The Secret Book of John and the Treatise of Resurrection (Adam, Andrew, Simron, Sequioa)

The purpose of the two texts was to draw upon pre-existing proto-Orthodox beliefs. In the Secret Book of John, humans were suppose to eat the fruit from the tree of Knowledge of good and evil to obtain the spirit of Epinoia sent by the great invisible spirit. In the Genesis story when Adam eats from the tree and disobey’s God’s rules, the Gnostic twist was that Adam was suppose to eat from the tree to gain the knowledge.

One of the pressing Christian questions was if your human body rose with you, but in the Treatise of Resurrection the Gnostic perception of the resurrection was more of a spiritual awakening than a spiritual or bodily resurrection. Drawing from the proto-orthodox view, the author of this text believes that Jesus is both divine and human and his ability to rise from the dead implies that he has more divine aspects, than human.