THE EGYPTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF GNOSTIC THOUGHT

Incubation
The phenomenon of direct access to the numinous through dreams shows up
throughout the magical papyri (e.g. PGM I.1 & 37; IV.3205; VII.232, 407 & 727-39;
XII.121-43) and is counted upon as one of the potent skills of the magician. This
function is also a critical feature of Egyptian priestly life as it is well-attested in the
Late Period. The Gnostics Carpocrates, and Simon, were attacked by Irenaeus and
Hippolytus for their perceived practice of the magical arts, including gnosis through
dreams. 90
Carpocrates, an Egyptian Gnostic active in Alexandria with his son
Epiphanes around 130 C.E., is denounced because he would “practice magic, and use
images and incantations; philters, also, and love potions; and [having] recourse to
familiar spirits, dream-sending demons... declaring that [he possesses] power to rule
over, even now, the princes and formers of this world”, as is Basileides along the
same lines. 91
In short, two of the most influential Gnostic teachers that we know of in
Alexandria, are accused of practising all of the normal practices of the Egyptian
dualist magician. Given the textual affinities that we have thus-far examined, in
conjunction with the sympathetic mood shared by Gnostic and magician, the main
thrust of the testimony of Irenaeus must be given credence
This survey does not pretend to be exhaustive but is sufficient to the task at
hand in establishing a firm Gnostic resonance in the magical papyri and vice versa. In
particular, we have noted those junctures where magic is subsumed by gnosis. This
gnosis “includes almost everything of interest to the magician, from foreknowledge of
the divine plans for the future to the range of things we would regard as scientific”. 92
One particular magical spell (also cited by Betz in this regard) stands out here:
I am Thouth, discoverer and founder of drugs and letters. Come to me, you
under the earth; arouse [yourself] for me, great daimon, he of Noun [Nun], the
subterranean... I will not let god or goddess give oracles until I, NN, know
through and through what is in the minds of all men, Egyptians, Syrians,
Greeks, Ethiopians, of every race and people, those who question me and come
into my sight, whether they speak or are silent, so that I can tell them whatever
has happened and is happening and is going to happen to them, and I know their
skills and their lives and their practices and their works and their names and
those of their dead, and of everybody, and I can read a sealed letter and tell
them everything (in it) truly. 93
The reference to knowledge of past, present, and future, in a gnosis-context is highly
reminiscent of the famous Valentinian formula:
90
Irenaeus I.XXIII & I.XXV; Hippolytus Haer.6.26
91
Ad.Haer. I.XXIV.5 and 1.XXV.3, trans. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers,
vol. 1 (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1913), 350; also Clement, Strom. III.2=§5.2-9.3 & §10.1
92
Hans Dieter Betz, “The Formulation of Authoritative Tradition in the Greek Magical
Papyri,” in Self-Definition in the Greco-Roman World, vol. 3, Jewish and Christian Self-
Definition, ed. Ben F. Meyer and E.P. Sanders (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), 164-65.
93
PGM V. 247-303; Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri, 106.