Revision as of 08:33, 24 May 2024 by Billy Mitchell(talk | contribs)(→Origin: Will write more about Valentinianism later. Kind of hard for me to understand it rn.)
The demiurge,[a] literally meaning "craftsman" or "artisan," is a concept in Platonic philosophy. The demiurge is the benevolent creator of the universe who seeks to create a world as good as possible. Plato first described this concept in his dialogue Timaeus. we're gonna mmh
The term was later applied to the creator of the material world in Gnosticism. Marcion, while not a Gnostic, held a dualistic belief in two gods, the harsh God of the Old Testament, whom he called the Demiurge, and the higher, loving Good God of the New Testament, of whom Jesus preached. Valentinus, an early Gnostic, would use this term as well, from whom other Gnostic sects adopted the term.
Gnostic interpretations of the Demiurge vary. To Valentinus, the Demiurge was the God of the Old Testament, but diverges from Marcion in that he believed the Demiurge was created from a series of emanations from the Pleroma (the fullness). The Demiurge is the son of Sophia (wisdom).
An imperfect god of Gnosticism who created the material world.
According to Gnostics of the Roman Empire, the Demiurge proclaims himself as God; when Adam and Eve gain "knowledge," he cast them out in anger. The Demiurge wishes for the souls of humans to be trapped in the material world forever.