add site
services
publishers
database
health videos
toolbar
stats
live show
health store
more stuff
JOIN/LOGIN
| advertise add site services publishers database health videos
| | about toolbar stats live show health store more stuff JOIN/LOGIN |
Demiurge (the Latinized form of Greek dēmiourgos, δημιουργός, literally "public or skilled worker", from dēmios "belonging to the people, public" + ergon "work"[1], and hence a "maker", "artisan" or "craftsman") in philosophical and religious language is a term for a creator deity, responsible for the creation of the Universe. In the sense of a divine creative principle as expressed in ergon or en-erg-y,[2] the word was first introduced into Hellenistic philosophy by Plato in Timaeus, 29a (ca. 360 BC). It subsequently appears in a number of different religious and philosophical systems of Late Antiquity besides Platonic realism, most notably in Neoplatonism. In Neoplatonism Plotinus identified the demiurge as nous (divine mind), the first emanation of "the One" (see monad). Neoplatonists personified the demiurge as Zeus, the high god of the Greeks.[3] The term also appears in Gnosticism in which the material universe is seen as evil or at least created by a lesser and or inferior creator deity. In Gnosticism, the Demiurge is a being that never should have come into existence, the result of Sophia emanating without her male counterpart. The Gnostics attributed to the Demiurge much of the actions and laws that in the Tanach or Old Testament are attributed to the Hebrew God Yahweh (see the Sethians and Ophites). Alternative Gnostic names for the Demiurge, include Yaldabaoth, "Samael", "Saklas", and "Kosmokrator", and several other variants (see Pistis Sophia).[citation needed] He is known as Ptahil in Mandaeanism. The figures of the "Angel of YHWH" and the "Angel of Death" may have contributed to the Gnostic view of the Demiurge.[citation needed]
[edit] Platonism and Neoplatonism
Plato has the speaker Timaeus refer to the demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus circa 360 BCE. The title character refers to the demiurge as the entity who “fashioned and shaped” the material world. Timaeus describes the Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent and hence desirous of a world as good as possible. The world remains allegedly imperfect, however, because the demiurge had to work on pre-existing chaotic, indeterminate matter. Plato's Timaeus is a philosophical reconcillation of Hesiod's cosmology, from Hesiod's work Theogony syncretically reconcilling Hesiod to Homer[4][5][6]. Plato does this reconcillation in the dialectical discourse between Timaeus and the other guests at the gathering, in the dialog of Timaeus (see also Plato's Symposium). The concept of artist or creator and even the Platonist conflict between the poet as cultural historian and philosopher (see Plato's The Republic) has a link in Plato's expression of the demiurge in his works. Later Neoplatonists like Plotinus, worked to more clarify the demiurge. To Plotinus the second emanation represents an uncreated second cause (see Pythagoras' Dyad). Which as Demiurge and mind (nous) is a critical component in the ontological construct of human consciousness used to explain Substance theory. The first and highest aspect of God is the One, the source or the Monad. Plato describes this concept (the monad or the one) as the Good above the demiurge, the good that is manifest through the demiurge and the work of the demiurge. The Monad emanated the Nous (consciousness) from its "indeterminate" vitality due to the monad being so abundant that it overflowed back onto itself causing self reflection.[7] This self reflection of the indeterminate vitality Plotinus referred to as the demiurge or creator. The seond principle is organization in its reflection of the nonsentient force or dunamis, also called the one or the Monad. The dyad is energy emanated by the one that is then the work, process or activity called nous, demiurge, mind, consciousness that organizes the indeterminate vitality into the experience called the material world, universe, cosmos. Plotinus also elucidates the equation of matter with nothing or non-being in his Enneads[8] which more correctly is to express the concept of idealism or that there is not anything or anywhere outside of the "mind" or "nous" (see pantheism). Plotinus' form of Platonic idealism is to treat the Demiurge, nous as the contemplative faculty (ergon) within man which orders the force (dunamis) into conscious reality.[9] In this he claimed to reveal Plato's true meaning, a doctrine he learned from Platonic tradition that did not appear outside the academy or in Plato's text. This tradition of creator God as nous (the manifestation of consciousness), can be validated in the works of pre-Plotinus philosophers such as Numenius. As well as a connection between Hebrew cosmology and the Hellenic Platoistic one (see also Philo).[10] The Demiurge of Neoplatonism is the Nous (mind of God), and is one of the three ordering principles:
