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90-551: The origins of the name Demogorgon are not entirely clear, though the most prevalent scholarly view now considers it to be a misreading of the Greek δημιουργόν ( dēmiourgón , accusative case form of δημιουργός, ' demiurge ') based on the manuscript variations in the earliest known explicit reference in Lactantius Placidus (Jahnke 1898, Sweeney 1997, Solomon 2012). Boccaccio , in his influential Genealogia Deorum Gentilium , cites

180-512: A Messiah. To this Messiah, however, was actually united with Jesus the Saviour, Who redeemed men. These are either hylikoí or pneumatikoí . The first, or material men, will return to the grossness of matter and finally be consumed by fire; the second, or animal men, together with the Demiurge, will enter a middle state, neither Pleroma nor hyle ; the purely spiritual men will be completely freed from

270-468: A cuyo huso el mundo está sujeto, la fea muerte y el vivir lucido y el negro lago del oscuro olvido — (Libro II, estrofa 19) Demogorgon is mentioned in Edmund Spenser 's The Faerie Queene : A bold bad man, that dar'd to call by name Great Gorgon, Prince of darknesse and dead night, At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to flight. — (Canto I, stanza 37) and: Downe in the bottome of

360-461: A dark, shapeless spirit, is female or male. The theory of Demogorgon's name originating from Greek demos and gorgos may be the foundation for its use in this text as an allusion to a politically active and revolutionary populace. Shelley's allusions to the French Revolution further support this. In the poem "Demogorgon" by Álvaro de Campos , the writer is afraid of becoming mad by learning

450-469: A different Lactantius, the Christian author Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius , even though the commentator appears to have been Mithraic . The name Demogorgon is introduced in a discussion of Thebaid 4.516, which mentions "the supreme being of the threefold world" ( triplicis mundi summum ). In one manuscript, the author says of Statius, Dicit deum Demogorgona summum, cuius scire nomen non licet ("He

540-498: A now-lost work by Theodontius and that master's acknowledged Byzantine source " Pronapides the Athenian " as authority for the idea that Demogorgon is the antecedent of all the gods. Art historian Jean Seznec concludes that "Demogorgon is a grammatical error, become god." The name variants cited by Ricardus Jahnke include the Latin "demoirgon", "emoirgon", "demogorgona", "demogorgon", with

630-431: Is a philosophical reconciliation of Hesiod 's cosmology in his Theogony , syncretically reconciling Hesiod to Homer , though other scholars have argued that Plato's theology 'invokes a broad cultural horizon without committing to any specific poetic or religious tradition'. Moreover, Plato believed that the Demiurge created other, so-called "lower" gods who, in turn, created humanity. Some scholars have argued that

720-610: Is also found in Judaism as the Angel of Death and in Christian demonology . This link to Judeo-Christian tradition leads to a further comparison with Satan . Another alternative title for the demiurge is "Saklas", Aramaic for "fool". In the Apocryphon of John , Yaldabaoth is also known as both Sakla and Samael. The angelic name " Ariel " (Hebrew: 'the lion of God') has also been used to refer to

810-424: Is an artisan -like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe . Various sects of Gnostics adopted the term demiurge . Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily the same as the creator figure in the monotheistic sense, because the demiurge itself and the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are both considered consequences of something else. Depending on

900-653: Is an archon with the face of a lion, half flame, and half darkness. In the Nag Hammadi text On the Origin of the World , the three sons of Yaldabaoth are listed as Yao , Eloai, and Astaphaios . Under the name of Nebro (rebel), Yaldabaoth is called an angel in the apocryphal Gospel of Judas . He is first mentioned in "The Cosmos, Chaos, and the Underworld" as one of the twelve angels to come "into being [to] rule over chaos and

990-515: Is inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons creature. Accusative case In grammar , the accusative case ( abbreviated ACC ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb . In the English language , the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns : "me", "him", "her", "us", "whom", and "them". For example, the pronoun she , as

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1080-458: Is marked as accusative, although not a direct object. In Russian , accusative is used not only to display the direct object of an action, but also to indicate the destination or goal of motion. It is also used with some prepositions. The prepositions в and на can both take accusative in situations where they are indicating the goal of a motion. In the masculine , Russian also distinguishes between animate and inanimate nouns with regard to

