Is Yahweh Demiurge?
In these forms of gnosticism, the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh, is often considered to have been the Demiurge, not the Monad, or sometimes different passages are interpreted as referring to each.
Is Jesus an Aeon?
For many, Christ was the most perfect aeon, whose specific function was to redeem the error embodied in the material universe; the Holy Spirit was usually a subordinate aeon.
What do Gnostics call God?
In many Gnostic systems, God is known as the Monad, the One. God is the high source of the pleroma, the region of light. The various emanations of God are called æons.
What do the Gnostics believe?
Gnosticism is the belief that human beings contain a piece of God (the highest good or a divine spark) within themselves, which has fallen from the immaterial world into the bodies of humans. All physical matter is subject to decay, rotting, and death.
Is Abraxas a demon or God?
As a demon Collin de Plancy’s Infernal Dictionary, Abraxas (or Abracax) is labeled the “supreme God” of the Basilidians, whom he describes as “heretics of the second century”. He further indicated the Basilidians attributed to Abraxas the rule over “365 skies” and “365 virtues”.
What is Gnostic mythology?
Like Christian mythology more generally, the Gnostic myths presuppose, and occur against the backdrop of, a linear view of time. Everything began at a particular moment in the past, and everything will end at a particular moment in the future.
Is Bythos beyond the Pleroma?
Therefore Bythos or the Uncreated Eternal Spirit is beyond the Pleroma. In other words the Pleroma is the world of the Aeons, the heaven of heavens or spiritual universe. Bythos is the spiritual source of everything that emanates the pleroma. The Pleroma is both the abode of and the essential nature of the True Ultimate God.
Was Plato’s creation myth influenced by Gnosticism?
Plato illustrated this view of myth in action in his Timaeus, a work whose creation myth powerfully influenced the classic Gnostics’ own creation myth.
What are the two pillars of Gnostic myth?
Both of the two main pillars of Gnostic myth – the story of creation and the story of Jesus’s earthly sojourn – allude to and reinforce one another. They form two parts of a single, sweeping narrative arc.
