THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

abble – shall I say, of criminals or of deities? – at any rate, the fountain of all
ulterior fecundity. 7
That these four male-female pairs of aeons are seen as primordial, “the fountain” of
all subsequent creations, can leave no doubt as to the Hermopolitan theogony that
informs this system. Nor are we surprised to learn, as has been noted elsewhere, that
the first original aeon from which all else springs is known as Bythus, the Depths:
Nun and the primordial ogdoad together form the well-springs of the Valentinian
theogony both in the texts and the patristic sources at our disposal.
It might have been possible for early orthodoxy, or proto-orthodoxy as the
case may be, to safely ignore this veritable mythopoeic gushing up from the
unconscious had the Gnostics simply existed as an apolitical and powerless collection
of fringe groups. The Patristic response connotes that the imaginative fire of Gnostic
thought caught on enough to give them at first pause, and then consternation, as
Christian thought itself was perceived to be drawn into, perhaps even derived from the
Gnostic warp and woof. Jerome noted the acute intelligence of Valentinus 8
, Irenaeus
reacted to the considerable presence of Valentinians in the vicinity of Lyon, and
others indict the specifically Egyptian mythological backdrop drawn upon by Gnostic
authors at various junctures. Tertullian, writing around 200 C.E., saw all heresies
instigated by philosophy, the central Gnostic notion of the Aeon as a philosophical
figment. 9
In general, the patristic authors are hard-pressed to understand the mystifying
phenomenon of reams and reams of hypostasising aeons that appear in the Gnostic
texts before them like a cacophony of sounds, a haphazard confusion of fireworks
lighting the darkness of the Alexandrian imagination. This conjectural impetus is
curiously wedded to the methods and terminology of philosophical investigation,
enough so to convince most heresiologists that pagan philosophy was the true culprit,
as with Tertullian:
What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between
the Academy and the Church? what between heretics and Christians?... Away
with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and
dialectic composition! 10
This assumption has carried on current appraisals of Gnostic thought by far and large,
and the assumption seems to have been that there is a haphazard, gratuitous, and
extravagant imaginative quality to Gnostic expression, one that flies in the face of a
more reasoned spirituality based upon true faith. As Tertullian was to exclaim in the
midst of the exasperating tedium of setting down the Valentinian system,
7
De Praes. Haer. IV, Chap.VII. Peter Holmes, Ante-Nicene Father vol III (New York:
Scribner’s Sons, 1908), 507.
8
“No one can bring heresy into being unless he is possessed, by nature, of an outstanding
intellect and has gifts provided by God. Such a person was Valentinus,” In Hos. 11, 10.
9
De Praes. Haer. IV.VII, 507.
10
De Praes. Haer. I.VII, 246.