Note 201 — BOOK VI SIMON MAGUS, VALENTINUS, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS

καὶ ἦν ἡ συλλαβὴ αὐτοῦ στοιχείων τεσσάρων, “and taken together it was of four letters.” He is punning here on the double sense of στοιχεῖον as meaning both “letter” and “element.” In the Magic Papyrus of Leyden which calls itself “Monas, the 8th (book?) of Moses,” there is a curious account of how the light and the rest of creation were brought into being by the successive words or rather the laughter of the Creator. Cf. Leemans, Papyri Græci, etc., Leyden, 1885, II, pp. 83 ff.