Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/788

 DEMOCHARES

708

DEM0CRAC7

Maker of heaven and earth. In this sense it is used frequently by Plato in his "Tima^us". Although often loosely employed by the Fathers and others to indi- cate the Creator, the word never strictly meant " one who produces out of nothing" (for this the Greeks used ktiVttjs), but only "one who fashions, shapes, and models". A creator in the sense of Christian theology has no place in heathen philosophy, which always presupposes the existence of matter. More- over, according to Greek philosophy the world-maker is not necessarily identical with God, as first and su- preme source of all things ; he may be distinct from and inferior to the supreme spirit, though he may also be the practical expression of the reason of God, the Logos as operative intheharmonyof the universe. Inthis sense, i. e. that of a world-maker distinct from the Supreme God, Demiurge became a common term in Gnosticism. The Gnostics, however, were not satisfied merely to emphasize the distinction between the Supreme God, or God the Father, and the Demiurge, but in many of their systems they conceived the relation of the Demiurge to the Supreme God as one of actual antagonism, and the Demiurge became the personification of the power of evil, the Satan of Gnosticism, with whom the faithful had to wage war to the end that they might be pleasing to the Good God. The Gnostic Demiurge then as- sumes a surprising likeness to Ahriman, the evil coimt- er-creator of Orniuzd in Mazdean philosophy. The character of the Gnostic Demiurge became still more complicated when in some systems he was identified with Jehovah, the God of the Jews or of the Old Testa- ment, and was brought in opposition to Christ of the New Testament, the Only-Begotten Son of the Su- preme and Good God. The purpose of Christ's com- ing as Saviour and Redeemer was to rescue us from the power of the Demiurge, the lord of the world of this darkness, and bring us to the light of the Good God, His Father in heaven. The last development in the character of the Demiurge was due to Jehovah be- ing primarily considered as he who gave the Law on Sinai, and hence as the originator of all restraint on the human will. As the Demiurge was essentially evil, all his work was such ; in consequence all law was in- trinsically evil and the duty of the children of the Good God was to transgress this law and to trample upon its precepts. This led to the wildest orgies of Antinomian Gnosticism.

According to Valentinus the Demiurge was the off- spring of a union of Achamoth (niDDnn, v Kiru la or lower wisdom) with matter. And as Achamoth her- self was only the daughter of So01a, the last of the thirty .Sons, the Demiurge was distant by many emana- tions from the Propator, or Supreme God. The Demi- urge in creating this world out of Chaos was uncon- sciously influenced for good by Jesus Soter; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became al- most perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending a Mes- sias. To this Messias, however, was actually united Jesus the Saviour, Who redeemed men. These are either iXiKof, or wnvimTLKol. The first, or carnal men, will return to the grossness of matter and finally be consumed by fire ; the second, or psychic men, to- gether with the Demiurge as their master, will enter a middle state, neither heaven (pleroma) nor hell (hi/le); the purely spiritual men will be completely freed from the influence of the Demiurge and together with the Saviour and Achamoth, his spouse, will enter the ple- roma, divested of body (CX?;) and .soul (f ux'))- In this most common form of Gnosticism the Demiurge had an inferior though not intrinsically evil function in the universe as the liead of the psychic world. According to Marcion, the Demiurge was to be sharply distin- guished from the Good God; the former was Sdcaios, severely just, the latter iya66t. or loving-kind; the former was the God of the Jews, the latter the true God

of the Christians. Christ, though in reality the Son of the Good God, pretended to be the Messias of the Demiurge, the better to spread the truth concerning His heavenly Father. The true believer in Christ en- tered into God's kingdom, the unbeliever remained forever the slave of the Demiurge. To this form of Gnosticism, the Demiurge has assumed already a more evil aspect. According to the Naassenes the God of the Jews is not merely JiVaios, but he is the great ty- rant Jaldabaoth, or Son of Chaos. He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of light from above enters the body of man and gives him a soul ; Jaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. The Demiurge, fearing lest Jesus, whom he had in- tended as his Messias, should spread the knowledge of the Supreme God, had him crucified by the Jews. At the consummation of all things all light will return to the pleroma; but Jaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into the lower depths. Some of the Ophites or Naassenes venerated all per- sons reprobated in the Old Testament, such as Cain, or the people of Sodom, as valiant resisters of the Demiurge. In these weird systems the idea of the world-maker was degraded to the uttermost. Amongst the Gnostics, however, who as a rule set some differ- ence between the Demiurge and the Supreme God, there was one exception; for according to the Ebion- ites, whose opinions have come down to us in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, there is no difference between the Highest God and the Demiurge. They are identical, and the God WTio made heaven and earth is worthy of the adoration of men. On the other hand the Ebionite system is tainted with pantheism, and its Demiurge is not a creator but only a world- builder. (See Gnosticism ; Valentinus; Marcion.)

Mead, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten (London. 1906); Du- chesne, Histoire ancienne de VEglise (Paris, 1907). I, xi; Al- ZOG. Church History, I, s.v. Gnosticism. For pre-Christian idea ot Demiurge: Windelb-^nd, History of Ancient Philosophy (London, 1900).

J. P. Arendzen. Demochares. See Mouchy, Antoine de. Democracy. See Government, Forms op.

Democracy, Christian. — In Christian Democracy, the name and the reality have two very different his- torias, and therefore they must be carefully distin- guished.

The Reality. — What Christian democracy is was authoritatively laid down by Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical "Graves de communi" wherein it is de- clared to be the same as "popular Catholic action". Such a definition is certainly intensive; so that not everything done by Catholics, among the people or for the people, can be technically termed Christian de- mocracy, or popular Catholic action. Action in this definition is taken to mean an organized movement with a definite programme to deal v.ith the pressing problems that come before it. Popular has reference to the people, not in-asmuch as they are a nation or collective whole, but as the fourth estate: the pleba, the tenuiores, and the tenuissimi of classical antiquity. Lastly, Catlwlic (and therefore Christian through and through) signifies that this organized action in favoui of the people {plebs) is the work of Catholics as such Popular Catholic action, therefore, means that th( scope mapped out for the activity of the organizatior is the well-being of the people; and that the move ment proceeds along Catholic linos, imder the gui' dance of Catholic leaders. Having .stated this, it ii|< easy to understand that the existence of Christiai deriiocracy is not a thing of yesterday. In th. very- nature of Christianity, in the .spirit of the Church in the mission of the clergy (of. Benigni, Ston: sociale della Chiesa, Milan, 1907. I) lies the genu o popular Catholic action technically so called; in othe