LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 415
recalling childbirth, emerges the demiurge Yaldabaoth, who is expelled, the
text emphasizes, like an aborted fetus (as in an interpretation of the Secret
Book of John). He establishes his kingdom of chaos, complete with the pow-
ers of the world, and brags that he is god alone. Of course he is wrong, and one
of his sons, Sabaoth by name, is exalted above him with Sophia in the seventh
heaven, where he proceeds to create an assembly of angels, a firstborn named
Israel, and Jesus the anointed. Father Yaldabaoth, in turn, counters by creating
death. Thus unfolds the gloomy process of mortal dissolution in the cosmos,
of life leading inexorably to death.
This story, familiar from other gnostic accounts of the creation of the
world and people in the world, is told with reference to the opening chapters
of Genesis from the Hebrew Bible. In a manner that recalls the Secret Book of
John and the three divisions of humankind in Valentinian texts, Adam is un-
derstood in three ways, as spiritual Adam, psychical Adam, and earthly Adam.
Also inserted into the account are asides on Eros, the Greek god of love, along
with Psyche (soul), lover of Eros, and Egyptian phoenixes, water animals, and
bulls, and all of these are part of the gnostic cosmology. Innocent spirits come
to awaken people to gnosis, as does Jesus, so that finally the powers of the
present age will collapse, and light and life will triumph. As the text concludes,
"it is necessary that everyone enter the place from which he has come. For
each one by his deeds and his gnosis will reveal his nature."
On the Origin of the World is untitled in the manuscripts that have
survived, but the present descriptive title is often used. The text was almost
certainly written in Greek before being translated into Coptic. Hans-Gebhard
Bethge suggests, "The work was probably composed in Alexandria at the end
of the third century A.D. or beginning of the fourth."^1 The text is in a learned,
even scholarly style and contains etymological and bibliographical references.
Most of the works cited in the text are unknown to us. Exceptions to this may
include books of Noraia (or Oraia), which may refer to the Thought of Norea
in the Nag Hammadi library, Codex IX,2, and the Archangelic Book of the
Prophet Moses, which may refer to a text from the Greek magical papyri.
- Hans-Gebhard Bethge in Layton, Nag Hammadi Codex 11,2-7,2.12.