THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

allowed where, at what time, and under what conditions, and so on). And so we see a
more conservative, class-conscious, and utilitarian conception of Gnosis herein. To
mention a few examples: the Pistis Sophia, The Books of Jeu, Marsanes,
Manichaeism in Egypt, Hermeticism, and the Chaldean system are all examples of
diachronic or archaic gnosis. It is not necessary to delve into these and other texts
separately, instead we shall focus purely upon the Pistis Sophia, a non-Nag Hammadi
Gnostic text.
The Pistis Sophia is a critical text to consider and it is interesting to note that
this voluminous tractate has been scanted by Gnostic Studies, or more to the point,
Christian Origins scholarship. The reason for this, it seems clear, is the strong magical
elements in the work that have already been detailed in Chapter 5. Along with this the
Christian framework of the text, undoubtedly a later redaction, has been rather
unevenly stitched upon an immense and complicated pagan cosmology whose
inscrutability patently supersedes the teacher’s best efforts to carry it. It is not a good
candidate for “Christian Gnosis”.
At various junctures throughout the entire four books of the Pistis Sophia, the
largest Gnostic text to surface thus far, 24
the literary ceiling opens up as it were,
revealing a dense and intricate cosmology. To supply a philosophical justification for
this many-tiered metaphysical hierarchy is clearly not the purpose of this massive
work, and a detailed picture must be painstakingly put together by the patient reader.
A fundamental exegetical question must ask whether the writer(s) did indeed
presuppose this fantastic backdrop as a required liturgy in the minds of the
congregation, or whether it was intended as a pedantic course of esoteric instruction
for new auditors. In any event, the rhetorical purpose of the Pistis Sophia, if it can be
ascertained, is a touchstone to an understanding acutely required in this Gnostic text –
perhaps more so here than in any other. 25
Our hypothesis presupposes a Christian frame to have been superimposed
upon a deeper mythological substratum. The consistency of the cosmology throughout
the Pistis Sophia, as held up against the inconsistencies of the self-consciously
liturgical formulations of the foreground text, argues that the “given” in the minds of
the worshippers was likely a cosmological Vorlage from an earlier pre-Christian
system of thought, certainly Egyptian. The infiltration of the “Christ-myth” into these
Egyptian systems of thought has been graphically attested within the Nag Hammadi
find. 26
We likely have evidence here of an early phase following this transformation
where the cosmological backdrop still powerfully intrudes upon the tendentiously
Christian setting of the main text. In effect, the work attempts to move off in two noncomplimentary
directions; as a result, the biblical scenario of Christ instructing his
24
This text, which may have been uncovered originally in 1769 by the Scottish explorer
Bruce, is entitled the Askew Codex after its first owner, a London doctor who bought the
codex in 1772. It totals some 346 pages of original manuscript.
25
This text and the Bruce Codex, were made available to scholars over a century ago, and up
until the surfacing of the Nag Hammadi find (an ongoing process now, over 40 years after
the actual discovery of some 52 gnostic tractates in upper Egypt) these represented the only
primary source materials for “Gnostic studies”. Yet the difficulty in ascertaining a Sitz for
this text, I would argue, coupled with its off-putting lack of overall stylistic merit, have
consigned this work for the time being to an obscure fate.
26
Eugnostos the Blessed with The Sophia of Jesus Christ is the most definitive example of
this, however it is present in a number of other tractates which shall be treated further on.