THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

used in different ways, even if it is not a consistent and general distinction. A schema
will demonstrate the positions of various Egyptologists on this issue:
nhh dt
J.P. Allen 3
eternal recurrence eternal sameness
L.V. Zabkar 4
something completed (to be) attained
A. Bakir 5
infinity before world temporal world ends
E. Drioton 6
infinity before world temporal world ends
L. Kákosy 7
infinity ahead static eternity past
A. Gardiner 8
eternity in future eternity in the past
E. Otto 9
future in years future everlastingness
G. Thausing 10
eternity (life-time) eternity (death-space)
E. Hornung 11
eternity (Being) eternity (Nonbeing)
K. Sethe 12
eternally sought (nhy) eternally attained (?)
J. Assmann 13
order/recurrence chaos/duration
The general consensus is that time as nhh has an end as it is bound up with the
cyclic phenomenology of this world; time as dt on the other hand denotes the stasis of
Nonbeing, the changeless and formless primordial state – though “pregnant” – which
is the backdrop for the dynamic nhh. It would seem that eternity was considered to be
Nun in its most archetypal manifestation, using such suggestive qualifiers as “inert”
or “hidden” to imply the impending theogonic development of the ennead.
3
Allen, Genesis in Egypt, for CT Spell 80, 21.
4
“Some Observations on T.G. Allen’s Edition of The Book of the Dead,” 77-83.
5
Abd-el-Mohsen Bakir, “Nhh and dt reconsidered,”JEA 39 (1953): 110-11; see however his
re-appraisal in “A further re-appraisal of the terms: Nhh and Dt,” JEA 60 (1974): 252-54, in
which he clarifies nhh and dt as being representative of a dynamic life associated with an
everlasting rotation of ‘days’ and ‘nights’: nhh with its sun disk as determinative represents
daylight and the creation of the world, whereas dt with its land determinative is associated
with darkness, the netherworld, and the physical and corporeal span.
6
From Zabkar, “Some Observations on T.G. Allen’s Edition of The Book of the Dead.” 77.
7
L. Kákosy, “Zu einer Etymologie von Philä: die ‘Insel der Zeit’,” Acta Antiqua 16 (1968):
47.
8
Alan H. Gardiner, “Hymns to Amon from a Leiden Papyrus,” ZÄS 42 (1905): 12-42.
9
“Altägyptische Zeitvorstellungen und Zeit begriffe,” in Die Welt als Geschicte 14 (1954):
135-48.
10
Gertrude Thausing, “Die Ausdrücke für ‘Ewig’ im Ægyptischen,” MIFAO 66 (1934): 38.
11
Hornung, Conceptions of God, 171.
12
Pyramiden-Texte, II, 241.
13
Assman, Zeit und Ewigkeit im alten Ägypten, 45.