Chapter XXIII.—The Relative Positions of the Pleroma. The Region of Achamoth, and the Creation of the Demiurge. The Addition of Fire to the Various Elements and Bodies of Nature.

Their most eminent powers, moreover, they confine within the following limits, as in a citadel. In the most elevated of all summits presides the tricenary Pleroma,^68366836    Above, in chap. viii., he has mentioned the Pleroma as “the fulness of the thirtyfold divinity.” Horos marking off its boundary line.  Beneath it, Achamoth occupies the intermediate space for her abode,^68376837    Metatur. treading down her son. For under her comes the Demiurge in his own Hebdomad, or rather the Devil, sojourning in this world in common with ourselves, formed, as has been said above, of the same elements 515and the same body, out of the most profitable calamities of Sophia; inasmuch as, (if it had not been for these,) our spirit would have had no space for inhaling and ejecting^68386838    Reciprocandi. air—that delicate vest of all corporeal creatures, that revealer of all colours, that instrument of the seasons—if the sadness of Sophia had not filtered it, just as her fear did the animal existence, and her conversion the Demiurge himself. Into all these elements and bodies fire was fanned.  Now, since they have not as yet explained to us the original sensation of this^68396839    Fire. in Sophia, I will on my own responsibility^68406840    Ego. conjecture that its spark was struck out of the delicate emotions^68416841    Motiunculis. of her (feverish grief). For you may be quite sure that, amidst all her vexations, she must have had a good deal of fever.^68426842    Febricitasse.