The Hidden Gospels
There’s a story that was almost erased from history, a tale so dangerous that the early Church did everything in its power to wipe it from existence. This isn’t just any story—it’s one that challenges the very foundations of what many have come to believe about creation, the nature of God, and the origins of evil. Imagine a world where the accepted truths of the Bible are only half the story, where a darker, more complex narrative lurks just beneath the surface. This is that story—the story of the secret gospel the Church didn’t want you to hear.
For centuries, this hidden tale was buried, quite literally. The early Christian Church, determined to establish a unified doctrine, viewed any dissenting or alternative narratives as a threat. One such narrative, known as Gnosticism, presented a radically different view of the cosmos and humanity’s place within it. The Church fathers deemed these teachings heretical and set about destroying every text, every scrap of writing that contained them. Books were burned, followers were persecuted, and the story was all but lost to the sands of time.
But history has a way of preserving what some would rather forget. In the 1940s, a series of ancient texts were discovered. These texts, hidden away by monks who perhaps feared their destruction, offer a glimpse into a world where the God of the Old Testament isn’t the ultimate creator, but a malevolent being who twisted the divine plan to his own ends.
The Discovery
The Nag Hammadi Library was discovered in December 1945 near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. The story of its discovery is as intriguing as the ancient texts themselves.
It all began when two Egyptian brothers, farmers named Mohammed Ali and Khalifa, were digging for fertilizer in the soft soil near some cliffs. As they dug, they stumbled upon a large earthenware jar buried in the ground. At first, they hesitated to open it, fearing it might contain a jinn (a supernatural being in local folklore). But curiosity got the better of them, and they broke the jar open.
Inside, instead of a jinn, they found 13 leather-bound papyrus books, or codices. These books were packed with ancient writings, which they didn't initially recognize as valuable. The codices were written in Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language, and contained a collection of Gnostic texts—early Christian and philosophical works that had been lost for centuries.
Realizing that the texts might be worth something, the brothers took them back to their village. The codices eventually found their way into the hands of an antiquities dealer, and from there, scholars recognized their significance. The texts were later acquired by the Coptic Museum in Cairo, and over time, scholars worked to translate and publish the contents.
The Nag Hammadi Library includes a wide array of writings, many of which had been suppressed by the early Christian Church for their Gnostic views. Among the most famous texts are the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Apocryphon of John. These writings offer alternative perspectives on early Christian beliefs and have significantly shaped modern understanding of early Christian diversity.
The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library was a momentous event in the study of early Christianity and Gnosticism, shedding light on a rich and complex tradition that had been nearly lost to history.
This secret gospel, pieced together from these surviving fragments, tells a story of how our world came to be so deeply flawed, and how humanity became trapped in a web of deception. It’s a story of divine beings, cosmic battles, and a creation gone horribly wrong—where the God we know might not be the God we think he is. The Church may have tried to silence it, but this story has survived, waiting for those who dare to uncover its mysteries.
These texts are generally dated to the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, although they likely reflect traditions, teachings, and writings that originated even earlier, in the 1st and 2nd centuries. The texts themselves were written in Coptic, but many of them are believed to be translations of earlier Greek works.
And so, we begin—a journey into a forbidden gospel, a tale of secret knowledge, divine rebellion, and the true origins of good and evil. Welcome to the hidden history of the world, the story the early Church couldn’t burn away.
Alt-Genesis
In the beginning, there was only one being: God, known as the Monad, or simply "The One." From this singularity, divine entities called Aeons began to emerge, each one slightly less powerful than the last. These Aeons formed a collective known as the Pleroma, the realm of divine fullness. Everything beyond the Pleroma was chaos—a realm of disorder and emptiness.
