11. He holds also that God
has no part with the world itself, and finds no pleasure in it, by
reason of its having been made a spoil of from the first by the
princes, and on account of the ill that rose on it. Wherefore He
sends and takes away from them day by day the soul belonging to Him,
through the medium of these luminaries, the sun and the moon, by which
the whole world and all creation are dominated. Him, again, who
spake with Moses, and the Jews, and the priests, he declares to be the
prince of the darkness; so that the Christians, and the Jews, and the
Gentiles are one and the same body, worshipping the same God: for
He seduces them in His own passions, being no God of truth. For
this reason all those who hope in that God who spake with Moses and the
prophets have to be bound together with the said deity,15231523 because they
have not hoped in the God of truth; for that deity spake with him in
accordance with their own passions. Moreover, after
186all these things, he speaks
in the following terms with regard to the end,15241524 as he has also written: When the
elder has displayed his image,15251525
the Omophorus then lets the earth go from him, and so the mighty fire
gets free, and consumes the whole world. Then, again, he lets the
soil go with the new æon,15261526
in order that all the souls of sinners may be bound for ever.
These things will take place at the time when the man’s
image15271527 has
come.15281528 And all
these powers put forth by God,15291529—namely, Jesus, who is in the smaller
ship,15301530 and the Mother of
Life, and the twelve helmsmen,15311531
and the virgin of the light, and the third elder, who is in the greater
ship, and the living spirit, and the wall15321532 of the mighty fire, and the wall of the
wind, and the air, and the water, and the interior living
fire,—have their seat in the lesser luminary, until the fire
shall have consumed the whole world: and that is to happen within
so many years, the exact number of which, however, I have not
ascertained. And after these things there will be a restitution
of the two natures;15331533 and the princes will occupy the lower
parts proper to them, and the Father the higher parts, receiving again
what is His own due possession.—All this doctrine he delivered to
his three disciples, and charged each to journey to a separate
clime.15341534 The
Eastern parts fell thus to the lot of Addas; Thomas15351535 obtained the Syrian territories as his
heritage; and another, to wit, Hermeias, directed his course towards
Egypt. And to this day they, sojourn there, with the purpose of
establishing the propositions contained in this doctrine.15361536