THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

the dualism is pervasive throughout, and Plotinus is no exception. Moreover, we must
go further here and posit definite intellectual collaboration between dualist Middle
Platonist and Gnostic thought. As we have evidence of congress between Plotinus and
his Gnostic students so, too, Alexander of Lycopolis reports that his fellow
philosophers were being converted following debates with Manichaean missionaries
in Egypt. 71
The boundary between Valentinus, Carpocrates, and Basileides in
Alexandria, and Plutarch, Numenius, Cronius, and Albinus can hardly have been a
rancorous or contentious one. 72
In fact the Persian propensities of Numenius,
Plutarch, and Ammonius Saccas allow us to conclude that the converts Alexander
speaks of when he wrote his treatise at the end of the third century C.E. were likely
part of this school. As we have evidence on both sides of inclusivistic tendencies and
an openness to dialectic, we can assume that Gnostics and Platonists were commonly
involved in discussion and debate. The dualist school of Middle Platonism must
certainly have viewed many Gnostic teachers as colleagues, as with modern
Philosophy professors whose credentials are quite in order, yet who develop a
somewhat tarnished reputation – or enhanced depending upon the milieu –for
“mystical pursuits” on the side. I have attempted to show that the Egyptian priest
stands behind the Gnostic of Graeco-Roman times, that the religious views of Egypt
were thus conveyed and transformed through these literate social classes; however,
Alexandria, in its development of a more philosophical Hellenistic Gnosis, was
actively sought out by some of the finest philosophical minds of the times and their
contribution generated a very different sort of gnosis from the Archaic. The so-called
“Middle Platonic” philosophers, along with the ever theogony-obsessive Egyptian
philosopher-priests, developed the first early Gnostic treatises in Egypt at an early
date as Eugnostos the Blessed bears out.
In turning to examine gnosis within the context of Hellenistic Egypt, that is,
predating the rise of the major Gnostic groups that we know of in Roman Egypt, there
are three main Gnostic texts that stand out above the rest: The Pistis Sophia, The
Books of Jeu, and Eugnostos (NHC III,3 & V,1). The first two works shall be
examined in the following Chapter under the rubric of Archaic Gnosis; Eugnostos
exists apart in evidencing an early example of Egyptian Gnostic thought and it is to be
dated to the first century B.C.E. 73
Eugnostos begins with a refutation of three
71
See Pieter Willem van der Horst and J. Mansfeld, eds and trans., An Alexandrian Platonist
Against Dualism (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1974), 58: “I, for one, do not wish to deny that these
doctrines are capable of influencing the minds of those who uncritically accept this theory,
especially since deceitful expositions of this kind were successful in making converts out of
certain fellow-philosophers of mine.”
72
For example, Marcellina, a disciple of Carpocrates, came to Rome to disseminate her
Gnostic faith. According to Irenaeus, this group used a painted image of Jesus, setting it
forth, “with the images of the philosophers of the world,” (Adv. Haer. I, 25.6), trans.
Foerster, Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts, vol. 1, 38.
73
Parrott, “Eugnostos and ‘All the Philosophers’”, 154, dates it here on the basis of a reference
to “all the philosophers” (III.70.15) which excludes mention of the Platonists;. Parrott’s
citation is worth repeating here: “During these centuries (ending with 31 B.C.E.) it is neither
Platonism nor the peripatetic tradition established by Aristotle which occupies the central
place in ancient philosophy, but Stoicism, Scepticism, and Epicureanism...” Long,
Hellenistic Philosophy, 1.