THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

originated and self-generated place This is the Depth (bythos) of the Entireties.
In truth this is the great Nun (NOYN)... (1.6-11)
This is he whose members are a multitude (“myriad-myriad”) of powers in each
of them. (1.16-17) 42
The text goes on to describe “the Unoriginated Parent who is Father and Mother,
alone unto himself, whose Pleroma encompasses the twelve Depths. (Chap.2. 228.2) 43
The twelfth is described as “the Truth from whom all Truth comes forth” (4.8). and
the Greek alethia is used with the Coptic ME. This “image of the Parent” is described
as “the Mother of the aeons” (4.9 & 10), and one is reminded of the ubiquitous
presence of the Goddess Ma’at in her role in the various Egyptian theogonies. The
system can be laid out as follows:
Copte, 196, lists only the demotic antecedent, “to err”, or “to lose”, while also suggesting a
possible association with COPM, “a type of beer.” It seems that, by Coptic times, the
associations with losing one’s way, weeping, and inebriation, caused the word to be used in
Gnostic texts when speaking of error and ignorance. The Gnostic view on the “drunkenness”
of ignorance has been elsewhere remarked.
42
Coptic transcription from NHS, vol.XIII: The Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text in the
Bruce Codex, ed. R. McL. Wilson (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978), 214.
43
Coptic text taken from The books of Jeu and the Untitled Text in the Bruce Codex, trans. and
commentary, Violet MacDermot (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978), 216, 218.