The Apocryphon of John and the Gospel of John both name the same apostle as their author, but they describe two different Christs, two different creations, and two different paths to salvation. The Gospel of John presents Jesus as the Word made flesh whose death and resurrection bring eternal life to believers. The Apocryphon of John describes a Jesus who appears after the resurrection to hand down a secret teaching about a divine realm, a cosmic mistake, and the origin of the human soul.
The relationship between these two texts is not a family squabble. It is a front line in the war over what Christianity would become.
What Are the Two Gospels of John?
The Gospel of John is the fourth Gospel of the New Testament, composed in Greek around 90-110 CE, likely in Ephesus. It traces the public ministry of Jesus from his baptism to his crucifixion and resurrection, building its theology around a series of “I am” statements (the bread of life, the light of the world, the resurrection and the life). The prologue identifies Jesus as the Logos, the divine Word through whom everything was made.
The Apocryphon of John (Secret Book of John) is a Gnostic revelation dialogue. It was written in Greek between 120-180 CE, though the earliest surviving copies are fourth-century Coptic translations from the Nag Hammadi library (discovered 1945). The text opens with the apostle John grieving after the crucifixion. Jesus appears to him not as a resurrected body but as a luminous being who changes shape and delivers a secret account of the true God — a God beyond the reach of creation — and of a lower deity, Yaldabaoth, who created the material world out of ignorance and arrogance.
The two texts share vocabulary — light, darkness, truth, life, but treat those terms as homonyms with opposite meanings.
Where Do These Two Texts Come From? (Dated, Named Facts)
Gospel of John: Early church tradition attributes it to John the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve apostles. Modern scholars disagree; most date the final composition to 90-110 CE, with the possibility of earlier source material (the Signs Source, a collection of miracle stories). The text was accepted as canonical by the late second century. Irenaeus of Lyon, writing around 180 CE in Against Heresies, quotes John as the Gospel of the church.
Apocryphon of John: Irenaeus is also our earliest external witness to the Apocryphon. In book 1, chapter 29 of Against Heresies, he summarizes a Gnostic system that matches the Apocryphon’s cosmology, calling it “false knowledge” (hence the name “gnostic”). This proves the text was circulating in the 170s. The Nag Hammadi library preserves three Coptic copies and one more in the Berlin Codex 8502 (the Codex Berolinensis Gnosticus). The longest version (Codex II, 1) runs about 50 pages.
The Apocryphon was never “lost” in the sense of forgotten. Church fathers knew it and attacked it. What was lost was the Greek original; the Coptic manuscripts stayed buried in a jar near the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi until a farmer named Muhammad Ali al-Samman dug them up in December 1945.
What Binds Them? Shared Language, Divided Meaning
Both texts open with a prologue in elevated theological prose. The Gospel of John begins: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Apocryphon begins with the Monad, the ineffable first principle, described in a chain of negations: “He is not corporeal, he is not incorporeal, he is not large, he is not small.”
Both use the language of light. But for the Gospel of John, light is the incarnate Jesus who entered a world that did not receive him. For the Apocryphon, light is the infinite radiance of the Pleroma, the full divine realm, from which a spark of light falls into matter and gets trapped.
Both name John as the recipient of revelation. In the Gospel, John is one of the first disciples called by Jesus; he appears at key moments but never as a voice. In the Apocryphon, John is the sole recipient of a post-resurrection teaching that corrects the errors of the other apostles and the scriptures.
The bridge between them is the figure of Sophia, wisdom. The Gospel of John never personifies wisdom as a divine being. The Apocryphon makes Sophia the central protagonist of the cosmic drama: her desire to create without her consort produces Yaldabaoth, the blind god who creates the material world.
How Were These Texts Used?
The Gospel of John was read aloud in community worship, taught in catechesis, and cited in theological debates. By the fourth century it was fixed in the lectionary cycle. Its use was public.
The Apocryphon of John was used in Sethian Gnostic circles as a foundational revelation. A student of the Gnostic teacher Valentinus (active in Rome around 140-160 CE) likely preserved some of its themes, though the Apocryphon itself predates Valentinus. The text was read, copied, and commented on by communities who saw themselves as the spiritual elite: those who could receive the secret teaching and be freed from the cycles of reincarnation.
We know from the Testimony of Truth (another Nag Hammadi text) that some Gnostics treated the four canonical Gospels with suspicion, preferring texts like the Apocryphon as “the hidden words of the living Jesus.”
How Are They Related as Christian Scriptures?
They are not “opposing” in the sense of contradictions. They are different genres with different claims. The Gospel of John claims to be an eyewitness account of historical events. The Apocryphon of John claims to be a secret teaching given after the historical events were complete.
The Gospel of John’s Christology is high: Jesus is the pre-existent Word, equal to God, who voluntarily becomes flesh, suffers, dies, and rises. Salvation comes through belief in his name.
The Apocryphon of John’s Christology is higher: Jesus is a manifestation of the divine intellect, part of the Pleroma, who does not suffer (his body is a projection). Salvation comes through gnosis, knowledge of the true origin of the soul and the means to ascend past the archons.
The Gospel of John condemns those who do not believe. The Apocryphon of John condemns those who worship the creator of this world, calling them “orthodox” in a sarcastic tone.
Common Misconceptions
Misconception 1: The Apocryphon of John was unknown until 1945. False. Church fathers knew it and refuted it. Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius all describe its contents in detail. What was lost was the text itself, not knowledge of its existence.
Misconception 2: The Apocryphon has no connection to the Gospel of John. False. The Apocryphon borrows the Johannine language of light, darkness, truth, and life, but redirects it. It treats John as the trusted disciple who received secret knowledge denied to others, a role the canonical Gospel already hints at (the “beloved disciple”).
Misconception 3: The Apocryphon is not Christian. It is Christian, but not catholic (in the sense of “universal” as defined by Irenaeus). It belongs to the branch of Christianity that came to be called Gnostic. The church fathers drew a hard line between orthodoxy and heresy, but the line was drawn partly because texts like the Apocryphon existed.
FAQ
Is the Apocryphon of John considered part of the biblical canon? No. It was never accepted into any major Christian canon. It is preserved only in Nag Hammadi and one other Coptic codex.
Who wrote the Apocryphon of John? The text claims the apostle John wrote it after receiving a vision from Jesus. Scholars see it as a pseudepigraphal composition by early second-century Gnostic Christians.
How can I read the Apocryphon of John today? The standard English translation is in The Nag Hammadi Library (James M. Robinson, ed.) or the more recent The Other Bible by Willis Barnstone. Many translations are online.
Does the Apocryphon contradict the Gospel of John? Directly. The Gospel of John says the world was made through the Word (Christ). The Apocryphon says the world was made by a low, ignorant god who is not the true God. They cannot both be literally true on that point.
Why These Two Texts Belong in the Same Reading
The Apocryphon of John does not replace the Gospel of John. It reveals the fault lines in early Christian thought. One Jesus saves by blood. The other saves by revelation. One scripture is for a whole congregation. The other is for the few who can handle the truth.
We keep both on our shelves, side by side, because the history of Christian esotericism begins in the space between them.
For further reading, explore our hub on gnosis for more on the Nag Hammadi texts and the traditions they fed. See the glossary entry on the Gnostic Demiurge for an explanation of Yaldabaoth’s role. And for the broader context of hidden Christianities, read our guide to the Nag Hammadi library.