THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

inquiry into these matters can be found, clearly (defined), in The First Logos of
Oraias. (102.11-25) 16
This text is important, both for its demonstration of Egyptian theological
antecedents, as well as its affirmation of Gnostic inter-textuality. No less than eight
citations of other works are made in the larger work, and a number of them can be
conclusively connected with the magical papyri as has been demonstrated in Chapter
5. The same principle of verbal creation and seven Chaos-gods appear and one is
therefore not surprised to find a number of laudatory references to Egypt in this
tractate, including “the water hydri in Egypt”, the Phoenix, and Apis bulls. This
passage concludes: “It was only in Egypt that these great signs appeared – nowhere
else – as an indication that it is like God’s Paradise” (122.16-123.1) 17
: The
consideration of what prompted the Egyptian concern with noetic reciprocity as I
would term it, and this medium, effected between god and creation, is clarified by the
presence of ma’at. The sense of cosmic and political order, of morality, and even
etiquette, it has been suggested, 18
prefigures the Greek concept of δικη. 19
In the same
sense that ma’at is portrayed as a creative principle begotten by Atum, she
nonetheless delimits, and in some ways precedes, the very possibilities for Atum’s act
of creation. 20
Ma’at as a personal goddess and principle is therefore somewhat of an
anomaly in the entire Heliopolitan pantheon, for as a creative principle she also
operates as a synecdoche for the entire cosmology; that is, she herself is both the
justification and principle of completion, therefore the very basis of Being underlying
all hypostatic enactments, including the appearance of Atum himself. Ma’at, who was
eternal and indestructible, was “the embodiment of Egyptian optimism”. 21
This cosmological reciprocity arose out of socio-historical conditions,
including the relationship between the king and his subjects as evidenced by the
decline of the Old Kingdom bifurcated afterlife as a kingly prerogative, but more
16
Ibid., 38.
17
Ibid., 80. See Böhlig, Mysterion und Wahrheit, 145-48.
18
Tobin, Theological Principles, 77.
19
I would note in passing that ma’at as goddess in this regard, finds her later parallel in the
metaphoric concept of Parmenides who has the Goddess of Truth proclaim that, “Justice
does not loosen her fetters to let Being be born or destroyed, but holds them fast,”
Wheelwright, The Presocratics, 97. It is interesting that the monism of Parmenides proceeds
out of a concern with a central eternal state of Being comparable to the Egyptian Nun, and
that his “Goddess of Truth” appears as his own hypostatic derivation therefrom, akin to the
Egyptian concept/goddess of ma’at.
20
Tobin, Theological Principles, 78: “In order to express anything of the fullness which was
contained in the Egyptian Ma’at, the Greek language had to have recourse to terms such as
θεμισ (“right”, “order”), μοιρα (“fate”, “portion,”), σωφροσυνη (“discretion”, “selfrestraint”,
“moderation”), and αρετη (“virtue”, “nobility,”) [which I prefer to translate as
“prowess,” or “excellence”: “virtue” was a later sense of the word]. The “fullness” of which
Tobin speaks found its way in Gnostic thought into their concept of the Pleroma. This
embodied the same sense of necessity as in ma’at, however this engendered good and evil in
the world.
21
Tobin, Theological Principles, 80.