Demiurge biography

Initially, the demiurge was called every person working for people, whether it be a craftsman or official who performs certain social responsibilities of Thus. V, 47, 9; In a broader sense, the demiurge was called any creator of something, for example. VII A6; Polit. In Timea, Plato defines the demiurge as a mind, which, looking at the eternal intelligible prototype-paradigm TIM.

At the same time, neither the perfect prototype, nor matter from the demiurge depends, the latter acts just as the cause of their connection, which is its significant difference from the god of theistic religions that creates the world out of nothing. Demiurge creates only eternal entities since everything has an eternal reason and is itself eternal, TIM. The creation of the mortal creatures necessary for the fullness of the universe, the demiurge provides the lower gods, handing them the “seeds and beginnings of creation” 41C.

Plato’s remark that on the issue of the origin of the Universe should be content with the “plausible myth” 29D, gave the reason to some members of the ancient Academy Xenocrat, the spausippus to interpret the Cosmogony “Timea” as a conditionally-methodical language used in “didactic purposes” to express time-free ontological structures Xenocrates, Fr.

Aristotle emphasized the Demiurge “Timai” under the presentation of Platonic teachings, considering him a lack of constant concept and poetic metaphor of MET. I, a, and used this term only in the direct meaning: "Craftsman, Master." However, it is possible that the Demiurge "Timaa", an identical to the reason for the combination of the limit and the unlimited Philebe Phileb.

Ross D. In any case, later philosophers directly correlated the current reason for Aristotle with the sen-creator god. In tim. I, a transcendental understanding of the highest divine principle in the average Platonism leads to the fact that the functions of the demiurge as an active principle, directly in contact with matter in the act of creation, are often transferred to the secondary intermediary, which comes from the primary traffic police.

The nature of this God is determined in different ways. The author of the “textbook of Platonic philosophy” by Alkina, based on the Aristotelian doctrine of a passive and active mind, understands the demiurge as a reasonable part of the world soul, which does not think thanks to itself, but thanks to the influence of the active divine mind, which is simultaneously intelligible paradigm of the DIDASC cosmos.

X, at the world soul is also identified by Demiurge Attic FR. Filon of Alexandria ascribes the functions of Demiurge Logos - the creative power of the supreme god “existing”, containing the divine plan about the world and actively formalizing matter by turning ideas into immanent bodies of the spermic rational principles of OPIF. Filon considers the demiurgic logos the oldest and closest to God by force and calls him the “first -born son of the god AGR.

The Apamean Numenii identifies the demiurge with a divine mind, emanating from the “god-father”, defined as a concerned being, good, a single Fr. Demiurge is the "second God." With one part, he, as a mind, is always facing his father, and the other is immersed in the matter, which he decides in accordance with the intented forms contemplated in his father. Numenia compares this duality of the demiurge with the position of the helmsman on the ship, which, together with his ship, is in the power of the raging sea, but at the same time fixes the gaze up to the motionless stars, paving the safe path among FR waves.

However, the tendency to consolidate demiurgic functions behind the intermediary deity was not on average generally accepted Platonism. Some philosophers, in particular Attic and Nicom from Gerase, were inclined to identify Demiurge with the first and highest God. Attic described the demiurge as a “higher beginning”, from which everything that exists and “over which there is no other beginning” Procl.

I, this is the highest beginning, according to Attica, at the same time both mind and good. Nicomom in the “Theologian Arithmetic” also identifies the demiurge with the Higher God, described as the Monad, “Skillful Mind” and the good [Iambi]. In Gnosticism with its radical dualism and conviction in the original imperfection of this world, a doctrine arises of evil or unreasonable demiurge.

In the Valentine Demiurge system, not only below the pages of the eternal entities - the “eons”, but also below the fallen Sofia -Ahamot, which creates D. I, 1, as such, the demiurge has mental nature and is located above seven circles of the sky. Limited by the limits of mental being, he is not able to understand the “spiritual”: he cannot directly contemplate intelligible ideas and does not know the true nature of things.

Therefore, creating the world, he does not know what he is doing, and is constantly mistaken. In particular, trying to imitate eternity characteristic of the Eones, he receives in return for her endlessly time. And although Demiurge himself is convinced that he is the only god and creator of this visible cosmos, in reality his activity is directed by his mother Ahamot.Among the many epithets with which the Gnostics endow the demiurge, there is an epithet “Father of those on the right” and “Demiurge of those who on the left” ADV.

I, 1, 9, by “on the right” Gnostics mean incorporeal entities similar to the demiurge itself, and by “located on the left” - the body. Thus, in Gnosticism, as in the average Platonism of Plutarch from Heronea, Numenia, to con. At the same time, the paternal function is usually attributed to the deity of a higher order, and the demiurgic one is lower - lower, since the father, which generates something from his own essence, is thought of motionless and self -sufficient in his product, and demiurge - volatile and needing to create his works in the material and intelligible sample.

In neoplatonism, starting with the dam, the functions of the demiurge are firmly fixed beyond the mind - the second after the unified incorporeal hypostasis of ENN. II 3, entering into a polemic with Numenia and Gnostics, dams proves that the intelligible being, according to which our visible world is happening, is not outside of the mind, but in it, to the extent that this mind thinks itself V 5, 2.

As a result, instead of the previous tradition of the idea of ​​two gods, one of which acts as a complete paradigm of the world, and the other in the role of the role in the role Contemplating this paradigm of the mind, Plotin is developing the doctrine of the only divine mind-demiurge, combining both of these aspects. The first immortal creation of the mind is the world soul. It also carries part of the demiurgic functions, drawing up and ordering with the help of the "logos" the sphere of formation.

Passing the parallel with Timim, Plotin identifies this aspect of the world soul with the “lower gods” mentioned by Plato, which the universal demiurge entrusted the creation of mortal beings II 1, 5. He heads the series “Universal Demiurge”, usually correlated with the Demiurge “Timea”. He equips the cosmic whole in a holistic way, creating the first and most important in the world: the soul, four elements, heaven and divine luminaries.

V, 13,; 15, in addition to the universal or thinking demiurge, creating space as a whole, the procle distinguishes three more types of demiurge of the lower order: 1 arrangement of the whole in a particular way; 2 The arrangement of parts in an integral way and 3 arrangement of parts in a particular way V, 13, 42, the last three species, called the “younger demiurge”, are carried out by the gods of soul nature: supra-cosmic absolutely incorporeal, near-custody of the world as a whole and intraosmically animating individual bodies, respectively.

The last god, closing the entire demiuric series, is the creator of the sublunar world Dionysus. Unlike senior demiurges, who in the process of creation remain separate from their works, Dionysus himself becomes the bodily space he created. As a result, it mixes with matter, loses unity and breaks up into many single things, which, according to Proche, was reflected in the orphic myth of the isolation of this god by the titans in TIM.

El Problema de Dios En Platon. La Teologia del Demiorgo. Salamanca,; Robinson T. Middle Platonists.

A Study of Platonism 80 B. Average Platoniki. Pressented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Leiden, p. Beitraage ZU Seineer Rezments-Geschichte. Louvain; Leiden, S. The image of the master and the meaning of the word “demiurge” in the dialogs of Plato, - VDI, 4, p. Gaidenko, M. Solopova, S. month, A. Seregin, A. Stolyarov, Yu.