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The Secret Book of John
Samuel Zinner, edited by Mark M. Mattison; Other Gospels · Translated text
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Chapter 17 — Berlin Codex
1. ⟦page 61⟧ From the tree, in the shape of an eagle, she instructed him to eat of knowledge, so that he could recall his perfection, because both had fallen into ignorance.
2. Yaldabaoth realized that they had withdrawn from him, and cursed them, but moreover, he adds concerning the woman that the husband is to rule over her,
4. because he does not know the mystery that transpired through the sacred decree from on high. They, however, feared to curse him, and to expose his ignorance. All of his angels expelled ⟦page 62⟧ [them] from paradise. He clothed him in dark gloom.
5. Yaldabaoth then beheld the virgin standing near Adam. He was filled with ignorance, so that he desired to raise up a seed from her.
6. He polluted her and begot the first child, and similarly the second:
7. Yave, the bear-face, and Eloim, the cat-face.
8. The one is just, but the other is unjust. Eloim is the just one, Yave is the unjust one.
9. The just one he placed over fire and wind, but the unjust one he placed over water and earth. These are called Cain and Abel by all generations of men.
10. ⟦page 63⟧ Until today, there is sexual intercourse in marriage, because of the chief archon. Inside Adam he planted sexual lust, so that from this essence they gave birth to a copy from their false spirit.
11. However, he placed the two archons over the principalities, so that they would rule over the tomb.
12. He knew his essence, which resembled him. Adam begot Seth, and exactly as the race in heaven, among the aeons, so the mother dispatched the one who belongs to her.
13. The Spirit descended to her in order to rouse the essence that resembles ⟦page 64⟧ him, according to the simulacrum of the perfection,
14. in order to rouse them from oblivion and the evil of the tomb, and in this way he remained for a time.
15. He toiled for her seed, so that, when the Spirit comes forth from the sacred aeons, he can rectify their defect, confirm the aeon so that it can become a sacred Perfection, and that, as a result, there will be no defect inside it.”