THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

Chapter Seven: Hellenistic Egypt: Theurgy, Theology, Philosophy, and
Gnosis
We may, however, remark that the immobility that our dynamic predilections
are inclined to derogate as petrifaction could also be regarded as a mark of the
perfection which a system of life has attained – this consideration may well
apply in the case of Egypt. 1
Overall, Egyptian theological texts inscribed in Ptolemaic and Roman times
demonstrate a religious expressiveness that is far from formulaic. The priesthoods of
the various temples were given a carte blanche by the Ptolemies to effect a
renaissance period in the development of hieroglyphics. With the dismal memory of
centuries of Persian rule still very fresh in their minds, the priests now had a tendency
to inscribe as much as they could upon the new walls, in effect to immortalise in stone
their hieratic libraries of sacred texts concerning cosmogonies, ritual, and practice. It
is remarkable that the Ptolemies required only the inscription of their names as kings
of Upper and Lower Egypt, yet even this affirmation of their resident monarchy was
effected in hieroglyphic: an absolutely minimal acquiescence to Greek culture, in
terms of language or architecture, is to be found in the great Ptolemaic temples. And
of course it must be re-emphasised that the expense to build these temples – in many
cases renovate or add to – was enormous.
A fundamental question must be raised here, and it pertains to the outlook of
the “Greek” literati in, say, the second century B.C.E. and onwards. One imagines
them observing this perennial expenditure of resources on the temples of Egypt,
witnessing the painstaking inscriptional work ceaselessly carried out, and above all
their susceptibility to the still potent priesthoods who radiated their auras of religious
prestige from within these ancient precincts: is it even plausible that there would not
have been – for the “Greeks”, never mind the bilingual strata we are more directly
concerned with – an overpowering urge to understand hieroglyphics? 2
The temples
and pyramids dominated the Egyptian skyline, much as church spires focused the eye
above the countryside in England in centuries past, and the perdurable architecture
1
Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, 14.
2
One can hardly accept the conclusions of R.S. Bagnall, concerning “the Greek lack of esteem
for the Egyptian present – the failure of the reality of Egypt to have any serious impact on
the Greek world,” in “Egypt, the Ptolemies, and the Greek World,”BES 3 (1981):21. Even in
the Greek world distant from Egypt, the Isis cults and general prestige of “Egyptian
Wisdom” militate against this conclusion. But in Egypt itself, what “Greeks” are we
speaking of here? Pure Greeks, free from the historical trends of intermarriage and
bilingualism? The reality of the Graeco-Egyptian in Egypt does not accord with this rather
standard Classicist derogation.