THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

must constantly bear in mind, however, that the term “Egyptian” in the Alexandria of
the first century B.C.E. Egypt, has many nuances. The bilingualised strata we refer to
were largely comprised of Greek and Egyptian descendants whose family lines went
back across one side of the divide or the other, though some had likely come to
embody a hybrid Graeco-Egyptian social class. 24
We have noted the privileges that were extended to the Egyptian priesthood in
the second century B.C.E. following the battle of Rafia. From around 164 B.C.E. a
significant portion of this clergy became pro-Ptolemaic, although we might assume
this to have been more the case in Lower Egypt. From this time membership in these
priesthoods began to include Greeks, and this must surely have marked the inception
of a decisive phase for the development of Coptic. 25
This group, as can be seen in the
case of Dionysios, was fluent in Greek, literally the language of power of the time, as
well as Egyptian. The evolution of a spoken Egyptian which made liberal use of
Greek loan-words was the natural result, and this spoken phenomenon must have
immediately preceded the appearance of a more or less systematic Coptic script. More
than this, a complete bilinguality on the part of an educated class provided the basis
for a subsequent fusion of Greek and Egyptian philosophical and religious thought
within a group that was already predisposed to take up these matters as we have seen.
The important work of J. Yoyotte, for example, attests to “a collaboration between
Greek ‘men of culture’ and the hierogrammates of Edfu”. 26
A tangible result of this
remarks that, “The fact is capital for me, if we admit the well-foundness of what precedes, it
is that we suddenly find, in this Egyptian sacerdotal world which seems to us so enclosed, an
opening towards the Greek world, an interest for a culture with which, we have rather been
accustomed to believe, it was living in conflict.”
24
Eddy, The King is Dead, 313, points out that intermarriage was initially banned in the Greek
cities (Alexandria, Naukratis, and Ptolemais), but that the trend developed from the middle
of the third century onward. See also Victor Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilisation and the
Jews (New York: Atheneum, 1970) in which he makes the point that although Greek
settlement in early Ptolemaic times was significant, it didn’t really have a chance against the
seven million indigenous Egyptians. The process of Egyptianisation, mainly through
intermarriage, proceeded unchecked, “for the soldiers married women of the local
population, and with the women Egyptian names, language, religion and customs entered
into their family life. The children of such mixed families normally followed the mother,”
20. For a detailed discussion of the problems involved in attempting to define ethnic
boundaries, see Koen Goudriaan, Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt (Amsterdam: J.C.Gieben,
1988).
25
In following Kahle and Satzinger in their positing of a ruling-class Sahidic dialect in Lower
Egypt, we should note also that this literary axis established between king and shadow-king
or ethnarch created the requisite rhetorical environment we would expect for the
development of Coptic. For this axis was not created between strict ethnic polarities, rather it
bespeaks a cultural fusion occurring among the educated classes, perfectly symbolised by
the inclusion of Greeks among the Egyptian priesthood. For example, in the reign of
Ptolemy VI (180-145), Herodes, native of Pergamon, held the priestly station of Prophet of
Khnum. For the special nature of Memphis in Ptolemaic times see Crawford et al., Studies
on Ptolemaic Memphis; Reymond and Barns, “Alexandria and Memphis: some Historical
Observations”, and Reymond, From the Records of a Priestly Family from Memphis: vol.1.
26
Jean Yoyotte, “Bakhthis. Religion égyptienne et culture grecque à Edfou,” in Religions en
Égypte hellénistique et romaine (Paris: : Presses universitaires de Frances, 1969), 127-41.
“The dossier of Nakhthis makes known the existence, in the Edfu of the last two centuries