(Homer, Odyssey, XXIV, 1.)
p. 153.Not of the suitors of Penelope, he says, O unhappy ones, but of those awakened from sleep and recalled to consciousness
“From such honour and from such enduring bliss.”—
(Empedocles, 355, Stürz.)
that is, from the blessed Man on high or from the arch-man Adamas, as they think, they have been brought down here into the form of clay that they may be made slaves to the fashioner of this creation, Jaldabaoth, a fiery god, a fourth number.[58] For thus they call the demiurge and father of the world of form.
“But he holds in his hands the rod
Fair and golden, wherewith he lulls to sleep the eyes of men,
Whomso he will, while others he awakens from sleep.”—
(Odyssey, XXIV, 3 ff.)
This, he says, is he who has authority over life and death of whom he says it is written: “Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron.”[59] But the poet wishing to adorn the incomprehensible p. 154. (part)[60] of the blessed nature of the Word, makes his rod not iron but golden. And he charms to sleep the eyes of the dead, he says, and again awakens those sleepers who are stirred out of sleep and become suitors. Of these, he says, the Scripture spoke: “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise and Christ shall shine upon thee.”[61] This is the Christ, he says, who in all begotten things is the Son of Man, impressed (with the image) by the Logos of whom no image can be made.[62] This, he says, is the great and unspeakable mystery of the Eleusinians “Hye Cye”[63] seeing that all things are set under him, and this is the saying: “Their sound went forth into all the earth,”[64] just as