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

48 CHAPTER 10
in Ugarit texts and means the Powerful One, the Opener, cf. Die
Schoepfungsmythen, loc. cit. (One may compare him to Chrosor in
the Philonian transcription of Sachouniathon, Eusebius, Praeparatio
Evangelica I, 10, 11, where he is identified with Hephaestus, the
Powerful Craftsman and Skilled Technician; evidently he expresses the
mechanical, technical model of the world’s creation, the artisanship
type of creation, since it is precisely Chousoros who opens the cosmic
egg and forms the Sky and the Earth.)
The Hellanicus-and-Hieronymus version of Orphic Cosmogony,
“the Orphic cosmogony according to Hellanicus and Hieronymus”,
(Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta Fr. 54) presents interesting similarities
with the attested Phoenician models. (It is noteworthy that Hellanicus
composed a “Phoenician Archaeology”, Josephus, Jewish Archaeology
I, 94 and Kern op. cit. p. 130). 9
3. The blowing of Spirit as the moving, vital, active principle and
the darkness of abyss as the necessary complementary opposite pole 10 ,
as the necessary condition for the creation of something other than the
first principle, are in different formulations (with the probable
influence from Hellenistic, especially Stoic, terms and concepts) the
first principles also of some Gnostic systems of dualistic structure like
those of the Nicholaites, Ophites and Sethianoi. The former is purely
dualistic (Epiphanius, Contra Haereseon XXV, 5, 80 A-C, vol. II pp.
35-6 Dindorf; Philastrius, Haer. 33; Tertullianus, Adversus Haereseon
1; cf. Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis p. 103). Darkness (ÛÎfiÙÔ˜
and ‚˘ıfi˜ and ≈‰ˆÚ) pre-exists as second principle; the first principle
is pneuma which effects a primary and archetypal determination, a
primaeval discrimination within Chaos, maybe the primary earth
(according to the testimony of Philastrius), or rather the Sky according
to the cosmogony of Genesis, or even the separation of an upper
Depth and lower Water, the effect of which was that the spirit came to
occupy the upper region. Chaos which was in no way fond of any
discrimination became afraid of, and was reluctant to submit to, the
possible consequences of such separation: there was serious threat of
further and still further determinacy and limitedness and boundarycreation
11 . Chaos became therefore enraged and furious at the process
of separation, and finally raised itself towards the blowing spirit of the
upper region, came into contact with it and gave birth to the cosmic