Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis - ImagoMundi

tory" which is primarily the property of the celestial Yazatas." This Glory
was visibly manifested as a nimbus and flame forming halos round the
heads of the princes of dynasties consecrated prior to our chronologies; it
still retains this visibility in the stylized nimbus which accompanies it from
the figure of the Mazdean Saoshyant to the Western representations of
Christ, to the Eastern figures of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. But it is not
only the royal and sacerdotal charisma; it is the power which constitutes
and knits together the existence of a being of Light. In this sense, this
"Glory" signifies the soul itself insofar as it exists before the body. 64 Henceforth,
if this Light of Glory, figure of eternal Time, is imparted to every
being of Light as its very soul, we shall be justified in calling it the Destiny
and Eternity of that being.
It should be mentioned that these alternating denominations in which
we glimpse the Figure of Zervan in the myth recorded by Eznik were
given precise Greek equivalents: and And the fact that this
Light of Glory, which is also Destiny, was represented by the term
is of the greatest importance. For in the same context the figure
(fate, destiny) was identified with the figure which dominates the Hermetic
horizon, Agathos Daimon, who appears simultaneously as a Hermetic
divinity and as the personal "good daemon," the
, the
celestial paredros or partner—that is to say, the helping, tutelary angel—a
gratuitous gift obtained by prayer. 66
In whatever sense we consider it, we perceive a figure with increasingly
precise traits. On the one hand, Daena is Zervan and she is also the Angel-
Self, the celestial archetype coming to meet the soul. In the Corpus hermeticum
Sophia is the aeon; she is the mother of Anthropos—that is to say,
63 Cf. Gray, Foundations, pp. 120-23; Spiegel, Erdnische Alterthumskunde, Vol. II, pp. 42-
44; Hertel, Die Awestischen Herrschafls- und Siegesfeuer, pp. vin, xiff., 12, 76.
64 Cf. Reitzenstein and Schaeder, Studien, p. 230, n. 2; pp. 17, 321; p. 320 (Iranian
xvarenah and Hebrew shekhina).
65 Cumont, Textes et monuments, Vol. I, pp. 284-85; Bidez and Cumont, Les Mages hellenises,
Vol. I, pp. 68ff; Vol. II, pp. 52, n. 5; 87; 89; 92, n. 2; Nyberg, "Questions," II,
p. 71, and ch. 5, pp. 66-67. In the Pahlavi script, xvarr (glory) is represented by the
Aramaic ideogram gaddeh (fortune, luck): Gray, Foundations, pp. 121, 128; it reappears
in Ismailism under the Arabic form of jadd ( = Persian bakht in Abu Ya'qub Sejestam
(Mawazin, XII, and below, Part 2, p. 36, n. 27) characterizing the angel identified
with Gabriel, who would correspond topologically to Zervan.
66 Cf. Reitzenstein, Das Iranische Erlosungsmysterium, pp. 192-93 (also p. 191, n. I; and
Poimandres, p. 18, n. 8; Agathoel, angel of victory and of rejoicing); Corpus hermeticum,
text established by A. D. Nock and tr. A.-J. Festugiere (Paris, 1945-54; 4 vols.),
Vol. I, Treatise X, 22-23, and n. 78.
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of the regenerated mystes, for she has given birth to his immortal body,
But in addition, the assurance of immortality is bound
up with the attainment of the daimon paredros, the celestial angel or partner.
At the same time, Zervan is Personal Destiny; is Agathos
Daimon, who is a divine figure as such and also a daimon paredros, the
personal angel of each soul. 68
2. Now it is by this figure of the daimon paredros that we may finally
understand the characteristic mode of being of a soul for which time is
epiphanized as a person. If all the transparitions or hierophanies of eternal
Time tend to be fixated in this person, it is because the soul for which it is
thus modalized has taken cognizance of its archetypal dimension and knows
that the totality of its being can be fulfilled only in conjunction with its
celestial paredros. But at the same time we perceive the "transitive" way
in which a godhead, without ceasing to be in itself a hypostasis, can exist
totally in each of its individuations; this is the case with the figures of the
Mazdean angelology, such as the agathos daimon, which is also a daimon
paredros, etc.
To this structure corresponds exactly that of the soul which exemplifies
it, the being whose archetype this godhead is. So it is that the same name
will designate the angelic hypostasis in itself and its presence in its earthly
counterpart considered as a part or potency of it and revealing precisely
its dual structure, its reference to the angel or celestial archetype. In Mazduism,
for example, fravarti (farvahar) and daena (den) are celestial entities
and human potencies or faculties as well; more precisely they are that part
of human beings which enables them to be coupled with these celestial
entities. Similarly in Hermeticism the Nous is at once a god, the faculty of
intuitive knowledge in man, and his tutelary angel (as Agathos Daimon). 69
Here we do not have two inconsistent theories, but the dimension of an
anthropology which is already an angelology: "the man without Nous"
means the man deprived of that faculty of knowledge and precisely the
"man without an angel," in short something which is no longer a human
being. 70 But, on the other hand, to attain to the angelos paredros is to gain
immortality, 71 to become aeon; and similarly the meeting with Daena "on
67 Ibid., XI, 3; Vol. II, XIII, 2. Cf. n. 2 of Vol. II, p. 268. Reitzenstein, Poimandres,
p. 44; Das Iranische Erlosungsmysterium, p. 44. Junker, "Iranische Quellen," p. 164.
68 Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 153; 156, n. 2; 365.
69 Corpus hermeticum, Vol. I, p. 134, n. 73, and p. 139.
70 Ibid., X, 24, and p. 139 (bottom). 71 Cf. above, n. 68.
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