these, the only two named are “the Great Iao the Good[507],” spoken of in one passage as the Great Hegumen (or Leader) of the Middle[508]. He, too, has a minister called “the Little Iao” who supplies the “power” which, with the soul of Elijah, animated the body of John the Baptist[509]. He also has twelve deacons or ministers under him[510]. The other great Leader of the Middle is the Virgin of Light[511]. She it is who chooses the bodies into which the souls of men shall be put at conception, in discharge of which duty she sends the soul of Elijah into the body of John the Baptist, her colleague Iao’s share in the work being apparently limited to providing the “power” accompanying it. She has among her assistants seven other virgins of light[512], after whose likeness Mary the Mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene are said to have been made, and we also read of “receivers” who are under her orders[513]. The light of the Sun “in its true shape” is said to be in her place[514], and there is some reason for thinking that she is to be considered as the power which directs the material Sun, while her colleague Iao has the same office as regards the Moon[515]. We now come to the places of the left, the highest of which seems to be that which is called the Thirteenth Aeon. This is a part of the universe the existence of which Jesus conceals from His disciples until He receives his “vestures,” and there is much mystery as to its origin. It seems to have been governed in the first instance by a triad consisting of an unnamed power referred to as the Great Forefather or the Great Unseen One, a female power called Barbelo[516], and a second male called the Authades or Proud God[517] who plays a principal part in the episode of Pistis Sophia which forms the ostensible theme of the book. Of the Great Forefather, we are told nothing of importance, but what is said of the female power Barbelo bears out fully the remark which Hippolytus attributes to Valentinus that among the lesser powers or aeons the female merely projects the substance, while it is the male which gives form to it[518]. It is doubtless for this reason that it is from her that the body of Jesus is said to have come—i.e. that she provided the matter out of which it was formed in the first instance, and which had, as He says later in the present book, to be purged and cleansed by Himself[519]. She is also spoken of throughout as the origin of all the matter within the world of sense[520]. This triad, constantly referred to throughout the book as the Three Tridynami or Triple Powers, have put forth, before the story opens, twenty-four other powers arranged in twelve syzygies or pairs who are spoken of as the Twenty-four Unseen Ones, and who inhabit with them the Thirteenth Aeon. Only one of these is named and this is the inferior or female member of the last syzygy. She is named Pistis Sophia, and gives, as we have seen, her name to the book[521].