‘The IDEAS, From the Unmeasurable Unity to the Measurable World’

The Neoplatonists report that the Chaldeans distinguished three noetic triads, which they identify with concepts appertaining to their own system. For this reason, their interpretation cannot help us to reconstruct the original doctrine of triads professed by the Chaldeans. Our foremost task is accordingly that of scrutinizing the relevant fragments of the Oracles that have come down to us.

One of these speaks of a Monad, ‘which rules the Triad that shines in every world’. Two other passages of the Chaldaean Oracles help to elucidate to a certain extent the nature and origin of this Monad and Triad. One of them reads:

‘The Father’s Intellect commanded that everything should be divided into three. His Will nodded, and everything was already divided’.

We appear, accordingly, to be justified in supposing that the Monad named in the Oracle that has been quoted above is identical with the ‘Paternal Monad’, consisting of the ‘Father’s’ Intellect, Will and Power (which last is not named in the passage we have cited, because it is immanent in the two first faculties). The cooperation of these entities effects the division of the world into triads. This division effects immediately only the intelligible world, for it is due to an act of the Paternal Intellect, and the ‘Father is everything, but noetically’.

The second fragment describing the functions of this Triad and the relationship obtaining between it and its creator reads:

‘From these two yonder flows the bond of the first Triad, which is not the first, but the (bond) whose noetic (essence) is measured’.

This Triad is called here in obscure terms ‘the first Triad which is not the first’ for the reason that the Paternal Monad which ‘rules’ it, likewise constitutes in its active aspect a trinity; thus the Triad with which the Oracle is concerned is in a sense the second of its kind. It differs from the triple aspect of the Paternal Monad in so far as its noetic essence ‘is measured’. Consequently the Paternal Monad (the ‘First Triad’) is regarded as an unmeasurable unity; this conclusion is confirmed by two Oracular fragments which mention the indivisibility of the Primal Being. According to the Neoplatonic commentators, the ‘two’, from whom the ‘bond’ of the measurable Triad ‘flows’, are a monad and a dyad. The monad apparently signifies the Paternal Monad; the identity of the dyad will be determined later on in this chapter.

The origin of this ‘measurable’ Triad is described in various ways: once it is said to be produced by the ‘Command’ and the ‘Will’ of the Paternal Intellect; another time it is said to ‘flow forth’. We are thus confronted with a voluntaristic and an emanationistic explanation. These variations suggest the existence of a theory which regarded every creation of a new noetic entity as occasioned by a particular decision, while the process itself was considered as partaking of the nature of an emanation.

A fourth fragment bears on the function of this ‘measurable’ noetic Triad: it is said ‘to measure and to delimit all things’. According to a fifth fragment, it ‘holds the All together, measuring it in its entirety, in the beginning, the end and the middle, according to the order of Necessity’. Thus, this Triad is identical with the ‘First Triad’ of the Pythagoreans, which determines the ‘beginning, the middle and the end’, by which ‘the All and everything is delimited’; it is conceived by the Chaldeans as the principle which measures the Universe and gives it its form. In one of the Oracles, perhaps the one with which we are dealing, the triadic ideas are called ‘connectives’.

The mode of being of this Triad is described in the cited fragments as an ‘outflow’, and its origination as a ‘division’. These two images figure together in a sixth fragment which treats of the cognition of the noetic entities. According to it, ‘the Power of circumsplendent Strength flashes in (by) noetic divisions’. The ‘Power of Strength’ is the Paternal Intellect whose ‘divisions’ are, consequently, identical with the primal triadic measures ‘that shine in every world’. The latter are the Ideas; an assertion which may be proved to be correct with the help of a lengthy Oracle dealing with the divine thoughts that have fashioned the world. This text, fortunately preserved in full, is of fundamental importance for the understanding of the Chaldaean doctrine of the Ideas. It reads:

‘The Father’s Intellect, thinking with his vigorous Will, caused to rush forth multiform Ideas. All these sprang forth from one source; for Will and Perfection came from the Father. They (the Ideas) were divided into other noetic (Ideas), after having been dissected by noetic Fire. For the Ruler has set before the many-shaped Cosmos a noetic imperishable Form; hastening upon the unworldly track of which the Cosmos became visible, after having been graciously provided with manyfold Ideas. These (the Ideas) have one Source, from which rush forth other mighty divided (Ideas), which are broken upon the bodies of the world, and move about the terrible Wombs like bees, flashing all around in various directions, the noetic thoughts of the Paternal Source, which pluck the plenteous flower of Fire through the tireless vigour of Time. The first-born Source of the Father, perfect in itself, caused these primordially generated Ideas to well forth’.

The Platonizing character of the doctrine propounded in this Oracle does not call for further proof. Leaving the inquiry into its historical derivation to the analytical part of this work, we shall at this point of our investigation confine ourselves to examining the statements of the Oracle concerning the origin, the nature and the action of the Ideas. By transposing the enigmatic terms of the text into philosophical language, we obtain the following capital theses: The primordial Ideas are the thoughts of the Supreme God. His Intellect and Will caused them to emanate from the primeval ‘Source’ (an origin which accounts for their being designated as ‘Sources’ in other Oracles) and to ‘divide’, after having issued forth. While the primordial Ideas constitute the spiritual form upon which the visible world is modelled, the particular (‘divided’) Ideas inform the amorphous matter.

