Deep Dive: The Secret Book of John (Nag Hammadi Codex II, 1945 Discovery)

All known manuscripts of the Secret Book of John are Coptic translations of an earlier Greek text. The most significant discovery occurred in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, where a collection of 13 papyrus codices was unearthed. Among these, Nag Hammadi Codex II (dating to the 4th century) contains the Apocryphon of John at its beginning.

Two other Nag Hammadi codices (III and IV) also contain this text, attesting to its popularity in Gnostic circles. In addition, an earlier find—the Berlin Gnostic Codex (codex BG 8502, acquired in 1896)—preserves another copy of the Secret Book of John. All four manuscripts are written in Sahidic Coptic (the dialect of Upper Egypt in late antiquity) and date from around the 4th century CE, though the work’s original composition is much earlier (mid-2nd century). In fact, the church father Irenaeus, writing ~180 CE, references a “secret book of John” in his catalog of heresies, placing the text’s composition before that date.

Manuscript and Linguistic Background

Textual transmission and versions: The Nag Hammadi find revealed that the Apocryphon of John circulated in at least two distinct recensions, often termed the “long version” and “short version.” Nag Hammadi Codex II and IV contain the longer version, which features an extended interpolation (a revelatory dialogue attributed to a Book of Zoroaster) in the middle of the text. Nag Hammadi Codex III, by contrast, contains a shorter edition lacking that interpolation. The Berlin Codex copy is likewise a short version, broadly similar to the Nag Hammadi Codex III text. Despite minor variations in wording and added flourishes (for example, the Berlin Codex tends to use the title “Christ” more frequently, whereas Codex III prefers “the Lord” or “the Savior” in the discourse (Robinson, 1988)), the core cosmological narrative remains consistent across all manuscripts. The survival of four separate manuscript copies—two long and two short—underscores how important this text was to early Gnostic Christians.

Provenance: The Nag Hammadi codices (including Codex II) were likely part of a monastic library or Gnostic collection buried in the late 4th century. Scholars suggest they may have been hidden for safekeeping after Bishop Athanasius’s 367 CE decree against non-canonical books. Codex II was found alongside other tractates (such as the Gospel of Thomas and On the Origin of the World), indicating a rich compilation of devotional and philosophical works. The Secret Book of John is placed first in Codex II, possibly signifying its primacy. The Coptic title on the manuscript (seen in the image above) reads “Apocryphon of John,” reflecting its self-designation as a secret revelation given to John. Modern scholars classify it as a Sethian Gnostic text (attributed to a group for whom Adam’s son Seth is a central salvific figure), though it also shows clear influence from early Christian thought and Middle Platonic philosophy (see below).

Theological and Cosmological Content

The Secret Book of John presents a comprehensive Gnostic cosmology and theology in the form of a revelatory dialogue. The apostle John (son of Zebedee), grieving after the crucifixion of Jesus, withdraws into contemplation. In this state, the Savior (the risen Christ) appears to John in a vision, dispelling his fear and promising to reveal “the mysteries [and] the things hidden in silence”. What follows is an elaborate account of the divine realm, creation of the world, and human salvation, which John is instructed to record as a secret teaching. Key doctrinal and cosmological elements include:

The Monad (Supreme One): At the pinnacle of reality stands the One God, referred to as the Monad, the ineffable and invisible Spirit. The text emphasizes the utter transcendence of this highest principle: an eternal, unbegotten monarchy with nothing above it. The Monad is indescribable—neither male nor female, neither bounded by time nor space. It simply IS, in perfect fullness and light. All other realities emanate from this source. (In Gnostic terms, the Monad corresponds to the ultimate Fullness or Pleroma of divine being.)

Barbelo (First Emanation): The Monad’s first act of self-revelation is the projection of a divine Intellect or Thought called Barbēlō. Barbelo is a central figure in this cosmology—described paradoxically as a feminine emanation of God who is also androgynous (the Mother-Father). She is the first Thought (Ennoia) of God, the primordial Foreknowledge of all that will be. As the image of the Invisible Spirit, Barbelo becomes the matrix from which the rest of the divine world unfolds. She is associated with the Holy Spirit and even called the “first man” (ProtAnthropos) in a symbolic sense. Barbelo and the Monad exist in a relationship of mutual glorification, and through their interaction a host of other divine attributes come into being.

