Mead's footnote sends the reader to Porphyry's Life of Plotinus "(c. xiv.)" for Nikotheos, named there "in close connection with Zoroaster". MacKenna's translation on this shelf places the passage in section 16, and shows what the footnote leaves out: Porphyry lists revelations under the names of Zoroaster, Zostrianus, Nikotheus, Allogenes and Mesus as the stock of sectaries who fooled others after fooling themselves, and whom Plotinus wrote against. Zosimus, writing at nearly the same date, treats Nikotheos as the one who alone knows the First Man's true name. The same name is revered on one side and dismissed on the other. Two books from Porphyry's list, Zostrianos and Allogenes, were recovered in Coptic among the Nag Hammadi codices found in 1945, long after Mead wrote.
Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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spiritual, has [also] both an authentic name and one for common use.1
NlKOTHEOS
12. His authentic [name], however, I know not, owing to the so long [lapse of time 2] ; for Nikotheos 3 who-is-not-to-be-found alone doth know these things.
1 irpo<n)yopiK6v, — this signifies generally the prcenomen as opposed to the notnen proper.
2 5t& rb TCUS, — lit. " because of the so long" ; otherwise I cannot translate the phrase. This would, then, presumably refer to the length of time since the physical tradition of the ancient Thoyth initiates had disappeared ; or the length of time the soul of Zosimus had been revolving in Genesis.
3 Lit. God- victor, — symbolizing the victory of the Inner God, or of a man who had raised himself to the status of a god. For Nikotheos, seethe Gnostic "Untitled Apocalypse" of the Codex Brucianus (C. Schmidt, Chios. Schrift. in kop. Sprach. aus d. 0. #., p. 285), p. 12a : " Nikotheos hath spoken of Him [namely, the Alone-begotten, — see ibid., p. 601], and seen Him ; for he is one [sc. of those who have seen Him face to face]. He [N.] said : * The Father exists exalted above all the perfect.3 He [N.] hath revealed the Invisible and the perfect Triple-power."
In the Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry (c. xiv.), among the list of " Gnostics " against whose views on Matter the great coryphaeus of Later Platonism wrote one of the books of his Enneads (II. ix.), there is mention of Nikotheos in close connection with Zoroaster and others (S. 603 ft). If we now turn to Schmidt's Plotins titellung zum Gnosticismus und kirchlichen Christentum (Leipzig, 1900), in which he has examined at length the matter of the treatise of Plotinus and the passage of Porphyry, we find him returning to the consideration of Nikotheos (pp. 58 ff.). Schmidt (p. 61) takes the "hidden Nikotheos" for a " heavenly being," indeed as identical with the Alone-begotten, and as, therefore, the revealer of Himself. This Alone-begotten is the "Light- Darkness" of p. 13a of the "Untitled Apocalypse" of C. B. In other words, Nikotheos seems to be a synonym of the Triumphant Christos. See R. Liechtenhan, Die Offeribarung in Gnosticismus (Gottingen, 1901), p. 31. So far for the inner meaning ; but is there possibly an outer one? As there was an apocalypse, for the words of Nikotheos are quoted, there was a seer, a prophet, a
But that for common use is Man (Phos),1 from which it follows that men are called photas.
FROM THE BOOK OF THE CHALDEANS
13.2 " When Light-Man (Phos) was in Paradise, exspiring 3 under the [presence of] Fate, they 4 persuaded Him to clothe himself in the Adam they had made, the [Adam] of Fate, him of the four elements, — as though [they said] being free from [her5] ills and free from their 6 activities.
" And He, on account of this ' freedom from ills/ did
Christos, who had seen and handed on. It is somewhat remarkable that one of the by-names given to Jesus (Jeschu) by Rabbinical theological controversy was Balaam (Bileam), meaning " Destroyer of the people." Is there, then, any connection between Nikotheos on the one hand and Niko-laos (the Greek equivalent of Balaam) on the other? There are, at any rate, many other parallels in the Talmud Jeschu-Stories of names of dishonour on the Rabbinical side equating with names of exalted honour on the Gnostic and Christian side. If so— dare we ask the question?—have we in the logos of Nikotheos a fragment from an " Apocalypse of Jesus " ?
Nay, may not Balaam-Niko-laos, — to take a lesson from the mystic word-play of the time,—" allegorically " have symbolized on the one hand the " victory of the many " (\a6s), and on the other the " Victor of the many," for " people " in Philo signifies the "many" as opposed to the "one'' "race" (ytvos\ which sums up all His " limbs " in the Christ ?
1 </><i>s, — according to the accenting of R., but <f>ws would mean
"Light."
2 This is evidently a quotation.
3 Reading ^lairv^^vos with the Codd., and not Smirveo/ieV^ with R. This means " exhaling his light. " In the Egypto-Gnostic tradition underlying the Pistis Sophia, it is the function of the Rulers of the Fate to " squeeze out " the light from the souls and to devour it, or absorb it into themselves.
4 The Rulers of the Fate. 6 Sc. Fate's.