Note 131 — BOOK VI SIMON MAGUS, VALENTINUS, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS

The “below,” Ὑποκάτω, and “above,” ὑπεράνω, seem to have become inverted; but as I am not sure whether this is the scribe’s mistake or not, I have left the text as it is. If we consider (as we must) that the heaven of Sophia is the highest and those of the seven worlds below it like steps of a ladder, we have the conception of Sophia, her son Jaldabaoth, and his six sons, current among the Ophites as shown in Book V above. The figure of Sophia as a “day” is at once an instance of the curious habit among the Gnostics of confusing time and space, and an allusion to the O.T. name of “Ancient of Days.”