[211]. Ibid. Bk V. c. 6, p. 140, Cruice.
[212]. Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 28, § 6, p. 238, Harvey. The section is given almost word for word as in Irenaeus; but it is manifestly taken from some other source than that of the Greek text, and is inconsistent with the rest of the story. If the Lower Sophia or Prunicos (the Substitute) were born from the mere boiling over of the light shed upon her mother, of what had she to “repent”? In the Pistis Sophia, indeed, the heroine wins her way back to her former estate by repentance, but her fall has been occasioned by disobedience and ambition. So, too, the story about Jesus changing His form on His descent through the seven heavens is common to the story of Pistis Sophia and the legend of Simon Magus, which two it therefore connects (see Chapter VI, vol. I. p. 191, n. 4). It also appears in the Ascension of Isaiah which Mr Charles thinks may be dated about 150 A.D. (see Charles, Ascension of Isaiah, 1900, pp. xi and 62), but which is probably of much later date. There are other features to be noted in their place common to the Pistis Sophia and the last named work.
[213]. That is to say, that which does not perish and return to the Deity.
[214]. Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 28, § 7, pp. 238-241, Harvey. This again is given almost verbatim. The stay of Jesus on earth after His Resurrection, and His teaching His disciples “quod liquidum est,” that is, without parable, is also told in the Pistis Sophia, but His post-Resurrection life is there put at 12 years. Irenaeus’ Latin translator has, as has been said, evidently here got hold of some later developments of Ophitism not known to his author at the time that the Greek text was written. Yet some tradition of a long interval between the Resurrection and the Ascension was evidently current in the sub-Apostolic age. Irenaeus himself says on the authority of “those who met with John the Disciple of the Lord in Asia” that Jesus’ ministry only lasted for one year from His Baptism, He being then 30 years old, and that He suffered on completing his 30th year; yet that He taught until He was 40 or 50 years old. See Irenaeus, Bk II. c. 33, § 3, p. 331, Harvey. Some part of this statement appears in the Greek text.
[215]. Epiphanius, Haer. XXXVII. c. 5, p. 502, Oehler. Epiphanius, although generally untrustworthy, had been, as M. de Faye reminds us, a Nicolaitan in his youth. See de Faye, Introd. p. 116.
[216]. Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk V. c. 10, pp. 182-184, Cruice.
[217]. Cruice, op. et loc. cit. p. 152, n. 3, remarks that the Supreme Triad here shown is τὸ νοερόν, τὸ χοϊκόν, τὸ ψυχικόν “the intellectual, the earthly, and the psychic or animal.” This may be; but there is no proof that the Ophites ever gave Chaos or unformed Matter a place in it, or made it the next principle to their Supreme Being. Probably for the supposed “Chaos” in the second line of the Psalm should be substituted some words like “the projected Thought” of the Father. Miller has some curious remarks quoted in the same note on the metre of the Psalm, which he points out is the same as in a poem of Lucian’s, and in the hymns of Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais, already mentioned.
[218]. Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk V. c. 7, p. 148; ibid. c. 9, p. 181, Cruice. They probably resembled the ceremonies described at length in the Pistis Sophia and the Bruce Papyrus. See [Chapter X], infra.
[220]. Giraud, op. cit. p. 95.