The Gnostic Religion by Hans Jonas

Author:Hans Jonas [Jonas, Hans]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-8070-5800-8
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2001-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

(b) THE SYSTEM

Development of the Pleroma

The mysteries of the first beginnings are introduced with these solemn words: “Indestructible Spirit greets the indestructible ones! To you I make mention of secrets nameless, ineffable, super-celestial, which cannot be comprehended either by the dominions or by the powers or the lower beings, nor by the entire mixture, but have been revealed to the Ennoia of the Immutable alone” (Epiph. Haer. 31. 5. 1 f.). And this is the secret doctrine itself.

In invisible and nameless heights there was a perfect Aeon

pre-existent. His name is Fore-Beginning, Fore-Father, and Abyss. No thing can comprehend him. Through immeasurable eternities he remained in profoundest repose. With him was the Ennoia (Thought), also called Grace and Silence.7 And once this Abyss took thought to project out of himself the beginning of all things, and he sank this project like a seed into the womb of the Silence that was with him, and she conceived and brought forth the Mind (Nous: male), who is like and equal to his begetter and alone comprehends the greatness of the Father. He is also called Only-Begotten, Father, and Beginning of all beings. Together with him Truth (Aletheia: female) was produced, and this is the first Tetrad: Abyss and Silence, then Mind and Truth.8

The Only-Begotten, perceiving with what intention he had been produced, on his part projected with his consort the pair Word (m.) and Life (fem.), respectively father of all things coming after him, and beginning and form-mother of the whole Pleroma. From them came forth Man and Church (Ecclesia: female), and this is the original Ogdoad. These Aeons, produced to the glory of the Father, wished to glorify the Father by their own creations, and produced further emanations. From Word and Life issued ten additional Aeons, from Man and Church twelve, so that out of Eight and Ten and Twelve is constituted the Fullness (Pleroma) of thirty Aeons in fifteen pairs. We pass over the details of this generative process after the Ogdoad, and only observe that the names of the further twenty-two Aeons are all abstractions of the type of the first eight, that is, artificial constructions and not proper names from the mythological tradition. The last female Aeon in the chain of emanations is Sophia. “Pleroma” is the standard term for the fully explicated manifold of divine characteristics, whose standard number is thirty, forming a hierarchy and together constituting the divine realm. Mostly the Fore-Father or Abyss is counted in the number, but even this rule admits of exception.9

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