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Libra Esoterica

The Demiurge in Ancient Thought

by Carl Séan O’Brien

  • First published:
  • 21st century
  • Language: English

Description

Description from OpenAlex (opens in a new tab)

How was the world generated and how does matter continue to be ordered so that the world can continue functioning? Questions like these have existed as long as humanity has been capable of rational thought. In antiquity, Plato's Timaeus introduced the concept of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god, to answer them. This lucid and wide-ranging book argues that the concept of the Demiurge was highly influential on the many discussions operating in Middle Platonist, Gnostic, Hermetic and Christian contexts in the first three centuries AD. It explores key metaphysical problems such as the origin of evil, the relationship between matter and the First Principle and the deployment of ever-increasing numbers of secondary deities to insulate the First Principle from the sensible world. It also focuses on the decreasing importance of demiurgy in Neoplatonism, with its postulation of procession and return.

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Alchemy and Hermeticism, Consciousness, mysticism, and metaphysics, and Gnosticism and esoteric Christianity.

  • Alchemy and Hermeticism

    Controlled discovery queries from openalex matched “Hermeticism”. Retained metadata contains “hermetic” in the description.

    • “Hermeticism”· via OpenAlex
    • “hermetic”· in description
  • Gnosticism and esoteric Christianity

    Retained metadata contains “gnostic” in the description.

    • “gnostic”· in description
  • Consciousness, mysticism, and metaphysics

    Retained metadata contains “Metaphysics” in the subject metadata.

    • “Metaphysics”· in subject

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

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Editions

One edition cataloged here.

OpenAlex scholarly book record

2015-01-29Cambridge University Press; Cambridge University Press eBooksEnglish—Unknown

Subjects

14 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.

Cataloged from

Catalog id
openalex:W4240644588
Edition coverage
Openalex source record
Retrieved