By Cyd Ropp, Ph.D.

Copyright 2022, All rights reserved

The instant the Aeons became self-aware, the ALL fell out of their unthinking, blissful union and arranged themselves into The Fullness. “Each one of the Aeons is a name, <that is>, each of the properties and powers of the Father, since he exists in many names, which are intermingled and harmonious with one another. … just as the Father is a single name, because he is a unity, yet is innumerable in his properties and names.” 

By this point in the Tripartite Tractate, the Son comes to be referred to as the Father, because the Son is the Father of the Second Glory—the Aeons of the Fullness. We see here that the Son, although a singular monad, is still a unity of many Aeons. The Son becomes knowable through the innumerable properties and names of the Aeons. What does it mean by names? I think that these names are the first appearance of what we would come to call ego. These disparate identities include names like flower, tree, dog, human, even parts of living bodies who themselves are alive, like kidney cells. They’re not names like my name or like Frank or George. They are not those types of identities. These are functional identities.

The Aeons then arranged themselves into a hierarchy of “minds of minds, which are found to be words of words, elders of elders, degrees of degrees, which are exalted above one another. Each one of those who give glory has his place and his exaltation and his dwelling and his rest, which consists of the glory which he brings forth.”

The hierarchy of The Fullness prefigures the fractal patterns of our universe. “Minds over minds, words over words, superiors over superiors,” as Thomassen’s translation puts it, refers to personalities and how they relate to one another. “Elders of elders and degrees of degrees” refers to the manner by which things are sorted, stacked, and ordered–first, second, third, superior, inferior, and so on. Each with its own place, exaltation, dwelling, and rest reflects the fact that each self-aware entity has its own unique place in the grand scheme, its own personal expression or exaltation, a location different than its neighbors, thus possessing its very own point of view. 

“It is he, the Father, who gave root impulses to the Aeons, since they are places on the path which leads toward him, as toward a school of behavior. He has extended to them faith in and prayer to him whom they do not see; and a firm hope in him of whom they do not conceive; and a fruitful love, which looks toward to that which it does not see; and an acceptable understanding of the eternal mind; and a blessing, which is riches and freedom; and a wisdom of the one who desires the glory of the Father for <his> thought.”

The originating Father continually emanates a Holy Spirit out through the Son that entices its generations to seek out their source. The Tripartite Tractate says, “It is by virtue of his will that the Father, the one who is exalted, is known, that is, (by virtue of) the spirit which breathes in the Totalities and it gives them an idea of seeking after the unknown one, just as one is drawn by a pleasant aroma to search for the thing from which the aroma arises, since the aroma of the Father surpasses these ordinary ones. For his sweetness leaves the Aeons in ineffable pleasure and it gives them their idea of mingling with him who wants them to know him in a united way and to assist one another in the spirit which is sown within them.”

It is said that although the Father put an unquenchable thirst to align themselves with the One into the minds of the Fullness, he did not reveal to them the Father’s ineffable nature and the impossibility of reuniting with him and surviving to tell the tale. This was doubtless to keep alive the hope of reunification with the Father as a motive for continually giving glory. [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 75]

The Aeons of the Fullness sat in perfect equilibrium in their hierarchy of ranks, stations, and names. They were a congress of one accord, meaning they agreed on everything and they cooperated together to bring about a single dream of Paradise. You could note one difference between the ALL and the Fullness is that, while the ALL sings their songs in blissful unison, the Fullness sings their songs in perfectly tuned, multi-toned harmony.

In addition to their identities, the Aeons of the Fullness were all given wisdom, which is the ability to reason with logic and prudence. They were given a thirst to seek after the originating consciousness of their Creator and a desire to align themselves with the Father’s Will through the process of giving glory. And they were all creative geniuses, able to dream up a fully functioning mental Paradise where whatever they willed in the Father’s name happily happened. This dream of Paradise is our foretaste of heaven, shared by cultures around the world.

The generation of the Aeons was not a one and done deal. After their initial emanation out of the ALL, the Aeons continued to generate more and more Aeons through various combinations of Aeons giving glory. The pattern by which these younger Aeons were generated was the same as the manner by which the original Aeons of the Aeons were generated—as an exchange of love and admiration passed between the Father and the Fullnesses. The Aeons of the Aeons praised the Father together and together they received the Father’s reflected glory.