The Aeons and the Pleroma: The text enumerates a sequence of Aeons (eternal divine realities or personified attributes of God) that emanate from the Monad and Barbelo. Barbelo herself brings forth secondary emanations such as Mind (Nous), Light, Word (Logos), Life, etc., often in male/female pairs, which collectively constitute the Pleroma (Greek for “fullness”). For example, Foreknowledge, Incorruptibility, and Eternal Life are named as Aeons accompanying Barbelo. The Autogenes (Self-Generated One), also called Christ, emerges as a divine emanation—the only-begotten Light born of the Monad’s reflection on Barbelo. Christ the Autogenes, together with four great luminous Aeons (often given the names Harmozel, Oroiael, Daveithai, and Eleleth, each overseeing further Aeonic pairs), organizes the Pleroma. Within this celestial hierarchy resides the archetypal perfect Human (the spiritual Adam, also called Adamas) and his offspring Seth, who represent the divine blueprint of humanity. In sum, the Pleroma is depicted as a family of personified divine attributes, a heaven of light populated by perfected beings who emanate from the one Source in successive pairs. All exists in harmony under the Monad’s sovereign will.

Sophia’s Emanation and the Birth of Yaldabaoth: The blissful order of the Pleroma is disrupted by the bold action of one Aeon: Sophia (Greek for Wisdom). Sophia, specifically referred to as Sophia of the Epinoia (Wisdom of Insight), is an Aeon who attempts to generate an offspring on her own, without the approval of the Monad and without her consort’s participation. This audacious, solitary act violates the harmonious process of paired creation in the Pleroma. The result is a defective offspring: an ignorant, malformed entity named Yaldabaoth. (Secret John describes Yaldabaoth’s appearance as grotesque—he has the face of a lion and the body of a serpent, a form reflecting his distorted origin.) Yaldabaoth is the first of a class of inferior powers known as the Archons (Greek for “rulers” or “authorities”). Crucially, Yaldabaoth is begotten without the Monad’s light—he is a bastard child, birthed in ignorance and deficiency. Ashamed of her progeny’s ugliness, Sophia tries to hide him in a cloud away from the Pleroma. Consequently, Yaldabaoth grows up isolated, unaware of the higher God or the Aeons beyond his shadowy realm. This marks the Gnostic “fall”: Sophia’s error gives rise to an ignorant creator figure.

Yaldabaoth—the Demiurge and Chief Archon: Though deficient, Yaldabaoth inherits a portion of divine power from his mother Sophia—enough to mimic creation on a lower level. Unaware of the spiritual universe above, Yaldabaoth delusionally believes himself to be the highest god. He arrogantly declares, “I am God and there is no other God beside me,” echoing the boast of the Old Testament’s Yahweh, but in ignorance. Yaldabaoth begins to fashion his own realm: he uses darkness (matter) mixed with a stolen spark of light from Sophia to form a material cosmos, a poor copy of the Pleroma. The text pointedly says this world was created without the light of knowledge—it is “neither light nor dark but dim”. Yaldabaoth then produces a retinue of lesser beings to assist him.

The Archons (Lower Rulers): Yaldabaoth generates a host of Archons to rule the various regions of his newly formed cosmos. Secret John gives a detailed list of twelve Archons birthed by Yaldabaoth to govern the spheres beneath him. These he appoints over the seven heavens (planetary spheres) and the five depths of the abyss, totaling 12 rulers under his dominion. The names of some of these Archons are intriguing—they include biblical names like Cain and Abel (here reinterpreted not as Adam’s sons but as cosmic rulers of the underworld and the sun, respectively). Other Archon names are Athoth, Harmas, Yao, Sabaoth, etc., each with epithets (e.g. Athoth is “the reaper”; Harmas is “the evil eye”). Yaldabaoth himself stands as chief Archon over them all, making a total of thirteen ruling powers (the false god and his twelve ministers). In later passages, each Archon is said to create angels or demons of its own (ultimately yielding 365 entities, symbolizing days of the year). Yaldabaoth is also given alternate names: Saklas (“Fool”) and Samael (“Blind God”)—underscoring his ignorant, arrogant nature. Together, Yaldabaoth and his Archons constitute the demiurgic forces who manage the material universe.

