LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 443
dark power, which it possessed from the mind. The mind went into the midst
of the power—this was the middle region of nature.^18THE LIGHT OF THE SPIRIT IS
IN THE CONFINES OF NATURE"The spirit of light, when the mind burdened him, was astonished. And the
force of his astonishment cast off the burden. And it returned to its heat. It put
on the light of the spirit. And when nature moved away from the power of the
light of the spirit, the burden returned. And the astonishment of the light
again cast off the burden. It stuck to the cloud of the hymen.^19 And all the
clouds of darkness cried out, they who had separated from Hades, because of
the alien power.
"This is the spirit of light who has come in them. And by the will of the
majesty the spirit gazed up at the infinite light, that his light may be pitied and
the likeness may be brought up from Hades. And when the spirit had looked,
I flowed out—I, the son of the majesty—like a wave of light and like a whirl-
wind of the immortal spirit. And I blew from the cloud of the hymen upon the
astonishment of the unconceived spirit. The cloud separated and cast light
upon the clouds. These separated so that the spirit might return. Because of
this the mind took shape. Its rest was shattered. For the hymen of nature was
a cloud that cannot be grasped; it is a great fire. Similarly, the afterbirth of na-
ture is the cloud of silence; it is an august fire. And the power that was mixed
with the mind—it, too, was a cloud of nature that was joined with the dark-
ness that had aroused nature to unchastity. And the dark water was a frightful
cloud. And the root of nature, which was below, was crooked, since it is bur-
densome and harmful. The root was blind to the bound light, which was un-
fathomable because it had many appearances.
DERDEKEAS APPEALS ON BEHALF OF THE SPIRIT
"I had pity on the light of the spirit that the mind had received. I returned to
my position to pray to the exalted, infinite light that the power of the spirit- Through the intercourse of darkness and nature, mind enters into nature, producing aston-
ishment in the light from the spirit that is there. - The image of light hidden in a cloud also appears as Yaldabaoth in the Secret Book of John.