Sabaoth (Gnosticism)


In some Gnostic writings Sabaoth is one of the sons of Ialdabaoth. According to Hypostasis of the Archons and On the Origin of the World, Sabaoth dethrones his father Ialdabaoth. In both accounts, Sabaoth repents, when he hears the voice of Sophia, condemns his father and his mother and afterthat is enthroned by Sophia in the seventh heaven. Some Church Father report on the other hand, that Gnostics identified Sabaoth with Ialdaboath himself.

Name

The name Sabaoth appears in the Old Testament in reference to an army. In the First Book of Samuel, the name is used as a name of God. In Gnostic texts, the name should evidently rendered as "over all the forces ".

In Gnostic sources

Sabaoth and his beneficial functions are associated with Jupiter, while Ialdabaoth with Saturn and the forces of evil. After he dethrones his father, he is associated with the sphere of Saturn. Jan Zandee interprets Sabaoth's role as the opposite of Ialdabaoth. They represent the choice psychics have between both; Ialdabaoth representing evil and Sabbaoth representing good. Thrown into Tartarus, Ialdabaoth envies his son, whereupon his envy takes on shape and becomes death. From death, envy, wrath, weeping, roar, loud shouting, sobber and grief emerge. Many of these emotions seem to be related to lament during funerals. As mourning was controversial among early Christians, associated with Satan, they might intentionally display disapproval about lamenting the dead and advocates control of emotions. However, this is not explicitdly spelled out and some emotions, such as anger for the rulers of darkness, are approved, thus differing from the Stoicism. After Ialdabaoth brought death into the world, Sabaoth creates a host of cherubim, a notion also appearing in Jewish Merkabah mysticism.

Non-Gnostic sources

, the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus at the end of the 4th century, reports that Severian Encratites believed Sabaoth and Ialdabaoth to be one and the same, the God of law, and therefore evil. Celsus, a 2nd-century Greek philosopher, identified Ialdabaoth with Cronus and Sabaoth and Adonai with Zeus. Origen denies the equation. That such identifications appears within Gnostic documents themselves, has not been proven.