so the unfortunate reality is that one first needs to try to work things out, secondly always try to have a dialogue, and thirdly if it isn’t rectifying and it’s causing you to feel or act poorly, cut it loose. Don’t be a fool; trust your intuition. At the very least, humbly ask Epinoia to guide you through difficult transits. Make sure the counterfeit spirit is always put at bay. Above all, remove obstacles from your life.

Further Excerpts from ApJohn

In the text of ApJohn, Christ himself brought about Adam to eat of the Tree; however, the serpent taught them wickedness, begetting, lust, and destruction. On p. 119 of Robinson’s The Nag Hammadi Library, ApJohn-LR: “Now up to the present day, sexual intercourse continued due to the Chief Archon. And he planted sexual desire in her who belongs to Eve [though other versions have it planted in Adam.] And he produced through intercourse the copies of the bodies, and he inspired them with his counterfeit spirit.”

Seth was, of course, the son of Adam and Eve; he represents the first “good” seed. Cain and Abel were from Saklas and Eve according to the text. Therefore, Seth exists according to the way of the race in the Aeons, and “the Mother [Barbelo] also sent down her Spirit, which is in her likeness and a copy of those who are in the Pleroma, for she will prepare a dwelling place.”

The Mother is equated with the Holy Spirit earlier in the treatise: “This is the first thought, his image, she became the womb of everything for it is she who is prior to them all, the Mother-Father, the first man, the Holy Spirit, the thrice male, the three powerful, the thrice-named androgynous one, and the eternal Aeon among the invisible ones, and the the first to come forth.”

Incidentally, perhaps this is where the Sethites (the other half of the Sethians) derived their belief that Seth was supremely important (going as far as to make him on par with Christ.) However, if you look closely, he represents the first member of the Immovable Race. Christ has his own Hypostasis according the the text, an extremely important point. Hence I would classify the Apocryphon as Barbeloite, not Sethite. As a reminder, I’d like to stress the following important point: when I mention the Sethians, it is the Barbeloites I’m referencing.

Later in the Apocryphon, in response to John, Christ states that we (the Immovable Race) should go about our matters such that we’re not involved in wickedness and evil. Care about incorruption alone (not debased or perverted; morally upright) without anger or envy or jealousy or desire (bitter passion might be the key here!) and greed of anything, as found in Verses 25-28:

And I said to the savior, “Lord, will all the souls then be brought safely into the pure light?” He answered and said to me, “Great things have arisen in your mind, for it is difficult to explain them to others except to those who are from the Immovable Race. Those on whom the Spirit of life will descend and (with whom) he will be with the power, they will be saved and become perfect and be worthy of the greatness and be purified in that place from all wickedness and the involvements in evil. Then they have no other care than the incorruption alone, to which they direct their attention from here on, without anger or envy or jealousy or desire and greed of anything. They are not affected by anything except the state of being in the flesh alone, which they bear while looking expectantly for the time when they will be met by the receivers (of the body). Such then are worthy of the imperishable, eternal life and the calling. For they endure everything and bear up under everything, that they may finish the good fight and inherit eternal life.” I said to him, “Lord, the souls of those who did not do these works (but) on whom the power and Spirit descended, (will they be rejected?” He answered and said to me, “If) the Spirit (descended upon them), they will in any case be saved, and they will change (for the better). For the power will descend on every man, for without it no one can stand. And after they are born, then, when the Spirit of life increases and the power comes and strengthens that soul, no one can lead it astray with works of evil. But those on whom the counterfeit spirit descends are drawn by him and they go astray.” And I said, “Lord, where will the souls of these go when they have come out of their flesh?” And he smiled and said to me, “The soul in which the power will become stronger than the counterfeit spirit, is strong and it flees from evil and, through the intervention of the incorruptible one, it is saved, and it is taken up to the rest of the Aeons.” And I said, “Lord, those, however, who have not known to whom they belong, where will their souls be?” And he said to me, “In those, the despicable spirit has gained strength when they went astray. And he burdens the soul and draws it to the works of evil, and he casts it down into forgetfulness. And after it comes out of (the body), it is handed over to the authorities, who came into being through the archon, and they bind it with chains and cast it into prison, and consort with it until it is liberated from the forgetfulness and acquires knowledge. And if thus it becomes perfect, it is saved.” And I said, “Lord, how can the soul become smaller and return into the nature of its mother or into man?” Then he rejoiced when I asked him this, and he said to me, “Truly, you are blessed, for you have understood! That soul is made to follow another one (fem.), since the Spirit of life is in it. It is saved through him. It is not again cast into another flesh.” [Note the direct allusion to reincarnation, albeit via following another Spirit that’s more advanced in this incarnation.] And I said, “Lord, these also who did know, but have turned away, where will their souls go?” Then he said to me, “To that place where the angels of poverty go they will be taken, the place where there is no repentance. And they will be kept for the day on which those who have blasphemed the spirit will be tortured, and they will be punished with eternal punishment.”

If it weren’t for the formation of the Orthodox Church, then the overall works of Christianity might have never had made it to the present day; thus we can actually be thankful in some respects for Irenaeus’ Four Pillar Canon. With the findings in 1945 of the Nag Hammadi Corpus, the real conceptualization has resumed in full force.