1170-581: Is mentioned as a "primal" god in quite a few Renaissance texts, and impressively glossed "Demon-Gorgon," i.e., "Terror-Demon" or "God of the Earth". The French historian and mythographer Jean Seznec , for instance, now determines in Demogorgon an allusion to the Demiurge ("Craftsman" or "Maker") of Plato 's Timaeus. For a remarkable early text identifying Ovid's Demiurge (1/1, here) as "sovereign Demogorgon", see

1260-522: Is speaking of the Demogorgon, the supreme god, whose name it is not permitted to know", or perhaps "He is speaking of a god, the supreme Demogorgon"). Prior to Lactantius, there is no mention of the supposed "Demogorgon" anywhere by any writer, pagan or Christian. However, as noted above, there are several different manuscript traditions, including one that gives "demoirgon", which has been taken by most critical editors to indicate some form of misconstruction of

1350-558: Is the Nous (mind of God), and is one of the three ordering principles: Before Numenius of Apamea and Plotinus' Enneads , no Platonic works ontologically clarified the Demiurge from the allegory in Plato's Timaeus . The idea of Demiurge was, however, addressed before Plotinus in the works of Christian writer Justin Martyr who built his understanding of the Demiurge on the works of Numenius. Later,

1440-471: Is the remark concerning the second hypostasis or Creator and third hypostasis or World Soul . Plotinus criticizes his opponents for "all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own" which, he declares, "have been picked up outside of the truth"; they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy, which they have corrupted by their extraneous and misguided embellishments. Thus their understanding of

1530-645: Is typical of early Indo-European languages and still exists in some of them (including Albanian , Armenian , Latin, Sanskrit , Greek , German , Nepali , Polish , Romanian , Russian , Serbian , and Ukrainian ), in the Finno-Ugric languages (such as Finnish and Hungarian), in all Turkic languages , in Dravidian languages like Malayalam and Tamil , and in Semitic languages (such as Arabic ). Some Balto-Finnic languages , such as Finnish, have two cases for objects,

1620-628: Is used, which occurs nowhere in Irenaeus except in connection with the Valentinian system. When it is employed by other Gnostics either it is not used in a technical sense, or its use has been borrowed from Valentinus. But it is only the name that can be said to be specially Valentinian; the personage intended by it corresponds more or less closely with the Yaldabaoth of the Ophites, the great Archon of Basilides,

1710-421: The Apocryphon of John c.  AD 120–180, the demiurge declares that he has made the world by himself: Now the archon ["ruler"] who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas ["fool"], and the third is Samael ["blind god"]. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength,

1800-712: The Commenta Bernensia , the "Berne Scholia on Lucan". By the Late Middle Ages , the reality of a primordial "Demogorgon" was so well fixed in the European imagination that "Demogorgon's son Pan" became a bizarre variant reading for "Hermes' son Pan" in one manuscript tradition of Boccaccio 's Genealogia Deorum gentilium ("Genealogies of the Gods":1.3–4 and 2.1), misreading a line in Ovid 's Metamorphoses . Boccaccio's Demogorgon

1890-657: The nominative case (for example in Latin ). The English term, "accusative", derives from the Latin accusativus , which, in turn, is a translation of the Greek αἰτιατική . The word can also mean "causative", and that might have derived from the Greeks, but the sense of the Roman translation has endured and is used in some other modern languages as the grammatical term for this case, for example in Russian ( винительный ). The accusative case

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1980-693: The 3rd century). The work of Plotinus and other later Platonists in the 3rd century AD to further clarify the Demiurge is known as Neoplatonism . To Plotinus, the second emanation represents an uncreated second cause (see Pythagoras ' Dyad ). Plotinus sought to reconcile Aristotle's energeia with Plato's Demiurge, which, as Demiurge and mind ( nous ), is a critical component in the ontological construct of human consciousness used to explain and clarify substance theory within Platonic realism (also called idealism ). In order to reconcile Aristotelian with Platonian philosophy, Plotinus metaphorically identified

