THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

they became; however, they originate from the thought which first knew them.
(82.10-24) 7
Of course the qualities of deceit and arrogance well accord with Seth’s “trickster”
characteristic.
In the Valentinian myth, following the “extension” of Sophia. The aeon finds
herself cut off from the pleroma, surrounded by her formless abortion. The
androgynous aeon Horus establishes a limit, so as to establish a wall against the threat
of disorder, afterwhich Sophia repents and is redeemed. In the main Heliopolitan
Egyptian myth, Isis raises Horus in solitude in the inhospitable marshes of Khemmis.
Horus, unlike the gods before him, is destined not to have a female consort; in the
Valentinian myth this is also the case.
We have elsewhere in so-called Valentinian thought, the scenario of a divine
figure declining her partner, resulting in infecundity or abortion. The Gnostic Norea,
also known as Nuraita and Nhuraita, is presented as the wife-sister of Seth 8
, and this
would appear to derive in part from the Egyptian goddess, Nephthys, or sometimes
Neith, wife-sister of Seth. While in the Egyptian myth Nephthys is distanced from the
disruptive activities of Seth and their syzygy is never holistically incorporated into the
ennead, Gnostic inversion redeems Norea and Seth, and they can be seen to function
together as purveyors of gnosis. Be that as it may, all of the disruptive features that
operate in the Gnostic theogony can be traced back to the fundamental principles
contained in Seth, one of infecundity, incompletion, prematurity, and abortiveness. 9
A further sexual parallel is to be found in Seth’s homosexual act, one which
“threatens to change the cosmos into chaos”. 10
Sophia’s sexual deviance manifests
Seth’s dynamic as “an enemy of boundaries” 11
; Horus establishes the boundary and
she comes to realise this “Sethian excess” in herself. Her clash with the pleroma is the
archetypal conflict between Horus and Seth.
The Gnostic Gospel of the Egyptians (NHC III,2 and IV,2) depicts an
equivocal Seth figure who represents a fusion between the Egyptian Seth and the son
of Adam. 12
The text is a hash of redactive layers that are difficult to delimit; certainly
the Christian elements are a later addition and the pre-Christian elements of the text
are cautiously viewed by F. Wisse and A. Böhlig as being “considerably older” than
their provisional 2nd or 3rd century compilation date. 13
At a number of junctures the
7
Coptic transcription from NHS, vol. XXII, 242.
8
See Birger A. Pearson, “Revisiting Norea,” in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, 265,
for a useful study of this figure, although the Egyptian connection is entirely overlooked.
9
Ugo Bianchi, “Seth, Osiris, et l’ethnographie,” Selected Essays on Gnosticism, Dualism, and
Mysteriosophy (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978), 127.
10
te Velde, Seth, God of Confusion, 43.
11
Ibid., 56.
12
A point made by Frederick Wisse and Alexander Böhlig, in Nag Hammadi Codices III, 2
and IV, 2: The Gospel of the Egyptians (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975), 35. The possible Egyptian
provenence of the piece is also noted (36) .
13
NHS, vol. IV, 38.