Pronoia & Christ—Saviors & Redeemers

Whenever I refer to ApJohn, it’s the LR (Long Redaction) that includes the Pronoia Hymn. Much of this section is aligned with probably the most profound work of all —TriProt. Pronoia is a Savior figure, as Christ can be, and Christ is the Redeemer, as Pronoia can be. The concepts are intertwined. It is possible that they, along with the Father of course, allowed this aeon, and even the counterfeit spirit, to evolve in order to come back and claim what is theirs (TriProt end of [On Fate: Two.]) Perhaps this is why such works as ApJohn were lost in time until 1945 with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Corpus (though regarding ApJohn specifically, one of the shorter redactions was found towards the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th centuries in the Berlin Codex.) In other words, this redemption will be fulfilled once individual Souls/Spirits sort themselves out such that those who truly are from the Immovable Race (the Valentinians believe this sort is called pneumatic) will become known. It refers to those who have learnt, felt, seen, and touched the various elements and attributes of what are in this aeon such that they can individually discriminate for themselves right from wrong. The Immovable Race therefore becomes. They are the true Crusaders of the Pure Light. Perhaps this was and is the Pleroma’s grand plan. Per Trimorphic Protennoia:

“But now I have come down and reached down to Chaos. And I was with my own who were in that place. I am hidden within them, empowering them, giving them shape. And from the first day until the day when I will grant mighty glory to those who are mine, I will reveal myself to those who have heard my mysteries, that is, the Sons of the Light.”

Furthermore, TriProt‘s Verse VII explicitly delineates Pronoia’s and Christ’s similarity:

“Then the Son who is perfect in every respect — that is, the Word who originated through that Voice; who proceeded from the height; who has within him the Name; who is a Light — he revealed the everlasting things, and all the unknowns were known. And those things difficult to interpet and secret, he revealed. And as for those who dwell in Silence with the First Thought, he preached to them. And he revealed himself to those who dwell in darkness, and he showed himself to those who dwell in the abyss, and to those who dwell in the hidden treasuries, he told ineffable mysteries, and he taught unrepeatable doctrines to all those who became Sons of the Light.”

Is salvation predetermined, and this spiritual concept can mean different things depending on the individual, or is it earned? This is a classic question among philosophers regarding determinism vis-à-vis free will. It’s worth contemplating, that’s for certain. In good form, I truly believe it’s a fusion of sorts, though determinism trumps free will in my opinion. Just read the entire TriProt!

I do not believe anyone can know this answer, though I’m certain many believe they know the truth. Said another way, it is difficult to read Trimorphic Protennoia and not take away the belief that Providence (determinism) trumps free will. Other treatises might hold otherwise, but in my opinion TriProt (Part III of John’s Gospel) is a force to be reckoned with—after all, it is attributed to the Father with perfect knowledge. However, the entire work is written with the Immovable Race in mind; others might indeed be subject to free will, if it’s not in fact determinism that they make other choices, as Einstein and Spinoza would most likely argue. This fundamental issue is not entirely resolved to everyone’s agreement, though I rest my case based on the Verses included in TriProt.

The Mythology

At the very least, mythology is good for instructional purposes to demonstrate concepts. It can be fun, and even worthwhile, to dance in the mythology, but it’s there for reference, even if you make changes to it as I’ve done in the coming Refinement Section. However, always remember at the end of it all it’s The Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit (for which Pronoia is a proxy in the mythology itself.) Otherwise, if taken too literally, what you’re yearning to practice has the potential to become a quite unique form of fundamentalism! Notwithstanding this aspect, since we’re referencing the Land of the Spirit, anything is possible. For example, Epinoia in many respects is quite similar to GosJohn’s Paraclete/Advocate; both are aspects of the Holy Spirit.

According to the work They did not belong to us: Johannine Language and Social Identity by Chance Bonar, PhD Student at Harvard University: ”No matter how the Paraclete is identified, John makes it clear that Christ’s departure must occur, because it is good for his disciples (cf. John 14:18-19; 16:7, 13). The Paraclete must be present as a source of knowledge and expectation in the future Johannine group. Opponents of the Johannine group are unable to counter this Paraclete, since the testimony of Christ comes straight from the one “coming forth from the Father” (John 15:26). Just as Jesus himself and the Johannine group have the authority to speak truthfully concerning God because they are from God, so too the Paraclete is justified to speak and act in such a way. Because the teacher/reminder of Christ is within the Johannine group, the outgroups (the Roman world and Jews) are still incapable of understanding Christ’s role in salvation history and are lacking the truth that comes from Johannine membership. Although Jesus claims to be the “light of the world” (Jn. 8:12) who will enlighten those who follow him, one must remember that “the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (Jn. 1:10-11). The Paraclete, as an extension of [Christ’s] teachings, is able to provide this light to those who accept the Johannine knowledge and connection with [Christ.]”

Initial Personal Canon

Sethian

Apocryphon of John–LR Trimorphic Protennoia Allogenes

—with reference to GosTruth of the Valentinian School plus firm recognition of the Johannine School’s GosJohn.

TriProt expresses it all and is the most exalted book. ApJohn gives the details as does GosJohn. Allogenes gives revelatory instruction.

Though written via Ap John’s mythology, I believe that the very end of TriProt conveys who the author actually is: “A Sacred Scripture written by the Father with perfect Knowledge.” She was the Jesus of the Demiurge, she bore the cursed wood for Jesus, and she is the one who claims what is hers. All of this is metaphor referring to the Father’s active hand in the cosmos, both this aeon and the Pleroma. Christ has an active hand with his Autogenes, that is the process of receiving the Spirit of Light (many prefer the term Spirit of Life, but so be it.) The Spirit claims the children of the Light, ignorance and error are cast off, and the Archons (and the Demiurge) have no idea what happened. All of this occurs post the traditional water baptism, which some treatises go as far as to call useless, and pre-death. It shall come to be as it has always been meant to be.

In TriProt, Eleleth himself (one of the four Illuminators) has been placed in the line of fire by assuming the role of the instructor—and the commander—of sorting out this divine rupture. After all, Sophia—the oxymoronic wanton innocent one—is responsible and repents endlessly as seen in all four versions of ApJohn and many of the other Nag Hammadi treatises.

