Note 545 — Chapter X · THE SYSTEM OF THE PISTIS SOPHIA AND ITS RELATED TEXTS[459]

That the Valentinians considered the Dodecad (and a fortiori the Decad) as having a collective entity, and as it were a corporate existence, seems plain from what Hippolytus says in narrating the opinions of Marcus: ταῦτα γὰρ δώδεκα ζώδια φανερώτατα τὴν τοῦ Ἀνθρώπου καὶ τῆς Ἐκκλησίας θυγατέρα δωδεκάδα ἀποσκιάζειν λέγουσι. “For they say that these 12 signs of the Zodiac most clearly shadow forth the Dodecad who is the daughter of Anthropos and Ecclesia” (Hipp. op. cit. Bk VI. c. 54, p. 329, Cruice). And again (loc. cit. p. 331, Cruice): ἔτι μὴν καὶ τὴν γῆν εἰς δώδεκα κλίματα διῃρῆσθαι φάσκοντες, καὶ καθ’ ἒν ἕκαστον κλίμα, ἀνὰ μίαν δύναμιν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανῶν κατὰ κάθετον ὑποδεχομένην, καὶ ὁμοούσια τίκτουσαν τέκνα τῇ καταπεμπούσῃ κατὰ τὴν ἀπόρροιαν δυνάμει, τύπον εἶναι τῆς ἄνω δωδεκάδος. “These are also they who assert that the earth is divided into twelve climates, and receives in each climate one special power from the heavens and produces children resembling the power thus sent down by emanation, being thus a type of the Dodecad above.” The doctrine of correspondences or, as it was called in the Middle Ages, of “signatures” is here most clearly stated. In all this the Valentinian teaching was doubtless under the influence of the ancient Egyptian ideas as to the paut neteru or “company of the gods,” as to which see Maspero’s essay Sur L’Ennéade quoted above.