Note 20 — INTRODUCTION

The word “Æon,” frequently employed in our text, seems to have in it quite a different meaning from that which the Fathers attributed to it. According to them, the Gnostics used it as equivalent to “Spirit” or “Power,” going so far as to describe the Supreme God of their system as “the Perfect Æon.” In our MS., however, it generally signifies the signs of the Zodiac and their curious adjunct the thirteenth Æon, which are all inhabited at some time or other by rebellious powers. In other passages, especially in the later documents, it resumes its proper etymological meaning of “Age” as when “the Consummation of the Æon” is talked of.