(28) From his concurrence with his thought, the powers appeared who where called 'gods'; and the gods from their considerings revealed divine gods; and the gods from their considerings revealed lords; and the lords of the lords from their words revealed lords; and the lords from their powers revealed archangels; the archangels revealed angels; from the semblance appeared, with structure and form for naming all the aeons and their worlds.

(1) Let us, however, now proceed to the appearances of the Gods and their perpetual attendants, and show what the difference is in their appearance. For you inquire, “ by what indication the presence of a God, or an angel, or an archangel, or a dæmon, or a certain archon [i. e. ruler ], or a soul, may be known .” In one word, therefore, I conclude that their appearances accord with their essences, powers, and energies. For such as they are, such also do they appear to those that invoke them, and they exhibit energies and ideas consentaneous to themselves, and proper indications of themselves. But that we may descend to particulars, the phasmata, or luminous appearances, of the Gods are uniform; those of dæmons are various; those of angels are more simple than those of dæmons, but are subordinate to those of the Gods; those of archangels approximate in a greater degree to divine causes; but those of archons, if these powers appear to you to be the cosmocrators, who govern the sublunary element, will be more various, but adorned in order; but if they are the powers that preside over matter, they will indeed be more various, and more imperfect, than those of the archons [properly so called]; and those of souls will appear to be all-various.

(3) And every God by his own proper power brought forth what was appointed him. Thus there arose four-footed beasts, and creeping things, and those that in the water dwell, and things with wings, and everything that beareth seed, and grass, and shoot of every flower, all having in themselves seed of again-becoming. And they selected out the births of men for gnosis of the works of God and attestation of the energy of Nature; the multitude of men for lordship over all beneath the heaven and gnosis of its blessings, that they might increase in increasing and multiply in multitude, and every soul infleshed by revolution of the Cyclic Gods, for observation of the marvels of Heaven and Heaven's Gods' revolution, and of the works of God and energy of Nature, for tokens of its blessings, for gnosis of the power of God, that they might know the fates that follow good and evil [deeds] and learn the cunning work of all good arts.

(4) Not only did the aeons generate the countenance of the Father to whom they gave praise, which was written previously, but also they generated their own; for the aeons who give glory generated their countenance and their face. They were produced as an army for him, as for a king, since the beings of the thought have a powerful fellowship and an intermingled harmony. They came forth in a multifaceted form, in order that the one to whom help was to be given might see those to whom he had prayed for help. He also sees the one who gave it to him.

(12) Through Immortal Man appeared the first designation, namely, divinity and kingdom, for the Father, who is called 'Self-Father Man' revealed this. He created a great aeon for his own majesty. He gave him great authority, and he ruled over all creations. He created gods and archangels and angels, myriads without number for retinue.

(30) Some, Indeed, (who are) in dwellings and in chariots, being in ineffable glory and not able to be sent into any creature, provided for themselves hosts of angels, myriads without number for retinue and glory, even virgin spirits, the ineffable lights. They have no sickness nor weakness, but it is only will: it comes to be in an instant. Thus were completed the aeons with their heavens and firmaments for the glory of Immortal Man and Sophia, his consort: the area which every aeon and their worlds and those that came afterward, in order to provide the types from there, their likenesses in the heavens of chaos and their worlds.

(24) On the Seven Minor Planes of the Great Spiritual Plane exist Beings of whom we may speak as Angels; Archangels; Demi-Gods. On the lower Minor Planes dwell those great souls whom we call Masters and Adepts. Above them come the Great Hierarchies of the Angelic Hosts, unthinkable to man; and above those come those who may without irreverence be called "The Gods," so high in the scale of Being are they, their being, intelligence and power being akin to those attributed by the races of men to their conceptions of Deity. These Beings are beyond even the highest flights of the human imagination, the word "Divine" being the only one applicable to them. Many of these Beings, as well as the Angelic Host, take the greatest interest in the affairs of the Universe and play an important part in its affairs. These Unseen Divinities and Angelic Helpers extend their influence freely and powerfully, in the process of Evolution, and Cosmic Progress. Their occasional intervention and assistance in human affairs have led to the many legends, beliefs, religions and traditions of the race, past and present. They have superimposed their knowledge and power upon the world, again and again, all under the Law of THE ALL, of course.