The Material World: The physical universe that the Archons create is described as a flawed imitation of the divine archetypes. The Secret Book of John explicitly frames the material realm as a copy of the perfect spiritual realm, albeit an imperfect and distorted one. This notion directly draws on Platonic philosophy (the idea of earthly copies of ideal Forms). Yaldabaoth unwittingly patterns his creation on the only model available to him—the faint reflection of the Pleroma that still lingers from Sophia’s stolen light. Thus, stars, planets, and earth come into being as a “counterfeit” cosmos, a vast prison governed by Fate and the Archons. Yaldabaoth and his cohorts rule as false gods over this cosmos, each Archon presiding over a sphere and demanding worship from the souls trapped therein. Yaldabaoth, blinded by pride, remains ignorant of the Monad and the higher realities; he believes his dim world is the only world, and declares himself its jealous creator.

Sophia’s Repentance and the Plot to Save Light: Realizing the gravity of her error, Sophia repents and seeks help from the higher Father. The Invisible Spirit (Monad) and the other Aeons respond with compassion. They devise a plan to retrieve the divine light trapped in Yaldabaoth’s realm and ultimately to redeem Sophia’s mistake. As Yaldabaoth establishes his kingdom, a voice from above — the voice of the Monad’s Spirit — echoes through the chaos. Yaldabaoth and his Archons hear this divine voice resonating above their waters and are startled. Though they cannot comprehend the message, the echo of the voice leaves an imprint: it casts a radiant reflection of the divine on the waters separating the superior and inferior worlds. In that reflection, Yaldabaoth glimpses something of the archetypal True Man (the image of God, Imago Dei). Envious and intrigued, the Demiurge decides to create a being after that image. Unbeknownst to Yaldabaoth, this is exactly what the higher powers intend—they are baiting him into fashioning a vessel that can receive the spark of light.

Creation of the First Human (Adam): The Archons set to work and form a human figure out of matter, modeled on the divine image they saw. Thus Adam, the first human, is made—but at first his body is lifeless, a mere statue of clay. The Archons cannot animate him, since they themselves lack true life-giving power. Sophia and her allies then trick Yaldabaoth to accomplish this: they convince the proud Demiurge to “breathe* some of his spirit” into Adam in order to make the figure move. Yaldabaoth, unwittingly following the higher plan, infuses Adam with the divine spark—the very light-power he had stolen from his mother. The result is twofold: Adam comes to life, now enlivened by a spark of divine intelligence, and Yaldabaoth is drained of that essence which he unwisely gave away. In Secret John’s poetic language, “He blew into Adam the breath of his spirit, which is the power from his mother. Adam began to move”—and Yaldabaoth, having given up the light, could no longer claim it. Adam’s superiority quickly becomes apparent. The text notes that Adam was now luminous and intelligent, far above his makers. The Archons are dismayed to find that man is wiser and shines brighter than the authorities who created him. In this way, the divine image (the true spiritual humanity from the Pleroma) has been planted within material human form. Gnostic interpreters see in this the origin of the divine spark or soul in humankind—a shard of the Pleroma now residing in the human being, as a result of the Demiurge’s failed attempt to copy the heavenly model.

The Garden of Eden as a Prison: The Archons, now fearful of the awakened human, seek to neutralize Adam. Unable to destroy their own creation, Yaldabaoth devises another scheme: he will ensnare Adam in a deceptive paradise. They place Adam into a garden, Eden, which in this Gnostic account is not a place of bliss but a counterfeit paradise. Everything in it is designed to keep Adam ignorant and obedient. “They put him in the Garden that he might work it and be occupied,” says the text, implying that the garden is a form of confinement and distraction. In this Eden, the trees’ fruit do not bring wisdom but stupefaction: “the fruit of the trees is [actually] wickedness, lust, ignorance” and death. The Archons allow Adam to eat from the Tree of Life (to keep him alive under their control), but they forbid access to the Tree of Knowledge. Notably, the Secret Book of John interprets the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” as a positive symbol: it represents the penetration of higher divine insight (Epinoia) into the lower world. In other words, the Archons hide this tree because its fruit would enlighten Adam with the knowledge of his true origins, undermining their authority. Thus, Eden is a gilded cage, and the “forbidden fruit” is actually the saving knowledge* that the false god wishes to suppress.

