Note 577 — Chapter VI · PRE-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: SIMON MAGUS

Emanation is well defined by Mallet (Culte de Neit à Saïs, Paris, 1888, pp. 212, 213) as “a perpetual flowing-forth, which does not imply any effort, and which consequently neither exhausts nor even diminishes the productive principle.” Emanations, however, he goes on to say, become weaker and less perfect the further they get from their first source. The first mention I can find of the word is in Plutarch (de Is. et Os. c. XLIX.) who says that the visible Cosmos is “the flowing forth (ἀπορροή) and displayed image of Osiris.”