[160]. This is a variant, and an important one, of the Babylonian myth which makes Bel, after defeating Tiamat the Dragon of Chaos, cut her in two halves and make out of them the visible heaven and earth. See Rogers, op. cit. p. 126. The heaven which there is fashioned from the powers of evil, is here at any rate half divine. In later systems, such as one of those in the Pistis Sophia and especially that of the Manichaeans, the older Babylonian idea is returned to. It would therefore seem that for the modification here introduced, the Ophites were indebted to Jewish influence and forced it to agree with the story of Genesis. See Irenaeus, op. cit. Bk I. c. 28, p. 229, Harvey.
[161]. Irenaeus, loc. cit. p. 228, Harvey. This is the first unmistakable allusion to the figure of the Sophia which is so prominent in most of the Gnostic systems and reappears in Manichaeism. There can, I think, be no doubt that she is in effect the Great Goddess worshipped throughout Western Asia, who appears under different names in Lydia, Phrygia, Syria, Ionia, Crete, and Greece, and who is to be identified on etymological grounds, if Prof. Garstang (n. 1, p. [31], supra) is correct, with the Babylonian Ishtar. That the Alexandrians saw her in their goddess Isis has already been shown in Chap. II. Her most prominent characteristics show her to be a personification of the Earth, the mother of all living, ever bringing forth and ever a virgin, as is shown in the “Goddesses Twain,” Demeter and Cora. The dove was throughout Asia her symbol and perhaps her totem animal (Strong, The Syrian Goddess, pp. 22-24 for authority), as the serpent was that of her spouse or male counterpart (Justin Martyr, First Apol. c. XXVII.; Clem. Alex. Protrept. c. II.). In the Orphic cosmogonies she appears under her name of Gaia or Ge as the “first bride” (Abel’s Orphica, fr. 91) spouse of Uranos, as well as under all her subsequent personifications. She seems, too, to bear much analogy with the Persian Amshaspand, Spenta Armaiti, who is also identified with the earth, and is called Sophia or Wisdom (Tiele, Religion of the Iranian Peoples, Eng. ed. Bombay, 1912, pp. 130, 131). Whether the Persians also drew this conception from the Babylonian Ishtar is a question which some years ago might have been answered in the affirmative. Now, however, it has been complicated by the identification of this Spenta Armaiti with the Aramati of the Vedas—for which see M. Carnoy’s article Aramati-Armatay in Le Muséon, Louvain, vol. XIII. (1912), pp. 127-146—and the discovery of Winckler that the Vedic gods were worshipped in Asia Minor before 1272 B.C. Her appearance in the cosmology of the Gnostics under the name of Sophia is, however, probably due to the necessity of effecting by hook or by crook a harmony between Gentile and Jewish ideas, and is doubtless due in the first instance to the passage in the Book of Proverbs VIII., IX., where Wisdom חָכְמָה or Ἀχαμώθ (in both languages feminine) is described as existing from the beginning and the daily delight of Yahweh, rejoicing always before him and his instrument in making the universe (Clem. Hom. XVI. c. 12). It is said that Simon Magus called his mistress Helena by the name of Sophia, but the story only occurs in Victorinus of Pettau and is probably due to a confusion with the Sophia of later sects like that of Valentinus. In all these, with the single exception of that of Marcion, she plays a predominant part in the destiny of mankind.
[162]. This appears in the Latin version of Irenaeus only.
[163]. Ὑφ’ ἑκάστου δὲ τούτων ἕνα οὐρανὸν δημιουργηθῆναι, καὶ ἕκαστον οἰκεῖν τὸν οἰκεῖον. Irenaeus, op. cit. Bk I. c. 28, p. 230, Harvey.