Again, since it was written into TriProt that Eleleth shielded this transgression, how could we have one of Christ’s formal Aeon’s, Wisdom at that, make such an egregious mistake? It’s not as the Valentinians like to throw around: she has not been restored to the Pleroma, but rather she is stuck in the 9th in this Realm/aeon until all Protennoia’s/Father’s seed are gathered. Henceforth, she’s above this lower ‘ogdoad’ of Saklas (who resides in the 8th, and she is in the 9th) until (if & when) this deficiency is fully corrected. Harvard University’s Dr. Karen King astutely states in SecJohn, p. 232: “The Secret Revelation of John (ApJohn) significantly shifts the meaning of the rupture by associating the divine creation Sophia with the disobedient Eve—with the result that Sophia-Wisdom paradoxically comes to be equated with Ignorance!”

Who’s on First–The Sethians or the Valentinians?

Moreover, think about this fact: Irenaeus spends much time specifically disparaging the Valentinians in Against Heresies, Book I, Chapters 29 & 30. However, much of his criticism focuses not on works associated with this school of thought, but rather Sethianism, and specifically the Barbeloite (“Barbelognostic”) branch. He directly discusses, at length in Chapter 30, The Apocryphon of John so much that a prominent modern scholar, Alastair Logan, actually uses his material as a compare/contrast source when he attempts to trace ApJohn back to the original text, clearly a generation or so ahead of ~CE180 when Irenaeus wrote his many volumes. TriProt is dated by Logan to have been written ~CE180, though some scholars go as far back as ~CE120 (and this timing makes sense given its relative proximity to the intra-group the Johannine Epistles refer to as the secessionists, or as their author(s) likes to believe–the “antichrists,”) and we know from the scholarly community in general GosJohn was written ~CE90. The common link is clear once one really conceptualizes this notion.

Irenaeus almost solely focuses on the creation of this aeon, or lesser ogdoad, and even confuses this aspect with the creation of the Pleroma (the Heavens) itself. He addresses the notion (in Book I, Chapter 30, v. 13-14) that ApJohn is in accordance with GosJohn, but it is presented as a falsehood. He summarizes in Book III, Chapter 11, v.8: “For that according to John relates His original, effectual, and glorious generation from the Father, thus declaring, ‘In the beginning was Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word is God.’ John 1:1, ‘Also, all things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made.’ For this reason, too, is that the Gospel is full of all confidence, for such is His person.” I will be addressing the Johannine Prologue in a later section.

I must say that I appreciate Alastair Logan’s comment in Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy: “this ‘hypostasis’ of the [Sethians] surely annoyed Irenaeus!” He too posits a great question, one not addressed virtually anywhere else: “Are Hypostases the same things as Aeons?” My opinion is the character or concept is the greater of the two, thus the Hypostasis, and as seen with the Valentinians, Aeons come and go ad hoc! Mr. Logan further tweaks my funny bone by jesting about the Illuminators and their Aeons: “they are no longer Aeons themselves, as there are only twelve attributable qualities—and the Angels themselves seem to have been left out!” There could actually be thirteen, as somehow Prudence is dangling in the text. In the Refinement Section, as part of the first Direct Revelation, I reassign this Aeon to Armozel.

Irenaeus’ Against Heresies further enabled the hostile takeover the eventual Catholic Church performed on the Johannine Sect, a tactic that was started by the Johannine Epistles. To think that GosJohn is purely Johannine, along with ApJohn and TriProt, is enough to get one righteously indignant. Irenaeus’ strategy seemed to have been to write—and further write—his way onto center stage. Unfortunately his work is seriously flawed. The secessionists didn’t care (or conversely they wanted his head!) They thought he was obtuse. Of course the Valentinians did care, as they were Irenaeus’ primary target.

Furthermore, Against Heresies was a quite confused, yet long, work. Not many people read it back in the second century, as it was before the days of the printing press. However, church leaders did, and look at the mess that was created. Technically, they interpreted many of the primary tenets of Original Christianity incorrectly.

Epinoia is quite an important concept–that is divine revelation–and it helps in figuring out the nuances seen in the first few centuries’ commentaries. Sometimes Epinoia is stronger than any written word every could be. Accordingly, GosTruth 19 says the following: “There came the men wise in their own estimation, putting him to the test. But he confounded them because they were foolish. They hate him because they were not really wise.”

As mentioned, TriProt is a book attributed to the Father, and GosTruth seems to have been attributed to Christ. The verbiage in both is authoritative, and it speaks to the Immovable Race:

GosTruth 28 “I do not say, then, that they are nothing (at all) who have not yet come into existence, but they are in him who will wish that they come into existence when he wishes, like the time that is to come. Before all things appear, he knows what he will produce. But the fruit which is not yet manifest does not know anything, nor does it do anything. Thus, also every space which is itself in the Father is from the one who exists who established it from what does not exists. For he who has no root has no fruit either, but though he thinks to himself, “I have come into being,” yet he will perish by himself. For this reason, he who did not exist at all will never come into existence. What, then, did he wish him to think of himself? This: ‘I have come into being like the shadows and phantoms of the night.’ When the light shines on the terror which that person had experienced, he knows that it is nothing.”

GosPhil [The Gospel of Philip] (as referenced in a later Section of this work) has much to offer the Johannine secessionists, similar to GosTruth; however, both treatises in their entirety do not fall within the bounds of the Protennoia Johannine Secessionist Canon. Rather, one must choose the salient Verses to include. There are several that fall inline more with Valentinian beliefs, and these should be glossed over. The Immovable Race will be able to determine those that are appropriate.

The Key to the Fourth Gospel? Certainly not the Old Testament!

