Jung-Carl-G.-Collected-Works-Volume-9-Part-II-Aion

FOREWORD
The theme of this work 1 is the idea of the Aeon (Greek, Aion).
My investigation seeks, with the help of Christian, Gnostic, and
alchemical symbols of the self, to throw light on the change of
psychic situation within the "Christian aeon." Christian tradition
from the outset is not only saturated with Persian and
Jewish ideas about the beginning and end of time, but is filled
with intimations of a kind of enantiodromian reversal of dominants.
I mean by this the dilemma of Christ and Antichrist.
Probably most of the historical speculations about time and the
division of time were influenced, as the Apocalypse shows, by
astrological ideas. It is therefore only natural that my reflections
should gravitate mainly round the symbol of the Fishes, for the
Pisces aeon is the synchronistic concomitant of two thousand
years of Christian development. In this time-period not only
was the figure of the Anthropos (the "Son of Man") progressively
amplified symbolically, and thus assimilated psychologically,
but it brought with it changes in man's attitude that had
already been anticipated by the expectation of the Antichrist
in the ancient texts. Because these texts relegate the appearance
of Antichrist to the end of time, we are justified in speaking of
a "Christian aeon," which, it was presupposed, would find its
end with the Second Coming. It seems as if this expectation
coincides with the astrological conception of the "Platonic
month" of the Fishes.
i [In the Swiss edition, this foreword begins as follows: "In this volume (VIII of
the Psychologische Abhandlungen) I am bringing out two works which, despite
their inner and outer differences, belong together in so far as they both treat
of the great theme of this book, namely the idea of the Aeon (Greek, Aion).
While the contribution of my co-worker, Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz, describes
the psychological transition from antiquity to Christianity by analysing the Passion
of St. Perpetua, my own investigation seeks, with the help of" etc., as above.
Dr. von Franz's "Die Passio Perpetuae" is omitted from the present volume.
—Editors.]
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