THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

I note in passing that Atum’s name connotes “everything” or “entirety” from the
Egyptian tm, and thus underwrites the ubiquitous Gnostic ideal of the pleroma. This
act depicts the beginning of the theogonic process, the point at which the Abyss
differentiates itself into various hypostases. Although Epiphanius is historically shortsighted
in assigning the derivations of Valentinian thought to Hesiod, he is close to
the mark in seeing the very architectonic of Gnostic thought in Hesiod’s Theogony,
where Chaos generates all the gods and goddesses:
For he [Valentinus] too wants to introduce thirty gods and aeons and heavens,
of which the first is Depth, as he says with his lack of sense, just as Hesiod, the
one responsible for his ideas, certainly said: “Chaos is the very first of gods”. 5
Now who does not realize that “Chaos” and “Depth” mean the same thing? 6
It has been possible in this study to bring out the emanationist foundations of
Egyptian Gnostic thought at almost every turn through analysis of various extant
texts. I propose to continue with this heuristic in this chapter, however, Patristic
evidence will be more closely drawn upon in order to show what reverberations there
existed, abroad from Egypt, in the minds of those who recognised a definite alien and
pseudo philosophical quality that imbued the writings of the Gnostics in Egypt. It is
my contention that this alienness was in its way correctly apprehended by Hippolytus,
Irenaeus, et al., and that modern inclusivistic tendencies in Christian Origins to
ameliorate this strangeness in favour of a more sanitised “Christian Gnosticism”
patently ignores the ancient oriental precepts of Egyptian emanationist thought. While
the logos-oriented Memphite Theology is to be found in the teachings of Basileides
among a number of other examples, by far the largest proportion of Gnostic
emanationist systems display their Heliopolitan pedigree in remaining true to the
central procreative pattern of the divine family tree made up of pairs of gods and
goddesses: this was most obscure and unpalatable to the early Church polemicists.
Patristic writings of course must be taken cum grano salis, yet we have no
great need to doubt their larger observations as they targeted the phenomenon of
Gnostic aeons and the patterns they appeared within. Theirs was not a great task in
terms of refutation, for the systems they reported on displayed as much of an offputting
disregard for clearly defined system in their day as they continue to do in ours.
We have seen the primal ogdoad show up in various Gnostic systems of thought, the
Heh-god “myriad” and chaotic nature of this ogdoad often obvious. Tertullian, writing
around 200 C.E., gave vent to his frustration in dealing with the Gnostic fixation in
this regard, and inadvertently confirms the function of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad in
Valentinian thought:
Thus you have an Ogdoad, a double Tetra, out of the conjunctions of males and
females – the cells (so to speak) of the primordial Aeons, the fraternal nuptials
of the Valentinian gods, the simple originals of heretical sanctity and majesty, a
5
Hesiod, Theogony, 116.
6
Epiphanius, Panarion 31.2.5, in The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, ed. and
trans. Philip R. Amidon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 109.