Archon

Archon
For other uses, see Archon (disambiguation).
Archon (Greek arkhon; pl. ) is a Greek word that
means "ruler" or "lord," frequently used as the title of a specific
public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem
-, meaning "to rule," derived from the same root as monarch.

Ancient Greece
Main article: Eponymous archon
In ancient Greece the chief magistrate in various Greek city states
was called Archon. The term was also used throughout Greek
history in a more general sense, ranging from "club leader" to
"master of the tables" at syssitia.Wikipedia:Citation needed
In Athens a republican system of nine concurrent Archons
evolved, led by three respective remits over the civic, military, and
religious affairs of the state: the three office holders being known
as the Eponymos archon ( ; the "name" ruler,
who gave his name to the year in which he held office), the
Depiction from the east frieze of the Parthenon, of an
[1]
assumed
Archon Basileus, a remnant title of the Greek
Polemarch ("war ruler"), and the Archon Basileus ("king ruler").
monarchy
The six others were the Thesmothtai, Judicial Officers. Originally
these offices were filled from the wealthier classes by elections
every ten years. During this period the eponymous Archon was the chief magistrate, the Polemarch was the head of
the armed forces, and the Archon Basileus was responsible for some civic religious arrangements, and for the
supervision of some major trials in the law courts. After 683 BC the offices were held for only a single year, and the
year was named after the Archn Epnymos. (Many ancient calendar systems did not number their years
consecutively.)
After 487 BC, the archonships were assigned by lot to any citizen and the Polemarch's military duties were taken
over by new class of generals known as stratgo.Wikipedia:Citation needed The ten stratgo (one per tribe) were
elected, and the office of Polemarch was rotated among them on a daily basis. The Polemarch thereafter had only
minor religious duties, and the titular headship over the strategoi. The Archon Eponymos remained the titular head
of state under democracy, though of much reduced political importance.Wikipedia:Citation needed The Archons
were assisted by "junior" archons, called Thesmothtai ( "Institutors"). After 457 BC ex-archons were
automatically enrolled as life members of the Areopagus, though that assembly was no longer extremely important
politically at that time. (See Archons of Athens.)

Byzantine Empire
Byzantine historians usually described foreign rulers as archontes.[2] The rulers of the Bulgars themselves, along
with their own titles, often bear the title archon placed by God in inscriptions in Greek.
Inside Byzantium, the term could be used to refer to any powerful noble or magnate, but in a technical sense, it was
applied to a class of provincial governors. In the 8th and 9th centuries, these were the governors of some of the more
peripheral provinces, inferior in status to the themata: Dalmatia, Cephalonia, Crete and Cyprus. Archontes were also
placed in charge of various naval bases and trade stations, as well as semi-autonomous Slavic-inhabited areas
(sclaviniae) under Byzantine sovereignty. In the 10th12th centuries, archontes are also mentioned as the governors

Archon

of specific cities. The area of an archon's jurisdiction was called an archontia (). The title was also used for
the holders of several financial posts, such as the head of the mint ( ), as well as directors the
imperial workshops, arsenals, etc.
The title of megas archon ("grand archon") is also attested, as a translation of foreign titles such as "grand prince".
In the mid-13th century, it was established as a special court rank, held by the highest-ranking official of the
emperor's company. It existed throughout the Palaiologan period, but did not have any specific functions.

Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

From time to time, laity of the Orthodox Church in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople have been
granted the title of Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to honor their service to Church administration. In 1963,
Archons were organized into a service society dedicated to St Andrew. This Archon status is not part of the Church
hierarchy and is purely honorary.
An Archon is an honoree by His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch, for his outstanding service to the Church,
and a well-known, distinguished, and well-respected leader of the Orthodox Church (at large).
It is the sworn oath of the Archon to defend and promote the Orthodox Church faith and tradition. His main concern
is to protect and promote the Holy Patriarchate and its mission. He is also concerned with human rights and the
well-being and general welfare of the Church.
As it is a significant religious position, the faith and dedication of a candidate for the role are extensively reviewed
during consideration; the candidate should have demonstrated commitment for the betterment of the Church,
Parish-Diocese, Archdiocese and the community as a whole.

Gnosticism
In late antiquity the term archon was used in Gnosticism to refer to several servants of the Demiurge, the "creator
god" that stood between the human race and a transcendent God that could only be reached through gnosis. In this
context they have the role of the angels and demons of the Old Testament. They give their name to the sect called
Archontics.

