THE FIGURE OF HECATE AND DYNAMIC EMANATIONISM IN THE

THE CHALDEAN ORACLES, SETHIAN GNOSTICISM AND

NEOPLATONISM
by
JOHN D. TURNER
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln
The Second Century Journal 7:4 (1991), 221-232
One of the novel developments in the transition from the rather static
ontologies typical of Middleplatonism to the dynamic emanationism of
Neoplatonism is the doctrine of the unfolding of the world of true being
and intellect from its source in a transcendent, only negativelyconceivable ultimate unitary principle which is itself beyond being. This
unfolding or emanation is characteristically presented as occurring in a
three-stage process: First, an initial identity of the product with its
source, a sort of potential existence; second, an indefinite procession
or unfolding of the product from its source, and third, a contemplative
visionary reversion of the product upon its source, in which the
product becomes aware of its separate existence and thereby takes on
its own distinctive form and definition. The later Neoplatonists such as
Proclus, perhaps Porphyry, and the author of the anonymous
Parmenides Commentary[1] named these three stages Permanence,
Procession and Reversion, and characterized the three successive
modes of the product's existence during this process by the terms
Existence, Life and Intellect. Previously, Plotinus had applied a similar
terminology, namely Being, Life and Mind, to describe the three
principal aspects of the second of his three hypostases, Intellect.[2]
Earlier still, according to Damascius (Dubitationes et Solutiones 61
& 221 = 1.131,17 & 2.101,25 Ruelle), the Chaldaean Oracles also
applied the Existence, Life and Intelligence terminology to the principal
transcendent entities of that system. Between the highest principle,
the Paternal Monad (equated with Existence), and the divine Intellect,
they interposed a median principle they called Hecate. This Hecate
they equated with the processing power of the Paternal Monad, even
though this resulted in a duplication of the figure of Hecate, whom at a
still lower ontological level, they also identified with the World Soul.
Now more recently, this Existence, Life and Intellect triad has
turned up in a group (the Platonizing Sethian treatises) of the Sethian
Gnostic treatises from Nag Hammadi, at least two of which, Allogenes
and Zostrianos, were known to Plotinus and his disciple Porphyry (see

Porphyry, Vita Plotini 16). These two treatises, in addition to a third

member of this group, The Three Steles of Seth, equate a triad
Existence, Vitality and Mentality with a figure called the Triple Powered
One. This figure is the link between the supreme principle called the
Unknowable God or the Invisible Spirit and his First Thought or
Intellect, called Barbelo, who is a higher form of Sophia, the divine
wisdom. Here, the Invisible Spirit through its Triple Powered One
generates the Aeon of Barbelo by a static self-extension in which the
Triple Powered One, initially unbounded, proceeds from its source and
then turns back upon it in an act of objectivizing self-knowledge,
becoming bounded and taking on form and definition as Barbelo, the
divine Intellect. Intimately related to these three treatises and
especially to Zostrianos, whose author was probably the first to
introduce the Existence, Vitality and Intellect triad to Sethian theology,
is the Sethian Apocryphon of John, ostensibly our first witness to the
complete Gnostic myth of Sophia, the fallen divine Wisdom as creator
and redeemer of this world. Here one finds that the figure of Barbelo is
likewise generated in an act of objectivizing self-knowledge on the part
of the high deity; thereupon she immediately receives the triad of
attributes Foreknowledge, Imperishibility and Eternal Life, a triad
conceptually very close to the triad Existence, Vitality and Mentality of
the Allogenes group and to the triad Existence, Life and Intellect of the
Neoplatonists and the Chaldaean Oracles.
The purpose of this article, then, is to explore the relationships of
these triadic figures to one another, in particular the Sethian triadic
figures of the Triple Powered One and Barbelo, and the triadic figure of
Hecate in the Chaldaean Oracles. Each of these figures is in varying
degrees 1) equated with the triad Existence, Life and Intellect, 2)
tends to be regarded as having doubles or cognates elsewhere in the
scale of being, and 3) performs an intermediary function in the process
of the generation of the transcendent world depicted in these various
systems.
One may begin with Allogenes, which is representative of the
metaphysical doctrine of Zostrianos and The Three Steles of Seth; its
doctrine of the Triple Powered One is the crucial feature by which the
treatise can be placed at a definite point in the Platonic metaphysical
tradition. The terminology and the function of this triad precisely
parallel that of the Existence, Life and Intellect triad in the later
Neoplatonists and especially in the anonymous Neoplatonic
commentary on Plato's Parmenides, which Pierre Hadot has
persuasively attributed to Porphyry, the disciple and biographer of