2070-541: The Confused Philosopher" by Vincenzo Righini (1786) with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte , which originally was written for Mozart . One of the lead characters pretends to be Demogorgon in Johann Karl August Musäus ' literary fairy tale " Rolands Knappen " ('Roland's Squires') from Volksmärchen der Deutschen (volume 1, 1782). In Herman Melville 's 1851 novel Moby-Dick , the first mate of

2160-400: The Demiurge and is called his "perfect" name; in some Gnostic lore, Ariel has been called an ancient or original name for Ialdabaoth. The name has also been inscribed on amulets as "Ariel Ialdabaoth", and the figure of the archon inscribed with "Aariel". According to Marcion , the title God was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished from the higher Good God. The former

2250-478: The Demiurge as an oppressive, ignorant ruler, intentionally binding souls in an inherently corrupt material realm. In contrast, Valentinian Gnosticism sees the Demiurge as a well-meaning but limited figure whose rule reflects ignorance rather than malice. Plato , as the speaker Timaeus, refers to the Demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus (28a ff. ), c.  360 BC. The main character refers to

2340-454: The Demiurge as the entity who "fashioned and shaped" the material world. Timaeus describes the Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent , and so it desires a world as good as possible. The result of his work is a universe as a living god with lesser gods, such as the stars, planets, and gods of traditional religion, inside it. Plato argues that the cosmos needed a Demiurge because the cosmos needed a cause that makes Becoming resemble Being . Timaeus

2430-452: The Demiurge is a proposed solution to the problem of evil : while the divine beings are omniscient and omnibenevolent, the Demiurge who rules over our own physical world is not. Psalm 82 begins, "God stands in the assembly of El [ LXX : assembly of gods], in the midst of the gods he renders judgment", indicating a plurality of gods, although it does not indicate that these gods were co-actors in creation. Philo had inferred from

2520-636: The Demiurge is similarly flawed in comparison to Plato's original intentions. Whereas Plato's Demiurge is good wishing good on his creation, Gnosticism contends that the Demiurge is not only the originator of evil but is evil as well. Hence the title of Plotinus' refutation: "Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Kosmos and the Kosmos Itself to be Evil" (generally quoted as "Against the Gnostics"). Plotinus argues of

2610-460: The Demiurge, who is only animal, has no real knowledge. The devil resides in this lower world, of which he is the prince, the Demiurge in the heavens; his mother Sophia in the middle region, above the heavens and below the Pleroma. The Valentinian Heracleon interpreted the devil as the principle of evil, that of hyle (matter). As he writes in his commentary on John 4:21, The mountain represents

2700-636: The Devil, or his world, since the Devil was one part of the whole of matter, but the world is the total mountain of evil, a deserted dwelling place of beasts, to which all who lived before the law and all Gentiles render worship. But Jerusalem represents the creation or the Creator whom the Jews worship. ... You then who are spiritual should worship neither the creation nor the Craftsman, but the Father of Truth. This vilification of

2790-460: The Elohim of Justinus , etc. The Valentinian theory elaborates that from Achamoth ( he kátō sophía or lower wisdom) three kinds of substance take their origin, the spiritual ( pneumatikoí ), the animal ( psychikoí ) and the material ( hylikoí ). The Demiurge belongs to the second kind, as he was the offspring of a union of Achamoth with matter. And as Achamoth herself was only the daughter of Sophía

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2880-467: The Fates and genii are all summoned to appear before him and give an account of their actions. They travel through the air in various strange conveyances, and it is no easy matter to distinguish between their convention and a Witches' Sabbath . When elements of Ariosto's poem supplied Philippe Quinault 's libretto for Jean-Baptiste Lully 's opera Roland , performed at Versailles , 8 January 1685, Demogorgon

2970-514: The Gnostic doctrine of Sophia and her emission of the Demiurge. Though the former understanding certainly enjoys the greatest popularity, the identification of Plotinus' opponents as Gnostic is not without some contention. Christos Evangeliou has contended that Plotinus' opponents might be better described as simply "Christian Gnostics", arguing that several of Plotinus' criticisms are as applicable to orthodox Christian doctrine as well. Also, considering

