ully as
follows:

Purusha (the Spirit) having divided the egg (the ideal universe in
germ), on his issuing forth in the beginning, desiring a place of
motion (Ayanam) for himself, pure he created the waters pure.

In the _Vishnu Purana_, again, Brahma, speaking to the Celestials, says:

I, Mahadeva (Shiva), and you all are but Narayana.[128]

The beautiful symbol of the Divine Spirit moving and brooding over the
Primordial Waters of Space--Waters which as differentiation proceeds
become more and more turbid--is too graphic to require further
explanation. It is too hallowed by age and sanctified by the consent of
humanity to meet with less than our highest admiration.

Dissertation on our Diagram could be pursued to almost any length, but
sufficient has already been said to show the points of correspondence
between the ideas ascribed to Simon and universal Theosophy.

Let us now enquire into the part played by Epinoia, the Divine Thought,
in the cosmic process, reserving the part played by her in the human
drama to when we come to treat of the soteriology of Simon. We have
evidently here a version of the great Sophia-mythus, which plays so
important a part in all Gnostic systems. On the one hand the energizings
of the mother-side of Divine Nature, on the other the history of the
evolution of the Divine Monad, shut into all forms throughout the
elemental spheres, throughout the lower kingdoms, up to the man stage.

The mystery of Sophia-Epinoia is great indeed, insoluble in its origins;
for how does that which is Divine descend below and create Powers which
imprison their parent? It is the mystery of the universe and of man,
insoluble for all but the Logos itself, by whose self-sacrifice Sophia,
the Soul, is finally freed from her bonds.

Epinoia is a Power of many names. She is called the Mother, or
All-Mother, Mother of the Living or Shining Mother, the Celestial Eve;
the Power Above; the Holy Spirit, for the Spiritus in some systems is a
feminine power (in a symbolical sense, of course), pre-eminently in the
_Codex Nazaraeus_, the scripture of the Mandaites. Again she is called
She of the Left-hand, as opposed to the Christos, He of the Right-hand;
the Man-woman; Prouneikos; Matrix; Paradise; Eden; Achamoth; the Virgin;
Barbelo; Daughter of Light; Merciful Mother; Consort of the Masculine
One; Revelant of the Perfect Mysteries; Perfect Mercy; Revelant of the
Mysteries of the Whole Magnitude;