Note 240 — Chapter VIII · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE OPHITES

Unless we take the ten circles as including the three gates of Horaios, Ailoaios, and Astaphaios. In this case, Jaldabaoth and his first three sons would alone form the higher part of the planetary world. This is unlikely, but if it were so, there would be an additional reason for calling Jaldabaoth, as does Irenaeus, a “fourth number.” Theodore Bar Khôni, who wrote in the viiith century (see Chapter XIII, infra), in his notice of the Ophites gives the number of these heavens as ten. See Pognon, Coupes de Khouabir, Paris, 1898, p. 213.