He continued further in his discourse and said: "The third order is called Triple-faced Hekatē, and there are under her authority seven-and-twenty [arch]demons, and it is they which enter into men and seduce them to perjuries and lies and to covet that which doth not belong to them. "The souls then which Hekatē beareth hence in ravishment, she handeth over to her demons which stand under her, in order that they may torment them through her dark smoke and her wicked fire, they being exceedingly afflicted through the demons. And they spend one-hundred-and-five years and six months, being chastized in her wicked chastisements; and they begin to be dissolved and destroyed. "And thereafter, when the sphere turneth itself, and the little Sabaōth, the Good, he of the Midst, who is called in the world Zeus, cometh, and he cometh to the eighth æon of the sphere which is called the Scorpion, and when Boubastis, whom they call Aphroditē, cometh, and she cometh to the second æon of the sphere which is called the Bull, then the veils which are between those of the Right and those of the Left draw themselves aside and Zorokothora Melchisedec looketh out of the height; and the world and the mountains are agitated and the æons become alarmed. And he looketh on all the regions of Hekatē, so that her regions are dissolved and destroyed, and all the souls which are in her chastisements, are carried off and cast back anew into the sphere, because they are dissolved in the fire of her chastisements."
Yaldabaoth said to the authorities with him, Come, let us create a human being after the image of god and with a likeness to ourselves, so that this human image may give us light. They created through their respective powers, according to the features that were given to them.…
The first triad of fire denotes life; the second, water, over which rule the Ibimorphous divinities; and the third, air, ruled by Nephta. From the fir...
(53) "Plato writes that it is needful for the philosopher to know how the seven circles beneath the first one are arranged according to the Egyptians. The first triad of fire denotes life; the second, water, over which rule the Ibimorphous divinities; and the third, air, ruled by Nephta. From the fire the heavens were created, from the water the earth, and air was the mediator between them. In the Sephira Yetzirah it is said that from the three originate the seven, i. e., the height, the depth, the East, the West, the North, and the South, and the Holy Temple in the center sustaining them all. Is not the Holy Temple in the center the great throne of the many-formed Spirit of Nature which is shown in the middle of the Tablet? What are the seven triads but the seven Powers that rule over the world? Psellus writes: 'The Egyptians worshipped the triad of faith, truth, and love; and the seven fountains: the Sun as ruler--the fountain of matter; then the fountain of the archangels; the fountain of the senses; of judgment; of lightning; of reflections; and of characters of unknown composition. They say that the highest material fountains are those of Apollo, Osiris, and Mercury--the fountains of the centers of the elements. 'Thus, they understood by the Sun as ruler the solar world; by the material archangelic, the lunar world; by the fountain of the senses, the world of Saturn; by judgment, Jupiter; by lightning, Mars; by that of the reflections, or mirrors, the world of Venus; by the fountain of characters, the world of Mercury. All these are shown by the figures in the center pane of the Tablet."
The demon Aîghâsh is the malignant-eyed fiend who smites mankind with his eye. 24. The demon Bût is he whom they worship among the Hindûs, and his...
(33) The demon Aîghâsh is the malignant-eyed fiend who smites mankind with his eye. 24. The demon Bût is he whom they worship among the Hindûs, and his growth is lodged in idols, as one worships the horse as an idol. 35 Astô-vîdâd is the evil flyer (vâê-i sarîtar) who seizes the life; as it says that, when his hand strokes a man it is lethargy, when he casts it on the sick one it is fever, when he looks in his eyes he drives away the life, and they call it death. 36. The demon of the malignant eye (sûr-kashmîh) is he who will spoil anything which men see, when they do not say 'in the name of God' (yazdân). 37. With every one of them are many demons and fiends co-operating, to specify whom a second time would be tedious; demons, too, who are furies (khashmakân), are in great multitude it is said. 38. They are demons of ruin, pain, and growing old (zvârân), producers of vexation and bile, revivers of grief (nîvagîh), the progeny of gloom, and bringers of stench, decay, and vileness, who are many, very numerous, and very notorious; and a portion of all of them is mingled in the bodies of men, and their characteristics are glaring in mankind. 39. The demon Apâôsh and the demon Aspengargâk are those who remain in contest with the rain. 40. Of the evil spirit are the law of vileness, the religion of sorcery, the weapons of fiendishness, and the perversion (khâmîh) of God's works; and his wish is this, that is: 'Do not ask about me, and do not understand me! for if ye ask about and understand me, ye will not come after me.' 41. This, too, it says, that the evil spirit remains at the distance of a cry, even at the cry of a three-year-old cock (kûlêng), even at the cry of an ass, even at the cry of a righteous man when one strikes him involuntarily and he utters a cry. 42. The demon Kûndak is he who is, the steed (bârak) of wizards. 43. Various new demons arise from the various new sins the creatures may commit, and are produced for such purposes; who make even those planets rush on which are in the celestial sphere, and they stand very numerously in the conflict. 44. Their ringleaders (kamârîkân) are those seven planets, the head and tail of Gôkîhar, and Mûspar provided with a tail, which are ten. 45. And by them these ten worldly creations, that is, the sky, water, earth, vegetation, animals, metals, wind, light, fire, and mankind, are corrupted with all this vileness; and from them calamity, captivity, disease, death, and other evils and corruptions ever come to water, vegetation, and the other creations which exist in the world, owing to the fiendishness of those ten. 46. They whom I have enumerated are furnished with the assistance and crafty (afzar-hômand) nature of Aharman. 47. Regarding the cold, dry, stony, and dark interior of mysterious (târîk dên afrâg-pêdâk) hell it says, that the darkness is fit to grasp with the hand, and the stench is fit to cut with a knife; and if they inflict the punishment of a thousand men within a single span, they (the men) think in this way, that they are alone; and the loneliness is worse than its punishment. 48. And its connection (band) is with the seven planets, be it through much cold like Saturn (Kêvân), be it through much heat like Aharman; and their food is brimstone (gandak), and of succulents the lizard (vazagh), and other evil and wretchedness (patyân).]