[566]. Loc. cit. Or they may cover a kind of allegory, as we might say that Agape or Love makes Faith, Hope, and Charity. But I believe it to be more likely that the “12 mysteries” are letters in a word. So in the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος it is said of the “Dragon of the Outer Darkness,” which is in fact the worst of all the hells described in that book: “And the Dragon of the Outer Darkness hath twelve true (αὐθέντη) names which are in his gates, a name according to each gate of the torture-chambers. And these names differ one from the other, but they belong to each of the twelve, so that he who saith one name, saith all the names. And these I will tell you in the Emanation of the Universe”—(p. 323, Copt.). If this be thought too trivial an explanation, Irenaeus tells us that the 18 Aeons remaining after deducting the Decad or Dodecad (as the case may be) from the rest of the Pleroma were, according to the Valentinians, signified by the two first letters of the name of Jesus: ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τῶν προηγουμένων τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ δύο γραμμάτων, τοῦ τε ἰῶτα καὶ τοῦ ἦτα, τοὺς δεκαοκτὼ Αἰῶνας εὐσήμως μηνύεσθαι, Irenaeus, Βk I. c. 1, § 5, p. 26, Harvey. Equally absurd according to modern ideas are the words of the Epistle of Barnabas (c. X., pp. 23, 24, Hilgenfeld), where after quoting a verse in Genesis about Abraham circumcising 318 of his slaves (cf. Gen. xiv. 14), the author says “What then is the knowledge (γνῶσις) given therein? Learn that the 18 were first, and then after a pause, he says 300. (In) the 18, I = 10, H = 8, thou hast Jesus (Ἰησοῦν). And because the Cross was meant to have grace in the T, he says also 300. He expresses therefore Jesus by two letters and the Cross by one. He knows who has placed in us the ungrafted gift of teaching. None has learned from me a more genuine word. But I know that ye are worthy.”
[567]. “The True Word” or the Word of the Place of Truth. The latter expression is constantly used in other parts of the book, and seems to refer to the χώρημα or “receptacle,” that is the heaven, of the Aeon Ἀλήθεια, that is the Decad. Cf. especially the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος (pp. 377, 378, Copt.), where it is said that certain baptisms and a “spiritual chrism” will lead the souls of the disciples “into the Places of Truth and Goodness, to the Place of the Holy of all Holies, to the Place in which there is neither female, nor male, nor shape in that Place, but there is Light, everlasting, ineffable.”
[568]. These ἀποτάγματα are set out in detail in the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος (pp. 255 sqq. Copt.), where the disciples are ordered to “preach to the whole world ... renounce (ἀποτασσετε) the whole world and all the matter which is therein, and all its cares and all its sins, and in a word all its conversation (ὁμιλιαι) which is therein, that ye may be worthy of the mysteries of the Light, that ye may be preserved from all the punishments which are in the judgments” and so on. It should be noted that these are only required of the psychics or animal men.
[569]. No doubt in the Greek original the actual seal was here figured. For examples, see the Bruce Papyrus, passim. The idea is typically Egyptian. As M. Maspero says in his essay on “La Table d’Offrandes,” R.H.R. t. xxxv. No. 3 (1897), p. 325: no spell was in the view of the ancient Egyptians efficacious unless accompanied by a talisman or amulet which acted as a material support to it, as the body to the soul.
[570]. p. 238, Copt.
[571]. Hatch, op. cit. p. 296, n. 1, for references.
[572]. 1 Cor. xv. 29. The practice of “baptizing for the dead,” as the A. V. has it, evidently continued into Tertullian’s time. See Tertull. de Resurrectione Carnis, c. XLVIII. p. 530, Oehler.
[573]. Döllinger, First Age, p. 327.
[574]. Hatch, op. cit. p. 307. The Emperor Constantine, who was baptized on his deathbed, was a case in point. The same story was told later about the Cathars or Manichaeans of Languedoc. The motive seems in all these cases to have been the same: as baptism washed away all sin, it was as well to delay it until the recipient could sin no more.
[575]. Hatch, op. cit. p. 295 and note, for references.