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Archon, a Greek term meaning “ruler,” is the name of a class of entities who played an important role in
Gnostic thought and who are roughly comparable to evil archangels. According to the Gnostic myth of creation, Sophia,one of the spiritual beings (aeons) residing in the pleroma (human kind’s true home, “the absolute spirit”) inadvertently creates another entity often called Yaldabaoth, who creates our familiar world (Robinson,p. 9f). This creation involves the emanation of the seven levels of the classical cosmos, corresponding to seven planetary spheres of the Ptolemaic astronomical scheme. The archons are the rulers who govern each of these levels and act as guardians, preventing the sparks of Ariel light (i.e., the divine essence of individual human beings) from returning to the pleroma.
Part of the knowledge imparted to the Gnostics is information on how to bypass these archons on their journey back to the pleroma (Robinson, p. 33f). One result of conceptualizing the cosmos as the creation of an evil divinity is that the angelic beings in the heavenly spheres surrounding the earth—the archons—are also evil. Familiarity with Gnosticism allows us to understand certain otherwise unintelligible passages in the writings of certain early Christians, who were clearly influenced by the Gnostic perspective, for example, the oft-quoted passage about spiritual warfare from the book of Ephesians (6:12): [W]e are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
What, one might well ask, is the meaning of “the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places?” Isn’t the locus of evil spiritual forces in hell, which is traditionally conceptualized as being below rather than above the earth? In this passage and others that might be cited, “heavenly wickedness” refers to the archons. Even the word “rulers” here is a translation of the Greek archon, so that the original passage reads, “archons of this present darkness.”
Sources:
Layton, Bentley. The Gnostic Scriptures.Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987.
Robinson, James M. The Nag Hammadi Library.1977. Reprint. New York: Harper& Row, 1981.
Turner, Alice K. The History of Hell.New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993