Before Numenius of Apamea and Plotinus' Enneads, no Platonic works ontologically clarified the Demiurge from the allegory in Plato's Timaeus. The idea of Demiurge was, however, addressed before Plotinus in the works of Christian writer Justin Martyr who built his understanding of the demiurge on the works of Numenius.[11] Later, Iamblichus, a Neoplatonist, changed the role of the "One", which changed (by proxy) the role of the demiurge. Effectively altering the demiurge, as second case or dyad, hence one of the reasons that Iamblichus and his teacher Porphryr were in conflict with one another. [edit] Iamblichus
The figure of the Demiurge emerges in the theoretic of Iamblichus, a Neoplatonist, which conjoins the transcendent, incommunicable “One”, or Source. Here, at the summit of this system, the Source and demiurge (material realm) coexist via the process of henosis (see Theurgy, Iamblichus and henosis). Iamblichus describes the One, a monad whose first principle or emanation is intellect (nous), while among "the many" that follow it a second, super-existent "One" that is the producer of intellect or soul ("psyche"). The "One" is further separated into spheres of intelligence; the first and superior sphere is objects of thought, while the latter sphere is the domain of thought. Thus, a triad is formed of the intelligible nous, the intellective nous, and the psyche in order to reconcile further the various Hellenistic philosophical schools of Aristotle's actus and potentia of the unmoved mover and Plato's demiurge. Then within this intellectual triad Iamblichus assigns the third rank to the Demiurge, identifying it with the perfect or Divine nous with the intellectual triad being promoted to a hebdomad. In the theoretic of Plotinus, nous produces nature through intellectual mediation, thus the intelluatalizing gods are followed with a triad of psychic gods. [edit] GnosticismGnosticism also presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God and the demiurgic “creator” of the material. In contrast to Plato, several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being: his act of creation occurs in unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to the problem of evil. [edit] MythosGnostic 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: He frames the seven heavens, as well as all material and animal things, according to forms furnished by his mother; working however blindly, and ignorant even of the existence of the mother who is the source of all his energy. He is blind to all that is spiritual, but he is king over the other two provinces. The word dēmiourgos properly describes his relation to the material; he is the father of that which is animal like himself. 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. [edit] Angels Philo (de Op. Mund.) had inferred from the expression, "Let us make man," of Genesis that God had used other beings as assistants in the creation of man, and he explains in this way why man is capable of vice as well as virtue, ascribing the origin of the latter to God, of the former to His helpers in the work of creation. Psalms 82:1 describes a plurality of gods (ʔelōhim), which an older version in the Septuagint calls the “assembly of the gods”; however, it does not indicate that these gods were co-actors in creation. The earliest Gnostic sects ascribe the work of creation to angels, some of them using the same passage in Genesis (Justin, Dial. cum Tryph. c. 67). So Irenaeus tells (i. 23, 1) of the system of Simon Magus, (23, 5) of the system of Menander, (24, 1) of the system of Saturninus, in which the number of these angels is reckoned as seven, and (25) of the system of Carpocrates. Again, in his report of the system of Basilides (24, 4), we are told that our world was made by the angels who occupy the lowest heaven; but special mention is made of their chief, who is said to have been the God of the Jews, to have led that people out of the land of Egypt, and to have given them their law. The prophecies are ascribed not to the chief but to the other world-making angels. The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus (Ref. vii. 33), makes Irenaeus state that according to Cerinthus (who shows Ebionite influence), creation was made by a power quite separate from the Supreme God and ignorant of Him. Theodoret (Haer. Fab. ii. 3), who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into the plural number “powers,” and so Epiphanius (28), and apparently Philaster (36), represent Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by angels. [edit] YaldabaothIn the Ophite and Sethian systems, which have many affinities with that last mentioned, the making of the world is ascribed to a company of seven archons, whose names are given, but their chief, “Yaldabaoth,” comes into still greater prominence. In the Apocryphon of John circa 120-180 AD, the Demiurge arrogantly declares that he has made the world by himself:
He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of light from above enters the body of man and gives him a soul, Yaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. The Demiurge, fearing lest Jesus, whom he had intended as his Messiah, should spread the knowledge of the Supreme God, had him crucified by the Jews. At the consummation of all things all light will return to the Pleroma; but Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into the lower depths.  In Pistis Sophia Yaldabaoth has already sunk from his high estate and resides in chaos, where, with his forty-nine demons, he tortures wicked souls in boiling rivers of pitch, and with other punishments (pp. 257, 382). He is an archon with the face of a lion, half flame and half darkness. Yaldabaoth is frequently called "the Lion-faced", leontoeides, with the body of a serpent, similar to to the Mithraic Leontocephaline.[13] We are told also (Hipp. Ref. vi. 32, p. 191), that the Demiurge is of a fiery nature, the words of Moses being applied to him, “the Lord our God is a burning and consuming fire,” a text used also by Simon (Ref. vi. 9). Under the name of “Nebro” (rebel), 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 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.” [edit] Names
[edit] ValentinusIt is in the system of Valentinus that the name Dēmiourgos is used, which occurs nowhere in Irenaeus except in connexion with the Valentinian system; and we may reasonably conclude that it was Valentinus who adopted from Platonism the use of this word. When it is employed by other Gnostics it may be held either that it is not used in a technical sense, or that its use has been borrowed from Valentinus. But it is only the name that can be said to be specially Valentinian; the personage intended by it corresponds more or less closely with the Yaldabaoth of the Ophites, the great Archon of Basilides, the Elohim of Justinus, etc. The Valentinian theory elaborates that from Achamoth (he káta sophía or lower wisdom) three kinds of substance take their origin, the spiritual (pneumatikoí), the animal (psychikoí) and the material (hylikoí). The Demiurge belongs to the second kind, as he was the offspring of a union of Achamoth with matter. And as Achamoth herself was only the daughter of Sophía the last of the thirty Aeons, the Demiurge was distant by many emanations from the Propatôr, or Supreme God. The Demiurge in creating this world out of Chaos was unconsciously influenced for good by Jesus Soter; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became almost perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending a Messiah. To this Messiah, however, was actually united Jesus the Saviour, Who redeemed men. These are either hylikoí, or pneumatikoí. The first, or material men, will return to the grossness of matter and finally be consumed by fire; the second, or animal men, together with the Demiurge as their master, will enter a middle state, neither Pleroma nor hyle; the purely spiritual men will be completely freed from the influence of the Demiurge and together with the Saviour and Achamoth, his spouse, will enter the Pleroma divested of body (hyle) and soul (psyché). In this most common form of Gnosticism the Demiurge had an inferior though not intrinsically evil function in the universe as the head of the animal, or psychic world. [edit] MarcionAccording to Marcion, the title God was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished from the higher Good God. The former was díkaios, severely just, the latter agathós, or loving-kind; the former was the "god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4), the God of the Old Testament, the latter the true God of the New Testament. Christ, though in reality the Son of the Good God, pretended to be the Messiah of the Demiurge, the better to spread the truth concerning His heavenly Father. The true believer in Christ entered into God's kingdom, the unbeliever remained forever the slave of the Demiurge. [edit] Yahweh“YHWH” is not used as a name of the Demiurge in extant Gnostic texts; instead, he appears as a subordinate offspring of the chief Archon:
