bondage of every outward law and not subject to the impulses of the senses, a law unto themselves, travel toward the Pleroma; next, the _Hylic_, which, hostile to all spirit and law, and the sport of all lusts and passions, are doomed to irremediable destruction; and finally, the _Psychical_, which under the discipline of outward law attain not indeed to a perfect divine life, but yet to outward righteousness, while on the other hand they may sink down to the rank and condition of the Hylic natures. The _Psychical_ natures were particularly numerous among the Jews. Therefore the Demiurge chose them as his own, and gave them a strict law and through his prophets promised them a future Messiah. The _Hylic_ natures which were found mostly among the heathens, were utterly hateful to him. The _Pneumatical_ natures with their innate longing after the Pleroma, he did not understand and therefore disregarded; but yet, without knowing or designing it, he chose many of them for kings, priests, and prophets of his people, and to his amazement heard from their lips prophecies of a higher soul, which originated from Achamoth, and which he did not understand. When the time was fulfilled, he sent his Messiah in the person of Jesus. When he was baptized by John, the heaven opened over him and the Ano-Soter descended upon him. The Demiurge saw it and was astonished, but submitted himself awe-stricken to the will of the superior deities. The Soter remained then a year upon the earth. The Jews, refusing to receive him, nailed his organ, the psychical Messiah, to a cross; but his sufferings were only apparent sufferings, since the Demiurge had supplied him in his origin with an ethereal and only seemingly material body. In consequence of the work of the Ano-Soter the Pneumatical natures by means of the Gnosis taught by him, but the Psychical natures by means of Pistis, attain unto perfection after their kind. When once everything pneumatical and psychical which was bound up in matter, has been freed from it, the course of the world has reached its end and the longed-for time of Achamoth’s marriage will have come. Accompanied by myriads of his angels, the Soter leads the noble sufferer into the Pleroma. The pneumatical natures follow her, and as the Soter is married to Achamoth, the angels are married to them. The Demiurge goes with his tried and redeemed saints into the Τόπος τῆς μεσότητος. But from the depths of the Hyle breaks forth a hidden fire which utterly consumes the Hylic natures and the Hyle itself.[40]