The library · Edition and sources
On the Origin of the World
Samuel Zinner, edited by Mark M. Mattison; Other Gospels · Translated text
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Chapter 16
1. And prior to Adam of Light retreating inside the Chaos, the authorities noticed him and mocked the Primal Parent because he had lied (to them) when he said: “I am the one who is God.
2. No one existed before me.”
3. When they approached him, they asked: “Is this not the god who spoiled our work?” He answered and said: “Yes. If you want him to be unable to spoil our work, come, let us create a man out of earth to serve us, according to the image of our body, and according to the likeness ⟦page 113⟧ of this being, so that when he beholds his (own) likeness, he will fall in love with it.
4. He will spoil our work no more.
5. We will instead make servants for us of those who are born from out of the light for the entire duration of this aeon.”
6. All of this transpired in accord with the forethought of Pistis, so that (the) man would appear after his likeness, and would denounce them on account of their shaped form, and their shaped form became a place enclosing the light.
7. The authorities then obtained the knowledge requisite for creating (the) man.
8. Sophia Zoe, she who dwells together with Sabaoth, had foreseen what they would do, and she mocked their decision, because they are blind.
9. Contradicting their own (self-)interests, in ignorance they created him, and they did not understand what they were about to undertake.
10. She anticipated them and made her own man first.
11. This was so that he could inform the form they had shaped how to hate them, and in this way to escape from them.
12. The teacher was produced in the following way.
13. When Sophia allowed a droplet of light to descend, it flowed onto the water, and straightaway an androgynous human appeared.
14. She shaped that droplet first as a female body.
15. Making use of the body, she afterwards shaped it into the likeness of the mother, who had (previously) appeared, and she completed it within twelve months.
16. An androgynous human had been produced, whom the Greeks call Hermaphrodites, and whose mother the Hebrews call Eve of Zoe, that is, the female teacher of life.
17. Her child is the created entity who is lord.
18. The authorities afterwards ⟦page 114⟧ called it “the Beast,” so that it could lead astray the created entities that had shaped.
19. The interpretation of “the Beast” is “the Teacher,” because it was found to be the cleverest of all beings.