[205] τὴν ἀποκατάστασιν. This Return to the Deity was, as has been shown above, the great preoccupation of all these Gnostic sects. They may have borrowed it from the Stoic philosophy. Cf. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, p. 193.
[206] The primitive Church attributed great power to the ritual utterance of the word Amen. Thus Ignatius’ second Epistle to the Ephesians: “There was hidden from the ruler of this world the virginity of Mary, and the birth of our Lord, and the three mysteries of the shout ... and hereby ... magic began to be dissolved and all bonds to be loosed and the ancient kingdom and the error of evil, is destroyed” (Cureton’s translation, London, 1845, p. 15); but Lightfoot would read κήροξις, “proclamation,” for κραυγή, “shout.” In the Pistis Sophia the word Amen is used to denote a class of Powers concerned apparently with the organization of the Kerasmos or semi-material world and called sometimes “the Three” and sometimes “the Seven Amens.”
[207] τοὺς [φθόγγους]. The word in brackets is not in the Codex, but is supplied from the corresponding passage in Irenæus.
[208] πρόσωπον, a word which, as Hatch noted, is used for the character or part played by an actor in a drama. Matt. xviii. 10 is here evidently alluded to.
[209] Cf. the Stoic theory of λόγοι σπερματικοί or “seed-Powers,” for which, see Arnold, op. cit., p. 161.
[210] προήκατο.
[211] That is to say, before Chaos was organized and the Aeons brought into existence.
[212] A plain reference to the Ectroma or Sophia Without.
[213] ἰδίᾳ τῶν γραμμάτων γραφέντων (Miller). The Codex has διὰ for ἰδίᾳ and γραφέντος for γραφέντων. Cruice bungles the passage and Macmahon omits it. It is not found in Irenæus.
[214] e. g. the δ can be written δ, ε, λ, τ, α.