(2) "And all the angels of the æons and their archangels and their rulers and their gods and their lords and their authorities and their tyrants and their powers and their light-sparks and their light-givers and their unpaired and their invisibles and their forefathers and their triple-powers saw me, shining most exceedingly, and there was no measure for the light which was about me. And they were thrown into agitation the one over against the other and great fear fell upon them, when they saw the great light that was about me. And in their great agitation and their great fear they withdrew as far as the region of the great invisible Forefather, and of the three great triple-powers. And because of the great fear of their agitation, the great Forefather, he and the three triple-powers, kept on running hither and thither in his region, and they could not close all their regions because of the great fear in which they were. And they agitated all their æons together and all their spheres and all their orders, fearing and being greatly agitated because of the great light which was about me--not of the former quality that it was about me when I was on the earth of man-kind, when the light-vesture came over me,--for the world could not bear the light such as it was in its truth, else would the world at once be destroyed and all upon it,--but the light which was about me in the twelve æons was eight-thousand-and-seven-hundred-myriad times greater than that which was about me in the world among you.

(14) Before the times of the created heavens, the stars, and the elements, and before the creation of angels, there was no such wrath of God, no death, no devil, no earth nor stones, neither were there any stars. But the Deity generated itself very meekly and lovingly, and formed, framed and figured itself in ideas, shapes, and images, which were incorporated according to the qualifying or fountain spirits in their generating, wrestling, and rising up, and passed away again also through their wrestling, and figured or framed themselves into another form or condition, all according to the primacy or predominancy of each qualifying or fountain spirit, as you may read before.

(58) God in his moving created the holy angels at once, not out of a strange matter, but out of himself, out of his own power and eternal wisdom.

(17) [...] In the beginning, thought and thinkings appeared from mind, then teachings from thinkings, counsels from teachings, and power from counsels. And after all the attributes, all that was revealed appeared from his powers. And from what was created, what was fashioned appeared. And what was formed appeared from what was fashioned. What was named appeared from what was formed, while the difference among begotten things appeared from what was named, from beginning to end, by power of all the aeons. Now Immortal Man is full of every imperishable glory and ineffable joy. His whole kingdom rejoices in everlasting rejoicing, those who never have been heard of or known in any aeon that came after them and its worlds.

(2) "For this cause have I chosen you verily from the beginning through the First Mystery. Rejoice then and exult, for when I set out for the world, I brought from the beginning with me twelve powers, as I have told you from the beginning, which I have taken from the twelve saviours of the Treasury of the Light, according to the command of the First Mystery. These then I cast into the womb of your mothers, when I came into the world, that is those which are in your bodies to-day. For these powers have been given unto you before the whole world, because ye are they who will save the whole world, and that ye may be able to endure the threat of the rulers of the world and the pains of the world and its dangers and all its persecutions, which the rulers of the height will bring upon you. For many times have I said unto you that I have brought the power in you out of the twelve saviours who are in the Treasury of the Light. For which cause I have said unto you indeed from the beginning that ye are not of the world. I also am not of it. For all men who are in the world have gotten their souls out of [the power of] the rulers of the æons. But the power which is in you is from me; your souls belong to the height. I have brought twelve powers of the twelve saviours of the Treasury of the Light, taking them out of the portion of my power which I did first receive. And when I had set forth for the world, I came into the midst of the rulers of the sphere and had the form of Gabriēl the angel of the æons; and the rulers of the æons did not know me, but they thought that I was the angel Gabriēl.

(2) of the Treasury of the Light which I had received from the twelve ministers of the Midst, I cast into the sphere of the rulers. And the decans of the rulers and their servitors thought that they were souls of the rulers; and the servitors brought them, they bound them into the body of your mothers. And when your time was completed, ye were born in the world without souls of the rulers in you. And ye have received your portion out of the power which the last Helper hath breathed into the Mixture, that [power] which is blended with all the invisibles and all rulers and all æons,--in a word, which is blended with the world of destruction which is the Mixture. This [power], which from the beginning I brought out of myself, I have cast into the First Commandment, and the First Commandment cast a portion thereof into the great Light, and the great Light cast a portion of that which it had received, into the five Helpers, and the last Helper took a portion of that which it received, and cast it into the Mixture. And [this portion] is in all who are in the Mixture, as I have just said unto you."

