The library · Edition and sources
The Secret Book of John
Samuel Zinner, edited by Mark M. Mattison; Other Gospels · Translated text
Reading appearance
Accessibility options
Saved in this browser and shared between texts. Labels and line patterns remain in every theme.
About this reading layout
Source wording, punctuation, paragraph boundaries and supplied line breaks are retained. Long prose also has editorial reading breaks at sentence boundaries. Substantial passages already enclosed in double quotation marks are set apart; this does not identify their source or establish a connection.
These added breaks are reading aids, not claims about the original manuscript’s layout. Poetry is lineated only where the downloaded text supplies line breaks. References and edition notes remain with their text.
Chapter 3 — Codex III
3. ⟦page 4⟧ [...] nothing [...] before him [...] need [...].
14. ⟦page 5⟧ [...] given that no one existed [before] him who could name [him].
15. [He is light] beyond measure, [the pure one], being sacred and unstained.
16. [He is unspeakable], being perfect in [indestructibility.]
17. [He is not] perfection; he is not [blessedness]; he is not [divinity], but he is [exalted above] them. He (is) not without limits, [nor does he have limits], but what he is [exceeds] these.
18. He is [not] somatic; he is not [non-]somatic.
19. He is [not large]; he is not small.
20. He cannot be [quantified], given that he is not a created being, nor can attributes be ascribed (to him). It is completely impossible for anyone to understand him.
21. He is not a being among beings, but he is exalted above them, not on account of being exalted, but on account that he is being as such.
22. He has participated in none of the aeons. Temporality does not apply to him, because whoever participates in an aeon, others (would have necessarily) previously made (such) ready for him.
23. He was not assigned a temporal measurement, because he does not obtain anything assigned from another. ⟦page 6⟧ He is without [need.] [No one existed before] him so that he could [have received from him,]
24. [because he is the] only one [who desires] himself [in the light].
25. He will study [the pure light], the majesty beyond measure,
26. [the eternal one, the one who bestows] eternity; [the light, the one who bestows] the light;
27. the life, [the one who bestows life];
28. the blessed one, the one who [bestows blessedness];
29. knowledge, the [one who bestows knowledge];
30. [the] good one, the one who al[ways] does [good],
33. not based on what [he possesses, but based on what he bestows, the gift-bestowing gift], the light beyond measure.
34. What should I say to you of that [ungraspable] one? This is the way the light appears, to the degree that I could understand, because who is there who will ever understand him?