Not surprisingly, I will refute Irenaeus’ points fully by stating that ApJohn (and of course TriProt) actually seems to be key to correctly interpreting the Fourth Gospel, and it also is an intra-Christian debate text on the “value” of The Old Testament (OT.) Plenty have made solid arguments that the drafters must have respected and wanted to include the OT in the Canon given just how much ApJohn refers back to Genesis, the Moses statements, etc. However, I believe their intention was to show how egregiously wrong parts of the originals were that the OT’s inclusion was at best superfluous.

In my opinion, it was not turning pre-Christian texts into a revelation from Christ; it was a statement of fact on how wrong the original works were, just as in GosThom Saying 52 Jesus scorns his disciples upon hearing the following: “Twenty-four prophets spoke in Israel, and all of them spoke in you.” [Jesus] said to them, “You have omitted the one living in your presence and have spoken (only) of the dead.”

Harvard’s Karen King believes that ApJohn points to the ultimate rejection of the original (OT) texts. According to her, somewhat paraphrased: in the end the biblical treatises have more to be rejected than received, and this is the general attitude of ApJohn. Therefore, the drafters refer to the OT texts “only when it suits their purposes.”

A good example of this opinion is as follows: ApJohn 29: “And he (the chief Archon) repented for everything which had come into being through him. This time he planned to bring a flood upon the work of man. But the greatness of the Light of the foreknowledge informed Noah, and he proclaimed (it) too all of the offspring which are the sons of men. But those who were strangers to him did not listen to him. It is not as Moses said, ‘They hid themselves in an ark’ (Gen 7:7), but they hid themselves in a place, not only Noah but also many other people from the Immovable Race. They went into a place and hid themselves in a luminous cloud. And he (Noah) recognized his authority, and she who belongs to the Light was with him, having shone on them because he (the chief Archon) had brought darkness upon the whole earth.”

Additionally, The Blue Letter Bible states the following boldly: “There are no direct statements in The Old Testament about the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the believer. Thus it is difficult to arrive at any conclusion about the work of the Holy Spirit during the Old Testament period.” This fact solidifies my reasoning.

I’ll reference The University of Edinburgh’s Dr. Larry Hurtado’s work Lord Jesus Christ in the coming Johannine Secessionists Section more extensively, but he does make the observation regarding how such works apply to the Sethians and Valentinians on p. 531 of his extensive discourse: “It is likely that their myths were intended to substitute for the function of the Old Testament narrative of world events, characters, and themes. That is, the mythic schemes provided a replacement narrative world in which the elect could ‘situate’ themselves meaningfully. And in this rival narrative world the Old Testament and its deity, along with Israel, and run-of-the-mill Christians as well, were assigned a vastly inferior status and significance.”

He continues on p. 559: “The world [the second-century Christians] surveyed was then [as it is now] a less than perfect creation, to put it mildly; it is a classic philosophical difficulty to account for a world so afflicted by natural and moral evil as the creation of an omnipotent and good deity. Moreover, there are undeniable tensions for Christians in treatment of the Old Testament as their Scriptures: Israel versus church, Torah versus Christ, and the anthropomorphic pictures of God in the Old Testament, to name a few obvious ones. Those who urge a distinction between the Old Testament deity and the true God were not simply trying to be difficult; they were reacting to real issues. But the stakes were high, the issues far-reaching, and the potential consequences of the battle over who the Christian God was were monumental.”

Furthermore, Yale University’s Bentley Layton observed in Gnostic Scriptures, xxii: “What is first and foremost in gnostic scripture is its doctrines and its interpretation of the Old and New Testament books—especially its open hostility to the god of Israel and its views on resurrection, the reality of Jesus’ incarnation and suffering, and the universality of Christian salvation. On these points, the gap between gnostic religion and proto-orthodox Christianity was vast.” He proposed that “Valentinus, though essentially a gnostic, tried to bridge this gap,” and that “he and his followers consciously limited themselves to a proto-orthodox canon,” avoiding reference to heterodox texts in their writings.” As Dr. Hurtado notes, the “Valentinians did primarily, if not solely, focus on New Testament writings, not those of The Old Testament.”

The Valentinian Web of Exclusivity

In my opinion, the [Western] Valentinians’ overt adherence to The New Testament coupled with their own secret teachings could very well have served to be the reason their entire movement was quite unsuccessful, as unfortunate as this reality might be. In other words, in order to assimilate themselves within the church, the Valentinians ended up drawing attention to what the proto-orthodox believers certainly referred to as heresy. Perhaps the tenets of Original Christianity would have survived if the Valentinians did not highlight its “vastly” different belief system by trying so hard to incorporate themselves into the Orthodox Church. After all, they continuously held their own meetings that excluded their proto-orthodox brethren. Clearly, the latter were quite aware that the Valentinians had their own secret meetings with accompanying unorthodox teachings, and they wanted nothing to do with such esoteric tenets. By attempting to assimilate themselves within the church, all the while excluding the proto-orthodox from these secret meetings, the Valentinians entrapped themselves into a web of exclusivity—or web of lies if you were to ask the right-wing—one that led to their ultimate, if not spectacular, demise.

Honing the True Canon

Further exploration of the Johannines is warranted. Whether there is a direct relationship with the Sethians, or Barbeloites, is a valid question. Further spreading the Word to those who are worthy just might enable this fusion to re-commence, and this of course will not replace, but rather augment, the Autogenes/Spirit of Light process that Christ & the invisible Spirit control.

We too should explore whether or not there actually was a group called the Thomassines. If so, they’ve been long forgotten. However, The Gospel of Thomas belongs side-by-side with The Gospel of John. Irrespective of the latter referring to the apostle as “Doubting Thomas,” at the beginning of the Apocryphon, essentially Christ spoke to the “Doubting John.”

