At that time the chief creator then expressed his opinion about humankind to those who were with him. Then each of them cast his seed into the midst of the navel of the earth. Since that day, the seven rulers have formed humankind with his body like their body, but his likeness is like the human who appeared to them. His fashioned body came into being one part at a time, and their chief created the brain and nervous system. Afterward the person appeared like the one before him. He became a person with soul, and he was called Adam, that is, father, after the name of the one who was before him. Now, after Adam was made, he left him as a lifeless vessel, since he had taken form like an aborted fetus, with no spirit in him. Regarding this, when the chief ruler remembered the word of Pistis, he was afraid that the true human might come into his fashioned body and rule over it. Because of this, he left this fashioned body forty days without soul. And he withdrew and left him. But on the fortieth day Sophia Zoe sent her breath into Adam, who was without soul. He began to move upon the earth, but he could not stand up. Now, when the seven rulers came and saw him, they were very much disturbed. They walked up to him and seized him, and the chief ruler said to the breath within him, “Who are you? And from where have you come here?” It answered and said, “I came through the power of the human for the destruction of your work.” When they heard, they glorified him because he gave them rest from their fear and concern. Then they called that day the day of rest, because they rested themselves from their troubles. And when they saw that Adam could not stand up, they rejoiced. They took him and left him in paradise and withdrew up to their heavens.

(20) But the Soul was breathed into Man, merely out of the original Birth of the Father by the moving Spirit, (understand, the Holy Ghost which goes forth from the Father out of the Light of the Father:) Which original Birth is before the Light of Life, which is in the four Anguishes, out of which the Light of God is kindled, wherein is the Original of the Name of God; and therefore the Soul is God's own Essence or Substance.

(12) Now that this is demonstratively and certainly thus, [appears] in that it is written; And God breathed into him the a living Breath, whereby Man became a living Soul. All other Creatures which were produced out of the corruptible Limbus by the Fiat, in all those the Will in the Fiat had awakened the Spirit in their Center, and every Creature's Spirit went forth out of the Essence and Property of its own self, and mixed afterwards with the Spirit of the great World, of the Stars and Elements, and that ought not to have been in Man, his Spirit ought not to have mixed itself [or been united] with the Spirit of the Stars and Elements. The two Principles (viz. the Darkness and the Spirit of the Air) ought to have stood still in such a Substance [as should be the Image of God;] and therefore he breathed into him the diving Breath; understand God's Breath, that is, the paradisical Breath or Spirit, [viz.] the Holy Spirit; that should be the Breath of the Soul, in the Center of the Soul. And the Spirit which went forth out of the Limbus, or out of the Quinta Essentia (which is of the a Condition of the Stars) that was to have Power over the fifth Essence of this World. For Man was in one only Essence [or Substance,] and there was also but one only Man that God thus created, and he could have lived for ever. And although God had brought the Stars again into their Ether, and also had withdrawn the Matrix of the Elements, and the Elements also back into nothing, yet Man would have continued still. Besides, he had the paradisical Center in him, and he could have generated again out of himself, out of his Will, and have awakened the Center; and so should have been able in Paradise to generate an angelical Host, without Misery or Anguish, also without tearing [rending or dividing in himself;] and such a Man he ought to have been, if he must continue in Paradise, and be eternal without Decay; for Paradise is holy, and in that Respect Man also ought to have been holy, for the Virtue [and Power] of God and Paradise consists in Holiness. The deep Gate of the Soul.

(5) God created the soul after the image of His highest perfection. He issued forth from the treasure-house of the everlasting Fatherhood in which He had rested from all eternity. Then the Son opened the tent of His everlasting glory and came forth from His high place to fetch His Bride, whom the Father had espoused to Him from all Eternity, back to that heaven from which she came. Therefore He came forth rejoicing as a bridegroom and suffered the pangs of love. Then He returned to His secret chamber in the silence and stillness of the everlasting Fatherhood. As He came forth from the Highest, so He returned to the Highest with His Bride, and revealed to her the hidden treasures of His Godhead.

