We can now resume the narrative of the book which has been interrupted in order that a description of the universe through which Jesus passes on His ascension might be given. He tells His disciples that clothing Himself in His third or least glorious “vesture,” He flew up to the firmament, the gates of which opened spontaneously to give Him passage[528]. Entering in, the Archons there were all struck with terror at the light of His vesture, and wondered how the “Lord of the Universe[529]” passed through them unnoticed on his descent to earth[530]. The same scenes are repeated when He enters the Sphere of Destiny, and again when He reaches the Twelve Aeons or Zodiac of fixed stars. Before leaving the Twelve Aeons, Jesus takes away from its rulers a third part of their power, and alters their course, so that its direction is changed every six months. This He does, as He tells His disciples, for a double reason. He thereby prevents the Aeons from devouring their own matter, and so delaying the redemption of the light, and He further hinders their movements from being used by mankind in the divination and magic which the sinning angels taught when “they came down”—a clear reference to the story in Genesis of the fall of the angels as amplified in the _Book of Enoch_. This alteration, He declares, was foreshadowed by the text “I have shortened the times for my elect’s sake[531].” Passing upward to the Thirteenth Aeon, Jesus tells His disciples that he found Pistis Sophia dwelling alone in a place immediately below it, and He here makes a long digression to recount her history. She is, as has been said above, one of the twenty-four invisible but material emanations projected by the Great Unseen Forefather and his consort Barbelo, and formerly dwelt with her own partner, whose name is not mentioned, in the Thirteenth Aeon[532]. But one day happening to look forth from her place and beholding the light of the Treasure-house, she longed to ascend towards it and began to sing praises to it. This angered exceedingly the Authades or Proud God, the Third Triple Power or chief of the Thirteenth Aeon, who had already, as has been said, shown his disobedience in refusing to give up his light. Out of envy and jealousy of Pistis Sophia, he sends forth from himself a great power with a lion’s face who is “half flame and half darkness” and bears the name of Jaldabaoth, which we have met with before among the Ophites[533]. This Jaldabaoth is sent below into the regions of Chaos, the unformed and shapeless darkness which is either below or surrounds the earth[534], and when Pistis Sophia sees him shining there, she mistakes his light for the light of the Treasure-house, and, leaving her consort, plunges downwards towards it. She is instantly seized by Jaldabaoth and other wicked powers sent forth by the Proud God, and grievously tormented with the object of taking from her her light, so that she may never again be able to return to her own place. In this