At first sight, the _Pistis Sophia_ in this respect seems to be almost entirely an Ophite book. The Ineffable One, as has been said, is not to be distinguished from the Ophite Bythos, while “the First Mystery looking inward and outward” is a fairly close parallel to the First Man and the Son of Man of the Ophite system. The names Sabaoth, Iao, and Jaldabaoth also appear both here and with the Ophites, although the last-named power now occupies a greatly inferior position to that assigned to him by them, and from a merely ignorant power has now become an actively malignant one. The work assigned to Sophia Without in the older system is here taken in the Place of the Middle by the Virgin of Light, who is throughout the working agent in the salvation of mankind; but it should be noted that she here operates directly and not through a grosser power as with the Ophites. The idea of a female divinity ordering the affairs of men for their good as a mother with her children had already gained possession of the heathen world in the character of (the Greek) Isis, and in the hint here given as to the resemblance between her delegates and the Virgin Mary, we may see, perhaps, the road by which the Christian world travelled towards that conception of the Theotokos or Mother of God which played such an important part in its later creed. Among the powers inferior to her the names and places are changed, but the general arrangement remains nearly the same as with the Ophites, especially the Ophites of the diagram. The starry world in particular here comes much into evidence, and is given more important functions than in any other Gnostic system except the Ophite[541]. The “Gates” of the firmaments are met with both here and in the Ophite prayers or “defences” recorded by Origen[542], and an allusion put by this last into the mouth of Celsus and not otherwise explained, to “gates that open of their own accord,” looks as if Origen’s heathen adversary may himself have come across the story of the _Pistis Sophia_[543]. The general hostility of this starry world and its rulers towards mankind is a leading feature in both systems.