[64] The Gnostics taught that the universe was created by the Seven Great Angels, who ranked next to the Eons, or direct emanations from God: ‘and when a distribution was afterwards made of things, the chief of the creating angels had the people of the Jews particularly to his share; a doctrine which in the main was received by many ancients.’—See Lardner’s ‘History of the Early Heresies.’ I have alluded to the angel pictured as the agent in creation (p. 39), but the Seven creating Angels I have not met with in art. This was one of the Gnostic fancies condemned by the early Church.
[65] Le Livre des Angeles de Dieu, MS. Paris Bibl. Nat.
[66] Dr. Arnold has some characteristic remarks on the half-human effigies of Satan; he objects to the Miltonic representation:—‘By giving a human likeness, and representing him as a bad man, you necessarily get some image of what is good, as well as of what is bad, for no man is entirely evil.’—‘The hoofs, the horns, the tail, were all useful in this way, as giving you an image of something altogether disgusting; and so Mephistophiles, and the utterly contemptible and hateful character of the Little Master in Sintram, are far more true than the Paradise Lost.’—Life, vol. ii.
[67] Vatican MSS., No. 1613, A.D. 989.
[68] A.D. 1365. Eremitani. Padua.
[69] Greek Apocalypse MS. Paris Bibl. Nat.
[70] Siena Acad.
[71] By Marco di Ravenna. Bartsch, xiv. 106.
[72] Brescia. S. Maria delle Grazie.
[73] Milan, Brera.