Chapter XX--The Demiurge Works Away at Creation, as the Drudge of His Mother Achamoth, in Ignorance All the While of the Nature of His Occupation.
The Demiurge therefore, placed as he was without the limits of the Pleroma in the ignominious solitude of his eternal exile, founded a new empire--this world (of ours)--by clearing away the confusion and distinguishing the difference between the two substances which severally constituted it, [6816] the animal and the material. Out of incorporeal (elements) he constructs bodies, heavy, light, erect [6817] and stooping, celestial and terrene. He then completes the sevenfold stages of heaven itself, with his own throne above all. Whence he had the additional name of Sabbatum from the hebdomadal nature of his abode; his mother Achamoth, too, had the title Ogdoada, after the precedent of the primeval Ogdoad. [6818] These heavens, however, they consider to be intelligent, [6819] and sometimes they make angels of them, as indeed they do of the Demiurge himself; as also (they call) Paradise the fourth archangel, because they fix it above the third heaven, of the power of which Adam partook, when he sojourned there amidst its fleecy clouds [6820] and shrubs. [6821] Ptolemy remembered perfectly well the prattle of his boyhood, [6822] that apples grew in the sea, and fishes on the tree; after the same fashion, he assumed that nut-trees flourished in the skies. The Demiurge does his work in ignorance, and therefore perhaps he is unaware that trees ought to be planted only on the ground. His mother, of course, knew all about it: how is it, then, that she did not suggest the fact, since she was actually executing her own operation? But whilst building up so vast an edifice for her son by means of those works, which proclaim him at once to be father, god and, king before the conceits of the Valentinians, why she refused to let them be known to even him, [6823] is a question which I shall ask afterwards.
[6816] Duplicis substantiæ illius disclusæ.
[6817] Sublimantia.
[6818] Ogdoadis primogenitalis: what Irenæus calls "the first-begotten and primary Ogdoad of the Pleroma" (See our Irenæus, Vol. I.; also above, chap. vii. p. 506.)
[6819] Noëros.
[6820] Nubeculas.
[6821] Arbusculas.
[6822] Puerilium dicibulorum.
[6823] Sibi here must refer to the secondary agent of the sentence.
Chapter XXI.--The Vanity as Well as Ignorance of the Demiurge. Absurd Results from So Imperfect a Condition.
Meanwhile you must believe [6824] that Sophia has the surnames of earth and of Mother--"Mother-Earth," of course--and (what may excite your laughter still more heartily) even Holy Spirit. In this way they have conferred all honour on that female, I suppose even a beard, not to say other things. Besides, [6825] the Demiurge had so little mastery over things, [6826] on the score, [6827] you must know, [6828] of his inability to approach spiritual essences, (constituted as he was) of animal elements, that, imagining himself to be the only being, he uttered this soliloquy: "I am God, and beside me there is none else." [6829] But for all that, he at least was aware that he had not himself existed before. He understood, therefore, that he had been created, and that there must be a creator of a creature of some sort or other. How happens it, then, that he seemed to himself to be the only being, notwithstanding his uncertainty, and although he had, at any rate, some suspicion of the existence of some creator?
[6824] Tenendum.
[6825] Alioquin.
[6826] Adeo rerum non erat compos.
[6827] Censu.
[6828] Scilicet.
[6829] Isa. xlv. 5; xlvi. 9.
Chapter XXII.--Origin of the Devil, in the Criminal Excess of the Sorrow of Achamoth. The Devil, Called Also Munditenens, Actually Wiser Than the Demiurge, Although His Work.
The odium felt amongst them [6830] against the devil is the more excusable, [6831] even because the peculiarly sordid character of his origin justifies it. [6832] For he is supposed by them to have had his origin in that criminal excess [6833] of her [6834] sorrow, from which they also derive the birth of the angels, and demons, and all the wicked spirits. Yet they affirm that the devil is the work of the Demiurge, and they call him Munditenens [6835] (Ruler of the World), and maintain that, as he is of a spiritual nature, he has a better knowledge of the things above than the Demiurge, an animal being. He deserves from them the pre-eminence which all heresies provide him with.
[6830] Infamia apud illos.
[6831] Tolerabilior.
[6832] Capit: "capax est," nimirum "infamiæ" (Fr. Junius).
[6833] Ex nequitia.
[6834] Achamoth's.
[6835] Irenæus' word is Kosmokrator; see also Eph. vi. 12.