THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

your greatest name, by which you control the whole inhabited world; perform
for me the NN deed. 39
This is a most interesting passage on two counts Firstly, it appears to be
drawing on the Isis myth in which she poisons the sun god in order to learn his most
secret name. This myth will be examined more closely in Chapter 12 as it forms a key
feature of the Valentinian myth. Secondly, the inferiority of the demiurge to Adam is
a feature common to the so-called Sethian group of Gnostic tractates, as in The
Apocalypse of Adam where Adam tells his son Seth that, “we resembled the great
eternal angels, for we were exalted above than the god who created us and the powers
with him” (NHC V,5 64.14) 40
. Christine Harrauer in her work Meliouchos, remarks
that this passage “appears here to underlie a completely certain direction of the
Gnostic anthropos myth, in which primal man stands higher than the begettor-god”. 41
PGM IV.1635-1715 is a hymn to Nun/Re “the shining Helios... the great
Serpent, leader of all the gods, who control the beginning of Egypt and the end of the
whole inhabited world, who mate in the ocean, PSOI PHNOUTHI NINTHER” 42
The
text presents the 12 hours of the Sun-god Re as passengers upon the sun-barque,
associated with various divinities (via their animals):
1st hour cat / Re glory and grace
2nd hour dog / Anubis strength and honour
3rd hour serpent / Thoth 43
honour
4th hour scarab / Khepri strength
5th hour donkey / Seth-Typhon strength and courage
6th hour lion / Sun-god at noon success, glorious victory
7th hour goat / soul of Osiris sexual charm
8th hour bull / soul of Osiris 44
everything (to be accomplished)
9th hour falcon / Horus success and luck
10th hour baboon / Thoth
11th hour ibis / Hermes-Thoth
12th hour crocodile / Sobek
39
Ibid., 22.
40
Coptic text from NHS, vol.XI: Nag Hammadi Codices V, 2-5 & VI with Papyrus
Berolinensis 8502 1 & 4, ed. Douglas M. Parrott (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1979), 154.
41
Harrauer , Meliouchos, 45. I am indebted to Dr. Harrauer for this connection.
42
Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri, 68. The epithet is the equivalent of “the Agathodaimon,
the god (of) the gods”, a variation occuring in PGM III.144-45: PSOEI O PSOEI O
PNOUTE NENTERTEROU, the equivalent of p3 šy ‘3 p3 šy ‘3 p3 ntr n3 ntr.w tr.w, “Good
Daimon, Good Daimon, O god of all the gods!”, Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri, 22. Nun,
as “the father of all the gods” is clearly identifiable in these passages.
43
This identification is rather more circuitous. See Merkelbach, Abrasax, 118.
44
“The goat from Mendes, as with the Memphite Apis-bull, is an incarnation of the soul of
Osiris.” Merkelbach, Abrasax, 119.