Apocryphon of John

About this text

Also called the "Secret Book of John." A detailed Gnostic creation myth explaining how the material world came about through a divine error. One of the most important Gnostic texts.

Significance

The fullest surviving account of Sethian Gnostic cosmology and theology.

How to Read This Historical Text

Apocryphon of John is included here as a historical and educational resource, not as Scripture and not as a replacement for the biblical canon. Readers may find it useful for understanding the ideas, debates, devotional language, and literary settings that surrounded Jewish and Christian communities in different periods.

Read this text with context in mind. Notice its era, category, and relationship to canonical passages, then compare its themes with the Bible itself. Some library works preserve valuable historical background, while others represent viewpoints that many Christian traditions rejected. Inclusion in this library does not mean endorsement of every claim or doctrine in the text.

For more about how The Bible Companion handles public-domain writings, Bible translations, attribution, and devotional material, see the Sources & Editorial Policy.

Key excerpts

Excerpts forthcoming. The full text is available in the public-domain library.

Continue exploring

This text is one of 16 in the Gnostic Texts (Nag Hammadi & Related) category, and one of 62 across the entire library.