things, inasmuch as he is merely animal. Their mother dwells in that place which is above
the heavens, that is, in the intermediate abode; the Demiurge in the heavenly place, that is,
in the hebdomad; but the Cosmocrator in this our world. The corporeal elements of the
world, again, sprang, as we before remarked, from bewilderment and perplexity, as from a
more ignoble source. Thus the earth arose from her state of stupor; water from the agitation
caused by her fear; air from the consolidation of her grief; while fire, producing death and
corruption, was inherent in all these elements, even as they teach that ignorance also lay
concealed in these three passions.
5. Having thus formed the world, he (the Demiurge) also created the earthy [part of]
man, not taking him from this dry earth, but from an invisible substance consisting of fusible
and fluid matter, and then afterwards, as they define the process, breathed into him the an-
imal part of his nature. It was this latter which was created after his image and likeness. The
material part, indeed, was very near to God, so far as the image went, but not of the same
substance with him. The animal, on the other hand, was so in respect to likeness; and hence
his substance was called the spirit of life, because it took its rise from a spiritual outflowing.
After all this, he was, they say, enveloped all round with a covering of skin; and by this they
mean the outward sensitive flesh.
6. But they further affirm that the Demiurge himself was ignorant of that offspring of
his mother Achamoth, which she brought forth as a consequence of her contemplation of
those angels who waited on the Saviour, and which was, like herself, of a spiritual nature.
She took advantage of this ignorance to deposit it (her production) in him without his
knowledge, in order that, being by his instrumentality infused into that animal soul proceed-
ing from himself, and being thus carried as in a womb in this material body, while it
gradually increased in strength, might in course of time become fitted for the reception of
perfect rationality.85 Thus it came to pass, then, according to them, that, without any
knowledge on the part of the Demiurge, the man formed by his inspiration was at the same
time, through an unspeakable providence, rendered a spiritual man by the simultaneous
inspiration received from Sophia. For, as he was ignorant of his mother, so neither did he
recognise her offspring. This [offspring] they also declare to be the Ecclesia, an emblem of
the Ecclesia which is above. This, then, is the kind of man whom they conceive of: he has
his animal soul from the Demiurge, his body from the earth, his fleshy part from matter,
and his spiritual man from the mother Achamoth.
85 An account is here given of the infusion of a spiritual principle into mankind. The Demiurge himself could
give no more than the animal soul; but, unwittingly to himself, he was made the instrument of conveying that
spiritual essence from Achamoth, which had grown up within her from the contemplation of those angels who
accompanied the Saviour.
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Chapter V.—Formation of the Demiurge; description of him. He is the creator…