3060-541: The Gnostics. A. H. Armstrong identified the so-called "Gnostics" that Plotinus was attacking as Jewish and Pagan, in his introduction to the tract in his translation of the Enneads . Armstrong alluding to Gnosticism being a Hellenic philosophical heresy of sorts, which later engaged Christianity and Neoplatonism. John D. Turner , professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska, and famed translator and editor of

3150-672: The God of the Hebrew Bible . Several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being , with his creation initially having the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. In other systems, the Demiurge is instead portrayed as "merely" incompetent or foolish: his creation is an unconscious attempt to replicate the divine world (the pleroma ) based on faint recollections, and thus ends up fundamentally flawed. Thus, in such systems,

3240-482: The Greek dēmiourgon . Jahnke thus restores the text to read "He is speaking of the Demiurge, whose name it is not permitted to know". However, this phantom word in one of the manuscript traditions took on a life of its own among later scholars. In the Early Middle Ages , Demogorgon is mentioned in the tenth-century Adnotationes super Lucanum , a series of short notes to Lucan 's Pharsalia that are included in

3330-454: The Hungarian 1st and 2nd person singular accusative forms, the pronoun can often be dropped if it is clear from the context who the speaker is referring to. Hallasz you.hear engem, me, Demiurge In the Platonic , Neopythagorean , Middle Platonic , and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy , the demiurge ( / ˈ d ɛ m i . ɜːr dʒ / ) (sometimes spelled as demiurg )

3420-562: The Neoplatonist Iamblichus changed the role of the "One", effectively altering the role of the Demiurge as second cause or dyad, which was one of the reasons that Iamblichus and his teacher Porphyry came into conflict. The figure of the Demiurge emerges in the theoretic of Iamblichus, which conjoins the transcendent, incommunicable “One,” or Source. Here, at the summit of this system, the Source and Demiurge (material realm) coexist via

3510-437: The [underworld]". He comes from heaven, and it is said his "face flashed with fire and [his] appearance was defiled with blood". Nebro creates six angels in addition to the angel Saklas to be his assistants. These six, in turn, create another twelve angels "with each one receiving a portion in the heavens". The etymology of the name Yaldabaoth has been subject to many speculative theories. Until 1974, etymologies deriving from

3600-514: The accusative and the partitive case . In morphosyntactic alignment terms, both do the accusative function, but the accusative object is telic , while the partitive is not. Modern English almost entirely lacks declension in its nouns; pronouns, however, have an understood case usage, as in them , her , him and whom , which merges the accusative and dative functions, and originates in old Germanic dative forms (see Declension in English ). In

3690-424: The accusative case ( accusativus ) can be used: For the accusative endings, see Latin declensions . The accusative case is used for the direct object in a sentence. The masculine forms for German articles , e.g., "the", "a/an", "my", etc., change in the accusative case: they always end in -en. The feminine, neutral and plural forms do not change. For example, Hund (dog) is a masculine ( der ) word, so

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3780-502: The accusative case. Another factor that determines the endings of adjectives is whether the adjective is being used after a definite article (the), after an indefinite article (a/an) or without any article before the adjective ( many green apples). In German, the accusative case is also used for some adverbial expressions, mostly temporal ones, as in Diesen Abend bleibe ich daheim (This evening I'm staying at home), where diesen Abend

3870-427: The accusative or the dative. The latter prepositions take the accusative when motion or action is specified (being done into/onto the space), but take the dative when location is specified (being done in/on that space). These prepositions are also used in conjunction with certain verbs, in which case it is the verb in question which governs whether the accusative or dative should be used. Adjective endings also change in

3960-407: The accusative; only the animates carry a marker in this case. The PIE accusative case has nearly eroded in Russian, merging with the genitive or the nominative in most declensions. Only singular first-declension nouns (ending in ' а ', ' я ', or ' ия ') have a distinct accusative (' у ', ' ю ', or ' ию '). Traditional Finnish grammars say the accusative is the case of a total object, while

4050-441: The article changes when used in the accusative case: Some German pronouns also change in the accusative case. The accusative case is also used after particular German prepositions. These include bis , durch , für , gegen , ohne , um , after which the accusative case is always used, and an , auf , hinter , in , neben , über , unter , vor , zwischen which can govern either