As for the Paulines, I’d recommend they take up the Johannine / Thomassine writings post haste. The Valentinians’ supposed claim to fame is through Theudas, a direct disciple of Paul, though Paul was never a direct disciple of Christ, except according to himself. Even the Johannine Revelation to John refutes the Paulines in RevJohn 2-3, according to a Paul apologist Paul Renan in St Paul (1869:) “Apostle John’s book of Revelation was a ‘cry of hatred’ against Paul and his friends.” Also, in the Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon by Handley C.G. Moule, p. 17 “and it has been maintained (notably by Bauer, of Tubingen as well as Renan) that the school of St. John entirely repudiated St. Paul, and succeeded in effecting a total break of continuity [between the two schools.]”

All one has to do is read the end of The Acts of the Apostles to ascertain just how controversial the Pauline school actually was; the writings somehow made the Orthodox Canon, but there was certainly, at the very least, real dysfunction.

Paul was not welcomed by the other apostles who rightly challenged his authority: per the UNCW web page Paul vs the Apostles, “Paul seems to have lost his power struggle with the Apostles, then broke with them and went out on his own preaching his own version of Jesus as Lord, his own law-free gospel, and his own innovative concept of the ‘church.’ In his last epistle, Romans, Paul seems to have given up on the East and is informing the Roman Christians that he plans to come to them on his way to Spain to spread his gospel in the West. But first he plans to make a final trip to Jerusalem which turns out to be his undoing. There he is arrested and eventually sent as a prisoner to Rome where he is executed.”

Furthermore, per The BBC’s description of Paul, “his works have also been used, among other things, to justify homophobia, slavery and anti-Semitism. He has also been accused of being anti-feminist.”

Conversely, The Gospel of Thomas‘ tone is one of acceptance and deliverance: per Saying 22, “Jesus saw some infants who were being suckled. He said to his disciples: These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom. They said to him: If we then become children, shall we enter the kingdom? Jesus said to them: When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female, and when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter [the kingdom].”

Among the critics of Paul the Apostle was Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that he was the “first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus,” according to The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being his Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private.

And corrupter he was—but it is quite possible that from the perspective of the Jews he was an insider. Paul’s life was spent as a Pharisee (at least according to Acts) who condemned true Christian believers to awful fates. However, it is possible that what he espoused represented a counter-move to the likes of the early Christians. Paul professed, possibly disingenuously, to having had revelations from Christ, as that is part of what he learned from those early Christians he condemned. In order to combat the growing body of those moving away from Judaism and into what is now known as Christianity, he could have used their model.

If this is the case, it was not Epinoia that inspired Paul, it was deceit. He potentially quite early on attempted to persuade true Christians into a mode of thought, or religiosity, that he and other Jewish leaders condoned. His Gospel was hardly “law-free,” but rather sought to accommodate Gentile customs regarding circumcision and the like—all the while promoting the true law of Yahweh himself—or Yaltabaoth as the Sethians believed. Thus, he potentially used the Christian revelatory framework, precisely echoing what the Johannine secessionists professed, to theoretically accomplish Judaism’s end, a counter-move. The entire book of Romans is a great example of this potential bait-and-switch.

Valentinian Reinterpretation

In effect, Valentinianism really tried hard to soften the blow of the reality of Sophia’s rupture due to her wanton behavior that’s reported accurately in ApJohn. Oddly enough, the school does not have a Pronoia/Barbelo figure, but it chose to rescue Sophia.

As we know, there were two branches of the Valentinian School, East & West, or Oriental & Roman. The former branch holds the mystical treatises, such as the extraordinarily wordy TriTrac, whereas the Western branch seems to have been more inline with the Orthodox Church fathers. Then there’s the Pistis Sophia. In the East, Sophia remains in the ‘ogdoad’ (though in the 8th, not the 9th,) and I believe interestingly that she seems to have begotten the Christ figure according to this source! Additionally, the treatise claims there are thirty Aeons. This is outrageously different from ApJohn. Furthermore, they went through back-flips to present the Demiurge in a more positive light in TriTract. Suffice to say, their attempt was not only ineffective, it was wrong. They did not attempt to build upon ApJohn as Sethian works such as The Hypostasis of the Archons did; the Eastern Valentinians rewrote the Apocryphon entirely.

In the West, Sophia’s “better half” went back to the Pleroma, and in this aeon/Realm her other half repented endlessly, and I’m not quite sure if she is fully split or if after repenting the other half went back to the Valentinian Pleroma (certainly not the Pleroma!) However, it’s rather unclear as there aren’t many Western Valentinian sources, inline with Hurtado’s & Layton’s observation that the Western group relied fundamentally on those treatises included in The New Testament (NT.) GosTruth is one theoretical exception, though it does not discuss Sophia’s Providence, and it augments ApJohn--not rewrites.

All in all, what we have here is a clear case of the Sethian/Barbeloite superiority, and the Valentinian attempt to better position baseline Sethian concepts. That’s one thing Irenaeus partially got right. Sophia is not the representative of the Holy Spirit. The Valentinians of course were quite unsuccessful, as those in this school were no match for Irenaeus. However, perhaps it was best that this all went down as such as the Sethians most likely wanted no part in canonizing the Apocryphon–and they wanted nothing to do with the proto-orthodox (and certainly not Irenaeus!) They most certainly valued NT treatises such as GosJohn; I believe they wrote it (yes–I believe the evangelist was the first secessionist.) According to many believers at the time (and by extension some believers today,) Sethianism really could have been construed as Original Christianity (I tend to side with The University of Exeter’s Alastair Logan and Harvard University’s Karen King that the Sethian works must have been Christian–quite unlike The University of Nebraska’s John Douglas Turner–as discussed further in the next Section.)