Before Adam of light withdrew in the chaos, the authorities saw him. They laughed at the chief creator because he lied, saying, “I am god and there is no other god but me.” When they came to him, they said, “Is this not the god who ruined our work?” He answered and said, “Yes, but if you wish that he not be able to ruin our work, come, let’s create a human being from the earth according to the image of our body and according to the likeness of this being, to serve us, so that whenever this being sees his likeness, he may become enamored of it. Then he will no longer ruin our work, but we shall make those who are born from the light our servants through all the time of this age.” Now, all this came to pass according to the forethought of Pistis in order that humankind might appear after this likeness and condemn them on account of their fashioned bodies. And their fashioned bodies became fences for the light. Then the authorities received knowledge necessary to create people. Sophia Zoe, who is with Sabaoth, anticipated them and laughed at their decision because they were blind—in ignorance they created him against themselves. They do not know what they do. Because of this she anticipated them. She created her human being first in order that he might tell their fashioned body how to scorn them and thus to escape them. Now, the birth of the instructor occurred in this way. When Sophia let a drop of light fall, it floated on the water. Immediately a human being appeared, being androgynous. She molded that drop first as a female body. Afterward she molded it, with the body, in the likeness of the mother who appeared, and she finished it in twelve months. An androgynous human being was conceived, whom the Greeks call Hermaphrodite, while the Jews call his mother Eve of life, that is, the instructor of life. Her child is the creature who is lord. Afterward, the authorities called it the beast in order to lead their fashioned bodies astray. The meaning of the beast is the instructor, for it was found to be wiser than all beings. Moreover, Eve is the first virgin who gave birth without a man. She is the one who functioned as her own midwife.

(2) He is in his own Essence and Substance a twofold Man. For his Soul (in its own Substance) is out of the first Principle, which from Eternity has no Ground nor Beginning; and in the Time of the Creation of Man in Paradise, or the Kingdom of Heaven, the Soul was truly corporized by the Fiat in a spiritual Manner; but with the first Virtue [or Power] which is from Eternity, in its own first Virtue or Power it has remained inseparably in its first Root, and was illustrated [or made shining bright] by the second Principle, viz. by the Heart of God; and therewith standing in Paradise, was there, by the moving Spirit of God, breathed into the Matrix of the third Principle, into the starry and elementary Man. And now therefore he may understand the Ground of Heaven, as also of the Elements and of Hell, as far as the Light of God shines in him; for if that Light be in him, he is born in all the three Principles; but yet he is only a Spark risen from thence, and not the great Source, or Fountain, which is God himself.

(21) But I say that God is the spiritual one. Man has taken shape from the substance of God. The divine soul shares partly in this one; furthermore, it shares partly in the flesh. The base soul is wont to turn from side to side, [...] which it images the truth.

(5) For the Soul which is out of the first Principle (out of the Band of the Eternity) was breathed into the Element of the Body, to [be] the Image of God, out of the strong Might of God, and enlightened from the divine Light, so that it has received an angelical Source [or Quality;] but when it went forth out of the Light of God into the Spirit of this World, then there sprung up in it the Source of the first Principle; and it neither saw nor felt the Kingdom of God any more, till that the Heart of God set itself in the Midst again; into that the Soul must enter again, and be born anew.

(3) [...] he [dwelt...] having [...] sons. The sons [...] truly, those who have come from his seed, call the sons of the woman "our brothers". In this very way, when the spiritual soul was cast into the body, it became a brother to lust and hatred and envy, and a material soul. So therefore the body came from lust, and lust came from material substance. For this reason the soul became a brother to them.

(27) "Then the downward-turned and unreasoning elements brought forth creatures without Reason. Substance could not bestow Reason, for Reason had ascended out of it. The air produced flying things and the waters such as swim. The earth conceived strange four-footed and creeping beasts, dragons, composite demons, and grotesque monsters. Then the Father--the Supreme Mind--being Light and Life, fashioned a glorious Universal Man in Its own image, not an earthy man but a heavenly Man dwelling in the Light of God. The Supreme Mind loved the Man It had fashioned and delivered to Him the control of the creations and workmanships.