The primordial Ideas created by the Paternal Intellect and Will are clearly identical with the triadic measures mentioned in the six fragments that have been quoted before; for they have been created by the same powers and perform the same functions. The description of the latter recalls the Platonists’ definition of the Ideas as ‘measures with respect to the material world’. Accordingly, the action of ‘measuring and delimiting the All’ attributed to the Chaldaean Triad is identical with the forming of the amorphous ‘world-bodies’ into the ‘many-shaped Cosmos’.

Before going on with our account of this Triad, we must inquire into the relationship obtaining between the general and the particular Ideas. The Oracles lay stress on the difference between the two, as in this point they run counter to the generally accepted opinion (the origin of which will be discussed too in the sixth chapter). One of their gods delivers in reply to a question the following pronouncement:

‘For the Father perfected everything and committed it to the Second Intellect, whom ye, O children of men, call the First’.

The ‘Father perfected’—with the help of His Intellect and Will, as the Oracle treating of the world-shaping Ideas enables us to add—the primordial Ideas, which constitute the ‘imperishable form’ upon which the Second Intellect models himself in fashioning the world. For this reason, the hymn of the Theosophy calls the ‘Father’: ‘Form within the Forms’. It is from Him that all the Ideas which constitute the primal noetic form of the visible world spring forth. As to the Second Intellect, he is the veritable Demiurge; called—in contradistinction from the Paternal Intellect, the ‘Artisan of the fiery (viz. noetic) world’—the ‘Artisan of the works’. The hymn of the Theosophy describes in similar fashion the action exercised by the ‘Father’ and His Intellect upon the formation of the visible world:

‘Thou sucklest through eternally flowing channels the equipoised Intellect, who brings forth this All by shaping the imperishable matter, whose creation was resolved upon when Thou boundest it in (by) Forms’.

The ‘eternal rays’ which ‘suckle’ the demiurgical Second Intellect spring forth from the First Intellect and constitute the model of the visible world.

The double aspect of the Second Intellect, who is both dependent on the First Intellect and active with regard to the visible world, which he has fashioned, is termed ‘duality’ in Chaldaean vocabulary:

‘Duality is attached to him (the Intellect, who has fashioned the world); for he is able to do both things: to apprehend the noetic beings and to direct his sensual perceptions to the worlds’.

For this reason, the demiurgical Intellect is known as the ‘doubly transcendent’, in contradistinction from the First Intellect designated as the ‘singly transcendent’. His duality is also expressed by the epic attribute ‘equipoised’ (i. e. here, equal as to both sides or directions). Accordingly, it is he who is signified by the dyad, which, together with the Paternal Monad, constitutes the Source, wherefrom the ‘bond’ of the ‘measurable Triad’ (i. e. the world-shaping Ideas) ‘flows forth’.

These world-forming Ideas subsisting in the Second Intellect are, likewise, designated in the Oracles by various names. In one fragment they are called the ‘Principles’ who ‘by thinking the works thought by the Father envelop them with visible works and bodies’. The expression ‘the works thought by the Father’ signifies the primordial noetic Forms of the visible world. The choice of the term ‘Principles’ is due to the Supreme Creator being called ‘the Principle of the All’: ‘Nothing imperfect rushes from the Principle of the Father’, according to a verse which exalts the perfection of the Father’s thoughts. The ‘Principles’ are, accordingly, offshoots of the ‘Principle’, just as ‘Sources’ are offshoots of the ‘Source’. As further examples show the Chaldaean Oracles sometimes employ the plural to indicate the parts of one primal substance.

At this point, we may take up again the problem of the ‘measuring’ Triad, into the nature of which the texts referring to the functions of the First and Second Intellect have given us some insight. This Triad is said to have originated through a division of the All into trinities, and to ‘measure’ and ‘delimit’ the All. On the other hand, it is by it that ‘the noetic essence is measured’. The reason for these various statements must be sought in the relationship between the First and the Second Intellect, the latter of whom is but the actualization of the thoughts of the former. He springs from him, and is sustained (‘suckled’) and ruled by him. If we consider the action exercised by the First Intellect on the intelligible world, we are justified in saying that his thoughts are the measures of this world. However, in order to exercise a similar action upon the sensible world, he must ‘commit’ the realization of his thoughts to the Second Intellect. Thus, it is the latter who ‘measures’ and fashions the All, for which the primordial Idea serves him as a prototype. It is, accordingly, probable that he is referred to in the following isolated verse: ‘In the Womb of this Triad everything is sown’.

This explanation accounts for the tradition of the Neoplatonists as to the noetic Chaldaean Ennead. We must, however, bear in mind that the interpretations of this teaching current in the school of Proclus carry no weight, as they are based upon the theories of Iamblichus. The Chaldaean Ennead consists, as the cited verses of the Oracles make probable: a. of the Paternal Monad, which constitutes in its active aspect the Supreme Triad; b. of the triadic primordial Ideas, which immediately proceed from it; c. of the triadic particular Ideas, which spring from these. We must admit that the extant fragments do not always differentiate between the Triad of the First and that of the Second Intellect; but this fluctuation must be imputed to the fact that the Second Intellect possesses only with respect to the sensible world an existence independent of the First, from Whom he is not separated in the noetic region, and Who contains him.