The Role of Eve and the Eating of the Fruit: In this retelling, the Savior reveals that it was He (in his role as the divine Providence) who intervened to liberate Adam and Eve. First, Eve herself is introduced as part of the rescue plan. The Archons attempt to remove the divine light from Adam—Yaldabaoth anesthetizes Adam and extracts the luminous power from his side, fashioning it into a female form (analogous to Eve being formed from Adam’s rib in Genesis). The Demiurge’s plan is to externalize and thus control the light (now in Eve) and to deceive Adam through lust. However, this plan backfires dramatically. The text explains that Eve is actually empowered by the spiritual insight (Epinoia) from the higher realm. When Adam awakens and sees Eve, he recognizes his own essence in her and is “illumined with sober reason”, escaping the Archons’ bewitchment. In other words, the encounter of Adam and Eve sparks remembrance of their true divine nature. Furthermore, it is revealed that the serpent in Eden was not a tempter in the service of evil, but rather an agent of the true God. Christ tells John: “It was I who caused them to eat (of the Tree of Knowledge).” In Gnostic interpretation, the serpent is a guise of the Savior or of Sophia, encouraging Adam and Eve to disobey the Demiurge’s command and thereby gain gnosis. Adam and Eve do eat the fruit of Gnosis (Knowledge), and their mind is opened. They realize they are naked—symbolically awakening to their vulnerable state in a counterfeit world—and they now possess a measure of truth that the Archons desperately wanted to deny them.

Aftermath—The Archons’ Tyranny (The Fallout of “The Fall”): Enraged that Adam and Eve have circumvented his control, Yaldabaoth (the jealous god) expels them from Eden. This corresponds to the biblical “Fall,” but in the Gnostic version it is the victory of the true God rather than a tragedy for mankind—humanity has taken the first step towards freedom by acquiring divine knowledge. The Demiurge, however, now doubles down on his oppression. He curses the humans and introduces carnal desire and reproduction as a means to entrap the divine spark in a cycle of birth and death. Sexual reproduction, in this view, was instigated by Yaldabaoth so that souls (the sparks of light) would continuously become bound in mortal bodies, generation after generation. Yaldabaoth and his Archons implant a “counterfeit spirit” in humans—a kind of false consciousness or spiritual stupor—to keep them dominated by passions and ignorance. This counterfeit spirit is said to be the source of all evil and confusion in the world, leading people astray so that “they die without finding truth and without knowing the God of truth.” In effect, it creates a situation in which humanity is divided in its nature: a higher element (the divine soul) and a lower element (the counterfeit spirit of the flesh) are at war within each person, echoing Paul’s sentiment of the spirit vs. the flesh, but recast in mythological terms. The text also elaborates on how death and suffering were introduced as further means of punishment by the Archons. In a striking adaptation of Genesis, Secret John claims that Yaldabaoth himself raped Eve to beget Cain and Abel, the first carnal humans. Because their father was an Archon, Cain and Abel are of the same essence (hence they are violent and spiritually empty, in contrast to later true humanity). They become rulers of the material elements (fire, wind, water, earth), perpetuating corruption. Adam and Eve, however, have a third son Seth—and Adam begets Seth “in his (own) likeness, after the image of (the celestial) Adamas.” In other words, Seth is born reflecting the divine image, not the Archontic image. Seth and his descendants (the “seed of Seth”) represent the spiritual race—those human beings who carry and awaken the original light of the Pleroma. Gnostic tradition identifies Seth’s lineage as the children of Light, in contrast to the spawn of Cain who symbolize earthly, ignorant humanity. This sets the stage for a divided humanity: one portion is pneumatic (spiritual, capable of Gnosis) and the other hylic or choic (material, blinded by the Archons). Souls, when born into the world, forget their divine origins due to the draught of oblivion administered by the Archons (an image drawn from Plato’s Myth of Er; see below). Human life under Archonic rule is thus a state of spiritual amnesia, ignorance, and injustice—until a savior intervenes.

