Yaldabaoth” literally means “Child, come here” in a Semitic language. For example, the Hebrew word for “young girl” is “yalda,” and for “come” is “bo.” Thus, most probably “yaldabaoth” is a declension of “young girl” and “come,” together meaning “young girl, come hither” (the language’s identification as Hebrew itself is doubtful).
Gnostic myth recounts that Sophia (Greek, literally meaning “wisdom”), the Demiurge’s mother and a partial aspect of the divine Pleroma or “Fullness,” desired to create something apart from the divine totality, and without the receipt of divine assent. In this abortive act of separate creation, she gave birth to the monstrous Demiurge and, being ashamed of her deed, she wrapped him in a cloud and created a throne for him within it. The Demiurge, isolated, did not behold his mother, nor anyone else, and thus concluded that only he himself existed, being ignorant of the superior levels of reality that were his birth-place.
The Gnostic myths describing these events are full of intricate nuances portraying the declination of aspects of the divine into human form; this process occurs through the agency of the Demiurge who, having stolen a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior Pleromatic realm. Thus Sophia’s power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic movements was typically the awakening of this spark, which permitted a return by the subject to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source.
Under the name of Nebro, Yaldabaoth is called an angel in the apocryphal Gospel of Judas. He is first mentioned in “The Cosmos, Chaos, and the Underworld” as one of the twelve angels to come “into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld].” He comes from heaven, his “face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood.” Nebro’s name means rebel. Nebro creates six angels in addition to the angel Saklas to be his assistants. These six in turn create another twelve angels “with each one receiving a portion in the heavens.” (Wikipedia)
