Philosophy & ThoughtGreek → English
Demiurge
/ˈdɛmiɜːdʒ/noun
The craftsman god who shapes the material world, in Plato and in Gnostic systems.
The Greek roots
δήμιος
dḗmios
of the people, public
ἔργον
érgon
work
Literally: “public worker”
The story of the word
In ordinary Greek a dēmiourgos was a tradesman who worked for the public: a potter, a doctor, a herald. Plato promoted the word in the Timaeus for the maker who forms the cosmos by copying eternal patterns, deliberately choosing a craftsman rather than a creator from nothing. Gnostic writers then turned him hostile, a bungling lower power who built a flawed world and mistook himself for God.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
democracyepidemicenergysurgery
In a sentence
Plato's demiurge works with materials he did not make.
In the Valentinian scheme the demiurge is ignorant rather than evil.