The Savior and the Path of Return: The final part of the Secret Book of John turns to the soteriological discourse—a series of questions John asks and answers given by Christ concerning how humans can be saved from this bleak state. The Savior (often identified with the divine Christ or Pronoia = forethought of God) explains that salvation comes through awakening and knowledge (gnosis). Those ignorant souls who remain dominated by the counterfeit spirit will continue in the cycle of reincarnation and material suffering. In contrast, those who receive the truth—i.e. who recognize the teaching of the Secret Book as the revelation of their own situation—can break free. Christ says that “all who remember the Spirit of truth” will be drawn up to eternal life. He identifies himself as the divine agency sent from the Pleroma to stir the souls from their sleep: “I am the remembrance of the Pronoia (Forethought); I entered the midst of darkness… I labored to free the slaves of darkness”. In this text, Christ is not primarily a redeemer through sacrifice, but a revealer and liberator through enlightenment. He is akin to a divine teacher who enters the prison (the material world) to remind the captive souls of their true origin in the Light. Those who accept this revelation and unite with the Spirit are described as being “baptized in the light” and sealed with “five seals”. (The Five Seals likely refer to a Gnostic initiatory rite—possibly five sacred names or rituals that confer enlightenment and protection.) Through this spiritual baptism, the Gnostic is illuminated and his or her soul is fortified against the Archons. Such a person will not be returned to the cycle of death: upon physical death, their soul ascends past the spheres of the Archons (often by defeating them with the power of the acquired knowledge) and reaches the Pleroma, their true home. In the text’s own words, the saved are “raised up and sealed… in the light of the water with five seals,” escaping “death and Hades”. On the other hand, souls who knowingly reject the truth (having been exposed to it) are said to be incurably damned—a rare note of eternal punishment in Gnostic thought, reflecting the importance of embracing Gnosis once offered.

The revelation concludes with a commission and warning: Christ enjoins John to share these teachings only with those worthy, and “Cursed be anyone who delivers this teaching for a gift, or for money!”—a prohibition on turning secret wisdom into a commodity. John faithfully writes down all he has heard, and thus the Apocryphon of John itself is born as a sacred text for posterity.

In summary, the cosmology of the Apocryphon of John is one of a supreme transcendent God emanating a fullness of divine Aeons, a tragic fall of Wisdom yielding an ignorant creator (Demiurge) and his archontic rulers, the creation of the material world and entrapment of the divine spark in humankind, followed by the merciful intervention of the true God through Christ to awaken and reunite the fallen sparks with the Pleroma. It reinterprets biblical motifs—Creation, Eden, the Flood (implicitly), and Salvation—through a Gnostic lens, where knowledge (gnosis) replaces faith or obedience as the key to redemption. Every detail of its mythos serves to “convey the true nature of the divine realm and its relationship to the material cosmos and humanity,” in deliberate contrast to the “creator-God” narrative of Genesis.

Parallels with Plato’s Republic and Platonic Thought

The Secret Book of John is not only a religious text but also a synthesis of various philosophical currents, notably Platonism. Scholars have long noted that its mythical framework draws on Platonic ideas—adapting and reframing them within a more radically dualistic Gnostic cosmology. However, it’s important to note that Plato’s own metaphysics is not necessarily dualistic in the strict sense. While his dialogues, such as the Phaedo and Republic, present distinctions between the soul and body or between the realm of Forms and the material world, Neoplatonic interpretations emphasize a fundamentally monistic or nondualistic structure. These readings suggest that all multiplicity, including the material and intelligible, emanates from a single unified source — the One.

Demiurge and Creation—Plato’s Craftsman vs. Yaldabaoth: In Platonic philosophy (chiefly the Timaeus, but implicitly in the Republic’s discussion of the divine), the demiourgós is the cosmic Craftsman who shapes the material world after the pattern of eternal Forms. Plato’s Demiurge is a benevolent architect, aligning the cosmos with the good as much as possible given matter’s limitations. The Apocryphon of John clearly borrows the concept of a Demiurge, but inverts his character. Yaldabaoth is a “monstrous” Demiurge, ignorant and arrogant rather than wise. Notably, the text describes Yaldabaoth as having a lion’s face and a serpent’s form—imagery that seems to echo Plato’s leontomorphic metaphor in the Republic. In Republic Book IX (588A–589B), Plato uses the figure of a lion (and multi-headed beast) to symbolize the lawless desires within the soul, which a tyrant lets devour his reason. It is intriguing that a Coptic fragment of this very passage of Plato’s Republic (describing an inner lion-like entity) was found included in Nag Hammadi Codex VI, indicating Gnostic interest in Plato’s depiction of the soul’s monstrous aspects. The Gnostic authors appear to have identified the Platonic “lion”—symbol of irrational passion—with the figure of the false creator. In effect, Yaldabaoth embodies the lower passions and arrogant ignorance that Plato’s philosophy warns against. Whereas Plato’s Demiurge “fashioned the world to be a single whole” with providential intent, Gnosticism’s Demiurge creates a world that is a “shadow” or parody of the true divine order. Despite the moral opposition, one sees the conceptual lineage: the Apocryphon’s creator of the material realm is explicitly identified with Plato’s demiurgos (a term the text uses) but recast as a blind, malevolent being—effectively Plato’s “artisan” gone bad. This inversion may be a polemical move: as one modern source puts it, “Plato’s creator deity was no monstrous Yaldabaoth… yet Plato’s demiurge was likely an influence behind Gnostic writings on Yaldabaoth.” The Secret Book of John thus operates within a Platonic cosmological schema (ideal realm vs. created realm) but brands the creator as illegitimate, aligning more with the Republic’s negative imagery of the soul’s “beast” than with Timaeus’s honorable world-maker.