Yaldabaoth is unlikely to be derived “YHWH Sabaoth” as Yaldabaoth has an “L” at the end of “ya”, suggesting the name of an angel is the origin of the term as the names of most angels of Jewish origin end with the syllable “el”.[citation needed] On the other hand, some angels were called by some YHWH because they represented God’s power and authority.[citation needed] This was especially true of the supreme angel that represented God, who was sometimes called the “lesser YHWH,” in the Rabbinic tradition called Metatron. A Jewish sect of first century B.C., called the Maghariyyah, held that angels organized the world and ordained the Law.[citation needed] Such views may have been part of the origin of Gnostic Christian belief in the Demiurge and his archons.[citation needed] [edit] The devilAccording to several systems, the Demiurge is besides the maker, out of the appropriate substance, of an order of spiritual beings, the devil, the prince of this world, and his angels. But the devil as being spiritual is able to recognise the higher spiritual world, of which his maker the Demiurge, who is only animal, has no knowledge. The devil resides in this lower world, of which he is the prince, the Demiurge in the heavens; his mother Sophia in the middle region, above the heavens and below the Pleroma. The Ophites held that he and his demons constantly oppose and thwart the human race, as it was on their account the devil was cast down into this world (Irenaeus i. 30, 8). However, the Gnostic Heracleon (frag. 20) interpreted the devil as the principle of evil, that of hyle (matter). As he writes in his commentary on John 4:21, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father”:—
Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan as the creator of the evil world directly or indirectly from Gnosticism. Of course, this vilification of the Creator was held to be inimical to both orthodox Christianity and orthodox Judaism. In refuting those who held that the devil was the ruler of the world, Irenaeus (v. 24) writes that the devil’s role was only to lead humanity astray:
[edit] Neoplatonism and GnosticismSee also: Neoplatonism and Gnosticism Gnosticism attributed falsehood, fallen or evil, to the concept of Demiurge or Creator (see Zeus and Prometheus), though sometimes the creator is from a fallen, ignorant or lesser rather than evil perspective (in some Gnosticism traditions) such as that of Valentinius. The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus addressed within his works what he saw as un-Hellenic and blasphemous to the demiurge or creator of Plato. Gnosticism's conception of the Demiurge was criticised by the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus. Plotinus is noted as the founder of Neoplatonism (along with his teacher Ammonius Saccas),[15] His criticism is contained in the ninth tractate of the second of the Enneads. Therein, Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their appropriation of ideas from Plato:
Of note here is the remark concerning the second hypostasis or Creator and third hypostasis or World Soul within Plotnius. Plotinus criticizes his opponents for “all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own” which, he declares, “have been picked up outside of the truth”; they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy, which they have corrupted by their extraneous and misguided embellishments. Thus their understanding of the Demiurge is similarly flawed in comparison to Plato’s original intentions. Whereas Plato's demiurge is good wishing good on his creation, gnosticism contends that the demiurge is not only the originator of evil but is evil as well. Hence the title of Plotinus' refutation "Enneads" The Second Ennead, Ninth Tractate - Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Kosmos and the Kosmos Itself to be Evil: [Generally Quoted as "Against the Gnostics"]. Plotinus marks his arguments with the disconnect or great barrier that is created between the nous or mind's noumenon (see Heraclitus) and the material world (phenomenon) by believing the material world is evil. The majority view tends to understand Plotinus’ opponents as being a Gnostic sect—certainly, (specifically Sethian) several such groups were present in Alexandria and elsewhere about the Mediterranean during Plotinus’ lifetime, and several of his criticisms bear specific similarity to Gnostic doctrine (Plotinus pointing to the gnostic doctrine of Sophia and her emission of the Demiurge is most notable among these similarities). However, Christos Evangeliou has contended that Plotinus’ opponents might be better described as simply “Christian Gnostics”, arguing that several of Plotinus’ criticisms are as applicable to orthodox Christian doctrine as well. Also, considering the evidence from the