Note 222 — Chapter VIII · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE OPHITES

Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk V. c. 8, p. 159, Cruice, says that the “nothing” said in John i. 3, 4 to have been made without the Word is in fact this world. Τὸ δὲ “οὐδέν, ὃ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ γέγονεν, ὁ κόσμος ἰδικός ἐστιν · γέγονεν γὰρ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ὑπὸ τρίτου καὶ τετάρτον.” “But the ‘nothing’ which came into being without Him is the world of form; for it came into being without Him by the Third and Fourth”—these last being evidently Sophia and Jaldabaoth respectively.