This exchange of praise from the Aeons and reflected glory from the Father resulted in the generation of new Aeonic emanations. As we have already noted, the exchange of admirations and glory between the Father and Son was like “the multitude of some who kiss one another with a good, insatiable thought, the kiss being a unity, although it involves many kisses,” and, like all fractals, this pattern replicated itself throughout the generations that followed.

These “kisses” first formed the generation of the ALL. Then the ALL procreated “innumerable Aeons, also in an uncountable way. They too beget by the properties and dispositions in which it exists. For these comprise its association which they form toward one another and toward those who have come forth from them toward the Son, for whose glory they exist.”

“As a result, just as they <were> brought forth in glory for the Father, so too in order to appear perfect, they appeared acting by giving glory… since each one of them individually does not exist so as to give glory in a unitary way to him whom he loves…. The fruit of the Third Glory, however, consists of honors of the will of each one of the Aeons, and each one of the properties.”

This is saying that the entire system of the Aeons has a love and longing for the perfect, complete discovery of the Father, and that the Father “grants that he be conceived of in such a way as to be sought for while keeping to himself his unsearchable, primordial being.”

The Tripartite goes on to say that the Father “gave root impulses to the Aeons, since there are places on the path which leads towards him, as towards a school of behavior. He has extended to them faith in and prayer to him, whom they do not see, and a firm hope in him, of whom they do not conceive, and a fruitful love which looks toward that which it does not see, and an acceptable understanding of the eternal mind, and a blessing which is riches and freedom and wisdom of the one who desires the glory of the Father for his thought.”

“They have begotten, for he has knowledge and wisdom and the Totalities knew that it is from knowledge and wisdom that they have come forth. They would have brought forth a seeming honor: ‘The Father is the one who is the Totalities,’ if the Aeons had risen up to give honor individually. Therefore, in the song of glorification and in the power of the unity of him from whom they have come, they were drawn into a mingling and a combination and a unity with one another. They offered glory worthy of the Father from the pleromatic congregation, which is a single representation although many, because it was brought forth as a glory for the single one and because they came forth toward the one who is himself the Totalities.”

This verse describes how the Aeons mingle and combine with one another to give Glory to Father. All possible combinations of Aeons are needed in order to express the complexity of the otherwise ineffable Father. Each and every Aeon combined and recombined, and the glory they gave the Father was returned to them as additional Aeons, earning their designation as the Fullness of God.

“Those of that place are ineffable and innumerable in the system which is both the manner and the size, the joy, the gladness of the unbegotten, the unnamed, the unnamable, the inconceivable, invisible one. It is the fullness of paternity, so that his abundance is a begetting of the Aeons of the Aeons. They were forever in thought, for the Father was like a thought and a place for them.”

In their desire to give glory to the Father, that is, to align their wills with the Father’s will, Aeons of the Fullness were required to follow these three simple rules. They were to only:

1. Give glory to the Father, not to the Fullness. Aeons were to remain aligned with the Son and not shift their focus to the Fullness as a whole.

2. Give glory to the Father, not to individual Aeons. Aeons were to remain always mindful of the Father and not to give glory to themselves and their talented neighbors as individuals.

3. Give glory to the Father to the best of their own ability. Each Aeon was to give glory from its own location in the hierarchy. They were not to sidle up next to an Aeon who appeared closer to the Father in order to borrow that Aeon’s station to give better glory. Rather, the individual was to develop its own voice and talents through the process of giving glory to the Father. [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 74]

 By following these rules, the Aeons kept their focus on the Father and their motivations pure. While this may be a description of the Aeons and how they think and feel, it is also a description of us because, as we will soon learn, we are the fruit of the Aeons, so every characteristic that the Aeons possess we also possess.

The final Aeon that was produced as an emanation of the Pleroma of the Fullness arose by all of the Aeons giving glory together. The Fullness thus produced a final Aeon whom the Tripartite Tractate calls by the name Logos. Because Logos was produced through the entirety of the Pleroma giving glory as one, this Aeon possessed within itself all of the characteristics of the entire Pleroma.

Logos was not the equivalent of the Pleroma, though. Rather, Logos contained within its Self a fractal iteration of all the other Aeons. Because of this, Logos in his entirety resembled a model representation of the Hierarchy of God a fractal level down from the Aeons. That is why in my illustration of the Fullness I depict a large pyramid of golden orbs topped by a smaller pyramid resembling the entirety of the Pleroma. That smaller pyramid on top is Logos.

The hierarchy of the Fullness of God sits as One and dreams of Paradise. The Aeon called Logos crowns the top of the hierarchy. Logos contains within itself a fractal representation of all the other Aeons.

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