(Homer, Odyssey, vv. 184 ff.)
But not only do the poets say this, he says, but also the wisest of the Greeks, whereof Heraclitus is one, who says, p. 200. “For water becomes death to souls.”[223]
This death (the Peratic) says seizes the Egyptians in the Red Sea with their chariots. And all the ignorant, he says, are Egyptians and this he says is the going out from Egypt (that is) from the body. For they think the body little Egypt (and) that it crosses over the Red Sea, that is, the water of destruction which is Kronos, and that it is beyond the Red Sea, that is birth, and comes into the desert, that is, outside generation where are together the gods of destruction and the god of salvation. But the gods of destruction, he says, are the stars which bring upon those coming into being the necessity of mutable generation. These, he said, Moses called the serpents of the desert which bite and cause to perish those who think they have crossed the Red Sea. Therefore, he says, to those sons of Israel who were bitten in the desert, Moses displayed the true and perfect serpent, those who believed on which were not bitten in the desert, p. 201. that is, by the Powers. None then, he says, can save and set free those brought forth from the land of Egypt, that is, from the body and from this world, save only the perfect serpent, the full of the full.[224] He who hopes on this, he says, is not destroyed by the serpents of the desert, that is, by the gods of generation. It is written, he says, in a book of Moses.[225] This serpent, he says, is the Power which followed Moses, the rod which was turned into a serpent. And the serpents of the magicians who withstood the power of Moses in Egypt were the gods of destruction; but the rod of Moses overthrew them all and caused them to perish.
This universal serpent, he says, is the wise word of Eve. This, he says, is the mystery of Edem, this the river flowing out of Edem, this the mark which was set on Cain so that all that found him should not kill him. This, he says, is (that) Cain whose sacrifice was not accepted by the god of this world; but he accepted the bloody sacrifice of Abel, for the lord of this world delights in blood.[226] He it is, he says, who in the last days appeared in man’s shape in the p. 202. time of Herod, born after the image of Joseph who was sold from the hand of his brethren and to whom alone belonged the coat of many colours. This, he says, is he after the image of Esau whose garment was blessed when he was not present, who did not receive, he says, the blind man’s blessing, but became rich elsewhere taking nothing from the blind one, whose face Jacob saw as a man might see the face of God. Concerning whom he says, it is written that: “Nebrod was a giant hunting before the Lord.”[227] There are, he says, as many counterparts of him as there were serpents seen in the desert biting the sons of Israel, from which that perfect one that Moses set up delivered those that were bitten. This, he says, is the saying: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”[228] After his likeness was the brazen serpent in the desert which Moses set up. The similitude of this alone is always seen in the heaven in light. This he says is the mighty beginning about which it is written. About this he says is the saying: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and p. 203. the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him nothing was. That which was in Him was life.”[229] And in Him, he says, Eve came into being (and) Eve is life. She, he says is Eve, mother of all living[230] (the) nature common (to all), that is, to gods, angels, immortals, mortals, irrational beings, and rational ones; for, he says, “to all” speaking collectively. And if the eyes of any are blessed, he says, he will see when he looks upward to heaven the fair image of the serpent in the great summit[231] of heaven turning about and becoming the source of all movement of all present things. And (the beholder) will know that without Him there is nothing framed of heavenly or of earthly things or of things below the earth—neither night, nor moon, nor fruits, nor generation, nor wealth, nor wayfaring, nor generally is there anything of things which are that He does not point out. In this, he says, is the great wonder beheld in the heavens by those who can see.
For against this summit (that is) the head which is the most difficult of all things to be believed by those who know it not,
p. 204.“The setting and rising mingle with one another.”—
(Aratus, Phain., v. 62.)
This it is concerning which ignorance speaks:—
“The Dragon winds, great wonder of dread portent.”—