4140-405: The case of a partial object is the partitive . The accusative is identical either to the nominative or the genitive , except for personal pronouns and the personal interrogative pronoun kuka / ken , which have a special accusative form ending in -t . The major new Finnish grammar, Iso suomen kielioppi , breaks with the traditional classification to limit the accusative case to

4230-417: The creator is from a fallen, ignorant, or lesser—rather than evil—perspective, such as that of Valentinius . The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus addressed within his works Gnosticism's conception of the Demiurge, which he saw as un- Hellenic and blasphemous to the Demiurge or creator of Plato. Plotinus, along with his teacher Ammonius Saccas , was the founder of Neoplatonism . In the ninth tractate of

4320-399: The creator was held to be inimical to Christianity by the early fathers of the church. In refuting the beliefs of the gnostics, Irenaeus stated that "Plato is proved to be more religious than these men, for he allowed that the same God was both just and good, having power over all things, and himself executing judgment." Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan as the creator of

4410-522: The deepe Abysse Where Demogorgon in dull darknesse pent, Farre from the view of Gods and heauens blis, The hideous Chaos keepes, their dreadfull dwelling is. — (Book IV, Canto ii, stanza 47) Demogorgon is the central character in Voltaire 's 1756 short story " Plato's Dream " - a "lesser superbeing" who was responsible for creating the planet Earth. He is also the protagonist of an opera Il Demogorgone, ovvero il filosofo confuso ("Demogorgon, or

4500-646: The demiurge (or nous ) within the pantheon of the Greek Gods as Zeus . The first and highest aspect of God is described by Plato as the One (Τὸ Ἕν, 'To Hen'), the source, or the Monad . This is the God above the Demiurge, and manifests through the actions of the Demiurge. The Monad emanated the demiurge or Nous (consciousness) from its "indeterminate" vitality due to the monad being so abundant that it overflowed back onto itself, causing self-reflection. This self-reflection of

4590-567: The disconnect or great barrier that is created between the nous or mind's noumenon (see Heraclitus ) and the material world ( phenomenon ) by believing the material world is evil. The majority of scholars tend to understand Plotinus' opponents as being a Gnostic sect—certainly (specifically Sethian ), several such groups were present in Alexandria and elsewhere about the Mediterranean during Plotinus' lifetime. Plotinus specifically points to

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4680-551: The dog). In German, masculine nouns change their definite article from der to den in the accusative case. In Nepali , "Rama sees Shyama" would be translated as रामले श्यामलाई देख्छ। Rama-le Shyama-lai dekhchha. The same sentence in Sanskrit would be रामः पश्यति श्यामम्। Rama: pashyati Shyamam . The accusative case in Latin has minor differences from the accusative case in Proto-Indo-European . Nouns in

4770-425: The domain of thought. Thus, a triad is formed of the intelligible nous , the intellective nous , and the psyche in order to reconcile further the various Hellenistic philosophical schools of Aristotle 's actus and potentia (actuality and potentiality) of the unmoved mover and Plato's Demiurge. Then within this intellectual triad Iamblichus assigns the third rank to the Demiurge, identifying it with

4860-522: The evidence from the time, Evangeliou thought the definition of the term "Gnostics" was unclear. Of note here is that while Plotinus' student Porphyry names Christianity specifically in Porphyry's own works, and Plotinus is to have been a known associate of the Christian Origen , none of Plotinus' works mention Christ or Christianity—whereas Plotinus specifically addresses his target in the Enneads as

4950-410: The evil world from Gnosticism. Gilles Quispel writes, "There is a direct link between ancient Gnosticism and Catharism. The Cathars held that the creator of the world, Satanael, had usurped the name of God, but that he had subsequently been unmasked and told that he was not really God." Gnosticism attributed falsehood or evil to the concept of the Demiurge or creator, though in some Gnostic traditions

5040-536: The expression "Let us make man" of the Book of Genesis that God had used other beings as assistants in the creation of man, and he explains in this way why man is capable of vice as well as virtue, ascribing the origin of the latter to God, of the former to his helpers in the work of creation. The earliest Gnostic sects ascribe the work of creation to angels, some of them using the same passage in Genesis. So Irenaeus tells of

