Questions of John

Interrogatio Iohannis

Standard abbreviation: Quest. John

Other titles: the Secret Supper, Book of John the Evangelist

Clavis numbers: ECCA 445

VIAF: 194985116

Category: Revelation Dialogues

Compiled by: Stephen C. E. Hopkins, University of Central Florida ([email protected]).

Citing this resource (using Chicago Manual of Style): Hopkins, Stephen C. E. “Questions of John.” e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha. Accessed DAY MONTH YEAR. https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/questions-of-john/

Created February 2019. Current as of March 2023.

1. SUMMARY

Quest. John is a late medieval apocryphal dialogue associated with the Cathar sect. This movement, immensely popular in Southern France and Northern Italy from the mid-twelfth century, advocated for a dualist reinterpretation of Christianity. Most scholars agree that this dualist strain was the result of some sort of contact with Bogomil teaching (a Bulgarian sect traceable to at least the ninth century), though the precise route and extent of impact remains debated.

Quest. John is also known as “The Secret Supper,” for the dialogue takes place during the Last Supper as reported in the canonical gospels. John, identified in the text as the Beloved Disciple, has a private conversation with Christ on this fateful evening. Their conversation begins with John asking Christ about his betrayer, but quickly shifts to the arch-traitor, Satan. As the dialogue unfolds, Christ’s answers systematically reinterpret the traditional creation narrative, reporting that the god of the Hebrew Scriptures (penned by Enoch) was really the fallen Satan, who took on a demiurge-like role after rebelling against God, the Invisible Father in heaven. After his fall, Satan was expelled from heaven, and his seven tails dragged down a third of the angels to hell with him. His next great act of defiance was the creation of the physical world, which he achieved by deceiving various elemental angels into assisting him. This creation account makes clear that physical matter is inherently corrupt and degrading. The theme is augmented in the account of the creation of Adam and Eve: Satan creates them by trapping two angels in bodies of clay, and, in the form of a serpent, he has sex with Eve. After this, they cannot restrain themselves from undertaking “works of the flesh,” by which the earth is eventually populated.

John’s and Christ’s dialogue then turns to questions of ecclesiastical sacraments: John asks whether baptism or marriage are worth undertaking. Christ says they are worthless since they both defile with physicality. He reveals that baptism with water comes from John the Baptist, who was Satan’s main rival to Christ, and he goes on to assert that marriage inherently corrupts because of carnality. Along with open rejection of the Eucharist, these were primary Cathar critiques of the Papal Roman church, and these public criticisms eventually elicited a brutal crusade against the Cathars in Provence: the Albigensian Crusade. The dialogue concludes on an apocalyptic note: John asks about the Final Judgment and Christ’s description follows the canonical accounts of the Gospels and Revelation quite closely—with the notable exception that the elect are only Cathars.

Named Historical Figures and Characters: Adam (patriarch), devil, Elijah (prophet), Enoch (patriarch), Eve (matriarch), Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, John (the Baptist), John (son of Zebedee), Judas Iscariot, Mary (Virgin), Moses (patriarch), Satan.

Geographical Locations: Hell, Israel, paradise.

2. RESOURCES

2.1 Web Sites

“Book of the Secret Supper.” Wikipedia.

3. BIBLIOGRAPHY

3.1 Manuscripts and Editions

V Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Lat. 1137, fols. 158^v–160^r) (12th/13th cent.)

D Dôle, Bibliothèque municipale, 109, fols. 44^r–46^r(1455)

P Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Languedoc Doat 36, fols. 26^v–35^r(17th cent.) ~ copied from the Archives of the Inquisition at Carcassonne

B Benoist, Jean. Histoire et des Vaudois ou des Albigeois et des Vaudois ou Barbets. Paris: J. le Febvre, 1691 (editio princeps in vol. 1:283–96; copied from the Archives of the Inquisition at Carcassonne).

Bozóky, Edina. Le livre secret des Cathares Interrogatio Iohannis. Apocryphe d’origine bogomile. Edition critique, traduction et commentaire. First ed. 1980. Paris: Editions Beauchesne, 2009 (parallel editions based on V and D with French translation, pp. 42–87).

Döllinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz von. Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Sektengeschichte. Munich: C. H. Beck’sche, 1890 (editio princeps of the Vienna MS, vol. 2:85–92).

