THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

Atum is depicted as lying inert in Nun. It is a testament to the textual faithfulness to
this close relationship in Egyptian thought, that Parrot misses it. The text describes
this entity as follows:
He sees himself within himself, like a mirror, having appeared in his likeness as
Self-Father, that is, Self-Begettor, and as Confrontor, since he is confronted
Unbegotten First Existent. He is indeed of equal age with the one who is before
him, but he is not equal to him in power. (NHC III 75.3-12) 81
In the Heliopolitan view, Atum’s role merges with the Ur-Sitz of Nun: tm means
“everything” or “complete” 82
; paradoxically, it can also mean “to become nonexistent”
83
Atum’s self-generation takes place within the context of Nun. The Coffin
texts describe this relationship:
Atum came into being in chaos (CT II Spell 76, line 4) 84
Humankind who come forth from my eye, (they) whom I sent out while I was
alone with Nut in innertness (CT II Spell 80, line 3) 85
Parrott identifies the highest deity here with Amun on the basis of his hiddenness, but
this is one of a number of qualities and is not unduly emphasised in the text. Atum for
that matter, displays the same qualities:
I am He (Atum) whose name is secret, more holy of throne than the Chaos-gods
(BD Spell 7) 86
The text identifies the aeons as “the Sons of the Unbegotten Father” which suggests
Nun’s title of “father of the gods” as has been noted, and Atum’s act of selfgeneration
need hardly be emphasised at this point except to say that it is in complete
accord with the second theogonic entity described as “Self-Begettor”. This common
feature of Gnostic thought can be traced back to the ancient Egyptian epithet for the
creator god, hpr ds.f, literally “came into being by himself”.
Below Atum we have the eight other members of the Heliopolitan ennead.
Another indicator of this is the figure of Seth exactly where he should appear (the
“Saviour – Begettor of All Things” is identified as Seth in the text) and this is another
example of Egypto-Greek heuristic in fusing the Egyptian god with the Jewish Old
Testament figure. The lowest entity in the hierarchy is the demiurge “Arch-Begettor”
81
Coptic transcription from NHS, vol. XXVII, 72, 74.
82
Raymond O. Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (1962; reprint, Oxford:
University Press, 1991), 298.
83
Rudolph Anthes, “Egyptian Theology in the 3rd millenium B.C.,” JNES 18 (1959): 177.
84
Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, 78.
85
Author’s translation; Hieroglyphic transcription from Adriaan de Buck, The Egyptian Coffin
Texts (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1938), 33.
86
Faulkner, Book of the Dead, 36.