The story goes something like this: In the beginning the unknowable and self-begotten first principle emerges from watery chaos and gives birth to the gods. This primal being first cleaves in two, and then consorts with itself, thus producing the next divine pair. And so it goes. Each successive generation of gods gives rise to the next until the full pantheon emerges. At some point the cosmic clock begins to tick. The various responsibilities attending Creation are delegated, after which heaven and the earth are formed along with the stars, day and night, and the elements air, fire, and earth. Very late in the game living things appear, including, almost as an afterthought, the human race.
This grand Creation scheme was, with many variations, almost universal throughout the ancient world – and this includes the Greeks, despite that remarkable flowering of speculation about man, God, and the universe known as Greek philosophy. Most of the Greek philosophers, of course, were monotheists. Yet, with some exceptions, they managed to coexist with polytheism. The great thinkers were not fooled. They understood that mythology was to be taken figuratively, not literally. The purpose of philosophy was to delve deeper – and the true foundation was obviously monotheism. The gods of Olympus were entirely derivative.
The Gnostic Ialdabaoth has been translated as “begetter of Sabaoth,”
which seems to have been a pejorative pun for YHWH Sabaoth, one of the
names of Yahweh in the Old Testament. The demiurge, of course, was
wholly foreign to Judaism. Whereas the monotheistic Greek philosophers
often tolerated a proliferation of lesser deities, Judaism insisted on a
single entity: Yahweh. By some accounts he was attended by a council of
angels, but Yahweh remained the prime mover; he alone was responsible
for Creation. Even today this remains one of Judaism’s distinguishing
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