Literary notes about demiurge (AI summary)
Literature employs the term "demiurge" in multifaceted ways, portraying it as both the creator of the material world and as a subordinate, often flawed, craftsman. In various works, the demiurge is depicted as the architect who fashions matter out of preexisting elements, sometimes even being held accountable for the world’s imperfections or moral ambiguities [1], [2], [3]. At times the term assumes a more metaphorical role, symbolizing an artisan whose creative power, though significant, is marked by limitations or even a certain hubris that brings chaos into order [4], [5]. Moreover, the demiurge is invoked as a figure representing both the noble act of creation and the inherent imperfection of that act, a duality that enriches its literary resonance across different traditions and eras [6], [7], [8], [9].
- Demiurge, the, was creator of “matter” and author of evil, 48 .
— from Paganism Surviving in Christianity by Abram Herbert Lewis - Another Power, called the Demiurge , was now produced, who, out of the materials already in existence, fashioned the present world.
— from The Ancient Church: Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution by W. D. (William Dool) Killen - The Gnostic (Marcionite) supreme God is the God of religion, the God of redemption; the Demiurge is the being required to explain the world.
— from History of Dogma, Volume 2 by Adolf von Harnack - l. 61, Demiurge : a worker for the people; so God, as Creator of the world.
— from The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning by Edward Berdoe - The whole world lay, according to Marcion, under the dispensation of the Demiurge, and therefore under a mixed government of good and evil.
— from The Lost and Hostile Gospels An Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First Three Centuries of Which Fragments Remain by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould - Imagine the great demiurge at work in these days of telegraphy and steam, motor-cars and aeroplanes.
— from Italian Fantasies by Israel Zangwill - In this respect he is a true Classic Poeta Maker of Mythologya Delphic Demiurge.
— from Visions and Revisions: A Book of Literary Devotions by John Cowper Powys - The artist, in the language of Neo-Platonism, is a demiurge; he only of men can convert dead things into life.
— from Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers - If God is only a demiurge, he may be accused, and ought to be accused, of being a bad workman.
— from The Non-religion of the Future: A Sociological Study by Jean-Marie Guyau
