THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

“Nun” and “Heh god”; their darker side in the theogonic process, however, sees them
functioning as “Abyss” and “Chaos”.
Nun is conceived in his inchoate state as verging upon differentiation – in the
dynamic commencement of this process the latent becomes manifest, usually in the
form of the first hypostasis Atum – “the hidden one” – and as a concomitant to this
deity, a feminine creative principle inasmuch as he is seen to be androgynous. 4
Nun
is conceived as the abyss above the sky, while Naunet is the watery abyss below the
earth. 5
This feminine counterpart of Nun sometimes occurs alongside Atum, but is
more usually depicted as a conflation of Atum-Nun creating Shu and Tefnut/Ma’at.
The theogony is thus conceived of as monad – dyad – triad, which marks the
hypostatic moment of plurality for the Egyptian theologian. This primal plural, three,
attains its apotheosis in being squared, and the ennead of nine members results. The
emphasis upon the formation of this primal three with Nun as the ordering principle is
found in the Gnostic tractate Zostrianos:
It is the water of Existence which is possessed by Divinity, that is, the
Kalyptos... (15.10-12)
The first perfect water of the tripartite power of the Autogenes (is) the perfect
soul’s life, for it is a word of the perfect god while coming into being... for the
Invisible Spirit is a fountain of them all... (17.6-13)
Then [he said] ‘How then can he contain an eternal model? The general
intellect shares when the self-generated water becomes perfect. If one
understands it and all these, one is the water which belongs to Kalyptos, whose
image is still in the aeons. (22.1-14) 6
Kalyptos (from the Greek καλυπτós for “covered”) also appears in Allogenes as the
head of a triad of aeons and is obviously to be identified with Atum: directly beneath
him in both tractates is Protophanes (first-visible), followed by Autogenes (selfgenerated).
The triad itself in the two Gnostic systems, synergistically creates a
female hypostasis Barbelo-Sophia whose nature and actions are depicted in an ethical
light, and so is reminiscent of Ma’at.
As one might expect in the Old Kingdom, Nun is portrayed in the Pyramid
texts as a bestower of recognition and favour upon the departed king. Nun is a critical
deity to beseech in this regard, as he is seen to allow the passage of the king across the
watery waste in the solar barque; in this he saves the king from “inimical gods” as in
Utterances 272 & 607 in the Pyramid Texts where the king says,
O Height which is not sharpened, Portal of the Abyss, I have come to you; let
this be opened to me... I am at the head of the followers of Re’, I am not at the
head of the gods who make disturbance (PT Utt. 272, §392). 7
4
See Zandee, “Der Androgyne Gott in Ägypten.”
5
Allen, Genesis in Egypt, 4.
6
Coptic transcriptions from NHS, vol.XXXI: Nag Hammadi Codex VIII, ed. John H. Sieber
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991), 58, 60, 68, 70.
7
Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, 79