Pleroma

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Pleroma (Greek πλήρωμα) generally refers to the totality of God's powers. The term means fullness, and is used in Christian theological contexts: both in Gnosticism generally, and in Colossians 2.9.

Gnosticism holds that the world is controlled by archons, among whom some versions of Gnosticism claim is the deity of the Old Testament, who held aspects of the human captive, either knowingly or accidentally. The heavenly Pleroma is the totality of all that is regarded in our understanding of "divine". The Pleroma is often referred to as The Light existing "above" (the term is not to be understood spatially) our world, occupied by spiritual beings who self-emanated from the Pleroma. These beings are described as aeons (eternal beings) and sometimes as archons. Jesus is interpreted as an intermediary aeon who was sent, along with his counterpart Sophia (Gnosticism), from the Pleroma, with whose aid humanity can recover the lost knowledge of the divine origins of humanity and in so doing be brought back into unity with the Pleroma. The term is thus a central element of Gnostic religious cosmology.

Gnostic Texts envision the Pleroma as aspects of God, the Eternal Divine Principle, who can only be partially understood through the Pleroma. Each "aeon" (i.e. aspect of God) is given a name (sometimes several) and a female counterpart (Gnostic viewed Divinity and Completeness in terms of male/female unification). The Gnostic Myth goes on to tell how the aeon Wisdom's female counterpart Sophia separated from the Pleroma to form the Demiurge, thus giving birth to the material world.

Pleroma is also used in the general Greek language and is used by the Greek Orthodox church in this general form since the word appears under the book of Colossians. Proponents of the view that Paul was actually a gnostic^{[dubious — see talk page]}, such as Elaine Pagels of Princeton University, view the reference in Colossians as something that was to be interpreted in the gnostic sense.