THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

Nun’s role in a more popular mode of religious observance, as opposed to being
confined to the more abstruse cosmogonic issues we have examined. This is
accomplished in close association with the traditional views on the birth of Re every
morning, from the water abyss “between the thighs of Nut” as expressed in the
mythological papyrus of Khonsu-Mes dated to the 21st Dynasty:
He takes a seat in the Morning Barge and shines between the thighs of Nut. The
name of the gate of this city is Exaltation of the Gods. The name of this city is
Outcome(?) of Darkness, Appearance of Birth. The name of the Hour of the
night in which this Great God takes a rest in this cavern at the end of utter
darkness. When this Great God is being born in his forms of Khepri at this
cavern, Nun and Nunet, Heh and Hehet appear at this cavern at the birth of this
Great God when he comes out of the Netherworld.
[depiction of Nun holding up the solar barge. Below his left hand]: They
proceed in the following of this god.
[Above the head of Nun]: These arms come out of the water, they lift this
god. Nun.
[Text to left]:
O hail, tow him, let (him) pass by the cavern of Nun... 16
We surmise that this change in religious views towards a more acutely
dualistic cosmology took place more or less outside the main temples; in this regard,
the Khonsu Cosmology is of special interest for it displays a syncretism with respect
to the generation of Nun and the primal ogdoad:
Amun in that name of his called Ptah created the egg that came forth from
Nun... as Ptah of the Heh gods and the Nenu goddesses who created heaven and
earth. He ejaculated and made [it] at this place in the lake, which was created in
Tjenene [a Memphite sanctuary of Ptah], it flowed out from under him, like that
which happens, in its name of “grain of seed”. He fertilized the egg and the
eight came into existence from it in the district around the Ogdoad. He
languished there in Nun, in the Great Flood. He knew them; his neck received
them. He traveled (hns) to Thebes in his form of Khonsu. He cleared his throat
from the water in the flood. Thus came into existence his name of Khonsu the
Great in Thebes, the august being in the seed. He turned his face to this seed. It
was his Ma’at, that great one who raised herself as a power from the ground, a
necklace on his breast fashioned to the likeness thereof, brought from the... high
land in Nun. Thus came into existence Thebes in her name of Valley. Thus
came into existence Hathor the Great, in the midst of the “grain of seed” in that
name of hers of Nunet. Then he put his body upon her, and he opened (pth) her
as Ptah, the father of the gods. Thus came into existence the Ogdoad...
consisting of its four males, and a wife for each one. 17
16
Piankoff, Mythological Papyri: Texts, 210.
17
From room 5 of Khonsu temple at Karnak. Richard A. Parker and Leonard H. Lesko, “The
Khonsu Cosmology,” in Pyramid Studies and Other Essays Presented to I.E.S. Edwards, ed.
John Baines, T.G.H. James, Anthony Leary and A.F. Shore (London: Egypt Exploration
Society, 1988), 168-75.