Second Treatise of the Great Seth

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The Second Treatise of the Great Seth,^{[note 1]} also known as the Second Discourse of the Great Seth and Second Logos of the Great Seth, is a Gnostic text. It is the second tractate in Codex VII of the Nag Hammadi library. It was likely originally written in the Koine Greek language and composed around 200 CE. The surviving manuscript from Nag Hammadi is a translation of the Greek into Coptic. The work's author is unknown; he was perhaps writing in Alexandria, the literary center of Egyptian Christianity.

The work is a speech given by Jesus, perhaps intended as a homily to rally Gnostic Christians with against opposition from proto-orthodox Christians. It repeatedly denigrates opponents, both material and spiritual, as "jokes" whose bluster hides their weakness. Despite the title, the word "Seth" never appears in the text, nor is a separate work called the First Discourse of Seth extant. The title might refer to Sethian beliefs that the first incarnation of the Great Seth was the son of Adam and Eve, while the second manifestation of Great Seth was Jesus himself.

A variety of Gnostic themes and doctrines are propounded: souls are preexisting and immortal, but the mortal bodies they are attached to have forgotten their noble origin; the false God Yaldabaoth is an inferior being, and those who serve him are deluded fools and laughingstocks; and Jesus's teachings (gnosis and sophia) can enable souls to cast off their earthly shackles and achieve spiritual enlightenment. Like the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter, the text takes a docetic view of the crucifixion of Jesus: that Jesus did not die in reality, but only in appearance. The Passion of Jesus is treated as a joke, with the invulnerable, divine, spiritual Jesus laughing at those who thought they could kill him, but only succeeded in killing "their man", the unimportant physical side of Jesus.
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