THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

principle who is “the Mother of the Gods”. 26
This female world soul is enfranchised
by the Monad operating within, or against, the Indefinite Dyad which is an evil and
disorderly principle, a sublunary Hades rife with demonic powers. This, and “a
preoccupation with triadic distinctions” 27
also affords compelling evidence to link
Xenocrates with the “Chaldeans” and with the Gnostics – the Tripartite Tractate, and
the Trimorphic Protennoia in particular. Even more compelling is a differentiation
made by Xenocrates between “knowledge” (epistême) and sense-perception
(aisthêsis), 28
which finds its exact parallel in the Trimorphic Protennoia (NHC
XIII,1.36.2) 29
: “I am the determination (aisthêsis) and the Knowledge”. “Knowledge”
is from the Coptic COOYN which is used as a synonym for Gnosis throughout the
text. The thought of the Protennoia exists as a sound in perception (aisthêsis) and as a
word “hidden in the Silence of the Ineffable” (37.23 & 29) 30
, for example. The sense
in both speculations is that there is a form of lower knowledge based upon a
phenomenology of the sublunary realm, and there is a higher knowledge revealed by
the feminine principle, a special knowledge pertaining to the upper unseen realms. An
interesting resonance is also obtained in Xenocrates’ maxim “that true sophia is a
form of knowledge not attainable by humans”. 31
Other specific terms such as
pronnoia, nous, logos, archai, and telos, are also notable for their similar applications.
Finally, the evil disorderly principle against which the higher god draws forth creation
is highly reminiscent of Egyptian Heliopolitan conceptions. Plutarch’s report on the
myth of Isis and Osiris was clearly influenced by Xenocrates, 32 and an Egyptian
derivation for this view here is thus further enhanced.
These two philosophers, direct successors of Plato’s Academy, are not part of
the Middle Platonist movement proper, 33
but are important in the obvious influence
they exerted upon the continuation of Platonic dualisms. While Greek intellectual
intercourse with the potent Persian empire to the east was a factor prior to Alexander,
the conquest of the east in cultural, and more specifically linguistic terms, obviously
generated a new watershed period of interaction. A great intellectual crossfertilisation
between Greek and non-Greek, one that was later to devolve upon
Alexandria and other key cities of the eastern Mediterranean following the break-up
of this far-flung enterprise, was initially a broadly self-conscious act of synthesis and
assimilation: Hellenism, thus willingly perforated by diverse influences, became the
Hellenistic.
In the eighth year of Xenocrates’ tenure as head of the Athens Academy,
Alexander founded Alexandria in 331 B.C.E., and it cannot be doubted that his dualist
26
Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 25.
27
Ibid., 30.
28
Ibid.,30
29
Coptic transcription from NHS, vol. XXVIII, 404.
30
Coptic transcription from NHS, vol. XXVIII, 406.
31
Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 37.
32
Ibid., 26.
33
Defined by Dillon as extending from c. 80 B.C.E. to c. 220 C.E., The Middle Platonists, 1.