About the book: year / The Apocrypha of John has reached us only in a Coptic translation from Greek, and in two editions - short and lengthy. The text has been preserved in four manuscripts, as a result we have two independent translations of the short edition of the treatise (NH III, 1; BG 8502, 1) and two versions of the same translation of the long edition (NH II, 1; IV 1). Some version of this text (probably earlier than those that have come down to us) was known to Irenaeus (see above, Adv. Haer. I 29). The Nag Hammadi codices date from the beginning of the fourth century, Papyrus Berolinensis 8502 from the beginning of the fifth. This last manuscript is the best preserved and contains our treatise in a short version. Another (independent of the first) version of the short edition was preserved in the third Nag Hammadi codex. The remaining two manuscripts contain the same translation of a lengthy version of the treatise and appear to go back to a common protograph. All four versions of the treatise have recently been published in the latest volume of the Coptic Gnostic Library: Apocryphon of John. Synopsis of Nag Hammadi Codices II, 1; III, 1; and IV, 1 with BG 8502, 2. Edited by Michael Waldstein and Frederik Wisse. Leiden: Brill, 1995 (Nag Hammadi Studies 33). This is the edition that was used in the translation. Of course, I did not give a synopsis of all four versions of the treatise, instead taking the version of the Berlin papyrus as a basis, indicating the most important discrepancies in the notes. Translations by B. Lighton and M. Krause were also taken into account. The third Nag Hammadi codex was created by a very professional scribe, but is not very well preserved, so it can only be used as an additional source. In some cases it provides interesting options because it contains a different translation and sometimes helps clarify areas that are unclear. A lengthy version of the treatise is well preserved in the second Nag Hammadi codex. The fourth codex, which also contains this text, is very fragmentary. In general, as the publishers rightly note (p. 6), we have a poor translation from Greek into Coptic. There is no doubt that our treatise was quite vague in Greek, and the translation made this situation even worse. The Coptic text contains all sorts of errors, especially in the philosophical sections of the treatise. It can be assumed that some passages were not clear to the copyist. Greek terms are sometimes translated into Coptic, sometimes simply transliterated, in different ways in different versions. Wisse and Waldstein note that quotations from Scripture are translated in an equally incomprehensible manner. However, as these authors note, such a vague text might even have pleased its customers, since the ambiguities “only increased its esoteric value”! How do the long and short editions relate to each other? Apparently, it was the short one that was supplemented and corrected, and not vice versa. The lengthy edition not only introduced some corrections and glosses, but also added new materials borrowed from other Gnostic texts. Thus, one of the interpolations was extracted by the compiler of a lengthy version from the Book of Zoroaster, which came to us as part of the second codex from Nag Hammadi (II 15.27–19.10). This circumstance suggests that another interpolation (“monologue of Providence”, II 30.11 – 31.25) also goes back to some other Gnostic text. All these additions are quite appropriate and show the work of a knowledgeable editor. In addition, in the lengthy version there is a general tendency to simplify complex syntactic structures and correct the most unclear places.