Open Veils · Answer
Can you give me some gnostic cosmology diagram?
Gnostic diagrams are among the most architecturally precise esoteric maps ever produced — not allegory but operative schematics. The Ophite ritual diagrams described by both Celsus and Origen in Contra Celsum are the oldest surviving examples, depicting layered archontic gatekeepers the soul must navigate post-death. Elaine Pagels and scholars of the Nag Hammadi library confirm these maps encode a complete liberation cosmology, not mere mythology.
Evidence
- The oldest documented Gnostic cosmological diagrams are the Ophite Diagrams, described in detail by Origen in Contra Celsum (Book VI, §§24–38).
- Between these poles sit seven planetary archon spheres — governed by Ialdabaoth and his six subordinates mapped onto Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon — described in the Apocryphon of John (Nag Hammadi Codex II).
- Origen records two large concentric circles inscribed with ΠΑΤΗΡ (Father) and ΥΙΟϹ (Son), a smaller circle bearing ΑΓΑΠΗ (Love), and a wall dividing the realm of light from a middle realm.
- A double circle — one light, one dark — representing light and shadow, hangs a circle inscribed ΖΩΗ (Life), enclosing two intersecting circles forming a rhomboid.
- Within this rhomboid: ΣΟΦΙΑϹ ΠΡΟΝΟΙΑ — the Providence of Wisdom.