The Prison of the Soul: Both Platonic and Gnostic thought explore the distinction between soul (or mind) and body (matter). In Plato’s philosophy—for instance, in the Phaedo and in the eschatological myth at the end of the Republic—the immortal soul is temporarily imprisoned in a mortal body and goes through cycles of reincarnation until it achieves wisdom and purity. In the Myth of Er (Republic Book X), souls after death are required to drink from the River of Lethe (Forgetfulness) before rebirth, causing them to forget their past and their divine origin. The Secret Book of John adopts remarkably similar notions: it teaches that human souls, once cast into the material realm, undergo successive lives (reincarnations) in ignorance until they are awakened by knowledge. The text explicitly states that souls who fail to attain gnosis will perish and be reborn again “in different bodies” (implied in the idea of dying without truth and remaining under the Archons’ power)—whereas those who do awaken will escape the cycle. The theme of forgetfulness is also present: the Archons envelop souls in darkness and oblivion, so that upon entering a new body, the soul does not remember whence it came. This resonates strongly with Plato’s description in the Republic: souls drink of Lethe and “a careless soul drinks more than its measure” and forgets everything of its previous existence, entering the next life ignorant. The Gnostic salvation is essentially the undoing of this forgetfulness—which is why Christ in Secret John calls himself “Remembrance” (of the Father’s Pronoia). The idea of the body as a prison or tomb for the soul, central to Plato’s Orphic-influenced thinking (cf. soma-sema), is taken to an extreme in Gnosticism: the material body is a creation of inferior Archons meant to enslave the soul. The Apocryphon portrays the soul’s entrapment in flesh as a direct consequence of error, much as Plato associates embodiment with the soul’s failure to remain purely rational. In both systems, there is a path for the soul’s ascent: for Plato, through philosophy and virtue (the soul cultivating justice and wisdom, thereby liberating itself from rebirth), and for the Gnostic, through receiving the divine revelation and gnosis (spiritual knowledge). Indeed, the Apocryphon’s insistence that unawakened souls “will continue to roam in transmigration” until they find truth is an idea with clear Platonic pedigree. The difference is that Plato emphasizes ethical purification and recollection of the Forms, whereas Secret John emphasizes a revealed knowledge of the True God and the soul’s predicament. Nevertheless, both view the soul’s sojourn in the physical world as an unnatural exile that must be remedied by intellectual/spiritual enlightenment.