All the angels and demons worked together until they fashioned the psychical body. But for a long time their creation did not stir or move at all. When the mother wanted to take back the power she had relinquished to the first ruler, she prayed to the most merciful mother-father of all. With a sacred command the mother-father sent five luminaries down to the place of the angels of the first ruler. They advised him so that they might recover the mother’s power. They said to Yaldabaoth, Breathe some of your spirit into the face of Adam, and then the body will arise. He breathed his spirit into Adam. The spirit is the power of his mother, but he did not realize this, because he lives in ignorance. The mother’s power went out of Yaldabaoth and into the psychical body that had been made to be like the one who is from the beginning. The body moved and became powerful. And it was enlightened. At once the rest of the powers became jealous. Although Adam had come into being through all of them, and they had given their power to this human, Adam was more intelligent than the creators and the first ruler. When they realized that Adam was enlightened, and could think more clearly than they, and was stripped of evil, they took and threw Adam into the lowest part of the whole material realm. The blessed, benevolent, merciful mother-father had compassion for the mother’s power that had been removed from the first ruler. The rulers might be able to overpower the psychical, perceptible body once again. So with its benevolent spirit and great mercy the mother-father sent a helper to Adam, an enlightened afterthought who is from the mother-father and who was called life. She helped the whole creature, laboring with it, restoring it to its fullness, teaching it about the descent of the seed, teaching it about the way of ascent, which is the way of descent. Enlightened afterthought was hidden within Adam so that the rulers might not recognize her, but that afterthought might be able to restore what the mother lacked.

(14) Thus also we know, that the Soul is a Spirit, generated out of God the Father, in the Throne and Entrance out of the recomprehended [or reconceived] Will, out of the Darkness into the Light, to the generating of the Heart of God; and that [Soul] is free to elevate itself above mit in the Will, or in the Meekness in the Will of the Father, to comprehend and incline itself to the Birth of the Heart of God the Father.

(5) "Thus they give commandment to their servitors, that they may deposit it into the bodies of the antitype. And following this fashion the servitors of the rulers bring the power and the soul and the counterfeiting spirit, bring them down to the world, and pour [them] out into the world of the rulers of the midst. The rulers of the midst look after the counterfeiting spirit; and also the destiny, whose name is Moira, leadeth the man until it hath him slain through the death appointed unto him, which the rulers of the great Fate have bound to the soul. And the servitors of the sphere bind the soul and the power and the counterfeiting spirit and the destiny. And they portion them all and make them into two portions and seek after the man and also after the woman in the world to whom they have given signs, in order that they may send them into them. And they give one portion to the man and one portion to the woman in a victual of the world or in a breath of the air or in water or in a kind which they drink. "All this I will tell unto you and the species of every soul and the type, how they enter into the bodies, whether of men or of birds or of cattle or of wild beasts or of reptiles or of all the other species in the world. I will tell you their type, in what type they enter into men; I will tell it you at the expansion of the universe. "Now, therefore, when the servitors of the rulers cast the one portion into the woman and the other into the man in the fashion which I

This is the reason why incorruptibility looked down into the region, so that, by the father’s will, she might bring all into union with the light. The rulers laid plans and said, “Come, let us create a human that will be soil from the earth.” They modeled their creature as one wholly of the earth. The rulers have bodies that are both female and male, and faces that are the faces of beasts. They took some soil from the earth and modeled their man, after their body and after the image of god that had appeared to them in the waters. They said, “Come, let us lay hold of it by means of the form that we have modeled, so that it may see its male partner and we may seize it with the form that we have modeled,” not understanding the partner of god, because of their powerlessness. And he breathed into his face, and the man came to have a soul and remained on the ground many days. But they could not make him rise because of their powerlessness. Like storm winds they persisted in blowing, that they might try to capture that image which had appeared to them in the waters. And they did not know the identity of its power. Now, all these events came to pass by the will of the father of all. Afterward the spirit saw the man of soul on the ground. The spirit came forth from the adamantine land. It descended and came to dwell in him, and that man became a living soul. And the spirit called his name Adam, since he was found moving upon the ground. A voice came forth from incorruptibility for the assistance of Adam. The rulers gathered together all the animals of the earth and all the birds of heaven and brought them in to Adam to see what Adam would call them, that he might give a name to each of the birds and all the beasts. The rulers took Adam and put him in the garden, that he might cultivate it and keep watch over it. They issued a command to him, saying, “From every tree in the garden shall you eat, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil don’t eat, nor touch it. For the day you eat from it you will surely die.” They said this to him, but they did not understand what they said. Rather, by the father’s will, they said this in such a way that he might in fact eat, and that Adam might not regard them as would a man of an exclusively material nature. The rulers took counsel with one another and said, “Come, let us cause a deep sleep to fall on Adam.” And he slept. Now, the deep sleep that they caused to fall on him, and he slept, is ignorance. They opened his side, which was like a living woman. And they built up his side with some flesh in place of her, and Adam came to be only with soul. The woman of spirit came to him and spoke with him, saying, “Rise, Adam.” And when he saw her, he said, “It is you who have given me life. You will be called ‘mother of the living.’ For she is my mother. She is the physician, and the woman, and she has given birth.”

