THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

particularly the political relationship between the King and the priesthoods. I have
stressed the apparent intent of the Memphite system to mitigate but not radically alter
the Heliopolitan. In this sense, the king’s royal pedigree would have remained
critically important but not, in itself, decisive. For the procreative power of Atum has
attained a verbal stature in Ptah, and the pharaoh, as exemplar and executor of the
divine will on earth, must in this context speak first, procreate after as it were. In
effect, the legitimacy of the king is vouchsafed by his speech, and the prerogatives of
thought and speech are shared by all. 22
It is my contention that the emanationist view of creation through verbal
expression is quintessentially Egyptian in origin, although it was undoubtedly affected
by diverse ancient influences by Roman times. The teachings of Basileides in
Alexandria points us in this direction:
Whence, says he, came the light? From nothing. For, says he, it is not written
where (it came) from, but only (that it came) from the voice of him that spoke. 23
Hippolytus of Rome’s attack on Basileides, along with Irenaeus, indicates that
this Gnostic teacher advanced a Memphite-theology based theogony. This can be
historically connected with extant Egyptian religious texts at the time of Basileides, in
the form of a Demotic text from the Suchos temples in the Fayyum which dates to the
second century C.E.:
To him belongs the Power of Word from divine word(s) to make great [ ]. 24
As well, from the cartonnage of a mummy in the time of Augustus we have an
example of the Memphite theology in demotic (Pap. Berlin 13603). 25
The apperceptive thrust of the Memphite theogony suggests a modern
philosophical concern with subjectivism in a few critical regards. 26
For our purposes
22
Admittedly we are on tenuous grounds, yet it is a consistent conclusion to be drawn from a
system which was surely taken this seriously. We are touching upon the subject of pharaonic
literacy, that royalty in this system would have been schooled by the priests in the
cosmogonic “language of power,” in a sort of dialectical proving-ground for all who would
rule by the word. The essential point is that in the Memphite view, utterance, as well as
perhaps family birthright, would have been the true test of kingly suzerainty over the
priesthood. It is the very principle of intellection present in the Memphite system which
must needs confer this thinking independence upon such a sophisticated group of priests.
Ptah, the “Divine Artificer” is, in this sense, a metaphor for the demiurgic endeavours of
these religious philosophers, an imago of their own speculative genius.
23
Hippolytus, Ref. VII 20, 22.3. Trans. Foerster, Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts, vol. 1,
65.
24
DPD 6614.6 from E.A.E. Reymond, ed., From the Contents of the Libraries of the Suchos
Temples in the Fayyum, part II, Ancient Egyptian Hermetic Writings (Wien: Verlag Brüder
Hollinek, 1977), 145.
25
W. Erichsen-S. Schott, Fragmente memphitischer Theologie in demotischer Schrift (Abb.
Des Geistes u. Sozialwiss. KL. Der Akad in Mainz (1954), no. 7.
26
Via the Greek Sophistic movement I might add, in particular the famous axiom of
Protagoras, “Man is the measure of all that is, that it is, and all that is not, that it is not.” The