THE SECOND TREATISE OF THE GREAT SETH
when it saw the likeness of the image, since it was mixed. And I was the one who was in it, not resembling him who was in it previously. For he was a worldly man, but I, I am from above the heavens. I did not refuse them, on the one hand, and I became Christ. But on the other, I did not reveal myself to them in the love which was coming forth from me. I was revealing that I am a stranger to the regions below. There was a great disturbance in the whole earthly region, with confusion and flight, and (in) the plan of the archons. And some were persuaded, when they saw the acts of power which were being accomplished by me. And they flee, namely all these who are descended by race from the one who fled from the throne to the Sophia of Hope—since she had previously given indication concern ing us and all those who were with me— these of the race of Adonaios. Yet others fled as though (sent) from the World Ruler and those with him, and brought every punishment upon me. And there was a flight of their mind about what counsel they would take concerning me, thinking that the(ir) Greatness is (the) All, and speaking lying witness against the Man also and the whole greatness of the assembly. It was not possible for them to know who the Father of truth is, the Man of the greatness. And these took the name because of �pollution� and ignorance—which (is) a burning and a ves sel which they created for destruction of Adam, which they had made in order to cover up those who are equally theirs. But they, the archons belonging to the place of Yaldabaoth, lay bare the circuit of the angels. This is what humanity was going around seeking because they did not know the Man of truth. For Adam appeared to them, the one whom they had fashioned. And a disturbance of fear occurred throughout their entire dwell
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ing, lest perhaps the surrounding angels stand against them. For on account of those who were offering (him) praise I died, though not in reality, because their archangel was vain. And then a voice of the World Ruler came to the angels “I am God and there is no other beside me.”1But I laughed with joy when I considered his conceit. And he kept saying all the more, “Who is Man?”2 And the entire army of his angels who had seen Adam and his dwelling were laughing at his smallness. And in this way their thought came to be removed away from the Greatness of the heavens, who is the Man of truth, whose name they saw because he is in the smallness of a dwelling place. Since they are foolish in the senselessness of their vain thought, namely their laughter, it became defilement for them. The whole greatness of the Fatherhood of the Spirit was resting in its places, and I was with him, since I have a thought of a single emanation from the eternal ones and the unknowable ones, undefiled and immeas urable. I placed the small Ennoia in the world, having disturbed them and fright ened the whole multitude of the angels and their ruler. And I examined them all with burning and fire on account of my thought. And each of their activities they did on account of me. And trouble and fighting arose around the Seraphim and Cherubim, since their glory will perish, and the disturbance which is around Adonaios this side and that, and (around) their dwelling—(reaching) to the World Ruler and the one who said “Let us seize him.” Others again (said), “The counsel shall not come to be.” For Adonaios knows me because of Hope. And I was in the mouths of lions. And (as for) the counsel which they planned
1
Isa 45:5–6
2
Ps 8:4.