THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

environment of Alexandria, and her spiritual sister-city, Memphis. As noted, the
linguistic studies of Kahle and Satzinger suggest this. 44
Demotic on the other hand, I surmise to have become a literary bastion of the
conservative south. Upper Egypt did not initially need Greek to deal with the outer
world as did Lower Egypt; rather, the above-mentioned Greek-Egyptian fusion was
far more restricted and the native script was retained by priests and scribes. This must
have been perceived to be the “natural”, even culturally sacrosanct, method of
recording information, arcane and prosaic, and the continued employment of Demotic
likely resulted in part from a strong desire to resist the encroachment of the Greek,
and later Coptic, scripts. This was one aspect of Egyptian “intransigence” in the face
of a supposed Greek political hegemony. 45
I am not attempting to paint a too simplistic north-south polarity, however it
seems to me that this is supported by the ancient geographical-sociological
differences which existed between an insulated Upper Egypt and a Lower Egypt that
was obliged to take on foreign influences. Even so, as time went on from the
development of Coptic in the late Ptolemaic-early Roman era, we would expect to see
Coptic and Demotic used according to different rhetorical agenda throughout all of
Egypt, especially during Roman times when the Gnostics were active in the first,
second, and third centuries. For if Coptic embodies cultural synthesis it follows that it
would have had, in part, an array of specific applications associated with more
heterodox communities. Conversely, if Demotic were a script that habitualises itself
in business documentation, along with archaisms and ritual in religious texts, we
would expect an array of applications that were more strictly free from heterodox
influences. Extant texts in Coptic and Demotic appear to bear out this distinction. 46
This is not to say that there was not a large area of overlap between the two scripts
during Roman times, undoubtedly created by a commonality of applications: what it
does suggest, though, is that the essential reasons for the appearance of either script at
44
I would also note that this dynamic parallels an earlier situation according to Satzinger. “At
a given time at the beginning of the Persian domination or later, the need was felt in the
Thebaid to acquire knowledge of the idiom that was spoken by the ruling class of the north.
The idiom of the capital - Memphis - was taken over by everyone who sought to succeed in
the realms of administration and politics. What was first perhaps thought to be a need may
later have become a fashion.” From “On the Origin of the Sahidic Dialect,” 310. Satzinger’s
conclusion, that “we should take into consideration the historical aspects of the pre-Coptic
development, more than has been the case” (311), ably targets the underlying problems
addressed here: above-all the need to define the rhetorical environment in socio-historical
terms, and the psychological motivations that brought various strata of Greek and Egyptian
literati together in genuine synthesis.
45
The temple of Philae, for example, during the reigns of Philopator and Epiphanes (216-184),
engraved a decree only in Hieroglyphic and Demotic script, although the text declares itself
to be trilingual. See Willy Pereman ,”Sur le bilinguisme dans l’Égypte des Lagides,” in
Orientalia Lovaniensa Analecta 13: Studia Paulo Naster Oblata 11 (Leuven: Peeters, 1982),
147. We can easily appreciate why Greek was omitted, for a widespread revolt against
Ptolemaic rule occurred during this period: Ankhmakhis became King of Egypt in the
Thebaid around 200 B.C.E. and this independent reign was not crushed until 185 B.C.E. .
46
Many of the Coptic texts available from the Gnostic era in Egypt are later redacted versions
from primarily the third and fourth centuries for which it is impossible to ascribe their
original form. The Pistis Sophia, however, was likely composed in Coptic as has been noted
elsewhere.