634 MANICHAEAN LITERATURE
they could vanquish it and didn't know that their plans
would crash down on their own heads.
There was a horde of angels in the land of light,
ready to pour out and break the father's enemy.
They were pleased to have the father's word
to rout those rebels who saw themselves exalted.
The angels were like a shepherd who sees
a lion padding near to destroy the fold,
who cunningly takes a lamb and sets it as a snare
to catch the lion. With a single lamb he saves
his fold, heals the lamb, and wounds the lion.
Such is the way of the father who sent forth his strong son
and made from himself his virgin armed
with five powers to fight the five abysses of the darkness.
When the watcher stood at the borders of light, he showed
them to the virgin who is his soul. In their abysses
they stirred, desiring her. They opened their mouth to swallow her.
He held her power fast. He spread her over them
like nets over fish. He had her rain down on them
like purified clouds of water. She stabbed inside them
like piercing lightning. She crept into
their inner parts. She bound them. They knew nothing.
When the first man finished his war, the father sent
his second son. He came, lifted his brother
out of the abyss. He made the whole world out of
that mixture of the light and darkness.
He spread all his powers of the abyss to ten heavens
and eight earths. He shut them up
into this cosmos and made it a prison for all
powers of darkness. It was also a place
of purification for the soul swallowed in them.
He established the sun and moon and set them high
