THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

is used twice in association with the Manichaeans Mary and Theona, which leads one
to the conclusion that they may have been executed as a result of Diocletian’s edict of
297 C.E. A critical piece of historical information is provided in Papyrus Rylands 469
which specifically attacks the Manichaean missionaries who,
with deceitful and lying words steal into our houses, and particularly against
those women whom they call the ‘elect’ and whom they hold in honour,
manifestly because they require their menstrual blood for the abominations of
their madness. 67
The concluding ad hominem need not be taken seriously, and it is clear that the female
Manichaean missionaries had a rather high profile and were effective in their
endeavours, thus becoming targets for orthodox invective.
This stands in marked contrast with Manichaeism outside of Egypt which,
while certainly affording women the roles of Elect teachers and missionisers, did not
go so far as to venerate historical women in their liturgy. The emancipation of women
in Hellenistic times found its ideal locus in Alexandria, especially as the city became
more and more Egyptianised. The Greeks intermarried primarily with Egyptian
women who had always enjoyed more social and political freedoms than their Greek
counterparts. This elevation of the social functions of women naturally found its
expression in the Gnostic sects of the Roman period which thus prepared the way for
the Manichaeans.
The first Manichaean missionaries headed towards Egypt along the trade
routes to Alexandria and overland from the Red Sea to Thebes. They did this perhaps
knowing that they were heading towards a kindred community of fellow Gnostics.
Egypt, along with Rome and Parthia, would have been high upon the list of targets for
the Manichaean mission. The story of Skythanios, whether or not it is based upon
historical fact, points towards the likelihood that the Egyptian Gnostics may have
sought out the teachings of Mani abroad and brought them back with them. The fact
that Manichaean and Egyptian Gnostic texts both appear almost entirely in the
dialects of Upper Egypt suggests that the southern route was an important link for the
transmission of Manichaean teachings into Egypt. The presence of the Christ myth in
these dualist groups along with such Manichaean mythological figures as Saklas and
Nebrod, and a radically anti-world eschatology, clearly provided the Manichaean
proselytisers with a sympathetic and receptive audience
It is important to consider the fact that there were Gnostic groups in Egypt
who fell on the Manichaean side of the philosophical radical/mitigated divide. At least
six of the Gnostic texts found in the Jebel el Tarif show a marked affinity with a more
Manichaean type of radical dualism. 68
In this regard the distinction between radical
and mitigated is not an abstruse theological point, but a grassroots issue that must
have been exceedingly contentious. Many Egyptian Gnostic texts equal or exceed the
Manichaean predilection for extended cosmological systematisation; however, there is
little evidence to suggest that this was accompanied by a political/social agenda.
Indeed this is not to be expected from a tapestry of thought whose overall weave
67
Roberts, Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri, 43.
68
Zostrianos (VIII, 1, 1.10 and 5.11), Apocalypse of Peter (VII, 3, 77.21), The Second
Treatise of the Great Seth (VII, 2, 68.30), The Paraphrase of Shem (VII, 1, 1.21), On the
Origin of the World (II, 5, 97.30), The Apocryphon of John (II, 1).