Barbelo


Barbēlō refers to the first emanation of God in several forms of Gnostic cosmogony. Barbēlō is often depicted as a supreme female principle, the single passive antecedent of creation in its manifoldness. This figure is also variously referred to as 'Mother-Father', 'First Human Being', 'The Triple Androgynous Name', or 'Eternal Aeon'. So prominent was her place amongst some Gnostics that some schools were designated as Barbeliotae, Barbēlō worshippers or Barbēlōgnostics.

The nature of Barbēlō

Nag Hammadi Library

In the Apocryphon of John, a tractate in the Nag Hammadi Library containing the most extensive recounting of the Sethian creation myth, the Barbēlō is described as "the first power, the glory, Barbēlō, the perfect glory in the aeons, the glory of the revelation". All subsequent acts of creation within the divine sphere occurs through her coaction with God. The text describes her thus:
Barbēlō is found in other Nag Hammadi writings:
In the Pistis Sophia Barbēlō is named often, but her place is not clearly defined. She is one of the gods, "a great power of the Invisible God", joined with Him and the three "Thrice-powerful deities", the mother of Pistis Sophilight" or heavenly body ; the earth apparently is the "matter kishan choure of Barbēlō" or the "place of Barbēlō".

In patristic texts

She is obscurely described by Irenaeus as "a never-aging aeon in a virginal spirit", to whom, according to certain "Gnostici", the Innominable Father wished to manifest Himself, and who, when four successive beings, whose names express thought and life, had come forth from Him, was quickened with joy at the sight, and herself gave birth to three other like beings.
She is noticed in several neighbouring passages of Epiphanius, who in part must be following the Compendium of Hippolytus, as is shown by comparison with Philaster, but also speaks from personal knowledge of the Ophitic sects specially called "Gnostici". The first passage is in the article on the Nicolaitans, but is apparently an anticipatory reference to their alleged descendants the "Gnostici". According to their view Barbēlō lives "above in the eighth heaven"; she had been 'put forth' "of the Father"; she was mother of Yaldabaoth, who insolently took possession of the seventh heaven, and proclaimed himself to be the only God; and when she heard this word she lamented. She was always appearing to the Archons in a beautiful form, that by beguiling them she might gather up her own scattered power.
Others, Epiphanius further seems to say, told a similar tale of Prunikos, substituting Caulacau for Yaldabaoth. In his next article, on the "Gnostici", or Borborites, the idea of the recovery of the scattered powers of Barbēlō recurs as set forth in an apocryphal Book of Noria, Noah's legendary wife.
In both places Epiphanius represents the doctrine as giving rise to sexual libertinism. Mircea Eliade has compared these Borborite beliefs and practices involving Barbēlō to Tantric rituals and beliefs, noting that both systems have a common goal of attaining primordial spiritual unity through erotic and the consumption of menses and semen.
In a third passage, enumerating the Archons said to have their seat in each heaven, Epiphanius mentions as the inhabitants of the eighth or highest heaven "her who is called Barbēlō", and the self-gendered Father and Lord of all things, and the virgin-born Christ ; and similarly he tells how the ascent of souls through the different heavens terminated in the upper region, "where Barbēro or Barbēlō is, the Mother of the Living".
Theodoret merely paraphrases Irenaeus, with a few words from Epiphanius. Jerome several times includes Barbēlō in lists of portentous names current in Spanish heresy, that is, among Priscillianists; Balsamus and Leusibora being three times associated with it.

Babel

Babel, in the book of "Baruch" of the Gnostic Justin, the name of the first of the twelve "maternal angels" born to Elohim and Edem. She is identical with Aphrodite, and is enjoined by her mother to cause adulteries and desertions among men, in revenge for Edem's desertion by Elohim. When Heracles is sent by Elohim as "a prophet of the uncircumcision" to overcome "the twelve evil angels of the creation," i. e. the maternal angels, Babel, now identical with Omphale, beguiles and enfeebles him. She may possibly be the Baalti or female Baal of various Semitic nations, though the intrusive β is not easily explained. But it is on the whole possible to take Babel, "confusion", as a form of Barbēlō, which may have the same meaning. The eclecticism of Justin would account for his deposition of Barbēlō from the first to the second place, where she is still above Hachamoth.

Significance

In Gnostic accounts of God, the notions of impenetrability, stasis and ineffability are of central importance. The emanation of Barbēlō may be said to function as an intermediary generative aspect of the Divine, or as an abstraction of the generative aspect of the Divine through its Fullness. The most transcendent hidden invisible Spirit is not depicted as actively participating in creation. This significance is reflected both in her apparent androgyny, and in the name Barbēlō itself. Several plausible etymologies of the name have been proposed.