Plotinus.[3]
In the Platonizing Sethian treatises, the members of this triad are
named Existence (hyparxis) or Being (Greek ousia or Coptic
pet[sinvcircumflex]oop = Greek to on or ontots), Life (Coptic pnh =
Greek z) or Vitality (Coptic timntnh = Greek zots) and Mentality
(Coptic timnteime or the Greek neologism nots), attributes which
the Unknowable deity, although it exists, lives and thinks, does not
itself possess. Generally Allogenes prefers the abstract nouns Vitality
and Mentality to the more concrete substantives Life and Mind, so as
to avoid the implication that any of the terms of the triad are to be
taken as substantial hypostases (cf. Proclus, In Parmenidem 1106,11108,19 Cousin). Yet at other times Allogenes employs the terms
Being, Life and Mind, which Plotinus used to describe his hypostasis of
Intellect. Indeed Plotinus seems to have derived his use of the triad at
least in part from Plato's argument in the Sophist (248C-E) that true
being must also have life and intelligence, as the following passage
describing the generation of Intellect from the One shows:
Life, not the life of the One, but a trace of it, looking toward the One was boundless, but
once having looked was bounded (without bounding its source). Life looks toward the
One and, determined by it, takes on boundary, limit and form.... it must then have
been determined (as the life of) a Unity (i.e. Intellect) that includes Multiplicity ...
Multiplicity because of Life, and Unity because of limit.... so Intellect is bounded Life.
(Ennead VI.7.17,13-26)

On the whole, Plotinus tended to conceive Being, Life and Mind as

aspects of his second hypostasis, Mind, owing to his increasing
aversion to the multiplication of the transcendental hypostases beyond
three. He regards the One as entirely transcendent to Intellect; there
is no being that exists between them as a mediator, nor may one
distinguish between a higher intellect in repose and a lower one in
motion, or a One in act and another One in potency (Ennead II.9.1);
nor may one distinguish between an intellect at rest, another in
contemplation and yet another that reflects or plans (Ennead II.9.6) as
did Numenius in his Peri t'Agathou (cf. Numenius, frgg. 11-23 des
Places). Since the Triple Powered One in Allogenes seems to mediate
between the Unknowable deity and the next lower hypostasis, the
Aeon of Barbelo, it seems to function either as a One in both potency
and act or perhaps as a higher form of Intellect (i.e. Barbelo). Indeed,
it may have been this doctrine of Allogenes and not just that of
Numenius that provoked Plotinus to place the triad Being, Life and
Mind in the Intellect rather than conjoining it with the One as the link
between these two. The above-quoted passage shows that Plotinus
was certainly aware of the doctrine in his middle period (ca. 263-269)

during which Porphyry attended his seminars. Since he produced it

after his antignostic treatise in which he rejected mediatory principles
between the One and the Intellect, we may surmise that he must have
approved of the terminology and function of the triad, refusing only to
accord it separate hypostatic status.
Although Plotinus strongly separated the One from the Intellect,
most Neoplatonists after him (save possibly Iamblichus) did not. Less
inclined to the rigor of a self-actuated leap to mystical union, they
preferred instead to emphasize the continuity rather than the
discontinuity of the chain of being so as to allow for a more gradual
ascent to the divine, if not even more a smooth path for the descent of
the divine itself into the world. This tendency is nicely demonstrated in
the contemporary exegesis of Plato's Parmenides in which the One of
the first hypothesis (137D-142A) was identified with the Plotinian One,
and the One-who-is of the second hypothesis (142B-143C) was
identified with the intellect, as in this citation from the anonymous
Parmenides commentary:
The One beyond essence and being is neither being nor essence nor act, but rather acts
and is itself pure act, such that it is itself pure being einai) before being (to on). By
participating this being (the einai of the One), the One (scil. "who is," i.e. the second
One) possesses another being declined from it (the einai of the One), which is to
participate being (to on). Thus being is double: the first preexists being (to on); the
second is derived from the transcendent One who is absolute being (einai) and as it
were the idea of being (to on). (In Parm. XII, 23-33 [Hadot])