Ideal Forms vs. Material Copy—Two-World Cosmology: The Secret Book of John explicitly articulates a two-tier reality: the perfect, eternal Pleroma (fullness of divine ideas and beings) and the lower, imitative world of matter. This corresponds closely to Plato’s theory of Forms and their instantiation in the visible world. The text even uses language reminiscent of Platonism: “The imperfect material realm is understood as a copy of the perfect spiritual realm,” directly paralleling the concept that earthly things are copies/shadows of ideal Forms. As Britannica’s analysis of Gnosticism notes, this idea is “partly derived from the Platonic doctrine of ideas or forms.” In Secret John, everything in the material cosmos happens as a distorted mirror of a higher reality: Yaldabaoth and the Archons create because they see a reflection of the true model; Adam is made as an image of the pre-existent heavenly Man; even the organization of the archontic heavens mimics (in a warped way) the harmonious structure of the Pleroma. This is essentially a cosmic application of Plato’s allegory of the Cave (found in Republic Book VII): the idea that the world we perceive is a realm of shadows cast by a higher truth. The Gnostic twist is that the shadows are being manipulated by a deceiver (the Demiurge) to keep us in the cave. Nevertheless, the fundamental metaphysics—a realm of unchanging perfection vs. a realm of changeable, illusory phenomena—is shared. A modern commentator encapsulates this: “the Gnostics, like Plato, believed that the material world was one of coarse illusions and vulgar echoes of a more genuine and divine reality.” Both systems urge the soul to turn away from material appearances towards the intelligible reality (the Forms or the Pleroma). In Republic, the philosopher is the one who ascends from the cave into the sunlight of true Being (ultimately the Form of the Good); in Secret John, the Gnostic is the one who sees through the counterfeit world to the Pleromic Light of the Monad. Notably, Secret John identifies the material creator with the “creator God of Genesis and the demiurge of Platonism”—calling him a “caricature” of the latter. This implies the authors were self-consciously reworking Platonic cosmology: whereas Plato’s cosmos is an image of perfection made by a wise Demiurge, the Gnostic cosmos is an imperfect simulacrum made by a foolish Demiurge. The Platonic dichotomy of original vs. copy, reality vs. appearance is thus fully embraced but given an ethical twist: the copy is not just ontologically inferior, it’s morally bad due to the malevolent intent (or ignorance) of its maker. In summary, the Apocryphon’s cosmology could be described as Platonic idealism radicalized—the material world is so inferior to the ideal that it is deemed the product of an evil error, and salvation lies in rejecting it entirely.

Justice and Divine Order—The Myth of Er and Gnostic Eschatology: Plato’s Republic is centrally concerned with justice—in the individual soul and in the cosmos. The Myth of Er (Rep. 614–621) teaches that souls are rewarded or punished after death and then choose new lives, with their level of wisdom determining their fates; only the philosophical (just) soul can eventually escape the cycle and ascend to a better existence. The Secret Book of John displays a comparable framework of cosmic justice, albeit reinterpreted. It teaches that souls which cling to the counterfeit spirit and “love the lie” will descend into “prison” again (reincarnate in matter) and ultimately face annihilation, whereas righteous souls—those who pursue the truth of the true God—will be saved eternally. This is conceptually akin to the moral sorting in Plato’s eschatology. Britannica directly links the two: “According to the Apocryphon, until a soul is saved by receiving revelation of its true identity, it continues to experience further reincarnations. If souls knowingly reject the revelation, they will suffer eternal damnation.” This strongly echoes the Republic’s idea that unphilosophical souls keep returning to new bodies (often choosing foolishly, as Er observes). Moreover, the Myth of Er requires souls to drink from Lethe and lose their memory of the true good before rebirth, which we’ve noted parallels the Gnostic notion of forgetting one’s divine origin. Another point of convergence is the concept of transcending fate: In Plato, a soul that has attained knowledge of the Good and lived justly may escape the cycle of rebirth (implied reward for the truly philosophic soul). In Secret John, the soul that gains gnosis escapes the “cycle of births” and the dominion of the Archons, rising to the eternal Pleroma. We might say that what philosophy is to Plato’s Republic (the path to the soul’s liberation and the foundation of a just order), gnosis is to the Gnostic John (the path to the soul’s liberation and restoration of divine order).

Additionally, Plato’s notion of the tripartite soul in the Republic—reason, spirit, and appetite (the last often imaged as a multi-headed beast or as a lion when uncontrolled)—finds an allegorical correspondence in Gnosticism’s view of the composition of man. The Gnostics divided humanity into spiritual, psychic, and material components or types, and saw the lower nature (passion, ignorance) as something to be mastered or escaped. The presence of the Republic 588b–589b fragment in Nag Hammadi Codex VI is telling: that passage’s purpose in Plato is to illustrate that injustice in the soul is like a man letting a ferocious lion and a many-headed beast run wild inside him, when they should be tamed by the rational part. The Gnostics, too, were preoccupied with the idea of inner “passions” and how they enslave a person. The aforementioned scholarly study suggests that early Christian-Platonists (like the Gnostic-leaning Carpocratians) used the Republic passage to discuss how to control passions and achieve righteousness (justice). The Secret Book of John indeed frames the material condition as one of injustice—the Archons are unjust rulers imposing ignorance and suffering—and the salvation as “restoring order” by aligning the soul with the divine reason (the Logos/Christ). In a way, the Gnostic myth externalizes Plato’s internal drama: the “lion-faced” desire that must be subdued within the soul becomes the lion-faced Demiurge to be subdued in the cosmos. And just as in Plato’s ideal state the philosopher-king (embodying the rational vision of the Good) must rule for justice to prevail, in Gnostic thought the soul must be ruled by the divine Spark/Spirit (the mind of Christ) for it to attain righteousness. The Apocryphon even implicitly critiques the injustice of the Demiurge’s order—Yaldabaoth unjustly claims exclusive divinity and imprisons Adam and Eve, whereas the true God works to impart justice by liberating and enlightening humanity.

