[519]. p. 116, Copt.
[520]. I suppose it is in view of this maternal aspect of her nature that she is alluded to in the latter part of the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος as βαρβηλω βδελλη “Barbelo who gives suck”? Her place, according to the Bruce Papyrus (Amélineau, p. 218), is said to be in the Twelfth Aeon.
[521]. There have been many attempts to make this name mean something else than merely “Faith-Wisdom.” Dulaurier and Renan both tried to read it “πιστὴ Σοφία” “the faithful Wisdom” or “La fidèle Sagesse.” If we had more documents of the style of Simon’s Apophasis, we should probably find that this apposition of two or more nouns in a name was not infrequent, and the case of Ptah-Sokar-Osiris will occur to every Egyptologist. The fact that the name includes the first and last female member of the Dodecad of Valentinus (see p. [101] supra) is really its most plausible explanation.
[522]. This Adamas seems to be an essentially evil power, who wages useless war against the Light on the entry of Jesus into his realm (p. 25, Copt.). His seat is plainly the Twelve Aeons or Zodiac (p. 157, Copt.), and it is said in the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος that his “kingdom” is in the τοποι κεφαλης αἰωνων or Places of the head of the Aeons and is opposite the place of the Virgin of Light (p. 336, Copt.). In the second part of the same document (i.e. the μ. τ. σ.) it is said that the rulers of Adamas rebelled, persisting in the act of copulation (συνουσία) and begetting “Rulers and Archangels and Angels and Ministers (λειτουργοί) and Decans” (Δεκανοί), and that thereupon Jeû went forth from the Place of the Right and “bound them in Heimarmene and the Sphere.” We further learn that half the Aeons headed by Jabraoth, who is also once mentioned in the Pistis Sophia proper (p. 128, Copt., and again in the Bruce Papyrus, Amélineau, p. 239), were consequently transferred to another place, while Adamas, now for the first time called Sabaoth Adamas, with the unrepentant rulers are confined in the Sphere to the number of 1800, over whom 360 other rulers bear sway, over whom again are set the five planets Saturn, Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter (pp. 360, 361, Copt.). All this seems to me to be later than the Pistis Sophia proper, to have been written at a time when belief in astrology was more rife than in Hadrian’s reign, and to owe something to Manichaean influence. The original Adamas, the persecutor of Pistis Sophia herself, seems identifiable with the Diabolos or Cosmocrator of Valentinus, in which case we may perhaps see in the “Great Propator” a merely stupid and ignorant power like the Jaldabaoth of the Ophites and their successors. See p. [163] infra.
[523]. p. 145, Copt. So Irenaeus in his account of the Valentinian doctrines, Bk I. c. 1, p. 12 sqq. I suppose there is an allusion to this in the remark of Jesus to Mary that a year is as a day (p. 243, Copt.). But all the astrology of the time seems to have divided the astronomical day not into 24, but into 12 hours. It was the same with the Manichaeans. See Chavannes and Pelliot, “Un Traité manichéen retrouvé en Chine,” Journal Asiatique, série X, t. XVIII. (Nov.-Dec. 1911), p. 540, n. 4.
[524]. But curiously enough, not the “souls” of fish. So in the Middle Ages, the Manichaeans of Languedoc did not allow their “Perfects” to partake of animal food nor even of eggs, but allowed them fish, because they said these creatures were not begotten by copulation. See Schmidt, Hist. des Cathares, Paris, 1843. Is this one of the reasons why Jesus is called Ἰχθύς?
[525]. This idea of man being made from the tears of the eyes of the heavenly powers is an old one in Egypt. So Maspero explains the well-known sign of the utchat or Eye of Horus as that “qui exprime la matière, le corps du soleil, d’où tous les êtres découlent sous forme de pleurs,” “Les Hypogées Royaux de Thébes,” Ét. Égyptol. II. p. 130. Moret, “Le verbe créateur et révélateur en Égypte,” R. H. R. Mai-Juin, 1909, p. 386, gives many instances from hymns and other ritual documents. It was known to Proclus who transfers it after his manner to Orpheus and makes it into hexameters:
Thy tears are the much-enduring race of men,
By thy laugh thou hast raised up the sacred race of gods.
See Abel’s Orphica, fr. 236.