hence they declare material substance[1] had its beginning from ignorance and grief, and fear and bewilderment.
4. The Father afterwards produces, in his own image, by means of Monogenes, the above-mentioned Horos, without conjunction,[2] masculo-feminine. For they maintain that sometimes the Father acts in conjunction with Sige, but that at other times he shows himself independent both of male and female. They term this Horos both Stauros and Lytrotes, and Carpistes, and Horothetes, and Metagoges.[3] And by this Horos they declare that Sophia was purified and established, while she was also restored to her proper conjunction. For her enthymesis (or inborn idea) having been taken away from her, along with its supervening passion, she herself certainly remained within the Pleroma; but her enthymesis, with its passion, was separated from her by Horos, fenced[4] off, and expelled from that circle. This enthymesis was, no doubt, a spiritual substance, possessing some of the natural tendencies of an Æon, but at the same time shapeless and without form, because it had received nothing.[5] And on this account they say that it was an imbecile and feminine production.[6]
- ↑ "The reader will observe the parallel; as the enthymesis of Bythus produced intelligent substance, so the enthymesis of Sophia resulted in the formation of material substance."—Harvey.
- ↑ Some propose reading these words in the dative rather than the accusative, and thus to make them refer to the image of the Father.
- ↑ The meaning of these terms is as follows: Stauros means primarily a stake, and then a cross; Lytrotes is a Redeemer; Carpistes, according to Grabe, means an Emancipator, according to Neander a Reaper; Horothetes is one that fixes boundaries; and Metagoges is explained by Neander as being one that brings back, from the supposed function of Horos, to bring back all that sought to wander from the special grade of being assigned them.
- ↑ The common text has ἀποστερηθῆναι, was deprived; but Billius proposes to read ἀποσταυρωθῆναι, in conformity with the ancient Latin version, "crucifixam."
- ↑ That is, had not shared in any male influence, but was a purely female production.
- ↑ Literally "fruit." Harvey remarks on this expression, "that what we understand by emanations, the Gnostic described as spiritual fructifi-
