aeon
regnante in eona eonum coeli terraeque dispositore
heresis Valentiniana et Marcionis ‥ cujus pestis inventores eonas, id est secula quedam, in originem creatoris inducunt
Hoc vero ab exordio hujus Æonis iniit, et ad finem usque pertingit, etc.
(αἰών). A term occurring frequently in the philosophical speculations of the Gnostics, who conceived the emanations from Deity to be divided into two classes: the one comprehending all those substantial powers which are contained within the Divine Essence, and which completes the infinite plenitude of the Divine Nature; the other, existing externally with respect to the Divine Essence, and including all finite and imperfect natures. Within the Divine Essence, they, with wonderful ingenuity, imagined a long series of emanative principles, to which they ascribed a real and substantial existence, connected with the first substance as a branch with its root, or a solar ray with the sun. When they began to unfold the mysteries of this system in the Greek language, these Substantial Powers, which they conceived to be comprehended within the πλήρωμα, or Divine Plenitude, they called αἴωνες, aeons. See Gnostici.