(14) This seems to imply a doctrine of pre-existence. Perhaps the passage is related to John 17:16: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.... As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so sent I them into the world."
(15) Cp. Psalm 68:17 (R.V.): "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands upon thousands. The Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the sanctuary."
(16) Further descriptions of this, "the oldest of the Æons," are given later on. From these it will be gathered that the crown is the Crown of Life, and that the twelve gates are also twelve deeps or firmaments, over each of which a Paternity presides. She is called the Indivisible One, either "Point," "Atom," or perhaps even "Body" or "Raiment." As she is both the Spouse and Mother of the Light-Spark within the Æon, I have generally called her the Indivisible Queen.
(17) Mr Mead suggests that Phôsilampes may be a mystery name of Basilides. Has a commentary on the Gospel of St John been used here, or a commentary on the prologue by Basilides [containing perhaps the teachings of the alleged instructor of Basilides, Glaucias, whose name, rather suggesting the "shining one," may equal "Phôsilampes">[, which interpreted "In the beginning" as meaning "In the First Concept or in the Monad was the Word"?
(18) This repetition of the Seven Vowels gives the following meanings to them:—AAA = Living of Living Ones, HHH = Holy of Holy Ones, EEE = Being of Beings, III = Father of Fatherhoods, OOO = God of Gods, YYY=Lord of Lords, ΩΩΩ = Space of Spaces or Æon of Æons. The High and Holy One, together with His Bride and Mother, the "Universal Church or First Concept," are one in and with the Eternity that they inhabit. Hence "Thou art the House and the Dweller in the House." Time (Æon) and Space (Topos) are here one, or different aspects of the same mode of being.
(19) Cp. "The Mind unto Hermes," 16: "The Cosmos is all-formed [Pantomorphos]—not having forms external to itself, but changing them, itself within itself"; also the "Perfect Sermon," xix. 3: "The thirty-six, who have the name of Horoscopes, are in the self-same space as the fixed stars; of these the essence chief or Prince is he whom they call Pantomorph and Omniform, who fashioneth the various forms for various species." The Pantomorphic Body is the Augoeidês or Astroeidês, the ray-like or star-like glory (not to be confused with the "astral body" of modern theosophy). Cp. Origen, Ep. 38 ad Pammach: "Another body, a spiritual and aetherial one, is promised us: a body that is not subject to physical touch, nor seen by physical eyes, nor burdened with weight, and which shall be metamorphosed according to the variety of regions in which it shall be.... In that spiritual body the whole of us will see, the whole hear, the whole serve as hands, the whole as feet." The Star-body is the body of Resurrection and Ascension. Cp. Mark 16:12: "He was manifested in another form unto two of them." Also it was the body of "the universal" descent, that which transmitted the Æons from the Plêrôma or Ideal World to the Sensible World, hence it was considered to be "scattered" or in a state of latency, or of mystical death in normal man. To awaken it, to gather it together, or to "raise it from the dead," was one of the first objects of the mystics, who followed the way of the Gnôsis. Its partial resurgence was the first great step in the processes of the Apotheosis. It was the possession of this body, in some degree, which distinguished a man as "spiritual" from the psychic and "hylic" men. The Astroeidês included the "natural" body in its consummation, under a great transmutation, for it was the "Wisdom" at the basis of material nature.
I have transferred the account of the "City of the Man" from where it stands, at the end of the MS., to this place, as it seems more intelligible here, and the exact order has been obscured by the confusion of the leaves.
(20) Cp. "Poemandres," 15: "He [the Man], beholding the form like to himself existing in her, in her water, loved it and willed to live in it: and with the will came act, and so he vivified the form devoid of reason. And Nature took the object of her love and wound herself completely round him, and they were intermingled, for they were lovers.... Thus, though above the Harmony (or Fate sphere), within the Harmony he [The Man] hath become a slave, ... and though he is sleepless from a sleepless Sire, yet is he overcome by sleep."
This is the Mystery of the concealment of God in Nature, a mystery that was sometimes presented under the symbol of a self-scattering, sometimes under the symbol of a magical sleep, or mystic death.
(21) "The Earth that brought forth the God" is the "ground of the individual soul," and is also the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Universe, the Hidden Sanctuary where the "Man" is raised from mystical death or is reborn. No doubt the symbolism is drawn from Egyptian sources.