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The æon in Plato. Concerning the Hellenistic origin of æonology. The æon the Logos. The Roman sæculum-cult derived from Egypt
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THE Æ ON IN PLATO
“And when the Father who begot it [the Cosmos] saw that by its motion and its life it had become a likeness of the Everlasting Gods, He marvelled, and in delight determined further to make it still more like its Original. 1 And as the latter is an Everlasting Living Being, He sought to make this [Sensible] Universe as far as possible like it.
“Now the nature of the Living Being was eternal (α ἰ ώ ν ι ο ς —æ onian); but to bestow this quality entirely on a generable creature was not possible.
“Accordingly He determined to make a moving
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image of Eternity (Α ἰ ῶ ν ο ς ); and so in setting the Heaven in order He makes it an everlasting (α ἰ ώ ν ι ο ν ) image, moving according to number, of Eternity (Α ἰ ῶ ν ο ς ) that rests in One—an image which we have, you know, called Time. ” 1
Here it is very plain that Æ on is not Time, but the Paradigm thereof—Eternity. It is the Consummation of the Eternal Gods—namely, the Plē rō ma, the Monad par excellence. We, therefore, find already in Plato the idea of the Æ on fully developed. Did Plato “invent” it? Or did he put an already existing idea into philosophical terms? He presumably found it already existing. Was it then Orphic (Pythagorean), or did he learn of it in Egypt? Who shall say precisely?
CONCERNING THE HELLENISTIC ORIGIN OF Æ ONOLOGY
Seeing, however, that we find the idea of the Æ on fully developed in Plato, and seeing that Plato was, so to speak, scripture for our Hermetic writers, it is exceedingly puzzling that we should find it apparently introduced at a certain stage into the Trismegistic literature as a new doctrine.
It may be, however, that those who had followed Plato on purely philosophical lines had hitherto paid little attention to the idea of the Æ on, except as an ultimate principle beyond the reach of speculation. When, however, the enthusiastic seership of mysticism dared to soar beyond heaven into the Heaven of heavens, and so to divide the Simplicity into an Infinitude of Multiplicity, the term Æ on came to be used no longer for a transcendent unity but as the connotation of a grade of Being.
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It may then have been that our Hermetic writers reasserted the use of the term in its simpler philosophic meaning as a check to over-enthusiastic speculation.
But even if it were a reaction against a too great luxury of speculation, it must have been contemporaneous with the development of æ onology; so that in any case C. H. xi. (xii. ) must be dated from this point of view.
When æ onology arose we cannot say precisely; but æ onology in the Gnostic sense of the term was, as we have seen, to some extent at least existing as early as the earliest Christian documents.
THE Æ ON THE LOGOS
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Now though the Trismegistic tractate C. H., xi. (xii. ) is evidently in literary contact with the Timæ us, 1 it nevertheless purports to give more “esoteric, ” or at any rate more precise, instruction than is to be found in Plato’s famous cosmogonical treatise. It does not follow Plato, but hands on an instruction that has already been formulated in a precise and categorical fashion. The ladder of existence is God, Æ on, Cosmos, Time, Genesis; —each following one from the other.
Æ on is the Power of God (§ 3), whereas Cosmos is God’s creation and work (§§ 3, 4). The Æ on, standing between God and Cosmos, is the Paradigm, and so also the Son of God (§ 15), and the final end of man is that he should become Æ on (§ 20)—that is, Son of God. Æ on is thus evidently the Logos of God, or the Intelligible Cosmos, as distinguished from the Sensible Cosmos. This
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[paragraph continues] Æ on is the Fullness in which all things move, and chiefly the Seven Cosmoi (§ 7).
THE ROMAN SÆ CULUM-CULT DERIVED FROM EGYPT
Now, Reitzenstein (pp. 274 ff. ) shows very clearly that the Cult of the Saeculum or Æ on was strongly developed in Roman theology in at least the first century B. C. This is too early a date for us to assign this development to the influence of the Mithras-cult. Can it then be that Rome was influenced by Egypt? Such at anyrate is Reitzenstein’s opinion (p. 277), who points to the fact that Messala, who is fully imbued with the Æ on-idea, was a contemporary of Nigidius, the most learned of the Romans after Varro, and a Pythagorean philosopher of high attainments. Now it is remarkable that in his work, De Sphæ ra Barbarica, Nigidius treats of the Egyptian Sphere.
THE Æ ONIC IMMENSITIES OF EGYPT
Egypt, as we have already remarked, at a very early date arrived at the idea of eternal or at anyrate of enormously long periods of time, and had symbolised this conception in a primordial syzygy or pair of Gods. Indeed, the names of the primordial Time-pair, Ḥ ḥ w (Ḥ eḥ u) and Ḥ ḥ t (Ḥ eḥ ut), are immediately derived from “Ḥ ḥ, ” generally translated “Million, ” but by Brugsch and others as Æ on. 1 All the Egyptian Gods were Lords of the Eternity or of the Eternities. But not only so, the
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term “eternity” was used in connection with definite time-periods; for instance, “in a million (or eternity) of thirty year periods. ” And again: “Thy kingdom will have the lastingness of eternity and of infinitely many hundred-and-twenty-year periods; ten millions of thy years, millions of thy months, hundred-thousands of thy days, ten-thousands of thine hours. ” 1
Here we must remark the numbers 120 (that is 12 × 10) and 30; all essential numbers of the Gnostic Plē rō ma of Æ ons.
It is also of interest in connection with the Time-pair, to note that Horapollo, the Alexandrian grammarian, tells us that the Egyptians when they desire to express the idea of Æ on write “sun and moon” 2 (i. 1), and when they want to write “year” they draw “Isis, ” that is “woman” (i. 3).
We thus see that in Egypt there were Æ ons of Periods or Years, and Years of Æ ons. Above all these ruled the God of the Æ ons, the highest God of many a mystic community.
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