Demiurge

“ But this soul of man is little else than what we call the life, and here as in all else the Demiurge is controlled without knowing it by his mother Sophia, who from her place in the Heavenly Jerusalem directs his operations. ”

“ Man’s body, according to him, was made by the Demiurge out of matter [719] , but without any spark from a higher world infused into it, as the Ophites and Valentinus had taught. Hence man was naturally inclined to evil, and the Law which the Demiurge delivered to him was more or less of a snare. Man was sure to give way to the evil desires inherent in matter, and on doing so became with all his race subject to the power of matter and the evil spirits inhabiting it. It is true that the Demiurge had devised a plan of salvation in the shape of the Law of the Jews delivered to them on Sinai. ”

“ The spiritual seed, again, being divested of their animal souls, [85] and becoming intelligent spirits, shall in an irresistible and invisible manner enter in within the Pleroma, and be bestowed as brides on those angels who wait upon the Saviour. The Demiurge himself will pass into the place of his mother Sophia ”

“ The souls of just men, that is to say, our souls, will be conveyed to the Demiurge in the abodes of the middle region. We are duly thankful; we shall be content to be classed with our god, in whom lies our own origin. ”

“ The bodies of men the Demiurge makes from that hylic and diabolic substance which is matter [385] , and the soul which comes 110from him dwells within it as in an inn, into which all may enter. Sometimes, says Valentinus—and in this instance at least we know it is he, not one of his followers, who is speaking—the soul dwells alone and sometimes with demons, but sometimes with Logoi or “words,” who are heavenly angels sent by Sophia Without and her spouse the Joint Fruit of the Pleroma into this world, and who dwell with the soul in the earthly body, when it has no demons living with it. ”

“ According to some of these systems, an Aeon removed by many emanations from the source of Deity, and, in consequence, possessed of comparatively little strength, passed over the bounds of the Pleroma, and imparted life to matter. Another Power, called the Demiurge, was now produced, who, out of the materials already in existence, fashioned the present world. The human race, ushered, under such circumstances, upon the stage of time, are ignorant of the true God, and in bondage to corrupt matter. ”

“ Midway between the supreme God and the material world was the Demiurgus, who created the latter, and under whose jurisdiction the lower, animal soul of man proceeded after death, while his higher, celestial soul returned to the pleroma whence at first it issued. ”

“ For perturbation, and grief, and distress, are not the properties either of a flesh void of soul, or of a soul void of understanding; nor are they the sign of the immutable Divinity, nor the index of a mere phantasm, nor do they mark the defect of human weakness; but the Word exhibited in Himself the exercise of the affections and susceptibilities proper to us, having endued Himself with our passibility, even as it is written, that “He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” [2] For perturbation, and grief, and distress, are disorders of soul ”

“ Here, then, the Demiurgus retired, leaving to the gods the work of fabricating mortal bodies for man, and two mortal and inferior souls, with which the immortal soul was to be joined. But before he withdrew he inculcated upon the gods to construct the new mortal animal in the best manner, so that the immortal soul should have the fairest chance of guiding and governing rightly, in order that the animal might not be the cause of mischief and misery to himself ”

“ I continued to linger, in the midst of extreme torture, through many weeks; and so high, and unremitted was my delirium, that my parents, from a persuasion that, should I be restored to health, my reason was forever lost, were reconciled to my departure. One particular I consider as astoning; every thing, which passed in my mind through the whole of this protracted delirium, I can, to this day, recollect as well as any event, which has taken place in any part of my life. ”

“ Deme'trius, a citizen of Greece during the reign of Alexius Comnenus.—Sir W. Scott, Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus) .
Demiurgus, that mysterious agent which, according to Plato, made the world and all that it contains. The Logos or "Word" of St. John's Gospel (ch. i. I) is the demiurgus of platonizing Christians.
Democ'ritos (in Latin Democritus) , the laughing or scoffing philosopher, the Friar Bacon of his age. To "dine with Democ'ritos" is to go without dinner, the same as "dining with Duke Humphrey," or "dining with the cross-legged knights." ”

“ A thousand years or a single instant—for time is a relative thing—the respite lasted. Then, I sank, as it seemed, to the old level of consciousness, and the torment was renewed.
Endure it now I knew that I must—and why. A strange new purpose filled my being. The light of understanding had dawned upon my soul.
And so I came to resume my vigil in the home of Velma and Louis. ”

“ Without thine edict;—if before the time,
I count it gain. Who does not gain by death,
That lives, as I do, amid boundless woe?
Slight is the sorrow of such doom to me.
But had I suffered my own mother’s child,
Fallen in blood, to be without a grave,
That were indeed a sorrow. ”

“ For a time I had dreams which were like reproductions of the day’s conversation. I dreamed that the whole world was in revolt, and that I, alone or with Demian, tensely waited the signal of fate. Fate remained half concealed, but bore somehow or other the traits of Mother Eve—to be chosen or rejected by her, that was fate. ”

“ Union with severance. Thou hast lost, young friend,
But lately lost thy boyhood's dearest mate,
Thine earliest friend, a brother of thy heart,
True Christian soul though dwelling in the world;
[Pg 261] Fear not such severance can extinguish love
Here, or hereafter! He whom most I loved
Was severed from me by the tract of years:
A child of nine years old was I, when first
Jarrow received me: pestilence ere long
Swept from that house her monks, save one alone,
Ceolfrid, then its abbot. Man and child,
We two the lonely cloisters paced ”

“ Yet you look not like one who has had nights of delirium, and days in which the heart lay in the breast, as a corpse endowed with consciousness might lie in the grave, feeling the worm gnaw it, and the decay corrupt, and yet incapable of resistance or of motion. ”