However, the Valentinians tried, and they further tried, to include themselves within the Orthodox Church. Valentinus himself was almost named the Bishop of Rome. However, after Irenaeus’ work, they tried to rewrite much of Sethianism in order to accommodate his criticism. They failed.

TriTract just simply is an inferior work to ApJohn, even though it seems clear that the drafter(s) of the treatise tried to remove the mythology. However, ApJohn’s mythologoumena is there for a reason: it teaches. The Valentinians too dropped the Five Seals, perhaps replacing it with The Gospel of Philip’s (GosPhil) Bridal Chamber (though as I posit in the GosPhil Section, this treatise could go either way.) They too got rid of the Illuminators, even though they’re technically angel-like and not necessarily mythological, but so be it. However, I’ll point out an interesting excerpt from Harvard’s Karen King’s Secret Revelation of John (ApJohn,) p. 149: “Baptismal Sealing brings the power of the Spirit into the soul to strengthen it in its battle against the passions and the power of the counterfeit spirit.”

Trimorphic Protennoia‘s Relation with ApJohn

TriProt very much expounds upon the many wonders associated with the Land of the Spirit, and it’s a supremely important treatise. Again, it’s directly attributable to Father himself according to the text. The entire work resonates with me to the point that I see how this message is being conveyed—and I agree with the presentation. In a manner of speaking, the text also serves to fuse both ApJohn and GosJohn into one cohesive unit or body that stands for the fullness of time. In another sense, this treatise very effectively objectivizes the subjective—the Land of the Spirit—and the infusion of one’s being into the Pleroma upon effectively receiving ApJohn’s Spirit of Light via the Autogenes process. Even at the beginning of my indoctrination into these esoteric concepts, I made the connection that the Pronoia Monologue in ApJohn is the model, and of course the entire TriProt is written in the exact same voice.

Regarding The Trimorphic Protennoia‘s drafting: interestingly Alastair Logan of the University of Exeter believes the Apocryphon was originally a Christian work, quite unlike Turner. I agree with Logan. As appears on p. 46 of Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy:

“But the Apocryphon with the Pronoia hymn undoubtedly underlies and structures Trimorphic Protennoia, which may be roughly contemporary with the (a3) recension of the Apocryphon (circa 200CE) but which, intriguingly, seems unaware of the Sethian [Sethite] material. Thus it seems to mark a fascinating moment of transition in that it presupposes and develops the Barbelognostic theogony, cosmology, and soteriology (the triad Father, Mother, and Son; Christ identified with Autogenes; the four Illuminators and servants, baptizers, etc.; and the Five Seals,) identifies Sophia with the Epinoia of light as a passive figure, assigns Aeons to the four Illuminators but does not structure them hierarchically or temporally as abodes of Adamas, Seth and his seed: all these are conspicuously absent from this supposedly ‘Sethian’ work. Turner’s detailed literary analysis, although sophisticated and ingenious, is vitiated by his assumptions that this work is Sethian, that the Sethians were a pre-Christian breakaway Jewish sect, and that one of their fundamental ideas was tripartition of history involving the triple scheme of a savior figure.

It seems simpler to assume that the redactors of Trimorphic Protennoia knew of the (a2) version of the Apocryphon with the Pronoia hymn (circa 160CE,) and developed the pattern of the three interventions/rebukes/descents of the female savior figure as respectively Voice (Father,) Sound (Mother,) and Word (Son.) The glosses we find added to Barbelo in the (a2) version (e.g. ‘primordial Man,’ ‘triple male,’ ‘with three powers, three names,’ etc.) form the basis of an expansion of the former’s doctrine into the three main sections of the work and concluding revelation. That the redactors developed an already existing myth involving cosmology, eschatology, and soteriology, adding aretalogies, etc. seems more likely than Turner’s supposition that they expanded the original Pronoia hymn by aretalogies and added doctrinal passages to them. The revealer figure Protennoia is obviously an extrapolation of Barbelo/Pronoia.” I’d somewhat disagree with this last statement, as I believe the entire treatise is in the voice of the Father, though Pronoia is his reflection according to the Sethian works. As I expound upon in Direct Revelation V, this might not be the case!

The two works collectively (that is ApJohn & TriProt,) or three as we will see with GosJohn, essentially weed out any “puffed up” nature that Irenaeus attributed to the Valentinians. Add in GosThom & GosPhil and you have one extremely strong canon of knowledge. GosTruth actually reinforces this canon rather well, the quite powerful treatise we can most likely thank Valentinus for having written.

As Harvard’s Dr. King states regarding ApJohn on p.243 of her work: “Through their very particular reading of shared cultural resources, the framers and readers of The Secret Revelation of John produced a powerful social-political critique and a utopian vision of reality. The Secret Revelation of John represents itself as having the key to the true meaning of all of human history, the truth finally available only through revelation. Christ’s teaching illumines the most prestigious cultural traditions by throwing them into the light of revelation. The traditions of the past can now be seen for what they are: deceptions, counterfeit images, and partial truths. But one can now also see in them the real truth. The Secret Revelation of John provides a paradigm for distinguishing between the true and the seeming, the model and the copy, the real and the deceptive.”

Autogenes/Christ

What do I mean as regards the Autogenes process? Early in ApJohn-LR, I believe this represents how Christ was created in the beginning, per p. 108 of Robinson’s The Nag Hammadi Library:

“And he looked at Barbelo with the pure light that surrounds the invisible Spirit and (with) his spark, she conceived from him. He begot a spark of light with a light resembling blessedness. But it does not equal his greatness. This was an only-begotten child of the Mother-Father which had come forth; it is the only offspring, the only-begotten one of the Father, the pure Light.” Then: “And the invisible, virginal Spirit rejoiced over the light which came forth, that which was brought forth by the first power of his forethought which is Barbelo. And he anointed it with his goodness until it became perfect, not lacking in any goodness, because he had anointed it with the goodness of the invisible Spirit.”