5130-466: The first critical editor Friedrich Lindenbrog (Fridericus Tiliobroga) having conjectured "δημιουργόν" as the prototype in 1600. Various other theories suggest that the name is derived from a combination of the Greek words δαίμων daimon (' spirit ' given the Christian connotations of 'demon' in the early Middle Ages)—or, less likely δῆμος dêmos ("people")—and γοργός gorgós ("quick") or Γοργών Gorgṓn ,

5220-475: The force ( dynamis ) into conscious reality. In this, he claimed to reveal Plato's true meaning: a doctrine he learned from Platonic tradition that did not appear outside the academy or in Plato's text. This tradition of creator God as nous (the manifestation of consciousness), can be validated in the works of pre-Plotinus philosophers such as Numenius , as well as a connection between Hebrew and Platonic cosmology (see also Philo ). The Demiurge of Neoplatonism

5310-511: The greatest villains in D&;D history by the final print issue of Dragon . He is depicted as an eighteen foot tall, reptilian (or amphibious) hermaphroditic tanar'ri (a type of demon) with a somewhat humanoid form (His torso is depicted as ape-like in accompanying art). Two mandrill or hyena heads sprout from his twin snake-like necks, and his arms end in long tentacles. His two heads have individual minds and names. Demogorgon first appeared in

5400-408: The human race, as it was on their account the devil was cast down into this world. According to one variant of the Valentinian system, the Demiurge is also the maker, out of the appropriate substance, of an order of spiritual beings, the devil, the prince of this world, and his angels. But the devil, as being a spirit of wickedness, is able to recognise the higher spiritual world, of which his maker

5490-464: The indeterminate vitality was referred to by Plotinus as the "Demiurge" or creator. The second principle is organization in its reflection of the nonsentient force or dynamis , also called the one or the Monad. The dyad is energeia emanated by the one that is then the work, process or activity called nous , Demiurge, mind, consciousness that organizes the indeterminate vitality into the experience called

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5580-466: The influence of the Demiurge and together with the Saviour and Achamoth, his spouse, will enter the Pleroma divested of body ( hyle ) and soul ( psyché ). In this most common form of Gnosticism the Demiurge had an inferior though not intrinsically evil function in the universe as the head of the animal, or psychic world. Opinions on the devil , and his relationship to the Demiurge, vary. The Ophites held that he and his demons constantly oppose and thwart

5670-481: The land of Egypt , and to have given them their law. The prophecies are ascribed not to the chief but to the other world-making angels. The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus of Rome , makes Irenaeus state that according to Cerinthus (who shows Ebionite influence), creation was made by a power quite separate from the Supreme God and ignorant of him. Theodoret , who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into

5760-461: The last of the thirty Aeons, the Demiurge was distant by many emanations from the Propatôr, or Supreme God. In creating this world out of Chaos the Demiurge was unconsciously influenced for good; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became almost perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending

5850-714: The lower depths. Yaldabaoth is frequently called "the Lion-faced", leontoeides , and is said to have the body of a serpent. The demiurge is also described as having a fiery nature, applying the words of Moses to him: "the Lord our God is a burning and consuming fire". Hippolytus claims that Simon used a similar description. In Pistis Sophia , Yaldabaoth has already sunk from his high estate and resides in Chaos, where, with his forty-nine demons, he tortures wicked souls in boiling rivers of pitch, and with other punishments (pp. 257, 382). He

5940-403: The lower gods are gods of traditional mythology, such as Zeus and Hera. In Middle Platonist and Numenius 's Neo-Pythagorean cosmogonies , the Demiurge is second God as the nous or thought of intelligibles and sensibles ( Middle Platonism and Neo-Pythagoreanism overlapped: both originating in the early 1st century BC and extending through to the end of the 2nd century AD or even into

6030-477: The material world, universe, cosmos. Plotinus also elucidates the equation of matter with nothing or non-being in The Enneads which more correctly is to express the concept of idealism or that there is not anything or anywhere outside of the "mind" or nous (c.f. pantheism ). Plotinus' form of Platonic idealism is to treat the Demiurge, nous , as the contemplative faculty ( ergon ) within man which orders

