Gnostic Psychology

Grief has a name in the Secret Book of John. It’s Nenentophni, and it sits in a list of 365 angels and demons who, according to the text, built the human body one part at a time. Fear is Blaomen. Pleasure is Ephememphi, and desire goes by the short, almost friendly name Yoko. Most readers skim this section. It’s pages of unpronounceable names assigned to eyelids and toenails, and it looks like the least useful part of a difficult book. But tucked inside it is a compact theory of the emotions, borrowed from the best psychology of its day and bent into a Gnostic shape. I think it’s one of the more practical things in the whole Nag Hammadi library. ...