Therefore, the Autogenes process—the spark—enabled the creation of Christ upon the anointment. The University of Exeter’s Alastair Logan refers to this process via an “intermediate being.” Then on p. 109 of Robinson:

“And the holy Spirit completed the divine Autogenes, his son, together with Barbelo, that he may attend the mighty and invisible, virginal Spirit as the divine Autogenes, the Christ whom he had honored with a mighty voice. He came through the forethought. And the invisible, virginal Spirit placed the divine Autogenes of truth over everything.”

What’s interesting conceptually is that the Autogenes process first created Christ, but from that point forward Christ is associated with the Autogenes process in his Hypostasis. The invisible Spirit maintains control of the Spirit of Light. Thus, they work in tandem.

I should mention that we are not talking about reliance on OT texts, or customs that pre-date ApJohn & GosJohn. We are talking about a new revelation entirely. Christ pre-dates the character Jesus by eons.

The Sethian Neoplatonic Treatises

Other descriptions of Autogenes include “a divine intellect generating itself and the sensible cosmos by a contemplative seeing of the first God who thinks only insofar as he makes use of a contemplative second God (Marsanès frag. 20-22; Marsanès (NH X) edited by Wolf-Peter Funk, Paul-Hubert Poirier, John Douglas Turner; Platonism: Ancient, Modern, and Postmodern edited by Kevin Corrigan, John Douglas Turner.) Autogenes operates on the realm of the individuals who constitute the self-generated Aeons where he saves a multitude—thus a multiplicity. He’s a figure with the salvation of the realms below the Barbelo Aeon, thus Autogenes and his descent become the incessant topic of Marsanès’ preaching, since its result is the salvation or preservation of the entire sensible world.”

As regards the mythology, Barbelo’s third power is Autogenes, after Kalyptos and Protophanes. Truth was severed as the consort of Autogenes at the Christ Aeonic level and given to Barbelo, but here we see the balance of the scales in action as Autogenes was originally at the Barbelo level, which makes sense given the initial divine spark that created Christ. Furthermore, in Allogenes:

“Autogenes is the Barbelo’s Aeon’s means of interacting with the ‘perfect individuals’ including sounds and divine beings resident in this aeon prior to their unification in the Protophanes Aeon. This includes those who inhabit the realm of corporeal nature, continually rectifying the defects from nature.”



“In effect, Autogenes is constantly occupied with the shaping of the natural realm, literally ‘setting right’ or rectifying the ‘sins from nature.’” Marsanès continues describing the basic teaching concerning the Powers and configurations of the Zodiacal signs in frag 25, 15-20, and 42: “whether s/he is gazing at the two or is gazing at the seven [then] planets or at the twelve signs of the Zodiac or at the 36 Decans [that] are and these reach up to these numbers, whether those in heaven or those upon the earth, together with those that are under the earth, according to the relationships and the divisions among these, and in the rest—parts according to kind and according to species—they will submit since she has power above; they exist apart, every body, the divine Barbelo [did] reveal them in this manner.”



I will restate that Providence trumps fate. Universal energy does exist, however. Additionally, according to Rudolf Steiner on p. 170 of According to Matthew (though its worth noting that he quite possibly valued GosJohn the most in True Knowledge of The Christ: Theosophy and Rosicrucianism–The Gospel of John):

“In ancient times, any large number of people was described as a “thousand,” and more specific descriptions added a number derived from the most important characteristic of the group. For example, the people of the fourth cultural period were described as the “fourth thousand,” while those already living in the style of the next cultural period were called the “fifth thousand.” (These are merely technical terms.)

Hence, the disciples realized that in their waking consciousness they received Christ’s solar forces through the seven diurnal signs of the zodiac, which provided nourishment suited to the “fourth thousand,” or those in the fourth cultural period. But what they received through clairvoyant imagination, or through the five nocturnal signs, applied to the near future, the “fifth thousand.”

Thus those of the fourth epoch (the four thousand) receive nourishment from Heaven through the seven diurnal constellations, or the seven heavenly loaves, whereas the five loaves of the five nocturnal constellations of the zodiac nourishes those of the fifth epoch (the five thousand). The constellation of Pisces, or the fishes, always indicates the point where day signs meet the night signs.”

Back to Allogenes, one particularly well stated expression of the Sethian Triple-Powered One is as follows: Existence, Vitality, and Mentality (Knowledge.) Barbelo has three powers too: the invisible Spirit (or the masculine silent one,) the pre-existing otherness characterized by the actual feminine nature of the Triple Powered One itself, and the masculine dynamic equivalent of the Barbelo Aeon. Then there are the three additional Aeons: Kalyptos (initial latency or potential existence,) Protophanes (initial manifestation (divine mind,)) and lastly Autogenes (determinate, self-generated instantiation, now attributed to Christ.)

“Kalyptos includes the contemplated mind, containing the paradigmatic ideas or authentic existents, each unique. Protophanes is the contemplative mind, containing the subdivision of ideas, those who are unified and all together distinguished from ideas of particular things and from the distinctly unique authentic existents as congeries of similar units capable of combination with one another.” Lastly, Autogenes is “akin to a [second level] mind who shapes the realm of nature below according to the forms contemplated and analyzed by Protophanes, and would thus contain the ‘perfect individuals,’ the ideas of particular, individual things, as well as individual souls.’”