[164]. Origen, cont. Cels. Bk VI. c. 32. This Ialdabaoth or Jaldabaoth appears in the systems or heresies of the Nicolaitans and of those whom Epiphanius calls “Gnostics” par excellence. See Epiphanius, op. cit. Bk I. t. ii., Haer. 25, p. 160, and Haer. 26, p. 184. Theodoret, Haer. Fab. Bk V. c. 9, makes him belong also to the system of the Sethians. In all these he is the son of Sophia and presides over one or more of the super-terrestrial heavens, although the particular place assigned to him differs in the different sects. In the Pistis Sophia he is described (in the story of Pistis Sophia proper) as a power “half flame and half darkness” (cf. Ezekiel viii. 2) projected by one of the “triple-powered” gods of our universe and sent down into Chaos for the destruction of the heroine; in one of the later documents of the book we see him as lord of a particular portion of Chaos, where he presides over the punishment of a certain class of sinning souls. His name offers many difficulties. Gieseler reads it ילדא בהות, “son of Chaos,” and this Salmon, Dict. Christian Biog. s.h.v., considers the most probable derivation, although Harvey’s reading of יה־אל־דאבהות “Lord (or Jah) God of the Fathers,” is certainly more appropriate. In the great Magic Papyrus of Paris, the name appears as ⲁⲗⲑⲁⲂⲱⲧ, which can hardly be anything else that Aldabôt or Adabôt, since we have ⲁⲗⲑⲱⲛⲁⲓ for Adonai in the next line (Griffith, The Old Coptic magical texts of Paris, p. 3; extract from the Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache, Bd. XXXVIII.). In Papyrus XLVI. of the British Museum (Kenyon, Gk. Pap. p. 69), we find βαλβναβαωθ, probably a clerical error for Jaldabaoth, which is again followed as before by the name Αδωναι. In the Leyden Papyrus which calls itself the “8th Book of Moses,” we have a god invoked as Aldabeim, which is there said to be an Egyptian name, and to be the φυσικὸν ὄνομα “natural name” of the sun and the boat in which he rises when he dawns upon the world (Leemans, op. cit. pp. 87, 119, 127). It is not at all certain, however, which of these is the right spelling, for the German editors of Hippolytus read in one place Esaldaios for Ialdabaoth, and the Magic Papyrus last quoted has a name Aldazaô which is said to be quoted from a book of Moses called Archangelicus (Leemans, op. cit. p. 157). The name Ialdazaô (“El Shaddai”?) is used as that of the “God of Gods” in the great Magic Papyrus of Paris, with whose name that of the aeon Sophia is mentioned (Wessely, Griech. Zauberpap. p. 50). The most probable conclusion is that Jaldabaoth represents some name or epithet of God current among the Semitic Babylonians which had fallen into disuse and had been much corrupted by being turned into and out of demotic. So Revillout (Revue Égyptologique) gives an instance where the invocation ἐπίσχες ἐπί με “Come unto me!” by a like process became transmogrified into “episkhesepimme” without being recognized by the scribe as Greek.
[165]. εἰδικὸς κόσμος, Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk V. c. 7, p. 153, Cruice. By the expression Demiurge he means that he fashioned it from pre-existent matter, as a workman builds a house.
[166]. Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 28, p. 230, Harvey.
[167]. Thus Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 18, p. 198, Harvey, in summarizing the teaching of Saturninus says that the god of the Jews was one of the (world-creating) angels. That Saturninus’ opinion was derived from or coincided with that of the Ophites, see Salmon, Dict. Christian Biog. s.v. Saturninus. Hippolytus Naassene also calls Jaldabaoth “a fiery god” and “a fourth number,” op. cit. Bk V. c. 7, p. 153, Cruice, in allusion to the text about God being a consuming fire and to his Tetragrammaton or four-lettered name. Epiphanius, Haer. XXXVII. c. 4, p. 500, Oehler, says Κaὶ οὗτός ἐστι, φασίν, ὁ θεὸς τῶν Ἰουδαίων ὁ Ἰαλδαβαώθ, “And this Ialdabaoth is, they [the Ophites] say, the God of the Jews.”
[168]. Origen, cont. Cels. Bk VI. c. 32.
[169]. Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk IV. c. 11.