But then, something went terribly wrong. One of the Aeons, named Sophia—representing wisdom—made a grave mistake. In her desire to create, she attempted to bring forth a child without a partner, leading to the birth of a monstrous being named Yaldabaoth. Terrified of what she had done, Sophia tried to hide her creation outside the Pleroma, in chaos. Yaldabaoth found itself alone in the chaotic void, thinking it was the only god in existence. In its arrogance, Yaldabaoth began to create its own twisted realm, forming the material world we live in today—a universe bound by arbitrary rules and filled with suffering.
In this false creation, Yaldabaoth declared himself the one and only God. But Sophia, watching from the Pleroma, knew the truth. She tried to intervene, warning Yaldabaoth that he was not the true God. Enraged, Yaldabaoth retaliated by trapping Sophia in the material world, binding her divine essence within it.
The story takes a turn when another Aeon, known as Christ, decides to help. Christ enters the material universe to free Sophia and the divine sparks trapped within humanity. Meanwhile, Yaldabaoth, unaware of the divine rebellion against him, creates the first humans—Adam Kadmon, a being of pure light and divine spark. But when Adam attempts to create as the Aeons had, Yaldabaoth, fearing competition, splits him into two: Adam and Eve. He then imprisons them in a beautiful garden, hoping to keep them ignorant of their true divine nature.
But knowledge is a tricky thing to suppress. A tree grows in the garden—the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil—planted by the Pleroma itself. If Adam and Eve eat its fruit, they will see Yaldabaoth for what he truly is—a false god. Yaldabaoth warns them not to eat from the tree, threatening death, but Sophia, now partially embodied in the serpent, urges Eve to take the risk. She does, and shares the fruit with Adam. Suddenly, they see the world for what it is—a prison—and they realize they are naked and vulnerable.
Yaldabaoth, furious at their disobedience, expels them from the garden, cursing Eve and all women to suffer under men. Eve gives birth to Cain, a child of mixed divine and chaotic essence, and later to Abel. When Cain and Abel offer sacrifices to Yaldabaoth, only Abel's is accepted, because it involved suffering—something Yaldabaoth revels in. Out of jealousy and a twisted understanding of sacrifice, Cain kills Abel, and Yaldabaoth, amused by the violence, marks Cain to ensure no one can harm him.
As humanity begins to spread, the divine and the chaotic continue to intermingle. The descendants of Adam and Eve grow in number, but so do the machinations of Yaldabaoth. He sends his minions, the Archons, to corrupt humanity further. These beings, known as the Watchers, descend to Earth and mate with human women, producing the Nephilim, a race of giants who terrorize the world. As chaos ensues, a group of rebellious Aeons, led by Christ, intervene, leading to a cosmic battle between divine and dark forces.
Yaldabaoth, seeing his plans unravel, decides to reset the world with a great flood. But there’s a catch—he needs a remnant of humanity to continue his game. He chooses Noah, commanding him to build an ark to save himself, his family, and a pair of every animal. However, Noah’s wife, Norea, who is an incarnation of Sophia, tries to stop the flood. She confronts Yaldabaoth's minions with fire, destroying Noah's first ark, but eventually, she is taken back to the Pleroma by another divine being.
With Norea gone, Yaldabaoth floods the Earth, wiping out the corrupted world. Noah and his family survive, repopulating the Earth under Yaldabaoth’s watchful eye. But the story doesn’t end there. The descendants of Noah, now fully under Yaldabaoth’s control, build a tower to reach the heavens and challenge him. Enraged, Yaldabaoth scatters them across the globe, confusing their languages and dividing humanity into nations.
As the world spins further into chaos, Yaldabaoth continues to meddle with humanity, selecting Abraham to be the father of his chosen people. But even this chosen lineage is fraught with conflict and deception. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph—all pawns in Yaldabaoth's game—end up in Egypt, where the story takes yet another dark turn.
But that, dear reader, is a tale for another time. The secret history of Yaldabaoth and his wretched rule over our world continues, with Moses poised to take the stage in the next chapter of this hidden saga. Stay tuned for the next installment of this long-lost Gnostic gospel, where the battle between divine and false gods unfold in ways you never imagined.