It is in line with this view of things that “world” comes to be used in the plural. The expression “the worlds” denotes the long chain of such closed power-domains, divisions of the larger cosmic system, through which Life has to pass on its way, all of them equally alien to it. Only by losing its status of totality, by becoming particularized and at the same time demonized, did the concept “world” come to admit of plurality. We might also say that “world” denotes a collective rather than a unity, a demonic family rather than a unique individual. The plurality denotes also the labyrinthine aspect of the world: in the worlds the soul loses its way and wanders about, and wherever it seeks an escape it only passes from one world into another that is no less world. This multiplication of demonic systems to which unredeemed life is banished is a theme of many gnostic teachings. To the “worlds” of the Mandaeans correspond the “aeons” of Hellenistic Gnosticism. Usually there are seven or twelve (corresponding to the number of the planets or the signs of the zodiac), but in some systems the plurality proliferates to dizzying and terrifying dimensions, up to 365 “heavens” or the innumerable “spaces,” “mysteries” (here used topologically), and “aeons” of the Pistis Sophia. Through all of them, representing so many degrees of separation from the light, “Life” must pass in order to get out.
You see, O child, through how many bodies (elements?), how many ranks of demons, how many concatenations and revolutions of stars, we have to work our way in order to hasten to the one and only God. (C.H. IV. 8)
It is to be understood even where it is not expressly stated that the role of these intervening forces is inimical and obstructive: with the spatial extent they symbolize at the same time the anti-divine and imprisoning power of this world. “The way that we have to go is long and endless” (G 433);1 “How wide are the boundaries of these worlds of darkness!” (G 155);
Having once strayed into the labyrinth of evils,
The wretched (Soul) finds no way out . . .
She seeks to escape from the bitter chaos,
And knows not how she shall get through.
(Naassene Psalm, Hippol. V. 10. 2)
Apart from all personification, the whole of space in which life finds itself has a malevolently spiritual character, and the “demons” themselves are as much spatial realms as they are persons. To overcome them is the same thing as to pass through them, and in breaking through their boundaries this passage at the same time breaks their power and achieves the liberation from the magic of their sphere. Thus even in its role as redeemer the Life in Mandaean writings says of itself that it “wandered through the worlds”: or as Jesus is made to say in the Naassene Psalm, “All the worlds shall I journey through, all the mysteries unlock.”
This is the spatial aspect of the conception. No less demonized is the time dimension of life’s cosmic existence, which also is represented as an order of quasi-personal powers (e.g., the “Aeons”). Its quality, like that of the world’s space, reflects the basic experience of alienness and exile. Here too we meet the plurality we observed there: whole series of ages stretch between the soul and its goal, and their mere number expresses the hold which the cosmos as a principle has over its captives. Here again, escape is achieved only by passing through them all. Thus the way of salvation leads through the temporal order of the “generations”: through chains of unnumbered generations the transcendent Life enters the world, sojourns in it, and endures its seemingly endless duration, and only through this long and laborious way, with memory lost and regained, can it fulfill its destiny. This explains the impressive formula “worlds and generations” which constantly occurs in Mandaean writings: “I wandered through worlds and generations,” says the redeemer. To the unredeemed soul (which may be that of the redeemer himself), this time perspective is a source of anguish. The terror of the vastness of cosmic spaces is matched by the terror of the times that have to be endured: “How long have I endured already and been dwelling in the world!” (G 458).
This twofold aspect of the cosmic terror, the spatial and the temporal, is well exhibited in the complex meaning of the gnostically adapted Hellenistic concept of “Aeon.” Originally a timeconcept purely (duration of life, length of cosmic time, hence eternity), it underwent personification in pre-gnostic Hellenistic religion—possibly an adaptation of the Persian god Zervan—and became an object of worship, even then with some fearsome associations. In Gnosticism it takes a further mythological turn and becomes a class-name for whole categories of either divine, semi-divine, or demonic beings. In the last sense “the Aeons” represent with temporal as well as spatial implications the demonic power of the universe or (as in the Pistis Sophia) of the realm of darkness in its enormity. Their extreme personification may sometimes all but obliterate the original time aspect, but in the frequent equating of “aeons” with “worlds” that aspect is kept alive as part of a meaning become rather protean through the drifts of mythical imagination.2
The feeling inspired by the time aspect of cosmic exile finds moving expression in words like these:
In that world (of darkness) I dwelt thousands of myriads of years, and nobody knew of me that I was there. . . . Year upon year and generation upon generation I was there, and they did not know about me that I dwelt in their world. (G 153 f.)
or (from a Turkish Manichaean text):
Now, O our gracious Father, numberless myriads of years have passed since we were separated from thee. Thy beloved shining living countenance we long to behold. . . . (Abh. d. Pr. Akad. 1912, p. 10)
The immeasurable cosmic duration means separation from God, as does the towering scale of cosmic spaces, and the demonic quality of both consists in maintaining this separation. (Hans Jonas)