THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

Plotinus’ philosophical explorations of time and eternity. The following passage from
the Enneads is imbued with the ancient Egyptian view of nhh and dt:
We must take ourselves back to the disposition which we said existed in
eternity, to that quiet life, all a single whole, still unbounded, altogether without
declination, resting in and directed towards eternity. Time did not yet exist, not
at any rate for the beings of that world; we shall produce time by means of the
form and nature of what comes after (Ennead III.11, 1-7). 53
But since there was a restlessly active nature which wanted to control itself and
be on its own, and chose to seek for more than its present state, this moved, and
time moved with it; and so, always moving on to the “next” and the “after”, and
what is not the same, but one thing after another, we made a long stretch of our
journey and constructed time as an image of eternity (Ennead III.11, 14-19). 54
Plotinus’ description of the higher eternity, with its “unbounded” nature, “without
declination” fits well with the Gnostic view of the Pleroma; likewise, the lower nhh
realm is quintessentially demiurgic, with a will that is “restless”, desiring “to control
itself and be on its own”. This very particular view of time and eternity espoused by
Plotinus and the Egyptian Gnostics is not, therefore, to be traced back to Plato. Nor is
Plato drawing exclusively from earlier Greek philosophers, Anaximander for
example 55
; rather, the source is the ancient Egyptian view of nhh and dt. By the Late
Period, under the influence of dualist and apocalyptic undercurrents, the traditional,
cyclic, “coursing to eternity” of Egyptian thought had been transformed within
Gnostic thought into a soteriological imperative, possible only through gnosis.
53
Plotinus III: Enneads III. 1-9, trans. A.H. Armstrong (1967; reprint, Loeb Classical Library,
1980), 337.
54
Plotinus III, 339.
55
Peter Manchester, “The Religious Experience of Time and Eternity,” 401.