THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

of countable aspects of time”. 91
Time and life in this view cannot be divided. Dt
represents an underlying, or overarching, archetype on the other side (Jenseits), one
which eternally endures in a state of static unchangableness, complete and immutable,
generating what Assmann describes as “the unlimited nature of the continuous aspects
of time” 92
The critical line in the above quotation is the reference to a difference
existing among the imperishable aeons: if the difference is perishability vs.
imperishability, and the aeons are all imperishable, how does the difference exist
among them? For the answer to this we note their association with the elements of
time that are listed on the right column of the diagram above. “Time” begins on the
fifth level of the first ennead and is seen to itself emanate into its lowest level, that of
“hours and moments”. Perishableness, among the imperishable aeons, is associated
with the passage of nhh-time. At first glance this time would appear to start with the
fifth level of the first ennead, at least in archetypal fashion, but is more probably to be
associated with “the heavens of chaos”.
With its firm Egyptian Sitz and theological presence, its reference to a
“knowledge principle” and complete lack of magical elements, Eugnostos is perhaps
our earliest example of Hellenistic Gnosis. It is our one text that can with fair
certainty be placed in Egypt before Roman rule. An important indication of the time
and date here is the calendrical evidence to link this text with the Egyptian civil
calendar, also the case in the Pistis Sophia. The cosmological numbers 6, 9, 12, 72,
and 360 are emphasised, while the calendrical figures of 12 and 360 are notable. It is
therefore of decisive interest that the Christianised redaction of this text into The
Sophia of Jesus Christ drops all numeric allusions, retaining only the number 12. As
Benno Przybylski rightly observes, “the author of The Sophia of Jesus Christ in turn
found even the reworked calendrical system of Eugnostos the Blessed to be a cause of
embarrassment. Not wanting to be in conflict with the official calendar of the Roman
Empire he dropped the reference to the number 360 and only retained the number
12”. 93
12 was a safe number to retain as it was common to all calendrical systems.
The transition here is from Egyptian/pagan/Ptolemaic-period Gnostic text, to
Egyptian/Greek-Christian Roman-Period Gnostic.
There is no dissimilarity in the dualist mood that subtends the speculations of
all of the above: emanationism itself is the primal source, the system from whence
these conceptual hypostases stream forth, be they theurgic, philosophic, or Gnostic.
For lack of convincing evidence our other texts are to be dated later than Eugnostos
and it is to these that we now turn in order to discuss Hellenistic Gnosis more fully,
along with its spiritual sister Archaic Gnosis.
91
Jan Assman, Zeit und Ewigkeit im Alten Ägypten: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Ewigkeit
(Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1975), 12.
92
Ibid., 12.
93
Benno Przybylski, “The Role of Calendrical Data in Gnostic Literature,”Vigiliae
Christianae 34 (1980): 66.