One may compare this with the statement concerning the supreme
deity in Allogenes 61,32-39:
Now it (the Unknowable One) is something insofar as it exists in that it either exists and
will become or <lives> or knows, although it <acts> without Mind or Life or
Existence (hyparxis) incomprehensibly.

In his article of 1961 and book of 1968,[4] Hadot argues for ascribing
the anonymous Parmenides commentary to Porphyry. In the
commentary, the doubleness of being is meant to show how the
supreme One can be both continuous and discontinuous with the
Intellect below it. The One is not simply beyond being (to on), but has
a higher form of purely active being (einai rather than to on) in which
the Intellect merely participates. Likewise, by the use of the abstracts
Existence, Vitality and Mentality, Allogenes also attributes a purely
active being to the Unknowable One.
Hadot further shows that the commentator must have conceived the
Intellect as existing in two phases: a first in which Intellect is still
identical with its source the One, and, after its generation from the
One, a second phase in which it has become Intellect itself. In this
self-generation, Existence (hyparxis) is the leading term in a three

stage process. As Anon. Taurensis puts it:

With respect to [existence (hyparxis) alone] it (the potential Intellect still identical with
the One) is one and simple ... with respect to existence (hyparxis), life (z) and
thought (nosis) it is neither one nor simple. With respect to existence, thinking is
also being thought. But when intellect [abandons] thought for thinking so as to be
elevated to the rank of an intelligible in order to see itself, thinking is life. Therefore
thinking is boundless with respect to life. And all are activities (energeiai) such that
with respect to existence, activity would be static; with respect to thinking, activity
would be directed to itself; and with respect to life, activity would be turning away
from existence. (In Parm. XIV, 10-26 [Hadot])

So also in Allogenes, the Triple Powered One is identical with the

Invisible Spirit as Existence, and as Mentality it is discontinuous with
the Invisible Spirit, but now identical with Barbelo. But as Vitality, the
Triple Powered One can be regarded as discontinuous with both, which
is why Allogenes tends to represent the Triple Powered One as an
independent hypostasis, but sometimes names it now in conjunction
with the Invisible Spirit (as in 47,8- 9; 51,8-9; 58,25; 66,33-34) and
now in conjunction with Barbelo (as in 64,34- 36). Thus the ontological
status of the Triple Powered One is very close to that of the Life
modality of the potential intellect in its procession from the One as
described in the Parmenides commentary. In fact, Allogenes (66,3236) explicitly identifies the Triple Powered One with "Eternal Life."
That Allogenes calls the leading term in the emanative process both
Existence (hyparxis) and Being (to on) seems to show that this
treatise trades in the same terminology familiar to Plotinus on the one
hand and the commentator on the other. The additional fact that
Plotinus reacted against the notion of an Intellect consisting of several
distinct levels and surely would be ill-disposed to the location of a triad
latent within the One or between the One and the Intellect suggests
that the scheme of Allogenes, and not only that of Numenius and
others, was likely one of those so strongly criticized by Plotinus. The
similarity between the schemes of Allogenes and of the Parmenides
commentary may indicate that the commentator could have derived
his scheme as much from Allogenes as from Plotinus or Numenius or
especially the Chaldaean Oracles which are in fact cited in the
commentary. By contrast with these professional philosophers, the
rather unsystematic character of the presentation of the metaphysical
scheme in Allogenes may owe not simply to garbled imitation or a
desire to reconcile his metaphysics with the traditional Sethian
mythologies, but may also quite likely owe to the author's originality.
That is, Allogenes and/or the Commentary may have been an
important catalyst and conceptual source to Plotinus, no matter how

