5
The Reality of
the Rulers
f • i
I he Reality of the Rulers, also called the Hypostasis (or Nature) of
I the Archons, was written in Greek, perhaps in Egypt, sometime
JL. before 350 CE, probably in the third century. It now exists as a
Coptic text in the Nag Hammadi library. Like the Secret Book of John, it is
a syncretic retelling of early Genesis myth, but this account is more abbrevi-
ated. The Secret Book of John, or a similar text with a more complete cos-
mogony, needs to be consulted to understand more fully the dramatic story
that is told here.^1
In the Reality of the Rulers the story begins with the words of the blind
ruler Samael (the demiurge, later referred to as Sakla and Yaldabaoth), who ar-
rogantly states that he is the one god. The story focuses on Eden (referred to
only as "the garden"), then turns to the lands of death outside Eden where
Adam, Eve, and their progeny live after their expulsion, and ends with Noah
and the flood. Thereafter the text recounts Norea's narration and the angel
Eleleth's description of a gnostic cosmogony and theogony. Eleleth, a lumi-
nary of Sethian fame, promises that death will be trampled, and the gnostics,
the children of light, will be in the presence of the father of all, whom they will
- For another text from the Nag Hammadi library that resembles the Reality of the Rulers in a
number of significant respects, see On the Origin of the World, which is copied immediately
after the Reality of the Rulers in Nag Hammadi Codex II.