I don’t know how many of you watch HBO’s John From Cincinanti. The long and short of it is that the Second Coming has come to a run down stretch of beach south of San Diego. Instead of Jesus of Nazareth, he’s John from Cincinnati.

A recurring theme is John’s incomprehensibility. He just almost makes sense, except for when he just plain doesn’t. That he only says words and phrases he’s heard someone else say—rearranging them—makes matters all the worse. He also comes off dumber than a bag of hammers, whether he’s talking or not.

Lately, he’s been talking a lot about his father. His father’s words, mostly. He has trouble hearing them. He has trouble remembering them. But he tries to get them out anyway.

This weekend, John was asked if his father has a father. Apparently so, but they don’t seem to have met. He seems to only know his father’s father’s words. And the only thing his father’s father has told him directly is to listen to his father. The gods play telephone.1

In gnosticism, the divine aeons grow progressively farther from divine fullness the closer they are to the world. John is at least a divine grandkid,2 so it’s no wonder he’s less than clear.

Yet John is clearly wise. He’s knows things he has no way of knowing. He tells people exactly what they need to hear in order to heal—sometimes he outright heals them. Or has a bird heal them.

God help you if you’re trying to figure out what he’s up to. John doesn’t seem to know half the time, just the irony you’d expect of a gnostic incarnation of Sophia—all-wise and stupid as hell.

1. I’m convinced John’s father made a cameo as a used car salesman in the last episode, but that’s a tangent. [↩]
2. John’s last name is Monad, one of the gnostic names for the divine fullness. [↩]