THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

And in what way did the unbegotten ones come to be since they are unbegotten?
And what are the differences among the aeons? And as for those who are
unbegotten – how many are they and how are they different from one another?
(NHC X,1 6.23-29) 52
Of the 33 Valentinian aeons in the system of Ptolemy for example, disciple of
Valentinus, no less than 30 are alluded to in the Tripartite Tractate. There are some
245 aeonial allusions in the entire text. Many of these allusions are rather faint, the
majority are quite strong, and some are completely explicit. It should be stressed
however that these would have been obvious to any Valentinian of the time. 53 For the
orthodox mind this recondite emanationism would have been extremely difficult to
ascertain and modern translators have in effect followed in this regard. It is important
to realise that it is not an either/or proposition with respect to aeonial
hypostasis/semantic attribute of the Parent. The double entendre was intended by
Gnostic writers as the aeons are seen as archetypes exerting their influence into our
own realm.
The Tripartite Tractate qualifies as an example of Hellenistic Gnosis in its
philosophical/theosophical synthesis of diverse ideas. The architectonic is essentially
Egyptian emanationist with the usual development of enneads and ogdoads in malefemale
pairs. 54
Further thematic attributes will be developed in Part III.
I have noted elsewhere the main problem of redaction here as we have very
few clues outside of the late-phase Christianising tendency as to the stages of
redaction involved. It is for this reason, among others, that a socio-historical model is
required in order to obtain a more direct view of Gnostic thought 100 B.C.E.-300
C.E.. It is ironic indeed that we must turn to the Patristics for evidence of this thought.
The evidence on Valentinus is of critical importance here for he was, by all accounts,
a prolific and seminal thinker for whom not one work survives. Likewise Basileides,
and both of these Gnostic teachers draw upon traditional Egyptian theology in the
mythopoeic formulation of their systems as we shall examine in Part III.
To summarise, in the Roman era in Egypt we are presented with these
different manifestations of Gnosis in Egypt. Both show up as mythopoeic
“syncretistic” endeavours undertaken by select literate classes, one undoubtedly to be
closely associated with Alexandria and her libraries, Jewish community, and mystery
cults, along with the Greek cities in Lower Egypt and Fayyum; the other descended
from the priesthoods from Behbeit el Hagar in the Delta to Philae in Nubia. The first,
which we are calling Hellenistic or synchronic Gnosis, displays a more sophisticated
concern with the qualities of the various levels of emanationist theogonies, advancing
an architectonic that is at once Greek and Egyptian, and which focuses upon the
immediate inner transformation through Gnosis of the individual soul. The other,
which we are terming Archaic or diachronic Gnosis, manifests a grassroots
disenchantment with the cosmos and a turning to a religiosity that relies upon
52
Coptic transcription from NHS, vol. XV, 268.
53
This in fact represents a major interpretational difficulty with all of the Nag Hammadi texts:
the familiarity of the reader (or listener) with the gnostic myth is often presupposed.
54
“The androgynous Creator god is to be found in several Coptic-Gnostic texts which
originated in Egypt, and was already known in pharaonic times.” Jan Zandee, “Der
androgyne Gott in Ägypten”, 241.