The Gnostics and Their Remains

result of a revolution in heaven, called the "Fall of the Seven Kings," from whom * the Creator, as a punishment, extracted the principle of good and light, and bestowed it upon the inhabitants of the three superior spheres.

This last notion is common to many forms of Gnosticism. The Ophites make Achamoth extract from Ildabaoth and his six sons the inherent ray of Divine Light, in order to bestow it upon Man. Again, the Pistis-Sophia represents two great angels, Melchisedech and Zorocothora (gatherer of light) making their annual rounds through the rebellious "Æons of the sphere" (zodiacal signs), and squeezing out of them all the rays of Divine Light that are still left in their composition, which having been all extracted, the fulness of time and the kingdom of heaven are come; and so, according to the Kabbala, when the contest shall have endured for the space ordained from the beginning of the world, the Supreme shall deliver the spirits in Asiah from their material envelope, shall strengthen the feeble ray of his light that is within them, and shall establish its pristine harmony throughout all Creation.

The Human Soul is composed of all parts borrowed from each of these four worlds. From Asiah it gets the Nephesh, or seat of the physical appetites; from Jezirah the Ruach, or seat of the passions, from Briah the Neshamah or reason, and from Aziluth it obtains the Chaiah, or principle of spiritual life. This looks like an adaptation of the Platonic theory of the soul's obtaining its respective faculties from the Planets in its downward progress through their spheres. But the Pistis-Sophia, with its accustomed boldness, puts this theory into a much more poetical

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