THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

florid, and beguiling poetic/philosophical metaphysic in the entire collection, yet it
powerfully displays key features of the Valentinian myth. The work is not easily
approached analytically and is comparable in style and theme with the later mystical
writings of Jakob Böhme, or Meister Eckhardt.
Overall the work describes the entire theogonic devolution of the Godhead
into its own depths, the creation of evil, the mission of the Son/Logos, and an
extended elucidation upon determinism and free-will as exemplified by the aeons,
most particularly in the last aeon to be begotten – Sophia. Part I deals with the
determinism of the Father and the free-will of the hypostatised aeons; Part II describes
the creation of humanity, evil, and the fall of Anthropos; Part III deals with the variety
of theologies, the tripartition of humanity, the actions of the Saviour and ascent of the
saved into Unity. As with all Valentinian Gnostic systems that have come down to us,
the concern is with theodicy – the justification of God in the face of de facto radical
evil. More essentially the reciprocity between Creator and created finds its flash-point
in gnosis. Whether the created are hypostatic aeons or human beings, the entire
ontological equation of being is affected by the movement of each independent entity
towards salvation or perdition.
The emanationist focus of the text, as with so many Gnostic works in this
regard, commences at the beginning of the tractate:
He, the incomprehensible, ineffable, illimitable, unchangeable: he is sustenance,
he is Felicity(Macariotes), he is Aletheia(Truth), he is rejoicing, he is repose;
that which he contemplates is that which he sees, that which he utters, that
which he has as thought. By him, all of Sophia(Wisdom) is raised up and is
above Nous(Mind), and is above all honour and beauty, and all sweetness and
greatness, and is above Bythius(Depth) and every exaltation. If this one who is
unknowable in his nature, to whom all power which I mentioned pertains, if out
of his exceeding sweetness he wishes to bestow Gnosis that he be known, he
has the ability to do so. He has his power, which is his will. Now, however, he
holds back in Silence(Sige), 44
he who is the great cause, begetting the eternal
existence of the All. It is in the sovereign sense that he begets himself ineffably;
he alone is self-begotten; he realizes himself and knows himself in the way that
he is. What is worthy of admiration and glory honour and esteem, he brings
forth because of the boundlessness of his greatness, the unsearchability of his
Sophia(Wisdom), the immeasurability of his power, and his untasteable
sweetness. He is the one who manifests himself in conception, having glory and
honour, marvelous and lovely, the one who glorifies himself, the one who
wonders, honours, and also loves; He is the one who has a Son (and) who
subsists in him, who is Silence(Sige) to him, who is the ineffable one in the
44
The term Sige, denoting the female aeon, is not used here and yet the unusual feminine
suffix on kapwc is clearly intended to allude to the feminine hypostasis Silence without
being explicit. This then is a standard Valentinian feature (as found in Valentinus,
Ptolemaeus, and others) although this author keeps it on an esoteric level in the text. See the
system of Ptolemy in Irenaeus, Against Heresies (1.2.1): “And it (Mind or Intellect) thought
to communicate the size and extent of the parent’s magnitude to the other aeons, and the fact
that it was beginningless, uncontained, and not capable of being seen. But by the will of the
parent, silence restrained it because it wanted to elevate all of them into thought and into
longing for a search for the aforementioned ancestor of theirs.”