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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 19 — Berlin Codex
1. I, however, asked: “Christ, where did the false spirit originate?”
2. He said to me: “When the abundantly merciful mother, together with the merciful holy Spirit, the one who pitied us — that is, Reflection of Light, together with her offspring, — he is the one who raised it in the intellect of the people of the race of this Perfect Man of eternal light.
3. The chief archon became aware that they were loftier than him in the height of their wisdom, and he desired to seize their objective, because he was ignorant, unaware ⟦page 72⟧ that they were wiser than he.
4. He concocted a plot with his powers, and they begot Destiny, and fettered with measurements and times and moments the gods of the heavens, and angels, and demons, and humans, so that all of them would be in its fetter, given that (Destiny) is the universal overlord, a wicked and perverted notion. He then regretted everything that had transpired because of him.
7. He conspired to bring a flood on all the offspring of humanity but the greatness of Providence, being Reflection of Light, ⟦page 73⟧ notified Noah, and he preached to people, but they did not believe him.
8. It was not as Moses said, ‘He hid himself in an ark,’ but she protected him in a place — not only Noah, but people of the unmoving race.
9. They entered a place and protected themselves with a radiant cloud, and he became aware of his lordship and of those who were with him
10. inside the light that shone on them, because darkness was descending over everything on the earth. He concocted a plot together with his ⟦page 74⟧ angels.
11. They dispatched their angels to the daughters of men, so that from them they could raise up offspring for their pleasure, and they were at first unsuccessful.
12. They all reached an agreement on a plot
13. to create the false spirit, because they recalled the Spirit who had descended, and the angels transformed ‹their› likeness into the likeness ‹of their husbands›, because being their husbands, they filled them with spirit that mixed together with them inside the darkness that originates from evil.
14. They presented them with gold and silver and gifts, even of metals of copper and iron, even of all kinds, ⟦page 75⟧ and they led them into temptation so that they would not be able to remember their unwavering Providence.
17. They selected them and begot children out of the darkness with their false spirit. He shut up their hearts and they grew hard with the hardness of the false spirit, (even) until now.