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Probable date of origin of the Hellenistic doctrine
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PROBABLE DATE OF ORIGIN OF THE HELLENISTIC DOCTRINE
Now the Chaldæ an and Egyptian wisdom-cultures had many root-ideas in common (were they not regarded by the Greeks as the wisdom-traditions par excellence? ); we are not therefore surprised to find that Egypt, with its ever-recurring grandiose mystery-phrases of enormous time-periods, such as “He of the millions of years, ” had on its own soil a highly developed idea of Eternity and of Eternities—that is, of the Æ on and of the Æ ons; and indeed the strongly Egyptian forms of the Gnosis, which we have preserved to us under Christian overworking, are involved in the most complex æ onology.
It seems, however, almost as though the evidence suggests that this Egyptian element had been revivified, and rescued from the oblivion in which it had been buried in a decadent age, in the symbolism of an almost forgotten past, by a stream of Chaldæ an ideas that poured into Hellenistic circles in the early Alexandrian period. When precisely the Æ on-idea forced itself upon the philosophic mind of Alexandrian thinkers as an unavoidable mystic necessity, it is difficult to say with any certainty. It can, however, be said without fear of serious contradiction that it may have done so from early Ptolemaic times, and with certainty that it did so in the first century B. C. as truly as in the first century A. D.
That the term Æ on was in frequent use in the
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popular Hermes-cult may be seen in Hermes-Prayer v. 4, where Thoth is characterised as the “Æ on of the Æ ons who changes himself into all forms in visions. ” So also in Prayer viii. 2, the Good Daimon, who has different names given him in the different hours, is called “Wealth-giving Æ on. ” So also with Isis, who is called Wisdom and Æ on in the Papyri. 1
In conclusion, we may glance at what Reitzenstein (pp. 272 ff. ) has to say concerning this “Aionenlehre. ”
ABRAXAS
The name Abraxas, which consisted of seven elements or letters, was a mystery-designation of the God who combined in himself the whole power of the Seven Planets, and also of the Year of 365 days, the sum of the number-values of the letters of Abraxas working out to 365. This mysterious Being was the “Year”; but the Year as the Eternity, also conceived of in a spatial aspect, as the Spirit or Name that extends from Heaven to Earth, the God who pervades and full-fills the Seven Spheres, and the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Zones, the Inner God, “He who has His seat within the Seven Poles—Α Ε Η Ι Ο Υ Ω, ” as the Papyri have it, and also without them, as we shall see.
The mysterious formula “the Name of which the figure is 365” meets us in such connections, that it cannot be taken to mean simply the “Year-God, ” but is a synonym of the Highest God, a secret, mysterious Being. In brief it was, as we have seen, no other than the Lion-headed God, called in Greek Æ on.
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Indeed, we know from Philo of Byblos 2 that, at least in his day, the second half of the first century A. D. (and,
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for all we know, prior to it), there were in Phœ nicia communities of the Æ on—of the Highest and Supercelestial One.
THE FEAST OF THE Æ ON
The first dated use of the word in a religious sense is found in Messala (who was Consul, 53 B. C. ), as Johannes Lydus tells us. 1 Moreover, Lydus informs us that the Ancients (ο ἱ π ά λ α ι ) celebrated a Feast of the Æ on on January 5th. 2 This can be no other than the Feast of which Epiphanius gives us such interesting details in treating of the Epiphany, when he writes, after describing the festival in the Koreion at Alexandria: 3
“And if they are asked the meaning of this mystery, they answer and say: To-day at this hour the Maiden (Korē ), that is the Virgin, has given birth to the Æ on. ” 4
In the next paragraph Epiphanius designates this Æ on as the Alone-begotten. Here, then, we have striking evidence that in its Egyptian environment the cult of the Æ on was associated with mystery-rites reminding us strongly of the symbolism of the Christ-mystery.
THE QUINTESSENCE AND THE MONAD
Moreover, Messala 5 tells us of this Æ on, that He “who made all things and governs all things, joined
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together by means of the surrounding Heaven the power and nature of Water and Earth, heavy and downward, flowing down into the Depth, and that of Fire and Spirit, light and rushing upward to the measureless Height. It is this mightiest power of Heaven that hath bound together these two unequal powers. ”
Lydus (ibid. ) furthermore tells us that the idea of the Æ on was associated by the Pythagoreans with the idea of the Monad; indeed, they seem to have derived the word aiō n from ἰ ά, the Ionic form of μ ί α (one).
Any attempt to refer this Pythagorean identification to the earlier Pythagoreans would be at once rejected by the majority of scholars, but I believe myself that the original Pythagoreans were far too close to the Borderland between mythology and philosophy not to have personified or at least substantiated their “Numbers” and the Source of them. At anyrate it is highly instructive to find Plato himself writing in the Timæ us:
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