| “ | This is the first thought, His image; she became the womb of everything, for it is she who is prior to them all, the Mother-Father, the first man (Anthropos), the holy Spirit, the thrice-male, the thrice-powerful, the thrice-named androgynous one, and the eternal aeon among the invisible ones, and the first to come forth. | „ |
| ~ Apocryphon of John. |
Barbelo, also known as Barbēlō, is the Aeon of impenetrability, stasis and ineffability and refers to the first emanation of Asherah in several forms of Gnostic cosmogony.
Overview[]
Barbelo is the first Aeon to blossom from the flowers of the Tree of Life and 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' (hinting at her apparent androgyny), 'First Human Being', 'The Triple Androgynous Name', or 'Eternal Aeon'. After God, she’s the foremost inhabitant of the Pleroma, the Gnostic name for Heaven.
After Asherah and God plant the Tree of Life, the sovereigns begin to rest on the seventh day after the task was done. It is said that they rested beneath the Tree of Life, where the aroma from the dews from its leaves gave them comfort. As they rested, the inexhaustible profusion of their thoughts overflow, and a new being, Barbelo, emerges from that intellectual flood which traversed through the stem of the tree, and blossomed into a flower. Simultaneously, Monad also emerges from a flower that empowered by the waters of God's thoughts and becomes Barbelo's consort. Elsewhere, it is said that Barbelo arose when Asherah stared down into the primal waters and saw Her luminous reflection, which then became a new being.
Description[]
The meaning behind the name “Barbelo” is unknown, but it might be related to the Coptic verb berber, “to overflow” or “to boil over.” That connection would be fitting in light of Barbelo having been born from the overflowing thought of God in some Gnostic scriptures.
In the Secret Book of John and other classic Gnostic texts, Barbelo is portrayed as the mother of Jesus Christ (who, in much early Christian literature including Gnostic literature, is thought of as a divine being who existed long before he was ever incarnated in human flesh through Mary). God the Father, Barbelo the Mother, and Christ the Son form a three-member divine family. The Gnostics thought of this as the divine model of which all earthly families are an imperfect, corrupted reflection.
If that heavenly family is quite similar to the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it is probably no coincidence.
Myths and Legends[]
Legends 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 Barbelo is described as "the first power, the glory, Barbelo, the perfect glory in the aeons, the glory of the revelation". All subsequent acts of creation within the divine sphere (save, crucially, that of the lowest Aeon Sophia) occurs through her co-action with God.
Pistis Sophia[]
In the Pistis Sophia Barbelo 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 (or four) other like beings.
She is noticed in several neighboring 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 Barbelo lives "above in the eighth heaven"; she had been 'put forth' "of the Father"; she was mother of Yaldabaoth (some said, of Sabaoth), 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.