THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

hath worshipped the sun or any of the host of heaven, it is an abomination unto
the Lord thy God. 54
It is also no coincidence that the Neoplatonic philosopher Alexander of Lycopolis
concluded his anti-Manichaean polemic with an extended attack upon the apparent
absurdities inherent in Manichaean heliocentrism. The Manichaeans were clearly
emphasising this integral part of their teachings, not just for the Egyptian masses, but
for the intellectual élite in Alexandria and other cities of the Delta.
There are two main polemical sources for Manichaeism in Egypt. Of these,
Adversus Manichaeos by Serapion of Thmuis (an early orthodox churchman writing
in the mid 4th century in Lower Egypt) is for the most part propagandistic and has
only marginal utility in detailing Manichaean philosophy. 55
Those few passages in
the work with any expository value are in accordance with the writings of Alexander
of Lycopolis who wrote his main work roughly a half century earlier. Alexander’s
treatise is of course equally polemical; the difference is that Alexander was a
philosopher who saw fit to describe the system he disagreed with in order to more
effectively refute it. The information it contains is therefore of great use in assessing
Manichaean thought in Egypt. An even greater service, however, is provided by this
work: Alexander conclusively demonstrates that Manichaean philosophy was taken
seriously by the philosophers of his time, and that it was actively engaged in
disputation within the Neoplatonic schools. Alexander’s own philosophical stance
shades off into the positions of Plotinus and Porphyry; he must, therefore, be
considered a part of the larger Alexandrian school. I shall neither attempt to examine
the full breadth of the Manichaean positions conveyed to us by Alexander nor detail
his refutation of these points; rather, I shall continue our examination of heliocentrism
through an analysis of Alexander’s refutation of it. At a rough count, 15-20 percent of
Alexander’s treatise effectively deals with the issue of heliocentrism, indicating the
importance he placed upon it.
In isolating those passages in Alexander’s polemic which deal with the sun
and moon, one is quickly struck by the complete absence of heliolatrous sentiment in
Alexander’s exposition of Manichaean thought. One might suspect that he was more
concerned with the heliocentric infrastructure of their thought were it not for a
categorical statement he makes at the very beginning of his presentation: “Sun and
moon they honour most of all, not as gods, but as the means by which it is possible to
attain to God”. 56
This statement, in conjunction with the rest of his discussion,
accords with a more original form of Manichaean thought, that is, with the direct
word of Mani himself which saw the importance of the sun and moon in terms of their
critical salvific functions. The difference between the heliocentrism in Alexander’s
depiction of Manichaeism in Egypt and that of the overt heliolatry in the Kephalia, it
would seem, graphically illustrates the Egyptianisation of the sect. This would also
54
Emphasis added. This is a free adaptation of Deuteronomy 17:2-6 wherein those who
worship the sun and moon are sentenced to death by stoning. From C.H. Roberts, ed.,
Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, vol. 3, Theological
and Literary Texts (Manchester: University Press, 1938), 43.
55
Robert Pierce Casey, ed., Serapion of Thmuis Against the Manichees (Cambridge: Harvard
Theological Studies, 1931), 17.
56
van der Horst and Mansfeld , An Alexandrian Platonist Against Dualism, 57.