(5) The Father brought forth everything, like a little child, like a drop from a spring, like a blossom from a vine, like a flower, like a [...], in need of gaining nourishment and growth and faultlessness. He withheld it for a time. He who had thought of it from the very beginning, possessed it from the very beginning, and saw it, but he closed it off to those who first came from him. (He did this,) not out of envy, but in order that the aeons might not receive their faultlessness from the very beginning and might not exalt themselves to the glory, to the Father, and might think that from themselves alone they have this. But just as he wished to grant that they might come into being, so too, in order that they might come into being as faultless ones, when he wished, he gave them the perfect idea of beneficence toward them.

(2) Mind: Hear [then], My son, how standeth God and All. God; Aeon; Cosmos; Time; Becoming. God maketh Aeon; Aeon, Cosmos; Cosmos, Time; and Time, Becoming The Good - the Beautiful, Wisdom, Blessedness - is essence, as it were, of God; of Aeon, Sameness; of Cosmos, Order; of Time, Change; and of Becoming, Life and Death. The energies of God are Mind and Soul; of Aeon, lastingness and deathlessness; of Cosmos, restoration and the opposite thereof; of Time, increase and decrease; and of Becoming, quality. Aeon is, then, in God; Cosmos, in Aeon; in Cosmos; Time; in Time, Becoming. Aeon stands firm round God; Cosmos is moved in Aeon; Time hath its limits in the Cosmos; Becoming doth become in Time.

(2) for on the first day He created the heavens which are above and the earth and the waters and all the spirits which serve before Him — the angels of the presence, and the angels of sanctifi- cation, and the angels [of the spirit of fire and the angels] of the spirit of the winds,* and the angels of the spirit of the clouds, and of darkness, and of snow and of hail and of hoar frost, and the angels of the voices8 and of the thunder and of the lightning, and the angels of the spirits of cold and of heat, and of winter and of spring and of autumn and of summer, and of all the spirits of His creatures which are in the heavens and on the earth, (He created) the abysses and the darkness, eventide (and night), and the light, dawn and day, which He hath prepared in the know- ledge of His h,eart.

(2) In addition to these things also, the magnitude of the epiphanies [or manifestations] in the Gods, indeed, is so great as sometimes to conceal all heaven, the sun and the moon; and the earth itself, as the Gods descend, is no longer able to stand still. When archangels appear, certain parts of the world are moved, and a divided forerunning light precedes them. But they exhibit a magnitude of light commensurate to the magnitude of their domination. The angelic light is less than the archangelic, and more divided, but in dæmons it is still more divided, and the magnitude of the manifestation is not always equal in them. The manifestation of heroes is still less than that of dæmons, but exhibits more of an elevated condition. Again, the manifestation of such archons as preside over mundane forms, presents itself to the view as above measure great; but such of them as are distributed about matter, exhibit in their manifestations an abundance of pride and arrogance. Those of souls are not all of them seen to be equal, but appear to be less than those of heroes. And, in short, the magnitude of the manifestation is appropriately present in each of these, according to the magnitude of their powers, and the amplitude of the empire through which they extend themselves, and in which they exercise their authority.

(6) When God Almighty had decreed in his council that he would make angels or creatures out of himself, then he made them out of his eternal power and wisdom, according to the form and manner of the Ternary in his Deity, and according to the qualities in his divine being.

(45) The Archetypal and Creative Mind--first through its Paternal Foundation and afterwards through secondary Gods called Intelligences--poured our the whole infinity of its powers by continuous exchange from highest to lowest. In their phallic symbolism the Egyptians used the sperm to represent the spiritual spheres, because each contains all that comes forth from it. The Chaldeans and Egyptians also held that everything which is a result dwells in the cause of itself and turns to that cause as the lotus to the sun. Accordingly, the Supreme Intellect, through its Paternal Foundation, first created light--the angelic world. Out of that light were then created the invisible hierarchies of beings which some call the stars; and out of the stars the four elements and the sensible world were formed. Thus all are in all, after their respective kinds. All visible bodies or elements are in the invisible stars or spiritual elements, and the stars are likewise in those bodies; the stars are in the angels and the angels in the stars; the angels are in God and God is in all. Therefore, all are divinely in the Divine, angelically in the angels, and corporeally in the corporeal world, and vice versa. just as the seed is the tree folded up, so the world is God unfolded.

(3) For after it [contracted] [it expanded], and [it spread out] and became complete, [and] it was empowered [with] all of them, by knowing [itself] [in addition to the perfect Invisible Spirit], and it [became] [an] aeon.