Hebdomad
A characteristic feature of the Gnostic concept of the universe is the role played in almost all Gnostic systems by the
seven world-creating archons, known as the Hebdomad (). These Seven are in most systems semi-hostile
powers, and are reckoned as the last and lowest emanations of the Godhead; below themand frequently considered
as derived from themcomes the world of the actually devilish powers. There are indeed certain exceptions;
Basilides taught the existence of a "great archon" called Abraxas who presided over 365 archons (Irenaeus, Adversus
Haereses, i. 24).
The ancient astronomy taught that above the seven planetary spheres was an eighth, the sphere of the fixed stars.[3]
In the eighth sphere, these Gnostics taught, dwelt the mother to whom all these archons owed their origin, Sophia
(Wisdom) or Barbelo. In the language of these sects the word Hebdomad not only denotes the seven archons, but is
also a name of place, denoting the heavenly regions over which the seven archons presided; while Ogdoad denotes
the supercelestial regions which lay above their control.
The Ophites accepted the existence of these seven archons (Origen, Contra Celsum, vi. 31; a nearly identical list is
given in On the Origin of the World):[4]
Yaldabaoth, called also Saklas and Samael
Saturn.
Feminine name: Pronoia (Forethought) Sambathas, "week".

Archon

Prophets:[5] Moses, Joshua, Amos, Habakkuk.

From Hebrew yalda bahut, "Child of Chaos"? The outermost who created the six others, and therefore the
chief ruler and Demiurge par excellence. Called "the Lion-faced", leontoeides.
Iao
Jupiter.
Feminine name: Lordship.
Prophets: Samuel, Nathan, Jonah, Micah.
Perhaps from Yahu, Yahweh, but possibly also from the magic cry iao in the Mysteries.
Sabaoth
Mars.
Feminine name: Deity.
Prophets: Elijah, Joel, Zechariah.
The Old Testament phrase Yahweh sabaoth or 'Jehovah of Armies' was thought a proper name, hence
Jupiter Sabbas.
Astaphanos, or Astaphaios
Venus.
Feminine name: Sophia (Wisdom).
Prophets: Esdras, Zephaniah.
Astraphaios is beyond doubt the planet Venus, as there are gnostic gems with a female figure and the legend
ASTAPHE, which name is also used in magic spells as the name of a goddess.
Adonaios

The Sun.
Feminine name: Kingship.
Prophets: Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel.
From the Hebrew term for "the Lord", used of God; Adonis of the Syrians representing the Winter sun in the
cosmic tragedy of Tammuz. In the Mandaean system Adonaios represents the Sun.
Elaios, or Ailoaios, or sometimes Ailoein
Mercury.
Feminine name: Jealousy.
Prophets: Tobias, Haggai.
From Elohim, God (El).
Horaios

The Moon.
Feminine name: Wealth.
Prophets: Michaiah, Nahum.
From Jaroah? or "light"? or Horus?

In the hellenized form of Gnosticism either all or some of these names are replaced by personified vices. Authadia
(Authades), or Audacity, is the obvious description of Yaldabaoth, the presumptuous Demiurge, who is lion-faced as
the Archon Authadia. Of the Archons Kakia, Zelos, Phthonos, Errinnys, Epithymia, the last obviously represents
Venus. The number seven is obtained by placing a proarchon or chief archon at the head. That these names are only
a disguise for the Sancta Hebdomas is clear, for Sophia, the mother of them, retains the name of Ogdoad, Octonatio.
Occasionally one meets with the Archon Esaldaios, which is evidently the El Shaddai of the Bible, and he is
described as the Archon "number four" (harithmo tetartos).
In the system of the Gnostics mentioned by Epiphanius we find, as the Seven Archons,
Iao

Archon

4
Saklas (the chief demon of Manichaeism)
Seth
David
Eloiein
Elilaios (probably connected with En-lil, the Bel of Nippur, the ancient god of Babylonia)
Yaldabaoth (or no. 6 Yaldaboath, no. 7 Sabaoth)

The last book of the Pistis Sophia contains the myth of the capture of the rebellious archons, whose leaders here
appear as five in number.[6]

Paraplex
Hekate
Ariouth (females)
Typhon
Iachtanabas (males)

Mandaeans
Among the Mandaeans, we find a different and perhaps more primitive conception of the Seven, according to which
they, together with their mother Namrus (Ruha) and their father (Ur), belong entirely to the world of darkness. They
and their family are looked upon as captives of the god of light (Manda-d'hayye, Hibil-Ziva), who pardons them, sets
them on chariots of light, and appoints them as rulers of the world.[7]

Manichaeans
The Manicheans readily adopted the Gnostic usage, and their archons are invariably evil beings. It is related how the
helper of the Primal Man, the spirit of life, captured the evil archons, and fastened them to the firmament, or
according to another account, flayed them, and formed the firmament from their skin,[8] and this conception is
closely related to the other, though in this tradition the number (seven) of the archons is lost.

