l80 LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM
angels. At this point the illuminator of knowledge passes by a third time, after
flood and holocaust, performing signs to bring the seed of Noah redemption
for their souls from the day of their death. "Those who reflect upon the knowl-
edge of the eternal god in their hearts will not perish."
There now comes, almost as an intrusion, a long poem. The thirteen king-
doms utter marvelous tales of the origin and nature of the illuminator, the
savior, who we understand is a manifestation linked to heavenly Seth. Each
description is a minor apocalypse, each more fantastic. Each of the state-
ments by these thirteen kingdoms ends with the statement "and in this way
he came to the water." The water endings may be a baptismal rite, yet even
the coming to the water is not an assurance of purification, for with desire
and darkness those waters too can be polluted by the wicked. And it is the
generation or race without a king over it—the Sethian gnostics—that has the
true view of the origin of the illuminator. More Sethian insights into the true
origin of the illumination may be gained from the fuller account in The Se-
cret Book of John, especially the concluding hymn of the savior.
Near the end of the Revelation of Adam a paragraph celebrates the fate of
the words of this revelation. Though unwritten, these words will be brought
by angels to "a high mountain, upon a rock of truth," and they will be known
as words of truth and incorruptibility. In this way the destiny of the words of
Sethian revelation brings to mind traditions of gnostic revelatory steles and
monuments on mountains or elsewhere, as in the Three Steles of Seth, the
Gospel of the Egyptians, and the Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth.
THE REVELATION OF ADAM
5
THE FALL OF ADAM AND EVE
The revelation^6 that Adam taught his son Seth in the seven hundredth year,^7
saying, Listen to my words, my son Seth. When god^8 created me out of the
- The Revelation of Adam: Nag Hammadi Codex V, pp. 64,1 to 85,32;. translated from the Cop-
tic by George W. MacRae (Robinson, ed., Nag Hammadi Library in English, rev. ed., 279-86);
revised by Willis Barnstone. - Apocalypse.
- The seven hundredth year is the year of Adam's death according to the version of Genesis in
the Septuagint. - The creator of this world, called Sakla elsewhere in the text.