Demiurge
mythological figure · 4 works · 7 mentions · 21 anchored passages
the Demiurge · Father (of animal substances) · Metropator · Sabbatum · he who begot all things · him who is the parent of this universe · that eternal god · the Demiurge God · the Maker · the craftsman
spoken of as
2 expressionsthe Demiurge3 mentions
Stromata (Greek) · Scorpiace (Latin)
By this reasoning, not wishing to fill up the world made by the Demiurge, they wish to abstain from marriage, setting themselves against their Maker and hastening toward the Good who called them—not, as they say, toward the God who is otherwise.
in the texts
Stromata
The world-creator figure of Valentinian theology, distinguished by heretics from the true God.
For the Demiurge, called god and father, he addressed as image of the true God and as prophet, but Sophia as painter, of whom the moulded thing is the image, unto the glory of the invisible—since whatever comes forth from a conjugal pairing is fullnesses, but whatever from a single one is images.
But that this one is the Father of the Son, the Demiurge of all things, the Lord Almighty, we have postponed to that examination in which we promised to discourse against the heresies, showing that this is the only one proclaimed by Him.
but if He destroyed it to this end, namely, that He might not touch the different kind, then it is not these counterfeits of the Demiurge who destroy death—those who breathe into the soul from the middle state, their own image, the life from above according to the heresy of their doctrine, even if they say this comes about through the mother.
Adversus Valentinianos
The world-creator god of Valentinian myth, identified with the Creator-God of Scripture but depicted as ignorant offspring of Achamoth
lower still the devil, in this world common with us, co-elemented and embodied together, as was set forth above, out of the most useful mischances of Sophia—so that it would not have even air, the space for the reciprocation of the breath, the tender garment of all bodies, the index of all colours, the instrument of the seasons, had not Sophia's sadness strained this too, as fears strained the ani …
and the Demiurge, ignorant of his mother, much more of the Father, the image of Nus, who knows the Father?
And yet they affirm that the devil too is a work of the Demiurge, and call him "Lord of the world" (Munditenens), and defend him as more knowing of the higher things than the Demiurge—as spiritual by nature, whereas the Demiurge is animal.
Timaeus
The divine craftsman who fashions the universe as a living, intelligent, spherical being after an eternal model, creates the world soul and body, and later addresses the lesser gods to commission the creation of mortal beings.
When, therefore, all had been created — both those that move and show themselves openly, and those that are revealed to us only so far as they themselves will — then to them the god who begot all things speaks:
And among them, those that shall be created such as to be worthy to be, as it were, kinsmen of the immortal gods, let them be called of divine race and hold the chief place over all living beings, and obey you willingly by right and law;
But since solidity was sought for the universe, and solid things are never joined by one middle term but always by two, it so came about that the god placed water and air between fire and earth, and set them in due relation to one another and joined them by proportion, so that, as fire stands to air, so air should render itself to water, and as air stands to water, so water should render itself to earth.
Scorpiace
Lesser creator-god of Valentinian theology, said to disdain ordinary humanity.
For "our people," they say, "not even the Demiurge himself steadily approved as men, since he reckoned them a drop of a bucket and the dust of a threshing-floor and spittle and locusts, and even made them equal to irrational beasts of burden.