Allogenes further describes the Father as follows, complementing ApJohn’s description of his essence as found at the beginning of this work:

Allogenes 47-48 [But] concerning the invisible, spiritual Triple-Powered One, hear! He exists as an Invisible One who is incomprehensible to them all. He contains them all within himself, for they all exists because of him. He is perfect, and he is greater than perfect, and he is blessed. He is always One and he exists in them all, being ineffable, unnameable, being One who exists through them all — he whom, should one discern him, one would not desire anything that exists before him among those that possess existence, for he is the source from which they were all emitted. He is prior to perfection. He was prior to every divinity, and he is prior to every blessedness since he provides for every power. And he is a nonsubstantial substance, since he is a God over whom there is no divinity, the transcending of whose greatness and beauty do not compare with any power. It is not impossible for them to receive a revelation of these things if they come together. Since it is impossible for the individuals to comprehend the Universal One situated in the place that is higher than perfect, they apprehend by means of a First Thought — it is not as being alone, but it is along with the latency of Experience that he confers Being. He provides everything for himself since it is he who shall come to be when he recognizes himself. And he is One who subsists as a cause and source of Being and an immaterial material and an innumerable number and a formless form and a shapeless shape and powerlessness and a power and in insubstantial substance and a motionless motion and an inactive activity. Yet he is a provider of provisions and a divinity of divinity — but whenever they apprehend, they participate the first Vitality and an undivided activity, an hypostasis of the First One from the One who truly exists.

Allogenes 52-53, the Sethian Triple-Powered One: “And the all-glorious One, Youel [of the Barbelo Hypostasis,] anointed me again and she gave power to me. She said, “Since your instruction has become complete and you have known the Good that is within you, hear concerning the Triple-Powered One those things that you will guard in great silence and great mystery, because they are not spoken to anyone except those who are worthy, those who are able to hear; nor is it fitting to speak to an uninstructed generation concerning the Universal One that is higher than perfect. But you have <these> because of the Triple-Powered One, the One who exists in blessedness and goodness, the One who is responsible for all these. There exists within him much greatness. Inasmuch as he is One in silence of the First Thought, which does not fall away from those who dwell in comprehension and knowledge and understanding. And That One moved motionlessly in that which governs, lest he sink into the boundless by means of another activity of Mentality. And he entered into himself and he appeared, being all-encompassing, the Universal One that is higher than perfect. Indeed it is not through me that he is to such a degree anterior to knowledge. Whereas there is no possibility for complete comprehension, he is (nevertheless) known. And this is so because of the third silence of Mentality and the second undivided activity which appeared in the First Thought, that is, the Aeon of Barbelo, together with the Indivisible One of the divisible likenesses and the Triple-Powered One and the non-substantial existence.”

Allogenes 62-64: “He is neither divinity nor blessedness nor perfection. Rather it (this triad) is an unknowable entity of him, not that which is proper to him, rather he is another one superior to the blessedness and the divinity and perfection. For he is not perfect but he is another thing that is superior. He is neither boundless, nor is he bounded by another. Rather, he is something superior. He is not corporeal. He is not incorporeal. He is not great. He is not small. He is not a number. He is not a creature. Nor is something that exists, that one can know. But he is something else of himself that is superior, which one cannot know. He is primary revelation and knowledge of himself, as it is he alone who knows himself. Since he is not one of those that exist but is another thing, he is superior to all superlatives even in comparison to both what is properly his and not his. He neither participates in age nor does he participate in time. He does not receive anything from anything else. He is not diminishable, nor does he diminish anything, nor is he indiminishable. But he is self-comprehending, as something so unknowable that he exceeds those who excel in unknowability. He is endowed with blessedness and perfection and silence — not <the blessedness> nor the perfection–and stillness. Rather it (these attributes) is an entity of him that exists, which one cannot know, and which is at rest. Rather they are entities of him unknowable to them all.”

In relation to the Father and Autogenes/Christ, the following revelatory discourse addresses the Immovable Race directly in Zostrianos:

Zostrianos 20 “(About) the All and the all-perfect race and the one who is higher than perfect and blessed. The self-begotten Kalyptos pre-exists because he is an origin of the Autogenes, a god and a forefather, a cause of the Protophanes, a father of the parts that are his. As a divine father he is foreknown but he is unknown, for he has a power and a father from himself. Therefore, he is [fatherless.] The invisible Triple Powerful, First Thought [of] all [these,] the Invisible Spirit [represents] the Essence and Existence [of] all these. They are in every place that he loves or desires, yet they are not in any place. They have capacity for Spirit, for they are incorporeal yet are better than incorporeal. They are undivided with living thoughts and a power of truth with those purer than these since with respect to him they are purer and are not like the bodies which are in one place. Above all, they have necessity either in relation to the All or to a part. Therefore, the way of ascent, it is pure, and [henceforth] each herself and with them are above all particular Aeons.”

Zostrianos 24 “He can see with his perfect soul those who belong to Autogenes; with his mind, those who belong to the Triple Male, and with his Holy Spirit, those who belong to Protophanes. He can learn of Kalyptos through the powers of the Spirit from whom they have come forth in a far better revelation of the Invisible Spirit. And by means of thought which now is in silence and by First Thought he learns of the Triple Powerful Invisible Spirit, since there is the a report and power of silence which is purified in a living Spirit. It is perfect and and [always] perfect and all perfect.”

Zostrianos 62 “You who belongs to all the glories said to me, “‘you have received all the baptisms in which it is fitting to be baptized, and you have become perfect [in the light of] the hearing of [the All.] Now call again upon the all-perfect, the Lights of the aeon Barbelo and the immeasurable knowledge. They will reveal the Power and the Glory of the Invisible Spirit which are the essence of Barbelo and the Invisible Triple Powerful Spirit.’”

Zostrianos 114 