Middle Region
Next, after the region of the right, comes that of the middle (the topos meson), the spirits of which are specially entrusted with the guardianship of human souls. Among them the fourth book names (besides the Zarazaz or Maskelli, which probably belongs here,) the great Iao the Good, and the little Sabaoth the Good, to which the first book adds the little Iao. In this place of the midst the light-maiden (parthenos lucis) has her seat, and is the judge of souls, who either discloses for them the gates of the light-realm, or sends them back into earthly existence.
Under her are placed (according to the text of the later description) seven other light-maidens with their fifteen helpers (parastatai). In the topos Parthenou sun and moon also have their seats (the diskos solis and the diskos lunae), and thence transmit their light, obscured indeed by many veils (katapetasmata), into the lower realms of creation. The diskos solis is described in the fourth book as a great dragon carrying his tail in his mouth, and drawn by four great powers in the form of four white horses. The basis of the moon has the form of a ship drawn by two white cattle and steered from the stern by a boy; a male and a female dragon forming the rudder.
Read more about this topic: Pistis Sophia
Famous quotes containing the words middle and/or region:
“At middle night great cats with silver claws,
Bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls,
Came up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds
With long white bodies came out of the air
Suddenly, and ran at them and harried them.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“He was a superior man. He did not value his bodily life in comparison with ideal things. He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. For once we are lifted out of the trivialness and dust of politics into the region of truth and manhood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)