unacceptable certain other of its features may have been to him. Since
the author of Allogenes is quite capable of accurate citation of his
sources (e.g. his citation from the negative theology of the
Apocryphon of John: BG 8502, 2:23,3-26,13 = NHC II,1:3:18-25 =
Allogenes 62,28- 63,23), the unsystematic character of his
metaphysics more likely owes to his originality than to confusion or
misappropriation of the doctrine of Plotinus. And the fact that
Allogenes was read in Plotinus' circle tends to add weight to this
likelihood.
In sum, the fact that revelations under the name of "Allogenes,"
"Messos," "Zostrianos" and "Zoroaster" (Porphyry, Vita Plot. 16)
circulated in and were refuted in Plotinus' seminars, coupled with the
fact that the doctrines refuted by Plotinus in Ennead II.9 are so close
to those of the Platonizing Sethian treatises, seems to suggest that the
Neoplatonists are more likely dependent on the Sethian "Platonists"
than the reverse. If so, treatises like Zostrianos and Allogenes would
have been produced at a point prior to Plotinus' antignostic polemic of
the years 263-269 (Enneads III.8, V.8, V.5 and II.9 [chronologically
30-33] as identified by R. Harder).
But what now can be said of the sources of the metaphysical
doctrine of Allogenes? Recalling the strikingly close doctrinal and
terminological similarity between Allogenes and the Parmenides
commentary, and the fact that the commentary cites the Chaldaean
Oracles, one may logically consider the Oracles as a possible source
upon which the authors of Zostrianos and Allogenes drew. In addition
to the Oracles, however, one must also consider the metaphysical
scheme presented in the early Sethian work The Apocryphon of John,
since, as mentioned above, the author of Allogenes explicitly cited a
passage from that work. As possible sources for the concept the Triple
Powered One of Allogenes, then, we will consider first the Oracles with
their doctrine of Hecate, and then the Apocryphon of John with its
doctrine of Barbelo.
The Chaldaean Oracles are roughly contemporary with Numenius,
being attributed to Julian the Theurgist who was credited with a
miraculous deliverance of Marcus Aurelius' troops in 173 CE. The
Oracles exhibit a hierarchical system with many Neopythagorean
features. The supreme god is called Father, Bythos, (frg. 18 des
Places) and the Paternal Monad; he is totally transcendent, having
nothing to do with creation, and can be apprehended only with the
"flower of the mind," a non-knowing, mentally vacant mode of
contemplation (frgg. 1 & 18 des Places, the same doctrine as is found

in Allogenes). This supreme Father is presumably beyond being (as

hapax epekeina), but also consists of a triad comprising himself or his
existence (hyparxis, Damascius, Dub. et Sol. 61, p.131,17 Ruelle; cf.
frg. 1 line 10 des Places), his power and his intellect. Below him is the
demiurgic Intellect proceeding from the Father who himself remains
aloof, confining himself along with his intellect and his power, but
apparently not confining his "fire" or proceeding intellect (frgg. 3,4 & 5
des Places). The actual hypostatic Intellect of this system is a
demiurgical Intellect and is called a Dyad, contemplating the
intelligible realm of the Father's intellect and bringing sense perception
to the world (much like the second God of Numenius; cf. frgg. 7 & 8
des Places). Furthermore, this Intellect, said to be "dyadically
transcendent" (dis epekeina), is also triadic insofar as it contains the
"measured triad" flowing from both it and the triadic Father (frgg. 2331 des Places). But this "measured triad" also seems to be identified
with Hecate, who is called a "membrane" which separates the first and
second fires (frg. 6 des Places), i.e. the Father and the Intellect (frg.
50 des Places). Furthermore, from the right side of Hecate flows the
primordial soul, while her left side retains the source of virtue; upon
her back the emblem of the moon (the traditional symbol of Hecate)
represents boundless Nature, and her serpentine hair represents the
Father's winding noetic fire (frgg.50-55 des Places). Indeed, Hecate's
triform nature (three heads, six arms) is well- known from antiquity.
She is guardian of forks in the road and is identified with the three
phases of the moon. According to Hesiod (Theogony 412-428), Hecate
is awarded three cosmic spheres of influence (earth, sea, sky) first by
the Titans in the old order and then by Zeus in the new, and she also
exercises influence over the world of men in the Indo-European
trifunctional spheres of sovereignty, force and productivity.[5]
In the Hellenistic period, Hecate becomes goddess of heaven, earth,
and especially of the underworld. In the Oracles, she may also be at
times equated with the World Soul of which she is the source,
suggesting that, much like the relationship between Barbelo and
Sophia in Sethian theology, Hecate was understood by the Chaldaeans
as being the transcendent World Soul who generates the immanent
World Soul, from which in turn was derived the world of Nature. And
finally, Hecate may have been identified as well with the median term
of the triad existence, power and intellect which characterized the
supreme Father.[6]
Thus in effect, the Oracles depict an ennead: a first triad of the
Father together with his power and potential intellect; a third triad of

