130 LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM
So adultery and pederasty were born.
Since then evil and good have ruled people.
It began from a single source. When the father
ascended to the Good, he showed the way
for those who wish to rise, and by leaving Edem
he began the evil for his spirit in people.BARUCH SEARCHES FOR A SAVIOR
Baruch went to Moses and through him spoke
to the children of Israel to turn them back to the Good,
but Edem's third angel Naas barred his way.
Through the soul Edem gave him and Moses
and all people, Naas expunged Baruch's orders
and only Naas's commandments were heard,
and so soul was set against spirit
and spirit set against soul.
The soul is Edem while the spirit is Elohim,
and each is in both man and woman.
Then Baruch was sent down to the prophets
so that the spirit living in people might hear
and flee from Edem and her corrupt creation
as once father Elohim fled. But Naas, using
his old tactics, dragged the father's spirit down
into the soul of people he seduced, who scorned
Baruch's words in Elohim's commandments.
Then Baruch chose a prophet from the uncircumcised,
Herakles, and sent him to subdue the twelve angels
of Edem,^27 and free the father from the twelve evil
angels of the creation.^28 These are the twelve labors
in which Herakles contended, from first to last,
with the lion, the hydra, the boar, and the rest.
And they are names of nations given to them- The allusion is to the twelve labors that Herakles must perform in order to attain immortality.
- This passage is translated by Robert Haardt as "the twelve angels of the Creation of Evil."