Finally, during the late first and throughout the second and third centuries,
Neopythagorean and Platonic metaphysics made a strong impact on Sethianism.
They served to structure its world of transcendent beings by means of ontological
distinctions, and to explain how the plenitude of the divine world might
emerge from a sole high deity by emanation, radiation, unfolding, and mental
self-reflection. Neopythagorean arithmology helped to flesh out the various
triadic, tetradic, pentadic, and ogdoadic groupings of the transcendental
beings. Besides metaphysics, there was also at home in Platonism a by-now-traditional
technique of self-performable contemplative mystical ascent toward and
beyond the realm of pure being, which had its roots in Plato's Symposium
(cf. 210A-212A). Interest in this technique shows itself in such figures
as Philo, Numenius, the author(s) of the Chaldean Oracles, and in
Plotinus. This technique not only supplemented earlier apocalyptic notions
of ecstatic visionary ascent (perhaps associated with the spiritualized
Sethian baptismal ritual as in Trimorphic Protennoia, Gospel
of the Egyptians, Zostrianos, and perhaps in Marsanes),
but it also created new forms apparently independent of such a baptismal
context as in Allogenes and Three Steles of Seth. Most importantly,
though, the older pattern of enlightenment through gnosis "knowledge,"
conferred by a descending redeemer figure, could be replaced by a self-performable
act of enlightenment through contemplative or visionary ascent, whether
for individuals (Allogenes and Marsanes) or for a community
(Three Steles of Seth).