Origins
Planets
Irenaeus tells us: "the holy Hebdomad is the seven stars which they call planets" (i. 30). It is safe, therefore, to take
the above seven Gnostic names as designating the seven planetary divinities, the sun, moon and five planets. In the
Mandaean system the Seven are introduced with the Babylonian names of the planets. The connexion of the Seven
with the planets is also clearly established by the expositions of Celsus and Origen (Contra Celsum, vi. 2 2 seq.) and
similarly by the above-cited passage in the Pistis Sophia, where the archons, who are here mentioned as five, are
identified with the five planets (excluding the sun and moon).
In this, as in several other systems, the traces of the planetary seven have been obscured, but hardly in any have they
become totally effaced. What tended most to obliterate the sevenfold distinction was the identification of the God of
the Jews, the Lawgiver, with Yaldabaoth and his designation as World-creator, whereas formerly the seven planets
together ruled the world. This confusion, however, was suggested by the very fact that at least five of the seven
archons bore Old-Testament names for GodEl Shaddai, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah, Sabaoth.
Wilhelm Anz (Ursprung des Gnosticismus, 1897) has also pointed out that Gnostic eschatology, consisting in the
soul's struggle with hostile archons in its attempt to reach the Pleroma, is a close parallel of the soul's ascent, in
Babylonian astrology, through the realms of the seven planets to Anu. The late Babylonian religion can definitely be
indicated as the home of these ideas.[9]

Archon

Zoroastrianism
The Bundahishn (iii. 25, v. z) is able to inform us that in the primeval strife of Satan against the light-world, seven
hostile powers were captured and set as constellations in the heavens, where they are guarded by good star-powers
and prevented from doing harm. Five of the evil powers are the planets, while here the sun and moon are of course
not reckoned among the evil powersfor the obvious reason that in the Persian official religion they invariably
appear as good divinities.[10] It must be also noted that the Mithras mysteries, so closely connected with the Persian
religion, are acquainted with this doctrine of the ascent of the soul through the planetary spheres (Origen, Contra
Celsum, vi. 22).

Usage
Judaism and Christianity
The N. T. several times mentions the "prince () of the devils" (), or "of the (this) world," or "of the
power of the air;" but never uses the word absolutely in any cognate sense. In Leviticus (LXX.) (once
, Leviticus 20:5 [11]) represents, or rather translates, Molech. The true biblical source of the usage however
is Daniel 10:13-21 [12] (six times Theodotion; once indistinctly LXX.), where the archon (, "prince" A. V.) is the
patron angel of a nation, Persia, Greece, or Israel; a name (Michael) being given in the last case only.
The Book of Enoch (vi. 3, 7; viii. 1) names 20 "archons of the" 200 "watcher" angels who sinned with the "daughters
of men," as appears from one of the Greek fragments. The title is not indeed used absolutely (. ,
, , bis: cf. .), except perhaps once (
), where the Ethiopic has no corresponding words: but it has evidently almost become a true name, and
may account for St. Jude's peculiar use of (Jude 1:6 [13]).
Christians soon followed the Jewish precedent. In the 2nd century the term appears in several writers alien to
Gnosticism. The Epistle to Diognetus (7) speaks of God sending to men "a minister or angel or archon," etc. Justin
(Dial. 36) understands the command in Psalms 24:7-9 [14] ( LXX.) to open the
heavenly gates as addressed to "the archons appointed by God in the heavens." The first spurious set of Ignatian
epistles enumerates "the heavenly beings and the glory of the angels and the archons visible and invisible" (Ad
Smyrn. 6), and again "the heavenly beings and the angelic collocations and the archontic constitutions" (i. e. order of
provinces and of functions), "things both visible and invisible" (Ad Trall. 5); the meaning being lost by the time of
the interpolator, who in one case drops the word out, and in the other gives it a political sense. The Clementine
Homilies adopt and extend (xi. 10, . . . ) the N. T. usage; and further call the two
good and evil ("right and left") "powers," which control the destiny of each man, "rulers" (archons, vii. 3), though
more commonly "leaders" ().
Greek theology
The mythology of ancient Greece knew gods, daemons, and heroes. (ruling gods) appear in the
subsequent philosophy of Plato (Phaedr. 247 A). However Philo never alludes to archons: in a single passage (De
Mon. i. 1)[15] is merely correlative to .
Presently the syncreticism of the later Greek philosophy found room for archons, which appear in Neoplatonism and
claimed Plato's unwritten tradition. They are inserted by the author of the book De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum (ii. 3-9),
and even it would seem by his questioner Porphyry, below gods, daemons, angels, and archangels, and above heroes
(omitted by Porphyry) and departed "souls," in the scale of invisible beings whose presence may become manifest. It
may be only an accidental coincidence that about the end of the 2nd century "Archon" was one of the names given
by the Platonist Harpocration to the "Second God" of Numenius (Proclus in Tim. 93 C).
For all the series of the ruling Gods ( ), are collected into the intellectual fabrication as into a
summit, and subsist about it. And as all the fountains are the progeny of the intelligible father, and are filled

