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

MONISM OF DARKNESS - DUALISM OF LIMIT AND INDETERMINACY 45
for a correct understanding of the Archaic Greek experience that
movement and mobility proceed from the principle of Limitlessness,
not that of Limit, and belong to that which receives order, to the
receiving, passive and determinable thing, not to that which imposes
order, namely the drastic, active and determining thing. The meaning
of such recognition becomes profounder once we notice that the soul,
because it is a principle of mobility, pertains to the series of Infinity
and Indeterminacy, of formlessness, shapelessness and indefiniteness,
of that which is without Âr‰Ô˜ and without 剤·. (Some observations
on the subject are to be found below in Chapter 12, p. 181 and nn.
105-108.) The divergence from Middle-Eastern Semitic belief,
especially the Biblical one, is striking. We find there that God’s Spirit,
a function of the first principle, moves, activates and creates the
orderly world from an inert and chaotic matter (second principle).
Thus in Genesis I, 2: an indeterminate earth pre-exists in the wet
darkness of the abyss over which the spirit of God was wandering: ì ‰b
ÁÉ qÓ àfiÚ·ÙÔ˜ ηd àηٷÛ··ÛÙÔ˜, ηd ÛÎfiÙÔ˜ âapple¿Óˆ Ùɘ à‚‡Û-
ÛÔ˘Ø Î·d appleÓÂÜÌ· £ÂÔÜ âappleÂʤÚÂÙÔ âapple¿Óˆ ÙÔÜ ≈‰·ÙÔ˜. The Hebrew
word which the Septuagint translates as âappleÂʤÚÂÙÔ literally means ‘to
flutter, fly, hover, wing, be suspended, move to and fro’ 3 : it denotes a
rushing, tremulous, throbbing, pulsating, quivering, nervous,
continuous motion, which is here in the present case the stirring
agitation and blowing of a dynamic principle over the static inertness
of chaotic abyss. This motion deriving from the principle of life effects
the fertilization of inert darkness and thus inaugurates the demiurgic
process. That is why the first manifestation of creation is Light.
The Old Testament experience (which is contained in the the socalled
Hieratic Codex to which the beginning of the book of Genesis
also belongs) is reflected in Phoenicean mythology. The Cosmogony
of Sanchouniathon (in the version of Philo of Byblos) postulates two
first principles: (i) blow of dark wind, swing of infernal breath and (ii)
darkness of turbid liquidity and chaotic moisture. Both principles
existed from eternity. Logico-mythical thought realizes the
inexplicability and unaccountability of one single principle within
eternity: what can happen in eternity so that anything starts to be, so
that any ontological reality originates? How does it come about that
the flow of time begins in eternity? And why then rather than earlier
or later? How can moments (durationless presents, ÓÜÓ) be discerned