Yao
Yao is one of the three sons of Yaldabaoth in Sethian Gnosticism, as described in On the Origin of the World. His siblings are Astaphaios and Eloai.
↻ synthesized from 4 sources
When
- First attested
- 100 CE
- Attested period
- 100 – 400
- Historical notes
- Documented in Sethian Gnostic texts from the early Christian centuries.
Relationships
- co occurs with
- Sabaoth, Adonaios, Elaios, Horaios, Eloaios, Oraios, Athoth, Harmas, Kalila-Oumbri, Yabel, Abel, Abrisene, Yobel, Armoupieel, Melcheir-Adonein, Belias, Adonin, Sabbataios, Saklas, Nebro, Eloai, Yurba, Seth, Cain, Samael, Yaldabaoth
- sibling of
- Eloai, Astaphaios
- child of
- Yaldabaoth
Mentioned by
Sources
Source passages
“In On the Origin of the World, he is one of the three sons of Yaldabaoth, with the other two being Yao and Eloai.”
#25381 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5
“Astaphaios, representing divinity, with the face of a hyena Yao, representing lordship, with the face of a snake with seven heads”
#25427 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“In the Nag Hammadi text On the Origin of the World, the three sons of Yaldabaoth are listed as Yao, Eloai, and Astaphaios.”
#25498 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5
“In Sethian Gnosticism, Yao or Iao (Ἰαω) is an archon. In On the Origin of the World, he is one of the three sons of Yaldabaoth, with the other two being Astaphaios and Eloai. In the Apocryphon of John, he is the fourth of the seven archons.”
#25659 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5