Exegesis on the Secret Book of John

This is an exegesis of the Secret Book of John, used to explain how and why the universe exists.

At the very beginning of everything is a perfect concept, the Monad, the One. It exists because it simply is. It is comparable to Avicenna's "necessary existent." Because this perfect concept is utterly infinite and without boundary, and it is also intellective (but not necessarily agent, as it only acts according to its nature), it was able to know itself. this knowledge of itself divided existence. When infinity became known, it became quantifiable, limited, finite. But this did not destroy or alter infinity. Rather, it emanated the Invisible Spirit, or the Father, the self-knowing aspect (Aeon) of the Monad, the finite product of infinity.

The natural product of self-knowledge is thought. The Invisible Spirit emanated his thought, a reflection of himself, brought on by his self-knowledge. This reflection, this thought, is Barbelo, the Holy Spirit, the Mother, the counterpart to the Father, the reconcilation of the Father's finite yet unknowable nature. These concepts, the Mother, the Father, aren't people, gods, consciounesses, or anything of the sort. They're aspects of higher existence. They're the steps through which existence unfolded itself. Almost comparable to the Pythagorean assertion that the universe was begat through mathematical emanations. Eugnostos 7:1-2 best illustrates this when it echoes Pythagoras, "...First comes the monad. The dyad follows it..." The Father and Mother are the Dyad (although Eugnostos doesn't say this part—I'm just quoting the specific excerpt about the Dyad because it illustrates the first stage of emanation well.). We equate Barbelo and the Invisible Spirit to Mother and Father, masculine and feminine, because these are opposing concepts. Though this isn't social or biological masculinity and femininity. This Dyad, this concept of opposites, is cosmic masculinity and femininity, comparable to electromagnetic polarity. Gendered language was used because ancient Sethians didn't have more direct terms to compare this to at the time.

What follows separation is unity. The Child, Autogenes, Christ, was brought into existence. The Mother and the Father reconciled their opposite natures, emanating a being which possessed both natures, the androgynous Child. The Holy Trinity, or Triad, came into being. What follows thought is mind. From the Trinity emanated the Divine Mind. The Divine Mind is the full fruition of divine creation. The divine aspects of the Monad and the Trinity are embodied as individual Aeons in the Divine Mind. As the One realized itself in the form of the Invisible Spirit, so too does the Trinity realize itself in the form of the Divine Mind.

The twelve Aeons came into being, each Aeon being an aspect of what makes a mind. Grace, Truth, and Form are the primordial aspects of Mind. Grace gave good order, Truth gave accordance with reality—the fundamentals of the Pleroma—and Form gave being. This primordial triad is the realm of Harmozel, the First Light. Next are the cognitive aspects of Mind: Perception, Memory, and Epinoia. Epinoia is "intention," "conceptualization," or "purpose." This cognitive triad is the realm of Oriel, the Second Light. Next, are Understanding, Love, and Idea. Understanding is the knowledge of the meaning of Truth. Love is how the Aeons act in congruence with each other and serve each other. Idea is the generation of thought. This triad is the Third Light, the realm of Daveithai. It is what makes the Divine Mind fully congruent as a creative being. All aspects serve the whole through the Third Light. What follows Daveithai is the Fourth Light, the completion of the twelve Aeons: Perfection, Peace, and Sophia ("Wisdom"). From Perfection, the Divine Mind was given complete goodness in every way, insofar as such goodness is finite. When the Divine Mind was perfected, it emanated Peace, as its construction was nearly complete. Wisdom (Sophia) was emanated, and she is how the Divine Mind matures. The Divine Mind, the Pleroma, the Fullness, is complete.

The Divine Mind is not yet mature. Sophia emanated the concept through which the Divine Mind would mature, a trial, Yaldabaoth, the incomplete Aeon, the creator and Demiurge. Yaldabaoth would come into being outside of the Divine Mind, in the Kenoma, the realms of chaos of its own creation. Yaldabaoth attempted to imitate the emanation of the Divine Mind, though it did so in ignorance. It established order to its creation, and the physical universe was born. Yaldabaoth emanated the Archons, the aspects of the Kenoma. The Archons would found the physical laws of the Kenoma. The Kenoma would be the mechanism through which the Divine Mind matured. Sophia allowed divinity from the Pleroma to enter the Kenoma, and divinity entered the life that evolved in the Kenoma. Natural selection would occur, and evolutionary ends would be reached. The human would evolve, its mind a reflection of the Pleroma due to its intellective nature. It was eligible for divinity. The human became the tool through which the Pleroma experienced the Kenoma and matured. When humanity came into being, it faced the challenge of survival as a mortal species, but it also faced challenge on a grander scale. Humanity would be challenged with vices, pleasure, and suffering. These are the work of the Archons, they are the Archons. As Aeons are aspects of the Pleroma, Archons are aspects of the Kenoma. Humanity's vice came into being through ignorance, the principal aspect of the Kenoma, which begets all vices. Because ignorance is vice, virtue must be knowledge; knowledge of the divine nature of humanity.

Humanity's greatest challenge is navigating the physical world. Divine maturity would only be gained if humanity overcame ignorance by looking inward and understanding the divine nature of itself, and imitating it. Every human is a vessel for the Pleroma, and has the Pleroma's immature spirit within them. The human souls that do not cultivate the Pleroma and mature spiritually are transmigrated into new bodies, with which they are given another chance to mature. When Gnosis is gained, the human soul goes to rest in the Pleroma, as it has fulfilled its purpose, and it has brought the Divine Mind one step towards maturity, one step towards full perfection. The universe is the purifier of divinity.

20 february 2025