6120-489: The monsters of Ancient Greek mythology first attested in Hesiod 's Theogony . Demogorgon is first mentioned in the commentary on Statius 's Thebaid often attributed in manuscripts to a Lactantius Placidus , (c. 350–400 AD). The Lactantius Placidus commentary became the most common medieval commentary on the poem by Statius and is transmitted in most early editions up to 1600. The commentary has been attributed incorrectly to

6210-578: The original edition of Dungeons and Dragons , in Eldritch Wizardry (1976), and has appeared in every subsequent edition of the game. Already in 1976 miniatures of Demogorgon were produced by MiniFigs based on " Gygax 's specifications and Dave Sutherland 's illustration from Eldritch Wizardry ." Demogorgon is the name given to the otherworldly creature which appeared in the Netflix original show Stranger Things , which began airing in 2016. This name

6300-607: The paraphrase of Metamorphoses I in Abraham France, The third part of the Countesse of Pembrokes Yuychurch (London, 1592), sig. A2v." Demogorgon was taken up by Christian writers as a demon of Hell: Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon Note, however, Milton does not refer to the inhabitants of Hell, but of an unformed region where Chaos rules with Night. In Milton's epic poem Satan passes through this region while traveling from Hell to Earth . Demogorgon's name

6390-448: The perfect or Divine nous with the intellectual triad being promoted to a hebdomad (pure intellect). In the theoretic of Plotinus, nous produces nature through intellectual mediation, thus the intellectualizing gods are followed by a triad of psychic gods. Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God or Supreme Being and the demiurgic "creator" of the material, identified in some traditions with Yahweh ,

6480-463: The place from which he had come. He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of light from above enters the body of man and gives him a soul, Yaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. At the consummation of all things, all light will return to the Pleroma . But Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into

6570-525: The plural number "powers", and so Epiphanius of Salamis represents Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by angels. In the Archontic , Sethian , and Ophite systems, which have many affinities with the doctrine of Valentinus , the making of the world is ascribed to a company of seven archons , whose names are given, but still more prominent is their chief, "Yaldabaoth" (also known as "Yaltabaoth" or "Ialdabaoth"). In

6660-401: The process of henosis . Iamblichus describes the One as a monad whose first principle or emanation is intellect ( nous ), while among "the many" that follow it there is a second, super-existent "One" that is the producer of intellect or soul ( psyche ). The "One" is further separated into spheres of intelligence; the first and superior sphere is objects of thought, while the latter sphere is

6750-510: The proper noun derive from Plato's Timaeus , written c.  360 BC, where the demiurge is presented as the creator of the universe. The demiurge is also described as a creator in the Platonic ( c.  310–90 BC) and Middle Platonic ( c.  90 BC–AD 300) philosophical traditions. In the various branches of the Neoplatonic school (third century onwards), the demiurge is the fashioner of

6840-506: The reading of an earlier etymology, whose explanation seemingly equated " darkness " and "chaos" when translating an unattested supposed plural form of Hebrew : בוהו , romanized :  bōhu . " Samael " literally means "Blind God" or "God of the Blind" in Hebrew ( סמאל ‎). This being is considered not only blind, or ignorant of its own origins, but may, in addition, be evil; its name

6930-479: The real, perceptible world after the model of the Ideas , but (in most Neoplatonic systems) is still not itself " the One ". Within the vast spectrum of Gnostic traditions views of the Demiurge range dramatically. It is generally understood and agreed upon to be a lesser divinity who governs the material universe. However the nature of its rule over the material realm differs from sect to sect. Sethian Gnosticism portrays

7020-714: The second of his Enneads , Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their appropriation of ideas from Plato: From Plato come their punishments, their rivers of the underworld and the changing from body to body; as for the plurality they assert in the Intellectual Realm—the Authentic Existent, the Intellectual-Principle, the Second Creator and the Soul —all this is taken over from the Timaeus. Of note here

7110-423: The sentence The man sees the dog , the dog is the direct object of the verb "to see". In English , which has mostly lost grammatical cases, the definite article and noun – "the dog" – remain the same noun form without number agreement in the noun either as subject or object, though an artifact of it is in the verb and has number agreement, which changes to "sees". One can also correctly use "the dog" as