the dyadically oriented (above and below) demiurgic Intellect; and

between these two a second "measured triad" identified with Hecate
representing the multiplicity that proceeds from the Father. Indeed,
there is a certain parallel between the Sethian Triple Powered One and
the Chaldaean Hecate, in terms both of emanative and intermediary
functions, in terms of a common triplicity, and in terms of a strong
association of both with Vitality and the source of Life and multiplicity.
When one turns to the still earlier Sethian Apocryphon of John,
probably datable to the first quarter of the second century and
excerpted already by Irenaeus (Haer. I.29) around 179 CE, one
encounters the triadic feminine intermediary goddess once again in the
figure of Barbelo, the higher unfallen counterpart of Sophia, the fallen
divine wisdom. Here Barbelo is the first emanation of the supreme
deity, the Invisible Spirit, who reflected upon himself as light and living
water, whereupon his thought manifested itself as Barbelo.
Immediately the bisexual Barbelo requested and was granted a triad of
attributes, Foreknowledge (prognsis), Imperishability (aphtharsia)
and Eternal Life (ainia z). Since these names are conceptually close
to the terms Existence or Being, Life or Vitality and Mind or Mentality
applied to the Triple Powered One in Allogenes, and since Allogenes
indeed demonstrates dependence upon The Apocryphon of John, it is
reasonable to conclude that there is some relationship between these
two triads.
An educated guess would be that the author of Allogenes was
familiar with contemporary Platonic speculation on the relationship
between being, life and mind or thought already directly discussed in
Plato's Sophist, and applied it to his own interpretation of the figure of
Barbelo in The Apocryphon of John. He may even have been familiar
with the metaphysical system of the Chaldaean Oracles and perhaps
have recognized from the Oracles or elsewhere a certain similarity
between the triadic nature and function of Hecate and the triadic
nature and function of Barbelo in The Apocryphon of John. In this
connection, one should note that Allogenes distinguishes three levels
in the Aeon of Barbelo: Kalyptos (Hidden), Protophanes (Firstappearing) and Autogenes (Self-begotten). One may wonder whether
these terms may in part have been inspired by the three forms of
Hecate symbolizing the three phases of the moon, at first hidden, then
first appearing and growing to fullness as a self-begotten being. As for
his metaphysical portrayal of the emanative process by which Barbelo
emerges from the Invisible Spirit via the Triple Powered One, he may
even have been familiar with the late first century system of