Adam’s soul came from a breath. The soul’s companion is spirit, and the spirit given to him is his mother. His soul was [taken] from him and replaced with [spirit]. When he was united with spirit, [he] uttered words superior to the powers, and the powers envied him. They [separated him from his] spiritual companion…hidden…bridal chamber….

(6) But how comes it that while the All-Soul has produced a kosmos, the soul of the particular has not, though it is of the one ideal Kind and contains, it too, all things in itself?

We have indicated that a thing may enter and dwell at the same time in various places; this ought to be explained, and the enquiry would show how an identity resident simultaneously here and there may, in its separate appearances, act or react- or both- after distinct modes; but the matter deserves to be examined in a special discussion.

To return, then: how and why has the All-Soul produced a kosmos, while the particular souls simply administer some one part of it?

In the first place, we are not surprised when men of identical knowledge differ greatly in effective power.

But the reason, we will be asked.

The answer might be that there is an even greater difference among these souls, the one never having fallen away from the All-Soul, but dwelling within it and assuming body therein, while the others received their allotted spheres when the body was already in existence, when their sister soul was already in rule and, as it were, had already prepared habitations for them. Again, the reason may be that the one looks towards the universal Intellectual-Principle , while the others are more occupied with the Intellectual within themselves, that which is already of the sphere of part; perhaps, too, these also could have created, but that they were anticipated by that originator- the work accomplished before them- an impediment inevitable whichsoever of the souls were first to operate.

But it is safer to account for the creative act by nearer connection with the over-world; the souls whose tendency is exercised within the Supreme have the greater power; immune in that pure seat they create securely; for the greater power takes the least hurt from the material within which it operates; and this power remains enduringly attached to the over-world: it creates, therefore, self gathered and the created things gather round it; the other souls, on the contrary, themselves go forth; that can mean only that they have deserted towards the abyss; a main phase in them is drawn downward and pulls them with it in the desire towards the lower.

The "secondary and tertiary souls," of which we hear, must be understood in the sense of closer or remoter position: it is much as in ourselves the relation to the Supreme is not identical from soul to soul; some of us are capable of becoming Uniate, others of striving and almost attaining, while a third rank is much less apt; it is a matter of the degree or powers of the soul by which our expression is determined- the first degree dominant in the one person, the second, the third in others while, still, all of us contain all the powers.

(3) "If on the other hand it is a new soul which they have taken out of the sweat of the rulers and out of the tears of their eyes, or far rather out of the breath of their mouths,--in a word, if it is one of the new souls or one of such souls, if it is one out of the sweat, then the five great rulers of the great Fate take up the sweat of all the rulers of their æons, knead it together withal, portion it and make it into a soul. Or far rather if it is refuse of the purification of the Light, then Melchisedec taketh it up from the rulers. The five great rulers of the great Fate knead the refuse together, portion it and make it into different souls, so that every one of the rulers of the æons, every one of them putteth his portion into the soul. For this cause they knead it jointly, so that all may [par]take of the soul. "And the five great rulers, if they portion it and make it into souls, bring it out of the sweat of the rulers. But if it is one out of the refuse of the purification of the Light, then Melchisedec, the great Receiver of the Light, taketh it [ sc. the refuse] up from the rulers, or far rather if it is out of the tears of their eyes or out of the breath of their mouth,--in a word, out of such souls, when the five rulers portion it and make it into different souls,--or far rather if it is an old soul, then the ruler who is in the head of the æons, himself mixeth the cup of forgetfulness with the seed of wickedness, and he mixeth it with every one of the new souls at the time when he is in the region of the head. And that cup of forgetfulness becometh the counterfeiting spirit for that soul, and bideth outside the soul, being a vesture for it and resembling it in every way, being envelope as vesture outside it.

