Note 465 — Chapter X · THE SYSTEM OF THE PISTIS SOPHIA AND ITS RELATED TEXTS[459]

Cf. the ἐσώτερον τοῦ καταπετάσματος “within the veil” of Heb. vi. 19. For other instances of its use in this sense see Crum, Cat. of the Coptic MSS. in the Brit. Mus. p. 255, n. 1; and Clem. Alex. Strom. Bk V. c. 6. For the dove, Mr F. C. Conybeare, in a paper on the subject read before the Society of Historical Theology in Dec. 1892 (see Academy of 3rd Dec. 1892), said that the dove was “the recognised symbol of the Holy Spirit or Logos in the allegorizing theology of the Alexandrine Jews at the beginning of the 1st century A.D.,” and quoted several passages from Philo in support. Cf. Origen, cont. Cels. Bk I. c. 31. But it was also the emblem, perhaps the totem-animal, of the great Asiatic goddess who, under the name of Astarte or Aphrodite, was worshipped as the Mater viventium or “Mother of all Living,” with whose worship the serpent was also connected. It was doubtless to this that the text “Be ye wise as serpents, harmless as doves” refers. Both serpents and doves figure largely in the Mycenaean and Cretan worship of the goddess. See Ronald Burrows, Discoveries in Crete, 1907, pp. 137, 138, and Index for references. In later Greek symbolism the dove was sacred to the infernal Aphrodite or Persephone whose name of Φερρεφάττα or Φερσεφάττα has been rendered “she who bears the dove.” See de Chanot, “Statues Iconiques de Chypre” in Gazette Archéologique, 1878, p. 109.