A Source Book for Ancient Church HistoryAyer, Joseph Cullen
History
A Source Book for Ancient Church History
Ayer, Joseph Cullen
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 -- Sources
Mani teaches further: The members of the air, or the Light-Ether, are
five: gentleness, wisdom, understanding, discretion, and insight. The
members of the Light-Earth are the soft gentle breath, the wind, the
light, the water, and the fire. As to the other Original Being, the
Darkness, its members are also five: the vapor, the burning heat, the
fiery wind, the poison, and the darkness.
This bright shining Primal Being was in immediate proximity with the dark
Primal Being, so that no wall of partition was between them and the Light
touched the Darkness on its broad side. The Light is unlimited in its
height, and also to the right hand and to the left; the Darkness, however,
is unlimited in its depth, and also to the right hand and to the left.
From this Dark-Earth rose Satan, not so that he himself was without
beginning, although his parts were in their elements without beginning.
These parts joined themselves together from the elements and formed
themselves into Satan. His head was like that of a lion, his trunk like
that of a dragon, his wings as those of a bird, his tail like that of a
great fish, and his four feet like the feet of creeping things. When this
Satan had been formed from the Darkness—his name is the First Devil—then
he began to devour and to swallow up and to ruin, to move about to the
right and to the left, and to get down into the deep, so that he
continually brought ruin and destruction to every one who attempted to
overmaster him. Next he hastened up on high and perceived the rays of
light, but felt an aversion to them. Then when he saw how these rays by
reciprocal influence and contact were increased in brilliancy, he became
afraid and crept together into himself, member by member, and withdrew for
union and strengthening back to his original constituent parts. Now once
more he hastened back into the height, and the Light-Earth noticed the
action of Satan and his purpose to seize and to attack and to destroy. But
when she perceived this thereupon the world æon of Insight perceived it,
then the æon of Wisdom, the æon of Discretion, the æon of the
Understanding, and then the æon of Gentleness. Thereupon the King of the
Paradise of Light perceived it and reflected on means to gain the mastery
over him. His armies were indeed mighty enough to overcome him; he had the
wish, however, to accomplish this himself. Therefore he begat with the
spirit of his right hand, with the five æons, and with his twelve elements
a creature, and that was the Primal Man, and him he sent to the conquest
of Darkness.(88)
Chapter V. The Last Great Persecution
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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