time, Evangeliou felt the definition of the term “Gnostics” was unclear. Thus, though the former understanding certainly enjoys the greatest popularity, the identification of Plotinus’ opponents as Gnostic is not without some contention. Of note here is that while Plotinus' student Porphyry names Christianity specifically in Porphyry's own works, and Plotinus is to have been a known associate of the Christian Origen, none of Plotinus' works mention Christ or Christianity. Whereas Plotinus specifically addresses his target in the Enneads as the gnostics. A. H. Armstrong identified the “Gnostics” that Plotinus was attacking as Jewish and Pagan in his introduction to the tract in his translation of the Enneads. Armstrong alluding to Gnosticism being a Hellenic philosophical heresy of sorts, which later engaged Christianity and Neoplatonism. John D. Turner professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska and famed translator and editor of the Nag Hammadi library stated that the text Plotinus and his students read was Sethian gnosticism which predates Christianity. It appears that Plotinus attempted to clarify how the philosophers of the academy had not arrived at the same conclusions (such as Dystheism or misotheism for the creator God as an answer to the problem of evil) as the targets of his criticism. [edit] Non-western viewsFurther information: Creator deity and creation myth [edit] HinduismA figure which closely appears to resemble the Platonic Demiurge in Hinduism inasmuch as the Demiurge is the creator, is Brahma, a member of the Hindu Trinity (Trimurti), who figures as the creator god of the universe in all of Hindu mythology. The Demiurge Brahma is a mortal with a lifespan of over 300 trillion years in comparison to the eternal, transcendent, immanent, and ineffable Brahman. Ishvara is Brahman as a personal God and supreme controller of the cosmos. In the Matsya Purana of Hindu mythology, the actual act of creating the current material universe is performed by Manu after its last version is destroyed in pralaya while he is rescued by Vishnu. Manu then sings/chants the universe into existence and creates the various gods along the way. [edit] Pirahã cosmologyAmong the Pirahã of Amazonas, Brazil, the demiurge Igagai recreated the world after its destruction in a cataclysm that came about when the moon was destroyed. In the cataclysm, all the animals died and all light disappeared from the world, and the higher levels of the cosmos almost fell on top of the earth. Igagai restored the structure of the cosmos, and created the animals that the Pirahã know today.[16] [edit] Chinese religionPangu can be interpreted as another creator deity. In the beginning there was nothing in the universe except a formless chaos. However this chaos began to coalesce into a cosmic egg for eighteen thousand years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of yin and yang became balanced and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant with horns on his head (like the Greek Pan) and clad in furs. Pangu set about the task of creating the world: he separated Yin from Yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the Earth (murky Yin) and the Sky (clear Yang). To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the Sky. This task took eighteen thousand years, with each day the sky grew ten feet higher, the Earth ten feet wider, and Pangu ten feet taller. In some versions of the story, Pangu is aided in this task by the four most prominent beasts, namely the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Dragon. After the eighteen thousand years had elapsed, Pangu was laid to rest. His breath became the wind; his voice the thunder; left eye the sun and right eye the moon; his body became the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood formed rivers; his muscles the fertile lands; his facial hair the stars and milky way; his fur the bushes and forests; his bones the valuable minerals; his bone marrows sacred diamonds; his sweat fell as rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became human beings all over the world. The distance from Earth and Sky at the end of the 18,000 years would have been 65,700,000 feet, or over 12,443 miles. The first writer to record the myth of Pangu was Xu Zheng (徐整) during the Three Kingdoms (三國) period. [edit] See also[edit] References in popular culture
[edit] References
This article incorporates text from the entry Demiurge in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. This article incorporates text from A Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies by Henry Wace (1911), a publication now in the public domain. [edit] External links
|
| ↑ top of page ↑ | about thumbshots |
