Demiurge (disambiguation)

Demiurge is an Anglicisation of a Greek term, δεμιουργός (demiourgos, "public worker"). It was used to describe a socioeconomic class and political class in Ancient Greek, and was adopted by Plato and later writers to describe a creator in their metaphysics.

Social

1. Beginning with Homer and continuing with later Greek writers, any skilled worker, including artisans, heralds, and practical physicians (as opposed to scientific/research physicians and medical writers).
2. A member of the Demiourgoi, a skilled-worker middle class between the aristocratic Eupatridae and the smallholder Geomori farmers, into which the mythical Theseus had purportedly divided the inhabitants of Attica, according to Aristotle; a fourth class, the propertlyless thetes, were excluded from government until the reforms of Solon and the creation of the timocracy, a reformed oligarchic constitution that eventually evolved into the Athenian democracy.

Political

1. A magistrate in many Peloponnesian and other Greek city-states, including Corinth and Argos, originally drawn from the artisan class. In the Achaean League, the assembly of members was presided over by ten elected demiourgoi; Corinth sent epidemiourgoi annually to Potidaea to report to the Spartan harmosts. The term is variously rendered daimourgos, daimorgos, and damiergos in Doric Greek, and demiorgos in Ionic Greek on the island of Samos. In the Archaic Argolid, the demiurge seems to have served as a judge, and when one was lacking, his role could be fulfilled by a hierogrammat, according to an inscription from Mycenae recorded in the Inscriptiones Graecae IV, 493.

Religion and Metaphysics

1. A philosophical concept, in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and Gnosticism, of a supernatural fashioner of the universe. (See Demiurge).
2. In third century papyri, a term used by Greek writers to describe a member of one of the various Roman priestly colleges.

References

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Demiurge". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Perseus Project electronic A Greek–English Lexicon entry