Archon

6
from him with intelligible union, thus likewise, all the orders of the principles or rulers, are suspended
according to nature from the demiurgus, and participate from thence of an intellectual life.
Proclus, The Theology of Plato[16]

References
[1] Michael Rostovtseff, Greece, passim.
[2] Aksum: an African civilisation of late antiquity By Stuart C. Munro-Hay Page 145 ISBN 0-7486-0209-7
[3] Clem. Alex. Stromata, iv. 25, xxv. p. 636: see also his quotation, v. 11, p. 692, of a mention of the fifth heaven in apocryphal writings
ascribed to Zepbaniah
[4] For "feminine names," see For planets, see
[5] "Moreover, they distribute the prophets in the following manner.... Each one of these, then, glorifies his own father and God, and they
maintain that Sophia, herself has also spoken many things through them regarding the first Anthropos (man), and concerning that Christ who
is above, thus admonishing and reminding men of the incorruptible light, the first Anthropos, and of the descent of Christ." ( Irenaeus i. 30
(http:/ / www. newadvent. org/ fathers/ 0103130. htm))
[6] Schmidt, Koptisch-gnostische Schriften, p. 234 seq. These ideas may possibly be traced still further back, and perhaps even underlie St Paul's
exposition in .
[7] Cf. chiefly Genza, in Tractat 6 and 8; W. Brandt, Mandische Schriften, 125 seq. and 137 seq.; Mandische Religion, 34 seq., &c.
[8] F. C. Baur, Das manichische Religionssystem, v. 65
[9] Zimmern, Keilinschriften in dem alien Testament, ii. p. 620 seq.; cf. particularly Diodorus ii. 30.
[10] Cf. similar ideas in the Arabic treatise on Persian religion Ulema-i-Islam, Vullers, Fragmente ber die Religion Zoroasters, p. 49, and in
other later sources for Persian religion, put together in Spiegel, Eranische Altertumskunde, Bd. ii. p. 180.
[11] http:/ / tools. wmflabs. org/ bibleversefinder/ ?book=Leviticus& verse=20:5& src=!
[12] http:/ / tools. wmflabs. org/ bibleversefinder/ ?book=Daniel& verse=10:13-21& src=!
[13] http:/ / tools. wmflabs. org/ bibleversefinder/ ?book=Jude& verse=1:6& src=!
[14] http:/ / tools. wmflabs. org/ bibleversefinder/ ?book=Psalms& verse=24:7-9& src=!
[15] De Mon. i. 1, p. 213; cited by Hilgenfeld, Apost. Vater, 252 q. v.
[16] The Six Books of Proclus, the Platonic Successor, on the Theology of Plato, translated by Thomas Taylor.

Attribution

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Hort, Fenton John Anthony (1877).
"Archon" (http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA153&id=o44cAAAAMAAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false). In
Smith, William; Wace, Henry. A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines. Volume I.
London: John Murray. p.153.

This articleincorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911).
"Gnosticism". Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913).
"Gnosticism". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.

Further reading
A Greek-English Lexicon (AKA Liddell and Scott), ISBN 0-19-864226-1
The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ISBN 0-19-866121-5.

External links

The dictionary definition of archon at Wiktionary

Article Sources and Contributors

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