THE ANGELS THAT MADE THE WORLD
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Chapter 6. The Angels That Made the World. The Gospel of Marcion
The "Hymn of the Pearl" did not relate how the Pearl got into the power of the Darkness. Simon Magus did so, if rather briefly in the extant renderings, with regard to the divine Ennoia or Sophia, which in his system corresponds to the Pearl of the Hymn. As we have seen, she had been abducted into the creation by her own offspring, the world-creating angels, in their ignorant conceit and lust for godlike power. The divine origin, though at some remove, of these cosmic agencies, and therefore the conception of the whole story as one of divine failure, is an integral point in this type of speculation, indeed its explanatory principle. The same derivation could not well be supplied for the dragon which holds the Pearl in captivity. If, as its Babylonian archetype suggests, it embodies the power of the primordial chaos, then its principle was anti-divine from the beginning, and its character evil or "dark" in a sense different from the delusion and folly of Simon's erring angels. We indicated (p. 105) that on this point the two main types of gnostic speculation divide. Whereas the Iranian speculation had to explain how the original Darkness could engulf elements of Light, the Syrian-Egyptian speculation saw its major task in deriving the dualistic rift itself, and the ensuing predicament of the divine in the system of creation, from the one and undivided source of being; and this it did by way of an extensive genealogy of divine states evolving from one another which described the progressive darkening of the divine Light in mental categories. The really important difference rests, not so much in the pre-existence or otherwise of a realm of Darkness independent of God, but in whether the tragedy of the divine is forced upon it from outside or is motivated from within itself. The latter can be the case even in the face of a pre-existing Darkness or Matter if its role is the passive one of tempting members of the upper realm into material creativity rather than the active one of invading the realm of Light. In this form, adopted by some systems, the Iranian scheme of two
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opposed original principles could be brought within the scope of the Syrian-Egyptian scheme of divine guilt and error.1
It might be argued that for the existing state of things and the concern of salvation based upon it, which was after all the chief concern of gnostic religion, it made no appreciable difference whether one or the other kind of prehistory was adopted, for both led essentially to the same result: whether it is the demiurgical angels "ruling the world evilly," or the demons of primordial Darkness, that hold the souls in captivity, "salvation" means salvation from their power and the savior has to overcome them as his enemies. This is true, and if it were otherwise the two theoretical types could not both be expressions of the gnostic spirit, for which the negative evaluation of the cosmos is fundamental. Yet it is by no means religiously irrelevant whether the world is regarded as the expression of an inferior principle or whether its substance is seen as outright devilish. And it is the Syrian-Egyptian type which, with its subtler and more intriguing deductive task, is not only more ambitious speculatively and more differentiated psychologically than the rigid Iranian type of dualism but also the one of the two which can do full systematic justice to the redemptional claim of gnosis so central to gnostic religion: this because its opposite, "ignorance" as a divine event, is accorded a metaphysical role in the very origination of the cosmos and in sustaining the dualistic situation as such. We shall have to say more about this aspect when dealing with the Valentinian system. Even at this stage it is obvious that the Syrian-Egyptian scheme allows the greater speculative variety, and that, once the character of this world and of its immediate lords and creators was established, as it was in the general gnostic view almost as a matter of course, the theoretical center of gravity would shift to the elaboration of the mediate stages between these cosmocratic deities and the primary godhead from which they had sprung: the tendency would then be to multiply figures and lengthen the genealogy—for the sake of spiritual differentiation no less than for the sake of widening the distance between
1A version of this kind is even reported as a variant of the Manichaean doctrine, which by the overwhelming evidence of the sources is the classical representative of the Iranian type, describing the kingdom of Darkness as the first aggressor and the history of the world as the prolonged struggle between the two principles (see Jonas, Gnosis, I, p. 301).
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GNOSTIC SYSTEMS OF THOUGHT
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the lower world and the unfallen realm of Light. To explain this very noticeable tendency we may also assume simply a growing speculative interest in the upper worlds as such which found its satisfaction only in an increasing manifoldness. At any rate, in the light of what eventually emerged, the genealogy of Simon with its two steps of Ennoia and world-creating angels must appear as a very modest beginning.
(a) THE ANGELS THAT MADE THE WORLD
By far the majority of the Christian gnostic systems listed by the heresiologists belong to the Syrian type, even when incorporating the original Darkness in the Platonizing form of a passive matter. This is not to say that they all indulged in the kind of transcendental genealogy which we indicated. In fact, wherever either "angels" or the "demiurge" are said to be the creators and rulers of the world, even without having their line of descent from the supreme God traced, we deal with a principle not outright evil, but rather inferior and degenerate, as the cause and essence of creation.
Thus Carpocrates, without any attempt at deduction (as far as Irenaeus' report goes), simply states that the world was made by angels "that are lower by far than the unbegotten Father": Jesus and all souls which like his remained pure and strong in their memory of the unbegotten Father can despise the creators and pass through them (Iren. I. 25. 1-2). Menander taught similarly to Simon that the First Power is unknown to all and the world made by angels, who he "like Simon says are emanated from the En-noia": he claims by magic to be able to conquer these world-rulers (loc. cit. 23. 5). Saturninus, passing over the Ennoia, or any such female principle, taught according to Irenaeus simply that "the one unknown Father made the angels, archangels, powers and dominions. The world, however, and everything in it, was made by seven particular angels, and man too is a work of the angels," of whom the Jewish god is one. These angels he describes in turn as feeble artisans and as rebellious. Christ came to destroy the god of the Jews. As a particular trait,2 Saturninus acknowledges besides these angels also the devil, who "is an angel who is an
1 Shared with Marcion and the Valentinians.
enemy of those angels and the god of the Jews"—a kind of private feud within the camp of the lower powers (Joe. cit. 24. 1-2).
