Jacques Matter, whose Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme appeared in 1843, without its author having the benefit of becoming acquainted with Hippolytus’ Philosophumena, which tells us so much as to the doctrines of the Naassenes or early Ophites, and Father Giraud, who has on the contrary drawn largely from it, and whose dissertation on the Ophites was published in 1884, have both given pictorial representations of the Ophite diagram. Although they differ somewhat in the arrangement of the circles, both are agreed that the blue and yellow circles signify the Holy Spirit and Christos. The Pleroma or Fulness of the Godhead consisting of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with the Christos their messenger, therefore seems figured in these two pairs of circles. Both Matter and Father Giraud also arrange four other circles labelled respectively Knowledge, Nature, Wisdom, and Comprehension (Γνῶσις, Φύσις, Σοφία, and Σύνεσις) within one large one with a border of intertwined lines which they call the Forethought of Sophia (Πρόνοια Σοφίας). This may be the correct rendering, but it is hardly warranted by Origen’s words given above, nor do we know of any powers, aeons, or other entities in the Ophite system called Gnosis or Physis[[235]]. In any event, however, it is fairly clear that this part of the diagram represents the Sophia who fell from the Holy Spirit into matter, and that her natural or first place should be the heaven stretched out above the seven planetary worlds. Yet Irenaeus tells us that the Ophites he describes thought that Sophia succeeded finally in struggling free from the body of matter and that the super-planetary firmament represented merely the lifeless shell she had abandoned[[236]]. This is, perhaps, the view taken by the framers of the diagram.
However that may be, Origen’s discourse agrees with Celsus in describing a “thick black line marked Gehenna or Tartarus” which cuts, as he says, the diagram in two. This is specially described by Celsus; and if it surprises anyone to find it thus placed above the planetary heavens, it can only be said that later Gnostics, including those who are responsible for the principal documents of the Pistis Sophia to be presently mentioned, put one of the places where souls were tortured in “the Middle Way” which seems above, and not, like the classical Tartarus, below the earth[[237]]. Below this again, come the seven spheres of the planets dignified by the names of Horaios, Ailoaios, Astaphaios, Sabaoth, Iao, Ialdabaoth and Adonai respectively. These names are, indeed, those given in Irenaeus as the names of the descendants of Sophia, although the order there given is different. As to the meaning of them, Origen declares that Ialdabaoth, Horaios, and Astaphaios are taken from magic and that the others are (the Hebrew) names of God[[238]]. But it should be noticed that Origen is in this place silent as to their situation in the diagram, and that those assigned to them in Matter’s and Father Giraud’s reconstructions are taken from the prayers or “defences” which will be given independently of it.
The division which Matter calls “Atmosphère terrestre” and Father Giraud “The Fence of Wickedness” (Φραγμὸς Κακίας) is also not to be found in Origen’s description of the diagram, but is taken from another passage where he defines it as the gates leading to the aeon of the archons[[239]]. The remaining sphere, containing within itself ten circles in Matter’s reconstruction and seven in Father Giraud’s, is however fully described. The number ten is, as Matter himself admitted to be probable, a mistake of the copyist for seven[[240]], and there can be no doubt that the larger sphere is supposed to represent our world. The word “Leviathan” which in accordance with Origen’s description is written both at the circumference and at the centre of the circle[[241]] is evidently Ophiomorphus or the serpent-formed son of Ialdabaoth whom we have seen cast down to earth by his father together with the protoplasts Adam and Eve[[242]]. He should according to the later Gnostics be represented in the shape of a “dragon” or serpent coiled round the world and having his tail in his mouth, while the seven circles within the ring thus formed are the seven Archons or ruling spirits created by him in imitation of Ialdabaoth. These are represented in beast-like form and are, as we have seen, hostile to man. The first four have the Hebrew angelic names of Michael, Suriel, Raphael, and Gabriel, perhaps because the four planetary worlds to which they correspond bear also Hebrew names of God[[243]]. The remaining three Thauthabaoth, Erataoth, and Thartharaoth are probably taken from the peculiar corruption of Hebrew and Egyptian words to be found in the Magic Papyri. Some of them, at any rate, we meet again later. The word Behemoth which appears at the foot of the diagram may be translated “animals[[244]].” It may either be a further description of the seven Archons—as seems most likely—or be taken in its etymological sense as the animal kingdom which in the scale of being succeeds terrestrial man.
To this diagram, Origen adds the prayers or defences above alluded to, which he draws from some source not mentioned. He calls them the “instruction” which they (i.e. the Ophites) receive after passing through the “fence of wickedness,—gates which are subjected to the world of the Archons[[245]]”; but we know from other sources that they are the speeches, “defences” or passwords required to be uttered by the soul of the initiated when, released from this world by death, she flies upwards through the planetary spheres[[246]]. As they contain many instructive allusions, they can best be given in Origen’s own words, at the same time remarking that the reading is not in all cases very well settled. The first power through whose realm the soul had to pass is not here mentioned by name, but by the process of exhaustion is plainly the one whom Irenaeus calls Adonaeus or Adonai.
To him the soul of the dead is to say:
“I salute the one-formed king, the bond of blindness, thoughtless oblivion, the first power preserved by the spirit of Pronoia and by Sophia; whence I am sent forth pure, being already part of the light of the Son and of the Father. Let grace be with me, O Father, yea let it be with me[[247]]!”
In passing through the next mentioned, which is the realm of Ialdabaoth:
“Thou O First and Seventh, born to command with boldness, Ialdabaoth the Ruler (Archon) who hast the word of pure Mind (νοῦς), a perfect work to the Son and the Father, I bring the symbol of life in the impress of a type, and open the door to the world which in thy aeon thou didst close, and pass again free through thy realm. Let grace be with me, O Father, yea let it be with me[[248]]!”
Arrived at Iao, he ought to say:
“Thou, O Second Iao and first lord of death, who dost rule over the hidden mysteries of the Son and the Father, who dost shine by night, part of the guiltless one. I bear my own beard as a symbol and am ready to pass through thy rule, having been strengthened by that which was born from thee by the living word. Let grace be with me, O Father, yea let it be with me[[249]]!”