Note 157 — Chapter VIII · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE OPHITES

This Divine Family or Council must have been an old idea in post-exilic Judaism. Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph. c. 126, says that Christ is called the “Angel of the Great Council” by Ezekiel, but the expression is not to be found in the A.V. Origen, cont. Cels. Bk V. c. 53, also speaks of a prophecy in which Jesus was described as the “Angel of the Great Council, because he announced to men the great counsel of God”—a pun which curiously enough is the same in Greek as in English. The Jews of Elephantine worshipped in their temple a god and a goddess who were looked upon as the assessors, if the inferiors, of Yahweh (see n. 4, p. 32, supra). In the Talmud, it is said that God has an upper or celestial familia or tribunal without consulting which he does nothing, and which is indicated by the “holy ones” of Dan. iv. 17. See Taylor, Pirke-Aboth, Cambridge, 1877, II. p. 43, n. 7. The expression “Angel of the Great Council” recurs in the Gnostic epitaph from the Via Latina given later (Chapter IX).