(49) Now then when we consider the high Mysteries, the Spirit opens to us the Understanding, that this [before-mentioned] is the true Ground concerning Adam: For his original Spirit (viz. the Soul) that was the Worm, which was generated out of the eternal Will of God the Father, and in the Time of the Creation The Son of God. was by the Fiat (after the Manner of a Spirit) created out of that Place where the Father from Eternity generates his Heart, between the fourth and fifth Form in the Center of God, where the Light of God from Eternity discovers itself, and takes its Beginning, and therefore the Light of God came thus to help him, as a fair Virgin, and took the Soul to be her Bridegroom, and would adorn the Soul with her fair heavenly Crown, with the noble Virtue of the Pearl, and beautify it with her Garment.

When Yaldabaoth realized that the humans had withdrawn from him, he cursed his earth. He found the woman as she was preparing herself for her husband. He was master over her. And he did not know the mystery that had come into being through the sacred plan. The two of them were afraid to denounce Yaldabaoth. He displayed to his angels the ignorance within him. He threw the humans out of paradise and cloaked them in thick darkness. The first ruler saw the young woman standing next to Adam and noticed that the enlightened afterthought of life had appeared in her. Yet Yaldabaoth was full of ignorance. So when the forethought of all realized this, she dispatched emissaries, and they stole life out of Eve. The first ruler defiled Eve and produced in her two sons, a first and a second: Elohim and Yahweh. Elohim has the face of a bear, Yahweh has the face of a cat. One is just, the other is unjust. He placed Yahweh over fire and wind, he placed Elohim over water and earth. He called them by the names Cain and Abel, with a view to deceive. To this day sexual intercourse has persisted because of the first ruler. He planted sexual desire in the woman who belongs to Adam. Through intercourse the first ruler produced duplicate bodies, and he blew some of his false spirit into them. He placed these two rulers over the elements so that they might rule over the cave. When Adam came to know the counterpart of his own foreknowledge, he produced a son like the human child. He called him Seth, after the manner of the heavenly race in the eternal realms. Similarly, the mother sent down her spirit, which is like her and is a copy of what is in the realm of fullness, for she was going to prepare a dwelling place for the eternal realms that would come down. The human beings were made to drink water of forgetfulness by the first ruler, so that they might not know where they had come from. For a time the seed remained and helped so that when the spirit descends from the holy realms, it may raise up the seed and heal what it lacks, that the entire realm of fullness may be holy and lack nothing.

Now, from the foreknowledge of the perfect mind, through the expressed will of the invisible spirit and the will of the self-conceived one, came the perfect human, the first revelation, the truth. The virgin spirit named the human Geradamas and appointed Geradamas to the first eternal realm with the great self-conceived, the anointed, by the first luminary, Harmozel. Its powers dwell with it. The invisible one gave Geradamas an unconquerable power of mind. Geradamas spoke and glorified and praised the invisible spirit by saying, “Because of you everything has come into being, and to you everything will return. “I shall praise and glorify you, and the self-conceived, and the eternal realms, the three—father, mother, child, the perfect power.” Geradamas appointed his son Seth to the second eternal realm, before the second luminary, Oroiael. In the third eternal realm were stationed the offspring of Seth, with the third luminary, Daveithai. The souls of the saints were stationed there. In the fourth eternal realm were stationed the souls of those who were ignorant of the fullness. They did not repent immediately but held out for a while and repented later. They came to be with the fourth luminary, Eleleth, and they are creatures that glorify the invisible spirit.