Allegory of the Cave—Enlightenment of the Few: While not explicitly mentioned in our text, the famous Allegory of the Cave (Republic Book VII) is thematically mirrored in Gnostic revelation. Plato describes prisoners in a cave who take shadows for reality until one is freed and sees the real world and the sun (the Good), then returns to liberate others. Gnostic mythology is often essentially a “cosmic cave” scenario: humanity is chained in the darkness of the material world, mistaking illusion for reality, until a messenger of the true God (Christ) descends into that cave to show them the light of truth. As one commentator succinctly puts it: “The Gnostics, like Plato, simply believed that a small faction of humanity knew the sacred watchwords and could see the real sun and stars, and everyone else was stuck in a cave.” In Secret John, John himself is like the freed prisoner—Christ grants him the direct vision of the real cosmos (the Pleroma, the true God, etc.), and John is then tasked to help illumine others. Gnostic groups often saw themselves as an elect minority (the spiritual ones) amidst a majority who were not ready or willing to receive higher knowledge, which parallels Plato’s enlightened philosopher versus the ignorant masses in the cave. Both conceive a kind of elitism of knowledge: truth is accessible, but only to those who undergo a radical intellectual/spiritual conversion.

In conclusion, the Apocryphon of John exhibits numerous thematic parallels with Plato’s Republic and Platonic thought in general—from the conception of a flawed material world copying a perfect archetype, to the notion of the soul’s imprisonment and need for enlightenment, to the cycle of death and rebirth tied to ignorance vs. the possibility of escape through knowledge of the Good/True. These parallels are not coincidental. The authors of the Gnostic text were educated individuals immersed in Hellenistic philosophical ideas, and they reworked Plato’s insights into a dramatic myth of spiritual rebellion and redemption. As Britannica observes, “The imperfect material realm (in Gnosticism) is … an idea partly derived from the Platonic doctrine of forms,” and the Gnostic teaching on the soul’s forgetfulness is illustrated by Plato’s Republic’s myth of Er. In fact, a direct thread connects Republic 588–589 and Secret John: the latter’s Demiurge, called “lion-faced serpent,” is a direct nod to Plato’s description of the appetitive part of the soul as a lion-shaped monster—suggesting the Gnostic author intentionally cast cosmic injustice and evil in the very image of Plato’s unjust soul. By doing so, the Apocryphon of John transforms Plato’s moral philosophy into a mythical cosmology: the righteous live in harmony with the higher reality (the Pleroma/Good) and will be saved, while the unjust (the Archons and those who follow them) remain bound in the shadowy realm they themselves govern. Thus, the ancient Greek quest for justice and enlightenment is given a new, profound twist in this Gnostic scripture—making the Secret Book of John not only a cornerstone of Gnostic theology but also a fascinating example of early Christian-Platonic thought in creative fusion.

Sources:

1. Nag Hammadi Codices II, III, IV and Berlin Codex BG 8502—Manuscript information in Wikipedia. 2. Britannica, “Gnosticism: Apocryphon of John”—on the content of the Secret Book of John and Platonic parallels. 3. The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James M. Robinson—particularly the introduction/translation by F. Wisse (not quoted directly above, but context for Wisse’s notes in Wikipedia). 4. The Gnostic Society Library (gnosis.org)—translation of The Apocryphon of John and related materials. 5. Literature and History Podcast, Episode 83 transcript—analysis of Gnosticism’s Platonic connections. 6. Plato’s Republic (esp. Book IX and X)—via citations in Wikipedia and academic commentary.