It [the Parent or Father] was one. For having it [the Thought] in itself, it was alone. It was not, however, first, though it was preëxisting; but manifesting itself to itself from itself, it became the second (or dual). Nor was it called Father before it [the Thought] gave it that name. As, therefore, itself developing itself by itself, manifested to itself its own Thought, so also the Thought being manifested did not act, but seeing the Father hid it in itself, that is, (hid) that Potency (in itself). And the Potency [Dunamis, viz.: Nous] and Thought [Epinoia] are male-female. Whence they correspond with one another—for Potency in no way differs from Thought—being one. So from the things above is found Potency, and from those below, Thought. It comes to pass, therefore, that that which is manifested from them, although being one, yet is found to be twofold, the androgyne having the female in itself. So is Mind in Thought, things inseparable from each other which though being one are yet found dual.[803]
He [Simon] calls the first Syzygy of the six Potencies and of the seventh, which is with it, Nous and Epinoia, Heaven and Earth: the male looks down from on high and takes thought for his Syzygy [or spouse], for the Earth below receives those intellectual fruits which are brought down from Heaven and are cognate to the Earth.[804]
Simon's Third World with its third series of six Æons and the seventh, the Parent, is emanated in the same way. It is this same note which runs through every Gnostic system—gradual development downward into Matter by similitude; and it is a law which is to be traced down to primordial Occultism, or Magic. With the Gnostics, as with us, this seventh Potency, synthesizing all, is the Spirit brooding over the dark waters of undifferentiated Space, Nârâyana, or Vishnu, in India; the Holy Ghost in Christianity. But while in the latter the conception is conditioned and dwarfed by limitations necessitating [pg 469] faith and grace, Eastern Philosophy shows it pervading every atom, conscious or unconscious. Irenæus supplements the information on the further development of these six Æons. We learn from him that Thought, having separated itself from its Parent, and knowing through its identity of Essence with the latter what it had to know, proceeded on the second or intermediate plane, or rather World (each of such Worlds consisting of two planes, the superior and inferior, male and female, the latter assuming finally both Potencies and becoming androgyne), to create inferior Hierarchies, Angels and Powers, Dominions and Hosts, of every description, which in their turn created, or rather emanated out of their own Essence, our world with its men and beings, over which they watch.
It thus follows that every rational being—called Man on Earth—is of the same essence and possesses potentially all the attributes of the higher Æons, the primordial Seven. It is for him to develope, “with the image before him of the highest,” by imitation in actu, the Potency with which the highest of his Parents, or Fathers, is endowed. Here we may again quote with advantage from the Philosophumena:
So then, according to Simon, this blissful and imperishable [principle] is concealed in everything in potency, not in act. This is “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” viz., that which has stood above in ingenerable Potency; that which stands below in the stream of the waters generated in an image; that which will stand above, beside the blissful infinite Potency, if it makes itself like unto this image. For three, he says, are they that stand, and without these three Æons of stability, there is no adornment of the generable which, according to them [the Simonians], is borne on the water, and being moulded according to the similitude is a perfect and celestial (Æon), in no manner of thinking inferior to the ingenerable Potency. Thus they say: “I and thou [are] one; before me [wast] thou; that which is after thee [is] I.” This, he says, is the one Potency, divided into above and below, generating itself, nourishing itself, seeking itself, finding itself; its own mother, father, brother, spouse, daughter and son, one, for it is the Root of all.[805]
Thus of this triple Æon, we learn the first exists as “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” or the uncreate Power, Âtman; the second is generated in the dark waters of Space (Chaos, or undifferentiated Substance, our Buddhi), from or through the image of the former reflected in those waters, the image of Him, or It, which moves on them; the third World (or, in man, Manas) will be endowed with every power of that eternal and omnipresent Image if it but assimilates it to itself. For,
All that is eternal, pure and incorruptible is concealed in everything that is,
if only potentially, not actually. And
Everything is that image, provided the lower image (man) ascends to that highest Source and Root in Spirit and Thought.
Matter as Substance is eternal and has never been created. Therefore Simon Magus, with all the great Gnostic Teachers and Eastern Philosophers, never speaks of its beginning. “Eternal Matter” receives its various forms in the lower Æon from the Creative Angels, or Builders, as we call them. Why, then, should not Man, the direct heir of the highest Æon, do the same, by the potency of his thought, which is born from Spirit? This is Kriyâshakti, the power of producing forms on the objective plane through the potency of Ideation and Will, from invisible, indestructible Matter.