demiurge

Noun

demiurge (plural demiurges)

1. (Platonic philosophy) The (usually benevolent) being that created the universe out of primal matter.
   • A demiurge or craftsman god takes pre-existing matter and fashions it in light of the eternal Forms.
   • [T]he demiurgus is father, and power and intellect. And he possesses these things as much as possible on account of intelligibles. For he is a God as father, on account of them. He is also power, and the generator of wholes, and knows beings intellectually, on account of them. For in them...1816, Proclus, “[Chapter XXI] From the Axioms in the Phædrus concerning Every Thing Divine [it Follows] that Every Thing Divine is Beautiful, Wise, and Good”, in Thomas Taylor, transl., The Six Books...
2. A (usually jealous or outright malevolent) being who is inferior to the supreme being, and sometimes seen as the creator of evil.
   • The Gnostic Demiurge then assumes a surprising likeness to Ahriman, the evil counter-creator of Ormuzd in Mazdean philosophy. The character of the Gnostic Demiurge became still more complicated when in some systems he was identified with Jehovah, the God of the Jews or of the Old Testament, and was...1908, Charles G[eorge] Herbermann, editor, The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church, New York, N.Y....
   • This was the earnest attempt of a Christian to explain in some detail how God might act using natural law, although his critics noted that such a Creator had more in common with a gnostic demiurge than the transcendent God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.2003, Richard England, editor, Design after Darwin: 1860–1900, volumes 1 (Metaphors and Metaphysics of Design. Key Statement of the 1860s.), Bristol: Thoemmes Press, →OCLC, page xiv
3. (figuratively) Something (such as an idea, individual or institution) conceived as an autonomous creative force or decisive power.
   • An abiding tradition depicted the sage-kings of yore as demiurges who invented useful technologies to advance the progress of civilization. For example, Shun was acclaimed by the philosopher Mozi (circa late fifth century BCE) for teaching farming, pottery, and fishing to his subjects.2024, Richard von Glahn, “Classical Chinese Monetary Theory”, in The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Money, vol. 1, Palgrave Macmillan, page 86
4. (historical, Ancient Greece) The title of a magistrate in a number of states of Ancient Greece, and in the city states (poleis) of the Achaean League.
   • The demiurgi were next in power to the prætor, and therefore ſtiled by Polybius and Livy, the ſupreme magiſtrates of the Achæans. They were ten in number, choſen by the general aſſembly from among the moſt eminent men of the whole league for prudence, equity, and experience. It was their office to...1747, George Sale et al., “Sect. III. The History of the Several States of Greece, from the Beginning of the Achæan League to Its Dissolution, and thence Succinctly to the Present Time”, in An...
   • An important Cyrenean inscription of the 4th century, defines the functions of the demiurgi in a given situation and adds that they are discharged by these magistrates in the cities (of Libya), by the hellenodikai in the Temple of Zeus Olympios (i.e. in Olympia), by the amphiktyons at Delphi, and...1979, Shimon Applebaum, “The Greek Colonization”, in Jews and Greeks in Ancient Cyrene (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity; 28), Leiden: E. J. Brill, →ISBN, page 39

Proper noun capitalized: Demiurge

UK/ˈdɛmɪɜːdʒ/US/ˈdɛmɪˌɝd͡ʒ/

Demiurge

1. (Platonism) The subordinate being that fashions the perceptible world in the light of eternal ideas.
2. A prideful, inferior being that creates the material world; frequently identified with the creator God of the Hebrew Bible.
   • For the rest, we meet in the Demiurge of the Valentinians all the traits of the world-god with which we have by now become familiar and can therefore deal here very briefly2001, Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The message of the alien God, page 191