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 26
1. Now we will move on to consider our world, so that we can with precision complete the description of its structure and governance.
2. It will then become clear how faithfulness to the unseen aeon was found, which has been manifest from creation until the consummation of the age.
3. Consequently, I arrive at the chief themes concerning the deathless man.
4. I will discuss the beings that pertain to him, showing how it is that they are here.
5. When a multitude of humans had come into existence, by the parentage of [the Adam who] ⟦page 124⟧ had been made, even from out of matter, and when the world had already become fully populated, the archons were its master; that is, they maintained its bondage with ignorance. 6 And why?
7. For the following reason: Given that the deathless father is aware that a deficiency in truth came to exist among the aeons and their universe, when he desired to bring to nullity the archons of perdition by means of the creatures they had shaped, he dispatched your likenesses down into the world of perdition, that is, the blessed small spirits of innocence. They are not strangers to knowledge, because all of knowledge is lodged in a single angel who appeared to them.
8. He does not lack power in the presence of the father, even for ‹him› to give them knowledge.
9. When they appear in the world of perdition, they straightaway reveal the structure of indestructibility as a censure of the archons and their hosts.
10. In this way, when the blessed entities appeared in forms shaped by the authorities, they were envied, and out of envy the authorities joined their seed together with theirs, wishing to defile them.
11. They were incapable of this.
12. When then the blessed entities appeared in a radiant form, they appeared in several modes, and they originated from different aeons, revealing their knowledge to the church made visible by the shaped forms of perdition.
13. She was found to contain every kind of seed, on account of the seed of the authorities that had been joined [with her].
14. The savior then created all of them [(as) one], and their spirits are clearly superior, being blessed ⟦page 125⟧ and variously chosen, as well as several other beings having no king and being superior to all those who existed before they had.
15. Four races therefore exist, three pertaining to the kings of the eighth heaven, but the fourth race being kingless, even perfect, which is the highest of them all, because these are the ones who will enter into the Holy Place of their father, and they will obtain rest together with repose, and eternal, ineffable glory, and infinite joy.
16. What is more, they are kings inside the realm of death, given that they are deathless.
17. They will censure the gods of Chaos and their hosts.