LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 463and your guilelessness, Strophaias,
and you, Chelkeak,
and you, Chelkea,
and Chelke and Elaios,
you are the immortal testimony.
I testify to you,
spark, the unquenchable one,
who is an eye of heaven and a voice of light,
and Sophaia, and Saphaia, and Saphaina,
and the righteous spark,
and faith, the first and the last,
and the upper air and the lower air,
and all the powers and the authorities
that are in the world.
And you, impure light,
and you also, east, and west, and south, and north,
you are the zones of the inhabited world.
And you also, Moluchtha and Essoch,
you are the root of evil
and every work and impure effort of nature."These are the things that I completed while bearing witness. I am Shem.
On the day that I was to come forth from the body, when my thought re-
mained in the body, I awoke as if from a deep sleep. And when I arose as it were
from the burden of my body, I said, "Just as nature became old, so is it also
in the day of human beings. Blessings on those who knew, when they slept, in
what power their thought rested."
And when the Pleiades separated, I saw clouds, which I shall pass by. For
the cloud of the spirit is like a pure beryl. And the cloud of the hymen is like a
shining emerald. And the cloud of silence is like a flourishing amaranth. And
the cloud of the middle region is like a pure jacinth.
"And when the righteous one appeared in nature,^69 then, when nature was
angry, she felt hurt, and she granted to Morphaia to visit heaven. The righteous
one visits during twelve periods that he may visit them during one period, so
that his time may be completed quickly and nature may become idle.
- Here, abruptly, Derdekeas seems to be speaking once again.