Editing Gnostic Text/The Secret Book of John (section)

==Adam Is Brought to Life and Imprisoned==

All of Yaldabaoth’s angels toiled until, at last, Adam’s body was complete. But it lay motionless and lifeless on the ground.

Wisdom, meanwhile, wanted to take back the power that had passed from her and into the first ruler. So she prayed to the merciful Mother-Father of the Fullness, who heard her plea. With numinous words, the Mother-Father commanded five luminaries to go down to the place where the angels of the first ruler had congregated and advise the first ruler in such a way that Wisdom’s power might be recovered.

The five luminaries counseled Yaldabaoth, “Blow some of your spirit into Adam’s face, and his body will stand up.” Yaldabaoth did so, breathing some of his spirit, the power he had received from his mother, into Adam. The first ruler did not realize what he was doing, for he lacks understanding. Thus the power from his mother left him and entered into Adam, the body that had been made after the image of the entity who had existed before any other entity.

Adam’s body began to move and find its strength. He glowed with the splendor of gnosis.

The rulers immediately became jealous. Through their own efforts, Adam had been created, and their own power empowered him, yet he was more enlightened than they and their master. When they saw how he glowed, how he was more intelligent than they, and how he was free from their evil and deficiency, they seized him and cast him into the lowest part of the whole material world.

But the blessed, compassionate Mother-Father saw that the rulers were attempting to gain control over the body that now contained the power from Wisdom that had been salvaged from the first ruler. So out of marvelous benevolence and mercy, the Mother-Father sent a helper to Adam: enlightened Reflection, who had come from the Mother-Father and was called Life. She worked with Adam, helping him to perceive the way to the Fullness, teaching him about his lineage and about the ways of ascent and descent. And enlightened Reflection concealed herself within Adam so that the rulers would not detect her as she strove to rescue the missing part of Wisdom.

The perfect man within Adam was revealed by the shadow of the light inside him, and his mind was stronger and more capable than the minds of his creators. His creators could not help but notice this whenever they saw him. So the whole multitude of rulers came together to decide what to do about this. They gathered fire, earth, and water, and with a great clamor and tumult forged them together with four burning winds.

The rulers dragged Adam into the shadow of death, where they made many changes to his body. They used earth, water, fire, and the spirit that comes from matter – that is, from the darkness of ignorance, and passion, and their own counterfeit spirit. In that cave, the robbers reforged Adam’s body, binding him in the chains of forgetfulness. He became mortal and alienated from his ultimate nature.

But enlightened Reflection stayed within him, working to elevate his thoughts.