By Water & Blood

Sabaoth and the Hebrew names of God (Ἰαβέ)

5. These people say, as I have already shown above, that the devil is the son of the seventh authority—that is, of Sabaoth. They say that Sabaoth is the God of the Jews, and that the devil is his wicked son, who is on the earth and sets himself against his own father.

And they say that his father is neither of that sort, nor again the incomprehensible God whom they call Father, but that he belongs to a left-hand authority.

They also tell another myth: that the devil came to Eve and joined with her as a man with a woman, and begot from her both Cain and Abel.

Therefore, they say, the one rose against the other because of the jealousy they had toward each other—not because Abel somehow pleased God, as the truth has it, but because, wandering into another story, they say that both were in love with their own sister, and for that reason Cain rose against Abel and killed him. For they claim that by nature they were born of the seed of the devil, as I said before.

And when they wish to deceive people they bring witnesses from the divine books, as I have also said in another heresy: that the Savior said to the Jews, “You are of Satan,” and “When he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own, because his father also was a liar.”

They say this so that they may claim Cain is of the devil, since it is said that he was a murderer from the beginning—

—so as to show that his father is the devil, and that the devil’s father is the lying ruler, whom the foolish blaspheme against their own heads by saying that he is Sabaoth,

supposing that “Sabaoth” is the proper name of some god—though already in the earlier heresies I have treated at length the interpretation of Sabaoth and of other designations: Eli and Elohim, El and Shaddai, Elyon and Rabboni, Yah and Adonai and Ἰαβέ (Iabe),

since all of them are designations of praise when interpreted, and are not, so to speak, fixed proper names of the Godhead—and these too will be set down here in translation:

El means “God”; Elohim, “God forever”; Eli, “my God”; Shaddai, “the Sufficient One”; Rabboni, “the Lord”; Yah, “Lord”; Adonai, “the Lord who is”; Ἰαβέ (Iabe) means “He who was and is, the One who forever is,” as he interprets for Moses, “He who is has sent me; you shall say to them”; Elyon means “Highest”; and Sabaoth is interpreted “of powers.” So “Lord of Sabaoth” is “Lord of the powers.”

For wherever Scripture says the name Sabaoth, “Lord” is joined to it. It does not simply say, “Sabaoth said to me,” or “Sabaoth spoke,” but at once “Lord of Sabaoth.” So the Hebrew says “Adonai Sabaoth,” which is interpreted “Lord of the powers.”