Content and Significance

Gnostics produced a number of works in which the narrator describes himself as “Allogenes,” which could refer to Seth, Jesus, or an ordinary gnostic. Some gnostics believed that they were descendants of Seth, destined for salvation and a return to the supernatural realm, while other people were descended from Cain and doomed to destruction. These ideas inform the theology of Allogenes.

Allogenes, like other gnostic texts, describes a process of salvation through gaining knowledge. Allogenes’ experience can be read as a transition from fear and ignorance (aspects related to corporeality) to joy and knowledge (aspects related to incorporeality).

The text is divided into two parts. In the first part, Allogenes explains how he was visited by a female angel, Youel, who has been sent to him as an emissary from the supernal world of the Barbelo Aeon (i.e., the gnostic version of the godhead containing the Trinity, the savior, and other divine manifestations). She explains the functioning of the aeon to Allogenes, although he is not able to understand it because his spiritual powers of comprehension are weighed down by his body. She also explains that he has been chosen to receive the revelation since he is a representative of a select group of people that descends from and contains the aeon within themselves. Allogenes first resists his revelation, worried that his fleshly existence would inhibit him. Youel confirms that Allogenes is able to receive this revelation. With each new revelation of spiritual knowledge, Allogenes gains greater confidence in himself to see and understand.

The second part of the work concerns Allogenes’ mystical ascent to the supernal realm outside the physical cosmos. Allogenes is quite certain that his tour of the heavens was out of the body and echoes the Platonic understanding of the body as a mere garment the soul can take off at will (compare 2 Cor 12:1–10). According to the text, Allogenes sees a vision of the Barbelo Aeon. He is unable to understand what he sees in the discursive reasoning demanded by language, but he achieves a union with divinity “standing at rest and still” (57.21, trans. Layton). Allogenes says,” Iunderstood myself as I really am” (60.18, trans. Layton), an understanding that his spiritual guide attributes to Allogenes’ recognition of the pattern of the Barbelo Aeon existing in his own soul. Much of the text is devoted to Allogenes’ difficulties in trying to express in language the reality that cannot be described in language.

In a coda to the book, Allogenes gives a description of its writing. According to this section, he dictated it to Messos, whom he refers to as his son, perhaps meaning his disciple. He refers to the tractate as the last of a series of books he has dictated, suggesting the existence of other books by Allogenes, such as the one in the Codex Tchacos. Allogenes orders Messos to bury his books on a mountain in a magical ceremony. This is in accordance with the pseudepigraphical myth common to much ancient literature—that it was produced by a primordial culture hero such as Seth, Solomon, or Hermes Trismegistos, and buried so that it could be discovered and read at a future time.