“ We can now understand why among many peoples of antiquity, as Plutarch tells us, the time of sowing was a time of sorrow. The laying of the seed in the earth was a burial of the divine element, and it was fitting that like a human burial it should be performed with gravity and the semblance, if not the reality, of sorrow. ”

“ Indeed, these mortals bring down suffering upon their own heads by sheer demerit, and suffer they must, do all you can, until they have passed through the usual cycles of birth, death, and rebirth, again and again, working out demerit by merit in the process, and thus paving the way for final absorption into the Deity, the source of their being. ”

“ And Demian had known so much in advance. How strange that the world’s stream would no longer flow somewhere or other by us—that now it was suddenly flowing through us, that fate and adventure called us, and that now, or soon, the moment would come when the world would need us, when it would be transformed. Demian was right, one should not be sentimental over it. Only it was strange that I was now to experience that lonely thing, “fate,” with so many, with the whole world. ”

“ If sorrow, and mourning, and sighing, and death itself, assail us from the afflictions both of soul and body, how shall they be removed, except by the cessation of their causes, that is to say, the afflictions of flesh and soul? ”

“ Having no thought but for them, I lavished endearments on them and all the care their growing infirmities needed; for I had the grief of seeing that I had bequeathed them a very sad inheritance. The eruptions which had caused me so much suffering made their appearance very early on their little bodies; the eldest was quite covered with them. Many remedies were tried, but the root of the evil was never wholly destroyed. ”

“ I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.
8 For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.
9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.
10 For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. ”

“ Then judgment I pronounce on thee, because thou followed Lucre,
Whereby thou hast sold thy soul, to feel like torment with her
Which torments comprehended are in the worm of Conscience,
Who raging still shall ne'er have end, a plague for thine offence.
Care shall be thy comfort, and sorrow thy life sustain,
Thou shalt be dying, yet never dead, but pining still in endless pain. ”

“ Even the light that is in him is darkness; and how great is that darkness! But, when he is put out of this tabernacle by death, his candle shall be put out with him. The period of his life will be the final period of all his days and will turn all his hopes into endless despair. When a wicked man dies his expectation shall perish, Prov. xi. 7. He shall lie down in sorrow.
II. The preparatives for that destruction represented under the similitude of a beast or bird caught in a snare, or a malefactor arrested and taken into custody in order to his punishment, v. ”

“ Professing to regard youths as the most cleanly and beautiful objects in this phenomenal world, they declared that by loving and extolling the chef-d’œuvre, corporeal and intellectual, of the Demiurgus, disinterestedly and without any admixture of carnal sensuality, they are paying the most fervent adoration to the Causa causans. ”

“ That to the old man I may rest,
And be in him new drest.
So holy in my head,
Perfect and light in my deare breast,
My doctrine tun'd by Christ, (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest)
Come people; Aaron's drest. ”

“ The preparations necessary for the interment keep the mind in a state of constant agitation; but when these are all adjusted, and the ministers of death enter to bear away the dear departed to the distant tomb, then the sobs, and tears, and groans of agonized survivors, proclaim the greatness of the irreparable desolation.
It was on a still summer evening, as we sat conversing together on the immortality of the soul, and on the blessedness of the righteous in the heavenly world, that we received intelligence of the approaching [187] dissolution of Mrs. Allen. Mrs. ”

“ The great god Demos, after centuries of dreamless sleep, throwing off his sluggishness with effort, only partially articulate as yet, staggering on awkwardly, aimlessly, blindly,—drunk with the sudden revelation of his own huge strength, a tragic picture enough with his great heart reaching out toward some Ideal, but not quite knowing what it was, nor how to get it. ”

“ But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.—There will be survivors of the Time of Trouble who will live on into the Millennium proper. Those of dove-like character will be most likely to survive. The dove has a mournful note. This class will appreciate their iniquity, repent of it and pray for forgiveness and deliverance.—E. 231, 212.
7:17. All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.—The hands symbolize power. The people of Christendom will realize their helplessness. ”

“ Now it chanced once upon the break of day that he heard a cry so terrible that one would have called it a demon’s cry; nor had he ever heard a brute bellow in such wise, so awful and strange it seemed. ”

“ Amid all this horror, the sight of ghastly death, and the ravings of delirium, whilst some brave souls devoted themselves to the assistance of the suffering and dying, crowds of others rushed to taverns, theatres, and places of debauch, and a strange maniacal mirth startled the silence of the night, and added horror to the work of death. ”

“ And yet is there no comparison, when this is done, betuixt the power of God, and of the Deuill. As to their forme of extasie and spirituall transporting, it is certaine the soules going out of the bodie, is the onely difinition of naturall death: and who are once dead, God forbid wee should thinke that it should lie in the power of all the Deuils in Hell, to restore them to their life againe: Although he can put his owne spirite in a dead bodie, which the Necromancers commonlie practise, as yee haue harde. ”

“ Now, does the fact of the ditch, the fall, and the broken leg, being unseen and unknown, make them a spiritual ditch, a spiritual fall, a spiritual broken leg? And does the fact of the demon and his doings, being as yet unseen and unknown, make them spiritual, or the harm that he may do, a spiritual harm? ”

“ It would make the stoutest Heart bleed to hear how many Warnings were then given by dying Penitents, to others not to put off and delay their Repentance to the Day of Distress, that such a Time of Calamity as this, was no Time for Repentance; was no Time to call upon God. I with I could repeat the very Sound of those Groans, and of those Exclamations that I heard from some poor dying Creatures, when in the Hight of their Agonies and Distress ”

“ Deemer, let me say in passing, did one of the bravest things that any man ever did. Submerged, half drowned himself, he stayed with the maddened animal until he had succeeded in freeing the unconscious man. ”