The larger systems on the other hand, as has been indicated, elaborate the descendance of the lower order from the highest principle in extensive and increasingly complicated genealogies—a kind of metaphysical "devolution" ending in the decadence that is this world. Thus, for instance, Basilides stretches' the line of descent into an enormous chain which, via a number of spiritual figures like Nous, Logos, etc., leads through 365 successively generated heavens with their angelic populations, the last of which is the one we see, inhabited by the angels who made this world. Their leader is the god of the Jews. Here too the unnameable Father sends Christ, the eternal Nous, to liberate those who believe in him from the domination of the makers of the world. His passion was a deception, Simon of Cyrene dying on the cross in his shape (loc, cit. 24. 3-4; of the two other prominent examples of this type, the Barbeliotes and the Valentinians, we shall hear later).
In all these cases, the powers which are responsible for the world and against which the work of salvation is directed are more contemptible than sinister. Their badness is not that of the archenemy, the eternal hater of the Light, but that of ignorant usurpers who, unaware of their subaltern rank in the hierarchy of being, arrogate lordship to themselves and in the combination of feeble means with envy and lust for power can achieve only a caricature of true divinity. The world, created by them in illegitimate imitation of divine creativeness and as a proof of their own godhead, in fact proves their inferiority in both its constitution and its governance.
One recurring feature is the assertion that the prophecies and the Mosaic Law issued from these world-ruling angels, among whom the Jewish god is prominent.3 This bespeaks a particular antagonism toward the Old Testament religion and toward its God, the reality of whom is by no means denied. On the contrary, after he had first in astrology lent his names to four of the seven planetary archons,4 whom the Gnostics then promoted to world-
3 Saturninus went so far as to say that the prophecies were spoken partly by the world-makers, partly by Satan.
4Iao, Sabaoth, Adonaios, Elohim; more rarely also Esaldaios = El-shaddai.
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creators, his polemically drawn likeness emerged with increasing pre-eminence from their number as an unmistakeable caricature of the biblical God—not venerable indeed, but none the less formidable. Of the Seven, it is mostly Ialdabaoth who draws to himself this eminence and this likeness. In the system of the Ophites as related by Irenaeus, he is the firstborn of the lower Sophia or Pruni-kos and begets out of the waters a son called Iao, who in turn in the same way generates a son, Sabaoth, and so on to seven. Thus Ialdabaoth is mediately the father of them all and thereby of the creation. "He boasted of what was taking place at his feet and said, 'I am Father and God, and there is none above me'" (after the pattern of certain Old Testament formulas, such as Is. 45:5, "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me"); to which his mother retorts, "Do not lie, Ialdabaoth: there is above thee the Father of all, the First Man, and Man the Son of Man" (Joe. tit. 30. 4-6).
The theme of the demiurgical conceit is frequent in gnostic literature, including the Old Testament allusions. "For there ruled the great Archon, whose dominion extends to the firmament, who believes that he is the only God and that there is nothing above him" (Basilides, in Hippol. VII. 25. 3, cf. 23. 4f.). One step further in defamation of character goes the Apocryphon of John, where Ialdabaoth, for the sake of dominion, cheats his own angels by what he grants and what he withholds in their creation, and where his jealousy is taken to betray a knowledge rather than ignorance of the higher God:
He apportioned to them some of his fire, which is his own attribute, and of his power; but of the pure Light of the power which he had inherited from his Mother he gave them none. For this reason he held sway over them, because of the glory that was in him from the power of the Light of the Mother. Therefore he let himself be called "the God," renouncing the substance from which he had issued. . . . And he contemplated the creation beneath him and the multitude of angels under him which had sprung from him, and he said to them "I am a jealous god, besides me there is none"—thereby already indicating to the angels beneath him that there is another God: for if there were cone, of whom should he be jealous?
(42:13 ff.; 44:9 ff., Till).
Mandaean speculations about the beginnings abound with the same theme, though here without manifest reference to the Old Testament God: "B'haq-Ziva regarded himself as a mighty one, and forsook the name which his Father had created [for him]. He said, 'I am the father of the Uthras, who have created sh'kinas for them.' He pondered over the turbid water and said, 'I will create a world'" (G97f.).
Typical also is the retort from on high which puts the creator in his place.5 But even more humiliating is the same reprimand coming from the ascending soul of the pneumatic which flaunts its higher origin in the face of the lord, or lords, of the world:
I am a vessel more precious than the woman that made ye. Your mother does not know her origin, but I know myself and know whence I come. I invoke the incorruptible Sophia who dwells in the Father and is the mother of your mother. . . . But a woman born of woman brought ye forth, without knowing her own mother and believing that she was from herself: but I invoke her mother.
(Iren. I. 21. 5)
Such formulas, of which there are many, forcibly express the confidence of the gnostic elect and his sovereign contempt for those lower powers even though they are the rulers of this world. This does not exclude a feeling of dread, which we find curiously blended with the daring of provocation. The soul's main concern is to escape the terrible archons, and rather than meet them face to face she likes to slip by them unnoticed if she can. Accordingly, the task of the sacraments is sometimes said to be that of making the souls in their future ascent invisible to the archons who would block their way, and especially to their prince, who in the role of judge
6E. g., the Ialdabaoth-Sabaoth of the "Gnostics" in Epiphanius is treated to exactly the same rebuke by his mother Barbelo (as the Sophia is called in that system) as was the Ialdabaoth of the Ophites in Irenaeus (Epiph. Haer. XXVI. 2. 3f.). Basilides lets the correction issue, in the less harsh form of an enlightenment, from the "Gospel of the Sonship," which also finds a more satisfactory response than is elsewhere ascribed to the demiurge: "and the Archon learned that he was not the universal God but was beg...
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