THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

focus upon the library of Alexandria, 60
and upon its associated Mouseion which was,
by etymology, a cult-centre for the worship of the Muses. While the sources don’t
permit us directly to view what work was done here, we can say with some
confidence that this must have involved cataloguing and copying as a basis for more
advanced work in philology and science, certainly involving teaching and the giving
of lectures. An important point for our purposes is that ancient Egyptian texts were
likely translated there. 61
In the first instance, the Ptolemies appear to have had a high
regard for ancient Egyptian customs and traditions, and the high-priest in Memphis
apparently operated as a Viceroy of the Ptolemies. 62
In this connection we note that
the above-mentioned High Priest Psenptaïs was likely given the hand of the Greek
princess in return for the assistance he had rendered Euergetes II.
A fundamental split existed among the philosophical groups of the Hellenistic
world. In the fourth century B.C.E. the epicentre of Greek philosophical thought was
still Athens, and this continued on until it was sacked by Mithradates in 88 B.C.E.,
following which the Academy shifted to Alexandria (ca. 76 B.C.E.). Various
philosophical traditions were well-represented in Alexandria in the form of
contending sects, and the fundamental split we are dealing with is that which existed
between the Stoics and Skeptics. It is Skepticism we shall be focusing upon as the
primary philosophical progenitor of Gnostic thought in Alexandria. Skepticism was
deeply hostile to the Stoic notion of conventional knowledge as the essential
foundation of excellence (areté 63
), and strongly emanated from the Academy in
Greece in the third century B.C.E., the prestige of which had recently been reestablished
by the Skeptic Arcesilaus. 64
An epistemological theory of uncertainty
which allowed room for probability, but not for absolute certainty, was espoused by
Antiochus of Ascalon and his intellectual heirs of the late Ptolemaic period, Potamon
and Arius Didymus, both of Alexandria. Potamon was the founder of the Eclectic
School, 65
and Arius was the “spiritual advisor” of Augustus during his triumphant
entry into Alexandria. 66
The old Skeptical school of Pyrrho was revived in
Alexandria by Anesidemus of Cnossus in 50-40 B.C.E.: his first book, Pyrrhoneian
60
Tzetzes and Epiphanius agree that there were two libraries. According to Tzetzes the
“Palace library” contained 400,000 symmigeis scrolls containing more than one title, and
90,000 amigeis with only one work, while the “external library” contained 42,800 works.
Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 329. See Luciano Canfora, The Vanished Library, 183-89.
61
Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 330.
62
Reymond and Barns, “Alexandria and Memphis”, 15
63
For etymological reasons we shall insist that areté be translated as “excellence” rather than
the modern inflation of “virtue” as it is often rendered.
64
A.A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, 2nd ed. (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), 94.
65
A movement “which selected from the doctrines of each school,” Fraser, 490. Fraser notes
that the influence of the eclecticism of Antiochus extended into the Roman period, in
particular the influence it had on Cicero through whose teachings it has come down to us as
the familiar creed of western humanism.
66
One of whose accomplishments was the pardoning by Augustus of Cleopatra’s court Sophist
Philostratus. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 490.