Moderatus of Gades, according to which a secondary One or unitary

Logos functioning as the divine Intellect emanates from a first One
beyond all being in three stages: Permanence (mon), Progression
(propodismos) and a Return (anapodismos) upon its source.[7]
In the first and second centuries, Neopythagoreanizing Platonists
like Moderatus developed speculative arithmologies which among other
things attempted to derive the physical world of multiplicity from a
single prior principle by supposing that a triad resided latently within
the primal monad. According to Theon of Smyrna in the early second
century: "First exists the Monad, called a triangular number not in full
actuality, ... but rather potentially, for, since it is, as it were, the seed
of all things, it contains in itself also a triform potency" (Expositio
37,15-18 Hiller). So also Theon's contemporary, Nicomachus of Gerasa
wrote: "Thus the Monad appears also potentially a triangular number,
although in actuality the first (triangular number) is three" (Eisagog
II.8 p.88,9-10 Hoche). Presumably all this speculation about the first
three or four numbers goes back to the early Pythagoreans and the
Old Academy under Plato and Speusippus, who applied the
Pythagorean Tetraktys to their own cosmological theories.
Strictly speaking, of the triadic figures so far discussed, only the
Triple Powered One and Hecate actually mediate the original emanative
process itself; in the Sethian scheme, Barbelo is, after all, only the
product of this original emanation. But the place of Barbelo in these
considerations is important, for she serves as the fundamental
mediator in the Sethian soteriology, and, in Allogenes, the first stage
of the visionary ascent to the Unknowable deity is the ascent through
the three levels of her Aeon, which are named Autogenes, Protophanes
and Kalyptos. To know them is to know the Aeon of Barbelo, and to
know Barbelo is the prelude to the ascent through the Mentality,
Vitality and Existence levels of the Triple Powered One, at which point
one gains the mentally vacant primary revelation of the Unknowable
deity.
A final point to consider is the role in all this of the prominent
Sethian Father, Mother, Son triad. The Father, Mother, Son
nomenclature of this triad and its transcendental status seem to derive
from Plato's Timaeus 50D. The characterization of its members has
been influenced by later Jewish and early Sethian speculation on the
first five chapters of Genesis according to which the image in which the
earthly Adam or man is made as male and female must itself be the
archetypal Adam (Adamas) or Man, who must be likewise
androgynous. That is, God created man as male and female in his own

image, which can be taken to mean that he too is androgynous. The

earthly man is later separated into distinct male and female beings,
Adam and Eve, yet the archetypal man, who is none other than God
himself, is not so separated, but can be spiritually conceived as male
and female. In this sense, the supreme deity is Man proper, and the
earthly Adam, although initially unaware of it, is the Son of Man. Once
Adam is enlightened concerning his true nature by Eve, his female
counterpart, the primordial couple conceive Seth, their spiritual
offspring, who will be the father of the "unshakable race" of the
Sethian Gnostics.
In the Sethian system, then, both Eve and Sophia are mother
figures; Eve, of Seth, and Sophia of the demiurge who creates the
physical world. In this sense, Sophia, the divine wisdom could, as
mother, be considered as the consort of the supreme deity Man, but
she is disqualified because she conceived the world creator alone,
without a consort. Therefore, since Sophia is disqualified, the supreme
deity is supplied with a higher, unfallen equivalent of Sophia as his
consort, who in the Sethian system is Barbelo, the androgynous
Mother-father of the All, the thought (ennoia) of the supreme deity.
Finally, to complete the system, a distinction is made between 1) the
earthly Adam, as son of the demiurge, 2) the image of God in which
he was made, and 3) the supreme deity, such that the Sethian system
came to comprise a highest Father, Mother, Son triad consisting of the
Invisible Spirit, Barbelo, and Adamas or Autogenes, the self-begotten
son of Barbelo. In turn, Adamas, the Son figure, became the image
according to which the demiurge fashioned the earthly Adam.
Subsequent to his enlightenment, Adam begot Seth, whom therefore
the Sethians can call the Triple Male Child.
Thus in Sethianism, one ends up with a rather convoluted series of
four fathers, the Invisible Spirit, Adamas (or Geradamas), Adam, and
Seth, and three sons descended from the supreme deity Man, namely
Adamas, Adam, and Seth. Correspondingly, this scheme also requires
three mothers, Barbelo, Sophia, and Eve, all counterparts of one
another. Of these, only Barbelo is represented as triadic, since, in
addition to her male and female aspects, her son Autogenes is selfbegotten from her and thus was potentially a part of her originally.
Based on this line of development, one might further speculate that
the position of the Triple Powered One in Allogenes is in part a further
attempt at transcendental duplication of the Sethian Father, Mother,
Son triad, since the term Being, although of neuter gender, thus
transcending sexual differentiation, is in some sense logically prior to

