chapter 10 the monism of darkness and the dualism of limit and ...

MONISM OF DARKNESS - DUALISM OF LIMIT AND INDETERMINACY 55
Belus (Bel=Dominus, the Lord) formed the arrangement of the world
and the order of existence firstly by means of a primary division of
liquid darkness into Earth and Sky (Berosus FGrH 680 F1 §6=Fr. 12
Schnabel p. 254 sqq. Cf. Abydenus FGrH 685 F1). The old Bel of
Akad is the Sumerian Enlil, the Breath of existence, developed into the
Lord of Weather and especially the Lord of violent atmospheric
phenomena, such as storms and tempests.
Initially, dualism postulates the immediate congress of the two first
principles for the Creation of the World-Order (cf. the veil of Sacred
Marriage in Pherecydes. Cf. below, Chapter 12, n. 50). However,
when dualism is combined with a kind of monism, namely a henism
that overestimates the importance and ontological status of the first
principle vis-à-vis the World, it tends to develop an articulated system
of emanations from the first principle and a corresponding
hierarchical differentiation of the Fullness of Existence with no
reference to, or collaboration with, the Second Principle. It is then
difficult to satisfactorily explain the newly introduced multiplicity in
the domain of the absolute, and this difficulty leads to the postulation
of a second principle different from the Second, albeit analogous
therewith. Intertwining with the Second Principle is now the work of
the last Aeon (according to Gnostic terminology), that is of the last
Emanation from the supreme Principle which is the primary One.
This is the structure of the Ophitic system according to Eirenaeus’
account. Here the major problem to be accounted for is presented by
the departure of the last Hypostasis from the fullness of absolute
existence; a defect is necessarily presupposed inside perfection, be it in
its remotest boundaries, a want in the lowest edges of fullness. This
line of developing dualism ends up with the suspension of the selfsubsistence
of the Second Principle as radical Other, and is to be found
in full bloom in Valentinian Gnosis as well as in Neoplatonism, the
concluding form of ancient Greek philosophy.
In Sethianism, according to Hippolytus, another crucial
development is established: mobility is (partially rather than
altogether) separated from the First Principle (in which there remains a
measured, mild motion of breath and spiritual fragrance) and attached
to the Second Principle as violent passibility, lustful receptivity and
vigorous craving for surrender to the drastic fertilizing activity of the
first principle or any of its emanations. The tempestuous fury of the