Bonner, SMA – PDF, 137.

Astaphaios the fifth instead of the seventh place,⁶² describes Ialdabaoth as λεοντοειδής. The context shows that he means λέοντος πρόσωπον ἔχων, “lion-faced.”⁶³

The lion-headed demon may therefore be accepted as Ialdabaoth; yet without that name there would be nothing to mark the figure as Gnostic. Of the many lion-headed figures that occur on magical amulets, I know of no other that can be safely called Gnostic. Their radiate heads, sometimes further adorned with a disk, indicate that they are either solar deities, probably aspects of the sun-god Horus, or else subsidiary solar demons. Among their attributes staff and situla appear, but so do swords, caduceus, scepters of various forms, orb, and whip. It is evident that the Ophite Gnostics did not invent the type of the Brummer gem, but took it over from Egyptian paganism.

The name Ααριηλ remains to be explained. The doubling of the alpha may have been due to the lapidary's carelessness, or he may have repeated it on purpose, because he saw that he had placed the first alpha too near the tip of the staff held by Ialdabaoth. There is no other instance of a doubled alpha in the Greek and Coptic passages where the word occurs, nor is there in the Hebrew original an internal guttural, which would account for two alphas with intervening hiatus, as in Aaron. The name Ariel does not occur in the Ophite tradition reported by Irenaeus and Origen. In Hippolytus' account of the Peratai, another branch of anonymous Gnosticism, Ariel is “the third archon of the winds,”⁶⁴ and in the Coptic Gnostic work Pistis Sophia the name is given to a demon of punishment in Amente, the Egyptian Hades.⁶⁵ In the gold magical lamina of Athens it is simply an angel name, grouped with Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, and a few others.⁶⁶ Ialdabaoth also plays a different part in Coptic writings from that assigned him in the Ophite system. In one passage of Pistis Sophia he is a lion-faced archon of Chaos,⁶⁷ in several others he is an avenging demon like Ariel.⁶⁸ In the Second Book of Jeû he is an archon of the third Aeon, one of a series before all of whom the soul must pass in its way to salvation.⁶⁹

Despite these different uses of the names Ialdabaoth and Ariel, there is no reason to think that the amulet shows a confusion of two systems. The presence of the name Ariel in conjunction with Ialdabaoth can be best explained by its Hebrew meaning, which, according to some authorities, is “Lion of God.”⁷⁰ It seems most likely, therefore, that Ariel is here only a

⁶² Contra Celsum 6, 31 (p. 101, 22, ed. Koetschau). The name Adonaios seems to have been omitted accidentally from the list in 31, but it appears in 32 between Sabaoth and Eloaios; see Koetschau's note on p. 101, 21.

⁶³ Contra Celsum 6, 30 (p. 100, 5–22; p. 101, 11).

⁶⁴ Hippolytus Elench., 5, 14, 5 (p. 109, 15).

⁶⁵ Pistis Sophia, transl. by C. Schmidt, p. 165, 7, 16, 32; p. 247, 25.

⁶⁶ IG IX, 2, No. 232, 27, 29.

⁶⁷ P. 28, 17–19.

⁶⁸ E.g. p. 166, 15, 21.

⁶⁹ Transl. by C. Schmidt (in same volume with Pistis Sophia), p. 322, 32–40.

⁷⁰ See W. Gesenius, Hebr. Handwörterbuch, sub voce. There are, however, other interpretations. In Ezekiel 43, 15, it is “altar hearth,” and Jastrow, Dict. of Targumim and Talmud, renders it “Divine Light,” apparently with special reference to Isaiah 29, 1.

<<previous     next>>