Worlds Apart: Selected Essays on Ancient Egyptian and Early Christian Thought

Worlds Apart:

Selected Essays on Ancient Egyptian and Early Christian Thought

Ihab Khalil

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Worlds Apart

Selected Essays on Ancient Egyptian and Early Christian Thought

Copyright © 2009 by Ihab Khalil

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-1718-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-1719-0 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-1720-6 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009921078

iUniverse rev. date: 2/4/2009

Contents

PREFACE

List of Figures and Tables

PART I: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN THOUGHT

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

PART II: EARLY CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX AND HETERODOX THOUGHT

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

BIBLIOGRAPHY

To my family

PREFACE

This book of four unpublished essays reflects my research interests over the last fifteen years. Broadly speaking, my main interests are ancient Egyptian religion and early orthodox/heterodox Christianity (particularly Alexandrian Egyptian Christianity).

Using a variety of methods, I have picked specific topics to analyze within these two broad areas. Chapter 1 analyzes a most prevalent idea in ancient Egyptian thought using Ugo Bianchi’s philosophical classification of dualism as a guide. Highlighting the myth of Osiris, Chapter 2 looks at it through the lens of Jung’s individuation process. Chapter 3 asks the question that early followers of Jesus asked and views the answer in historical and literary terms. Finally, Chapter 4 takes Freud’s view of mysticism as the starting point for the early Christian idea of theosis.

In truth, this analysis of ideas from Egyptian mythology, early Christian Christology, etc. was to be examined in a much longer work that looks at the intersection of these two broad academic areas. Instead, I have decided to publish these four essays – with each essay as stand alone.

Ihab Khalil

Toronto, 2008

List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1-1: Classification of the Different Types of Dualism

Figure 2-1: The Heliopolitan Ennead

Table 1-1: Common Dualistic Principles in Egyptian Thought

Table 2-1: Comparison of Stages

Table 3-1: Comparison of the Ebionites and Marcion

Table 3-2: Comparison of Marcion and Other Gnostics

Table 4-1: Summary of Irenean-Early Alexandrian Metaphysical Approaches to Theosis

PART I: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN THOUGHT

CHAPTER 1

Dualism in Ancient Egyptian Thought From the Early Dynastic Period to the First Intermediate Period

Philosopher Alan Watts once claimed that an explicit duality could express an implicit unity.¹ In Egypt, this unity is expressed as a duality of kingship and of the cosmos.² This essay will compare the dualism found in ancient Egyptian thought in the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom with the First Intermediate Period using Ugo Bianchi’s classification. Egyptian thought remained moderate and eschatological throughout these periods. The Egyptians believed that there was only one primordial principal and that the positive principle will overcome the negative one. However, the main difference was the change from cosmic to anticosmic dualism. Instead of the belief that creation was fundamentally good and that evil comes to it from the outside; the First Intermediate Period brought about a belief that evil was intrinsic to the world. The main primary sources will be the Pyramid Texts, the Memphite Theology, The Instruction Addressed to King Merikare, The Admonitions of Ipuwer, and The Prophecies of Neferti. The importance of the king, including his titles and function, in Egyptian dualistic thought will be addressed. The expression of dualistic thought in architecture will also be discussed.

Dualism in the Early Dynastic Period and the Old Kingdom

Ugo Bianchi discusses dualism, which is based on causal principles responsible for bringing the world (and humanity) into existence.³ He uses a systematic typology that I find very useful in discussing dualism in the Egyptian context. It is based on three pairs of opposites. Dualism may be classified by type as either radical or moderate, either dialectical or eschatological, and as either cosmic or anticosmic.⁴

The First Dimension: Radical versus Moderate

Radical dualism claims that two coequal and coeternal principles exist and act from the beginning.⁵ Moderate dualism claims that there is only one primordial principle and that the second principle derives somehow from the first. This second principle is instrumental in bringing the world into existence.⁶ Bianchi claims that this dimension of dualism is the least significant of the three.⁷

The Cosmogonies of Ancient Egypt

The different cosmogonies of Egypt show a consistent pattern of moderate dualism. The ordered world was not created by a god who had existed eternally, only chaos was there from the beginning. Chaos or non-existence was considered a primeval flood called Nun, with characteristic limitless waters and total darkness.⁸ At the first time or the first occasion, a tiny island rose from the waters.⁹ At the moment of the rise of the hill, the creator god emerged and began to create the gods Shu and Tefnut and the rest of the cosmos. The Pyramid Texts say: "O Atum-Khoprer, you became high on the height, you rose up as the bnbn-stone in the Mansion of the ‘Phoenix’ at On.¹⁰ The texts also mention the Abyss: I was born in the Abyss."¹¹

Heliopolis and Hermopolis claimed that the creator was Atum-Re while Memphis claimed that it was Ptah.¹² The Memphite Theology is considered to originate in the Old Kingdom or earlier by many scholars although it was written in a later period.¹³ It claims: Ptah-Nun…[made] Atum…There took shape in the heart, there took shape on the tongue the form of Atum.¹⁴ An interesting solution to this problem of two creators is Allen’s claim that Ptah translated Atum-Re’s expressed perception into reality by in-forming the raw potentiality. Basically, that Ptah was the go-between the cause and the caused.¹⁵

Analysis of the Evidence

It is clear that the dualism found in the cosmogonies is moderate. There is only one primordial principal (Nun, the Abyss, non-existence, or chaos) that was there at the beginning. Atum-Re (or Ptah) then came on the primordial hill and created the cosmos. God does not appear from another world, but from his own potential life.¹⁶ This potential life is Nun. There was no mutual-generation or existence at the beginning. Thus cosmos would not exist if chaos had not been there.

The Second Dimension: Dialectical versus Eschatological

Dialectical dualism claims that the two principles, often conceived of as good and evil in the ethical and metaphysical sense, function eternally; whereas eschatological dualism is the belief that the evil principle will be overcome at the end of history.¹⁷ It should be noted that dialectical dualism is the most extreme and irreconcilable form of dualism¹⁸ and must always be radical dualism.¹⁹ Bianchi also finds this dimension to be the most significant from a metaphysical point of view.²⁰ It is interesting to note that by the process of elimination, Egyptian dualism must also be eschatological since we defined it in the previous section as moderate. However, even if we had not defined it first as moderate, we can still prove that the two principles underlying Egyptian thought could be reconciled; which is the opposite of the irreconcilability found in dialectical dualism. There is also a belief that the negative principle will be overcome by the positive one.

The Two Principles in Egyptian Thought found in the King

The king embodied the reconciliation of the two principles of Egyptian thought. The Egyptians called Egypt the Two Lands expressing a belief of a unification of kingdoms in Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt under the first king. However, the existence of a united Lower Egyptian kingdom is discounted by many scholars.²¹ Even so, there was a difference between the two areas. The main cultural difference was greater social stratification in the south compared to the north – with the southerners having more variation in the size and contents of tombs.²²

The earliest titulary of the king shows this duality.²³ The nswt-bity prenomen, which translates as he of the sedge and the bee was first used in the reign of Den in the middle of the First Dynasty and expressed the many dualities under the king’s rule and in the cosmos: Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, Red Land (desert) and Black Land (cultivation), day and night, natural and supernatural, etc.²⁴

The nbty or the two Ladies name introduced at the end of the First Dynasty refers to the patron deities of Upper and Lower Egypt and signified the duality