THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

I turn now to examine very briefly the linguistic arguments put forward by
P.E. Kahle that Sahidic Coptic existed as a pre-Christian dialect of Alexandria.
Kahle’s concludes that Sahidic is a neutral dialect that does not fit into the scheme of
other sub-dialects (i.e. Achmimic, Middle Egyptian, Fayyumic, and Bohairic). 29
The frequent use of Greek words and particles, and in particular Greek verbs, in
Sahidic, must be taken to indicate that Sahidic had been in contact with Greek more
closely than any other dialect. Sahidic is therefore to be associated with Alexandria
as, “the principle, if not the sole, written and spoken dialect of the more educated
pagan Egyptian”.
It is important to keep in mind the social turmoil of this period, described in
the preceding chapter, when attempting to account for the development of Coptic in
the first and second century C.E.. The people responsible for the transcription of
various “religious” texts into Greek, Coptic, and Demotic, prominently included in
their number individuals who represented a fairly widespread shift in Egypt to
dualistic cosmologies. The magical texts served to sustain Egyptian religious and
philosophical thought, albeit in rather Hellenised form in many examples, and the
need for proper pronunciation in part prompted a turning to the efficacy of the Greek
alphabet by a bilingual class. The magical texts depict a melding of worldviews
whose development can be traced from an incipiently dualistic Egyptian religious
tradition on to the demonised cosmos of the Gnostics.
The interpenetration of Greek, Jewish, Egyptian, and Persian religious concepts and
figures found within this movement, all points toward the multilingual, essentially
literate, environment of Alexandria and other nominally Greek cities of the Delta in
late-Ptolemaic and early-Roman times although this was not exclusively the case as is
attested by the Graeco-Egyptian interaction at Edfu under Ptolemaic rule. 30
As well,
we note that Plutarch, writing De Iside et Osiride in Delphi ca. 118 C.E., exhibits a
strong interest in the Egyptian language, affording some thirty linguistic references to
Egyptian in this work alone. 31
This is not to suggest, however, that the development of Coptic, or proto-
Coptic as the case may be, need only have occurred within an essentially Gnostic (i.e.
dualistic) milieu. The Stoic Egyptian priest Chaeremon, to my mind, represents
precisely the sort of rearguard reaction against the dualist radicalisation of traditional
Egyptian religious thought that we would expect from part of the Egyptian
priesthood. 32
Often described as a “Stoic philosopher”, Chaeremon, anti-Semite and
29
Kahle, Bala’izah, 255. The distillation of the main points of Kahle’s argument have been
taken from 233-257. See also Satzinger “On the Origin of the Sahidic Dialect,” in which
this Lower Egyptian spoken dialect is traced to an earlier Memphite phase of the language in
Persian times, as a language of the ruling class. One wonders if this dialect can be traced
further back to the known “Delta dialect” of Late Egyptian in Rammeside times.
30
Yoyotte, “Bakhthis. Religion égyptienne et culture grecque à Edfou.”
31
Griffiths, De Iside et Osiride, 103.
32
I am equating Chaeremon’s Stoic sensibilities with the longstanding tradition of ma’at – an
acute appreciation of right order in the physical universe. Dualist cosmologies are intent
upon removing ma’at, or the Pleroma, the principle of perfection, completion itself, from the
demonstrably imperfect material realm. Philosophically, Alexandria can be viewed in terms
of a Stoic-Skeptic split, the latter attitude underpinning, in the form of various Eclectic and
Skeptic philosophical schools, the liberal and antinomian tenor of the times in late