Forerunners and rivals of Christianity : $b being studies in religious history from 330 B.C. to 330 A.D., Vol. 2 (of 2)Legge, Francis
Religion
Forerunners and rivals of Christianity : $b being studies in religious history from 330 B.C. to 330 A.D., Vol. 2 (of 2)
Legge, Francis
Christianity and other religions; Religions
This Adamas seems to be an essentially evil power, who wages useless
war against the Light on the entry of Jesus into his realm (p. 25,
Copt.). His seat is plainly the Twelve Aeons or Zodiac (p. 157,
Copt.), and it is said in the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος that his “kingdom”
is in the τοποι κεφαλης αἰωνων or Places of the head of the Aeons and
is opposite the place of the Virgin of Light (p. 336, Copt.). In the
second part of the same document (_i.e._ the μ. τ. σ.) it is said that
the rulers of Adamas rebelled, persisting in the act of copulation
(συνουσία) and begetting “Rulers and Archangels and Angels and
Ministers (λειτουργοί) and Decans” (Δεκανοί), and that thereupon Jeû
went forth from the Place of the Right and “bound them in Heimarmene
and the Sphere.” We further learn that half the Aeons headed by
Jabraoth, who is also once mentioned in the _Pistis Sophia_ proper (p.
128, Copt., and again in the Bruce Papyrus, Amélineau, p. 239), were
consequently transferred to another place, while Adamas, now for the
first time called Sabaoth Adamas, with the unrepentant rulers are
confined in the Sphere to the number of 1800, over whom 360 other
rulers bear sway, over whom again are set the five planets Saturn,
Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter (pp. 360, 361, Copt.). All this
seems to me to be later than the _Pistis Sophia_ proper, to have been
written at a time when belief in astrology was more rife than in
Hadrian’s reign, and to owe something to Manichaean influence. The
original Adamas, the persecutor of Pistis Sophia herself, seems
identifiable with the Diabolos or Cosmocrator of Valentinus, in which
case we may perhaps see in the “Great Propator” a merely stupid and
ignorant power like the Jaldabaoth of the Ophites and their
successors. See p. 163 _infra_.
Footnote 523:
p. 145, Copt. So Irenaeus in his account of the Valentinian doctrines,
Bk I. c. 1, p. 12 _sqq._ I suppose there is an allusion to this in the
remark of Jesus to Mary that a year is as a day (p. 243, Copt.). But
all the astrology of the time seems to have divided the astronomical
day not into 24, but into 12 hours. It was the same with the
Manichaeans. See Chavannes and Pelliot, “Un Traité manichéen retrouvé
en Chine,” _Journal Asiatique_, série X, t. XVIII. (Nov.-Dec. 1911),
p. 540, n. 4.
Footnote 524:
But curiously enough, not the “souls” of fish. So in the Middle Ages,
the Manichaeans of Languedoc did not allow their “Perfects” to partake
of animal food nor even of eggs, but allowed them fish, because they
said these creatures were not begotten by copulation. See Schmidt,
_Hist. des Cathares_, Paris, 1843. Is this one of the reasons why
Jesus is called Ἰχθύς?
Footnote 525:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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