Demiurge

The philosophical usage and the proper noun derive from Plato's Timaeus, written c. 360 BC, where the demiurge is presented as the creator of the universe.

Sethian Gnosticism portrays the Demiurge as an oppressive, ignorant ruler, intentionally binding souls in an inherently corrupt material realm.

In contrast, Valentinian Gnosticism sees the Demiurge as a well-meaning but limited figure whose rule reflects ignorance rather than malice.

In order to reconcile Aristotelian with Platonian philosophy,[9] Plotinus metaphorically identified the demiurge (or nous) within the pantheon of the Greek Gods as Zeus.

Plotinus also elucidates the equation of matter with nothing or non-being in The Enneads[13] which more correctly is to express the concept of idealism or that there is not anything or anywhere outside of the "mind" or nous (c.f.

Plotinus' form of Platonic idealism is to treat the Demiurge, nous, as the contemplative faculty (ergon) within man which orders the force (dynamis) into conscious reality.

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 and Platonic cosmology (see also Philo).

Several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being, with his creation initially having the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality.

In other systems, the Demiurge is instead portrayed as "merely" incompetent or foolish: his creation is an unconscious attempt to replicate the divine world (the pleroma) based on faint recollections, and thus ends up fundamentally flawed.

The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus of Rome,[27] 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,[28] who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into the plural number "powers", and so Epiphanius of Salamis[29] represents Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by angels.

In the Archontic, Sethian, and Ophite systems, which have many affinities with the doctrine of Valentinus, the making of the world is ascribed to a company of seven archons, whose names are given, but still more prominent is their chief, "Yaldabaoth" (also known as "Yaltabaoth" or "Ialdabaoth").

The demiurge is also[32] described as having a fiery nature, applying the words of Moses to him: "the Lord our God is a burning and consuming fire".

[33] 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.

Until 1974, etymologies deriving from the unattested Aramaic: בהותא, romanized: bāhūthā, supposedly meaning "chaos", represented the majority view.

Following an analysis by the Jewish historian of religion Gershom Scholem published in 1974,[35] this etymology no longer enjoyed any notable support.

His analysis showed the unattested Aramaic term to have been fabulated and attested only in a single corrupted text from 1859, with its claimed translation having been transposed from the reading of an earlier etymology, whose explanation seemingly equated "darkness" and "chaos" when translating an unattested supposed plural form of Hebrew: בוהו, romanized: bōhu.

The Valentinian theory elaborates that from Achamoth (he kátō sophía or lower wisdom) three kinds of substance take their origin, the spiritual (pneumatikoí), the animal (psychikoí) and the material (hylikoí).

[31] In creating this world out of Chaos the Demiurge was unconsciously influenced for good; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became almost perfect.

[31][46] 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.

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.

[47] According to one variant of the Valentinian system, the Demiurge is also 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 a spirit of wickedness, is able to recognise the higher spiritual world, of which his maker the Demiurge, who is only animal, has no real knowledge.

In refuting the beliefs of the gnostics, Irenaeus stated that "Plato is proved to be more religious than these men, for he allowed that the same God was both just and good, having power over all things, and himself executing judgment.

[52] In the ninth tractate of the second of his Enneads, Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their appropriation of ideas from Plato: From Plato come their punishments, their rivers of the underworld and the changing from body to body; as for the plurality they assert in the Intellectual Realm—the Authentic Existent, the Intellectual-Principle, the Second Creator and the Soul—all this is taken over from the Timaeus.Of note here is the remark concerning the second hypostasis or Creator and third hypostasis or World Soul.

A. H. Armstrong identified the so-called "Gnostics" that Plotinus was attacking as Jewish and Pagan, in his introduction to the tract in his translation of the Enneads.

[56][57] John D. Turner, professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska, and famed translator and editor of the Nag Hammadi library, stated[58] 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.

Emil Cioran also wrote his Le mauvais démiurge ("The Evil Demiurge"), published in 1969, influenced by Gnosticism and Schopenhauerian interpretation of Platonic ontology, as well as that of Plotinus.