The library · Edition and sources
Hypostasis of the Archons
Samuel Zinner, edited by Mark M. Mattison; Other Gospels · Translated text
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Chapter 8
1. I said: “My Lord, instruct me concerning the [power of] these authorities.
2. [How] did they come into being, and out of what kind of substance and out of ⟦page 94⟧ what matter, and who created them and their strength?”
3. The great angel, Eleleth, who is Wisdom, said to me: “Indestructibility dwells inside infinite aeons.
4. Sophia, who is called Pistis, desired to create something independently, apart from her companion, and what she produced originated from above.
5. There is a veil between the upper world and the aeons below, and a shadow came into being under the veil, and the shadow became matter, and the shadow fell onto a separate place.
6. What she had produced developed into something material resembling an aborted fetus, and its shape was molded out of the shadow, and it became a haughty beast resembling a lion.
7. It was androgynous, as I previously mentioned, because it had originated from matter.
8. He opened his eyes, gazing on a vast, infinite quantity of matter, and he grew haughty, and said: ‘I am God, and nothing exists apart from me.’
9. In saying this, he had sinned against the All, and a voice came forth from above the place of supreme rule, and said: ‘You are in error, Samael,’ meaning ‘blind god.’
10. He said, ‘If anything else exists before me, show it to me.’
11. Sophia immediately stretched out her finger and inserted light into matter, and she pursued it downward to the place of chaos.
12. She then returned upward to her light, darkness once again [falling on] matter.
13. This archon, being androgynous, made for himself a vast realm, an infinite expanse.
14. ⟦page 95⟧ He thought of creating offspring for himself, and he created seven offspring for himself, androgynous just like their parent.
15. He said to his offspring: ‘I am God of the All.’
16. Zoe, the daughter of Pistis Sophia, cried out and said to him: ‘You are in error, Sakla,’ whose other name is ‘Yaldabaoth.’
17. Zoe breathed into his face, and her breath became an angel of fire for her, and that angel bound Yaldabaoth, casting him down to Tartaros, under the abyss.