Life and Intelligence, while Life, of feminine gender, depends on Being

and is requisite to the existence of the third term, Intelligence, of
masculine gender. While this insight may have played a role in the
development of the system of Allogenes, it is clear that in our present
version of this treatise, the three, Being, Life and Intelligence, are all
seen as mutually interdependent (cf. Allogenes 49,28-36 and Proclus,
Elements of Theology 103 p.92,13-16 Dodds).
In one way or another, the three triadic beings whose prominent
role in the emanative process we have here considered are each
closely associated with the concept of Life and Vitality. The median
term of the Sethian Triple Powered One is explicitly named Life or
Vitality, while the third of Barbelo's principal attributes is named
Eternal Life. And in the case of Hecate, we have noted that the
Chaldaeans regarded her right side as the source of the primordial soul
that animates the realms of light, divine fire, ether and the heavens
(frg. 51 des Places). In this capacity, both Hecate and Barbelo are
characterized as cosmic wombs. Of these two, only Barbelo is explicitly
said to be androgynous, but it is clear that they were both conceived in
predominantly feminine terms. The Triple Powered One, although its
name is masculine, comprises three aspects, and depending on the
terminology used, either one (in the case of the Being, Life and
Intellect terminology) or all three (in the case of the Existence, Vitality
and Mentality terminology) of its three aspects bear names in the
feminine gender. But in all cases the median aspect of these three
figures is feminine, according well with their role as the feminine
mediators of theogonical generation. No doubt, much of this may also
be influenced by Plato's doctrine of the receptacle of becoming in
Timaeus 48E-52D.
Clearly this complicated system built on a gnostic exegesis of the
Genesis presentation of the procreation of the primal beings would, in
a Platonizing environment, lend itself easily to arithmological and
metaphysical speculation. In this way the ancient traditions of
Platonism, (Neo-)Pythagoreanism, and heterodox Judaism could all
mutually confirm one another in the Sethian mind. As for the position
of Hecate in the Chaldaean system, similar considerations also apply,
since the figure of the three-formed Hecate is of great antiquity itself,
from which time she was considered as a beneficial goddess of the
moon and later on of the Underworld, whence she derived her power
to make spells and other magical devices effective.
Finally, it is interesting that these three triadic figures all have
something to do with the concept of dynamic emanationism in one way

or another. The Triple Powered One and Hecate are vehicles or

mediators of the emanative process, while Barbelo is a direct result of
it. One may indeed wonder whether the concept of dynamic
emanationism entered Platonism during the first and second centuries
(and permanently so with Plotinus) directly as a result of the
combination of gnostic theogonies with Neopythagorean arithmological
speculation. Certainly the theogony of the Platonizing Sethian treatises
seems to suggest this. In all events, I hope to have pointed out some
interesting relationships and lines of development among the Sethian,
Chaldaean and Neoplatonic theogonies that employ the concept of
dynamic emanationism.
[1] See W. Kroll, "Ein neuplatonischer Parmenides-kommentar in
einem Turiner Palimpsest," Rheinisches Museum fr Philologie 47
(1892), 599-627; P. Hadot, "La mtaphysique de Porphyre," Porphyre
(Entretiens sur l'antiquit classique XII, Vandoeuvres-Geneva:
Fondation Hardt, 1960), 127-157; idem, "Fragments d'un commentaire
de Porphyre sur le Parmnide," Revue des tudes Grecques 74 (1961),
410-438; and idem, Porphyre et Victorinus (2 vols., Paris: tudes
Augustiniennes, 1968).
[2] See P. Hadot, "tre, Vie Pense chez Plotin et avant Plotin," in Les
sources de Plotin (Entretiens sur l'antiquit classique V, VandoeuvresGeneva: Fondation Hardt, 1960), 107-157.
[3] In the works cited above in note 1.
[4] See the references cited in note 1.
[5] According to the theories of Georges Dumzil as applied by D.
Boedecker, "Hecate: A Transfunctional Goddess?," Transactions of the
American Philological Association 113 (1983), 79-93.
[6] Cf. the presentation of J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 BC to AD
220 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,1977), 392-396.
[7] Compare the remarks of J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 344-351.