Dondaine, Antoine. “Le Manuel de l’Inquisiteur.” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatiorum 17 (1947): 85–194 (first mention of the Dole MS, pp. 130–40).

Hahn, Christoph Ulrich. Geschichte der Ketzer in Mittelalter, besonders im 11., 12. und 13. Jahrhundert. 3 vols. Stuttgart: Steinkopf, 1845–1850 (reprint of Benoist’s text, vol. 2, pp. 815–20).

Ivanov, Jordan. Bogomilski knigi i legendi. Sofia: Pridvorna Pečatnica, 1925. Repr. Izdat. Nauka i Izkustvo, 1970 (reprinting of Döllinger’s text, pp. 73–86). French translation: Livres et légendes bogmiles: aux sources du catharisme. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1976 (pp. 92–101).

Ritzenstein, Richard. Die Vorgeschichte der christlichen Taufe. Leipzig and Berlin: B. G. Teubner, 1929 (critical edition of the Vienna MS, pp. 297–311).

Sokolov, Matvej I. Slavjanskaja kniga Enokha Parednago. Moscow, 1910 (reprinting of Döllinger’s text, pp. 165–75).

Thilo, Ioannis Caroli. Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti. Lipsius: Vogel, 1832 (reprint of Benoist’s text, pp. 884–96).

3.2 Modern Translations

3.2.1 English

Hopkins, Stephen.“The Questions of John (Interrogatio Iohannis).” Pages 565–83 in vol. 3 of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures. 3 vols. Edited by Tony Burke with Brent Landau. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016–2023. (English translation based on V with major variant readings noted from D).

James, M. R. The Apocryphal New Testament. 1924. Repr., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953 (based on Thilo’s reprint of Benoist, pp. 187–98).

Wakefield, Walter L. and Austin P. Evans. Heresies of the High Middle Ages. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991 (pp. 458–65).

Barnstone, Willis, trans. “The Gospel of the Secret Supper.” Pages 740–51 in The Gnostic Bible. Boston and London: Shambhala, 2003 (translated from the French translation by René Nelli, Écritures cathares, 146).

3.2.2 French

Migne, Jacques-Paul. Dictionnaire des Apocryphes. 2 vols. 1856. Repr., Turnhout: Brepols, 1989 (translation of Benoist’s text, vol. 1, cols. 1155–68).

Nelli, René. Écritures cathares. Paris: Denoël, 1959 (pp. 34–48).

Sede, Gérard de. Le secret des cathares. Paris: Editions J’ai lu, 1974 (translation of Benoist’s text, pp. 290–98).

3.2.3 Italian

Zambon, Francesco. La cena segreta: trattati e rituali catari. Milan: Adelphi, 1997 (translation of Benoist’s text, pp. 107–15).

3.3 General Works

Barber, Malcolm. The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages. New York: Longman, 2000 (pp. 83–86).

Biller, Peter, C. Bruschi, and S. Sneddon. Inquisitors and Heretics in Thirteenth-Century Languedoc: Edition and Translation of Toulouse Inquisition Depositions, 1273–1282. Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 147. Leiden: Brill, 2010 (esp. p. 25).

Hamilton, Bernard. “Wisdom from the East: The Reception by the Cathars of Eastern Dualist Texts.” Pages 38–60 in Heresy and Literacy, 1000–1530. Edited by Peter Biller and Anne Hudson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 (see pp. 53–56).

Jenkins, Philip. The Many Faces of Christ: The Thousand-Year Story of the Survival and Influence of the Lost Gospels. New York: Basic Books, 2015 (pp. 157–89).

Reeve, John C. and Annette Yoshiko Reed. Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Sources from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018 (pp. 148–49).

Rönsch, Hermann. Das Buch der Jubiläen, oder, Die kleine Genesis. Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag, 1874 (p. 381–82).

Stoyanov, Yuri. The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000 (pp. 262–74).

Turdeanu, Émil. “Apocryphes bogomiles et apocryphes pseudo-bogomiles.” RHR 138 (1950): 22–52, 176–218 (see pp. 203–13). Reprinted as pages 1–74 in Apocryphes Slaves et Roumains de l’Ancien Testament. Leiden: Brill, 1981.