7200-482: The ship, Pequod , Starbuck, describes the white whale as the "demigorgon [ sic ]" of the ship's "heathen crew" (see ch. XXXVIII, paragraph 2). Demogorgon also appears as a character in Percy Bysshe Shelley 's Prometheus Unbound . In this lyrical drama, Demogorgon is the offspring of Jupiter and Thetis who eventually dethrones Jupiter. It is never mentioned whether Demogorgon, portrayed as

7290-659: The special case of the personal pronouns and kuka / ken . The new grammar considers other total objects as being in the nominative or genitive case. The accusative case is assigned to the direct object in a sentence in Hungarian. The accusative marker is always -t , often preceded by a linking vowel to facilitate pronunciation. A The fiú boy eszik. eats. A fiú eszik. The boy eats. The boy eats. A The fiú boy eszik eats egy an almát. apple. ACC . A fiú eszik egy almát. The boy eats an apple.ACC. The boy eats an apple. Every personal pronoun has an accusative form. For

7380-418: The subject of a clause , is in the nominative case ("She wrote a book"); but if the pronoun is instead the object of the verb, it is in the accusative case and she becomes her ("Fred greeted her"). For compound direct objects, it would be, e.g., "Fred invited her and me to the party". The accusative case is used in many languages for the objects of (some or all) prepositions . It is usually combined with

7470-579: The subject of a sentence: "The dog sees the cat." In a declined language, the morphology of the article or noun changes with gender agreement. For example, in German , "the dog" is der Hund . This is the form in the nominative case , used for the subject of a sentence. If this article/noun pair is used as the object of a verb, it (usually) changes to the accusative case, which entails an article shift in German ;– Der Mann sieht den Hund (The man sees

7560-454: The system of Simon Magus , of the system of Menander , of the system of Saturninus , in which the number of these angels is reckoned as seven, and of the system of Carpocrates . In Basilides 's system, he reports, the world was made by the angels who occupy the lowest heaven; but special mention is made of their chief, who is said to have been the God of the Jews , to have led that people out of

7650-483: The system, they may be considered either uncreated and eternal or the product of some other entity. Some of these systems are monotheistic while others are henotheistic or polytheistic . The word demiurge is an English word derived from demiurgus , a Latinised form of the Greek δημιουργός or dēmiurgós . It was originally a common noun meaning "craftsman" or "artisan", but gradually came to mean "producer", and eventually "creator". The philosophical usage and

7740-458: The true nature and unveiling the mystery of life. In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game , Demogorgon is a powerful demon prince . He is known as the Prince of Demons, a self-proclaimed title, but one that is acknowledged by mortals and even his fellow demons because of his power and influence. Demogorgon was also named an "iconic D&D character" by Witwer et al. and one of

7830-502: The unattested Aramaic : בהותא, romanized: bāhūthā , supposedly meaning " chaos ", represented the majority view. Following an analysis by the Jewish historian of religion Gershom Scholem published in 1974, this etymology no longer enjoyed any notable support. His analysis showed the unattested Aramaic term to have been fabulated and attested only in a single corrupted text from 1859, with its claimed translation having been transposed from

7920-671: Was díkaios , severely just, the latter agathós , or loving-kind; the former was the "god of this world", the God of the Old Testament , the latter the true God of the New Testament . Christ, in reality, is the Son of the Good God. The true believer in Christ entered into God's kingdom; the unbeliever remained forever the slave of the Demiurge. It is in the system of Valentinus that the name Dēmiurgos

8010-559: Was earlier invoked by Faustus in Scene III of Christopher Marlowe 's Doctor Faustus (1590) when the eponymous Doctor summons Mephistopheles with a Latin incantation. The sixteenth-century Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer described Demogorgon as the master of fate in hell's hierarchy. According to Ariosto 's lesser work I Cinque Canti , Demogorgon has a splendid temple palace in the Imavo mountains (today's Himalaya) where every five years

8100-612: Was king of the fairies and master of ceremonies. Demogorgon also is mentioned in the Book II of the epic poem El Bernardo written in Mexico by Bernardo de Balbuena and published in Spain in 1624. The passage tells how the fairy, "Alcina", visits Demogorgon in his infernal palace: Aquí Demogorgon está sentado en su banco fatal, cuyo decreto de las supremas causas es guardado por inviolable y celestial preceto. Las parcas y su estambre delicado

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