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Concerning the æon-doctrine
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XI
CONCERNING THE Æ ON-DOCTRINE
“Hear then, my son, how standeth God and All. God; Æ on; Cosmos; Time; Becoming. ”—C. H., xi. (xii. ) 1.
THE SCOPE OF OUR ESSAY
While rigidly excluding any consideration of the amazing elaboration of Christo-Gnostic æ onology, it may not be unserviceable to offer a “few notes in connection with the simpler idea of the Æ on. The subject really requires a treatise in itself, but that would, of course, be too lengthy an undertaking for these Prolegomena. 1
Let us, then, first turn to a striking passage which purports to give us the Orphic tradition of the Genesis of the World-Egg, and of the relation of its Glorious Progeny to the Æ on.
The passage is of great interest for us in our present enquiry, for if it is not a direct quotation from Apion, the Alexandrian savant, and bitter opponent of the Jews and of Philo, during the first half of the first
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century A. D., it at anyrate represents the view of the Hellenistic theology of that period.
The passage is found in one of the sources of the composite and overworked document known as the Clementine Homilies, 1 and runs as follows:
THE ORPHIC TRADITION OF THE GENESIS OF THE WORLD-EGG
III. “There was when naught was but Chaos and an indistinguishable mixture of unordered elements still jumbled all together; both Nature herself being witness to it, and great men having thought it must be so.
“And as witness, I will bring forward for you the greatest of the great in wisdom, Homer himself, speaking about the original con-fusion:
“But may you all become water and earth 2—
—meaning that thence all things have had their genesis, and that after the dissolution of their moist and earthy essence they are all restored again to their first nature—which is Chaos.
“And Hesiod, in his Theogony, says:
“In truth Chaos came into being the very first. 3
“And by ‘came into being’ he evidently means that
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it was generated as are things generable, and not that it for ever was as are things ingenerable.
“Orpheus also likens Chaos to an Egg in which was the con-fusion of the primordial elements. 1
“This is what Hesiod supposes by Chaos, what Orpheus calls an Egg—a thing generable, projected from the infinity of Matter (Hylē ), and brought into being as follows:
IV. “Both fourfold Matter 2 being ensouled and the whole Infinitude being as though it were a Depth (Β υ θ ό ς ), flowing perpetually and indistinguishably moving, and over and over again pouring forth countless imperfect mixtures, now of one kind and now of another, and thereby dissolving them again owing to its lack of order, and engulphing so that it could not be bound [together] to serve for the generation of a living creature—it happened that the infinite Sea itself, being driven round 3 by its own peculiar nature, flowed with a natural motion in an orderly fashion from out of itself into itself, as it were a vortex, 4 and blended its essences, and thus involuntarily the most developed part of all of them, 5 that which was most serviceable for the generation of a living creature, flowed, as it were in a funnel, down the middle of the universe, and was carried to the bottom
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by means of the vortex that swept up everything, and drew after it the surrounding Spirit, 1 and so gathering itself together as it were into the most productive [form of all], it constituted a discrete state [of things].
“For just as a bubble is made in water, so a sphere-like hollow form gathered itself together from all sides.
“Thereupon, itself being impregnated in itself, carried up 2 by the Divine Spirit that had taken it to itself as consort, it thrust forth its head (π ρ ο έ κ υ ψ ε ν 3) into the Light—this, the greatest thing perchance that’s ever been conceived, as though it were out of the Infinite Deep’s universe a work of art had been conceived and brought to birth, an ensouled work [in form] like unto the circumference of eggs, [in speed] like to the swiftness of a wing. 4
V. “I would therefore have you think of Cronus (Κ ρ ό ν ο ς ) as Time (Χ ρ ό ν ο ν 5), and of Rhea (῾ Ρ έ α ) as the flowing (τ ὸ ρ έ ο ν ) of the Moist Essence; for the whole of Matter being moved in Time brought forth, as it were, an Egg, the whole surrounding sphere-like Heaven (Ὀ υ ρ α ν ό ς ), which in the beginning was full of the productive marrow, 6 so that it might be able to bring forth elements and colours of all kinds; and yet the
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manifold appearances which it was ever presenting, all came from One Essence and One Colour.
“For just as in the product of the peacock, although the colour of the egg seems to be one, it has nevertheless potentially in it the countless colours of the bird that is to be brought to perfection, so also the Ensouled Egg conceived from Infinite Matter, when it is set in motion from the perpetually flowing Matter below it, 1 exhibits changes of all kinds.
“For from within the circumference a certain male-female Living Creature is imaged out by the Foreknowledge of the Divine Spirit that indwells in it, whom 2 Orpheus doth call Manifestor (Φ ά ν η ς —Phanē s), because when he is manifest (φ α ν ε ί ς ) the universe shines forth from him, through the lustre of Fire, most glorious of elements, perfected in the Moist [Element].
“Nor is this incredible, for in the case of glow-worms, for example, Nature allows us to see a ‘moist light. ’
VI. “Accordingly the First Egg that was ever produced being gradually warmed by the Living Creature within it, breaks open, and then there takes shape and comes forth some such thing as Orpheus says:
“When the skull-like 3 wide-yawning Egg did break [etc. ]. 4
“So by the mighty power of Him who came forth and who made Himself manifest, ‘the shell’ 5 receives its articulation 6 and obtains its orderly arrangement;
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while He Himself presides as though it were upon a throne on Heaven’s height, and in the [realms] ineffable sends forth His light all round upon the Boundless Æ on. ”
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