The Secret Writing According to John (Apocryphon of John), Codex II, 1 · 22 of 24 · tr. Samuel Zinner
The Vile Spirit
I, however, asked: “Lord, where did the vile spirit originate?”
He then said to me: “The Mother- Father, who is abundant in mercy, the holy Spirit in every mode, the one who is merciful and [II, 28] who shows compassion for all of you – that is, Reflection of Radiant Providence – he raised up the seed of the perfect race, and its intellect, and the eternal light of the Man.
When the chief archon became aware that they were loftier than him in the height, and that they surpass him in intellect, he then desired to grasp their objective, unaware that they surpassed him in intellect, and that he would be unable to grasp them.
He concocted a plot with his authorities, who are his powers, and together they committed adultery with Sophia; and bitter Destiny was begotten by them, the final inconstant fetter, being of a vacillating kind, [IV, 44]
and it is more durable and stronger than she with whom the gods joined (in adultery), and the angels, and the demons, and all the generations up to the present day, because from that Destiny issued forth all transgression, and injustice, and blasphemy, and the fetter of oblivion and ignorance, and every stern command with grievous transgressions, and overwhelming fears.
In this way also all of creation was blinded, so that they would not know God who is over all of them, and on account of the fetter of oblivion their sins were concealed, because they are fettered with measurements and times and moments, given that it is the universal overlord. He then regretted everything that had transpired because of him.
This time he conspired to bring a flood [II, 29] on the productions of humanity, but the greatness of the radiant Providence notified Noah, and he preached to all the seed of the children of humanity, but those who were strangers to him did not heed him.
[IV, 45] It was not as Moses said, ‘They hid themselves in an ark,’ but they hid themselves in a place – not only Noah, but many other people also from the unmoving race.
They entered a place and concealed themselves inside a radiant cloud, and he was aware of his authority, and she who pertains to the light accompanied him. She had shone on them because he had caused darkness to cover all the earth, and he concocted a plot together with his powers.
He dispatched his angels to the daughters of men, to take some for themselves, even to raise up seed for their pleasure, and they were at first unsuccessful. When they had not
succeeded, they again assembled and together concocted a plot. They created a vile spirit resembling the Spirit who had descended, in order thereby to defile souls, and the angels transformed their likeness into the likeness of their mates, making them to be full of the spirit of darkness, [IV, 46] which for them they had mixed together with evil.
They presented gold and silver, and a gift even of copper and iron, and objects of every kind of metal, and they led the people following them [II, 30] into great troubles by leading them astray with a plethora of tricks. They grew old without enjoying any pleasures. Without discovering the truth, and without knowledge of the true God, they died, and in this way all of creation fell into an age-long slavery, lasting from the foundation of the world until now.
They further selected women and begot children from the darkness, according to the likeness of their (own) spirit, and they shut up their hearts, and they hardened themselves by means of the hardness of the vile spirit, (even) until now.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage provides a detailed narrative of cosmic origin, explaining how the material world and the 'vile spirit' came into being through the archon's error.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The 'Radiant Providence' actively intervenes to notify Noah and save the elect from the archon's flood.
Transgressive knowing acquired against divine prohibition — the Watchers' teaching of metallurgy, sorcery, and cosmetics in 1 Enoch, the Gnostic Eve narratives, the Promethean mytheme; explicitly contrasted with gnosis_direct_knowledge, which is salvific.
The archons lead people astray with 'tricks' and 'metals,' representing a corrupted form of knowledge that obscures the truth.
The void or emptiness outside the pleroma; the realm of matter, ignorance, and deficiency.
The material world is depicted as a realm of 'darkness,' 'ignorance,' and 'fetter' resulting from the archon's error, distinct from the divine fullness.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
Humanity is described as 'blinded' and 'fettered' so they do not know the God who is over them, emphasizing their exile from the divine.
Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.
The angels are described as transforming their likeness into the likeness of their mates to deceive humanity.
The 1 Enoch narrative in which a class of originally-good angelic beings (the Watchers) descends, mates with women, and teaches forbidden arts — the substrate that Gnostic archons inherits and inverts: archons are born malevolent, the Watchers fall through transgression.
The text recounts the archons sending angels to the 'daughters of men' to take mates and raise seed, inverting the Enochian narrative.