Academic Discussion • Re: Numenius "On the Good": (1) Agathos, (2) Nous, (3) Demiurge

After some initial introductions about Ptah (lines 48–52b), the Memphite Theology starts by declaring that “through the heart and through the tongue something developed into Atum’s image.” This something that took shape in the form of Atum was the result of none other than the “great and important . . . Ptah, who gave life to all the gods . . . through this heart and this tongue.”... It is through Ptah that all the gods were born, “Atum and his Ennead as well,” and that all things came into existence (lines 53–56, 58):

"Thus it is said of Ptah: “He who made all and created the gods.” And he is Ta-tenen, who gave birth to the gods, and from whom every thing came forth, foods, provisions, divine offerings, and all good things. Thus it is recognized and understood that he is the mightiest of the gods. Thus Ptah was satisfied after he had made all things and all divine word. . . . Indeed, Ptah is the fountain of life for the gods and all material realities."

The Memphite Theology was clearly setting forth the idea of creation as a combination of both immaterial and material principles, with Ptah serving as the connection between the two. Creation, according to the Shabaka Stone, was both a spiritual or intellectual creation as well as a physical one. It was through the divine heart (thought) and tongue (speech/word) of Ptah as the great causer of something to take shape in the form of the physical agent of creation Atum, through which everything came forth. Importantly, creation was first and foremost an intellectual activity and only then a physical one. The intellectual principles of creative thought and commanding speech were realized in Ptah and could be said to be embodied in him. He is that which “causes every conclusion to emerge” (line 56). Just as important though, at several points earlier in the text, as well as within the Memphite Theology, Ptah is identified as Ta-tenen, the primeval mound that Atum sat upon arising from the waters of Nun as he created the gods (see lines 2, 3, 13c, 58, 61, and 64). So, while Ptah is the intellectual and creative principle that “in-forms” and precedes all matter, he is also “a physical principle that is the font of all matter, conceptualized in his identification with Ta-tenen,” and in his imparting of life to Atum who, standing on Ta-tenen, carried out physical creation...

The descriptions of the “relations between Ptah and Atum,” opines Iversen, “were not attempts to elevate one at the expense of the other, but purely theological attempts to define the difference between creator and demiurge.”... —Ptah was creator while Atum was demiurge (second god) who was a Memphite deity and “not his Heliopolitan counterpart and namesake.” Looked at in context with other Egyptian conceptions of creation—where there was an “immaterial creator responsible for creation as such,” who is “projected . . . into a second, sensible god” who carries out material creation—the Shabaka text was simply a treatise explicating the local Memphite version of creation... It did not take scholars long to recognize that in the ideas of the Memphite Theology there was an approach similar to the Greek notion of logos. The so called “Logos” doctrine is that in which the world is formed through a god’s creative thought and speech—Logos meaning, literally, “Word.” The parallels with the creation account in the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, or with the opening chapter of the Gospel of John in the Christian New Testament, are obvious, as with other ancient texts and philosophies.

During the New Kingdom, the theology of Amun-Re at Thebes became very complex. His position as king of the gods increased to a point that approached monotheism. In Amun-Re's most advanced theological expressions, the other gods became symbols of his power or manifestations of him- he himself being the one and only supreme divine power. This absolute supremacy of Amun-Re was eloquently expressed in the sun hymns found in the eighteenth dynasty tombs at Thebes. As Amun, he was secret, hidden, and mysterious; but as Re, he was visible and revealed. Although for centuries Egyptian religion had been flexible and open to contradictory mythological expressions, the Theban theology of Amun-Re came close to establishing a standard of orthodoxy in doctrine.

As he exists outside of nature, Amun is the only god by whom nature could have been created. The text recognizes this by identifying all the creator gods as manifestations of Amun, the supreme cause, whose perception and creative utterance, through the agency of Ptah, precipitated Atum's evolution into the world. The consequence of this view is that all the gods are no more than aspects of Amun.

“Chapter 90” continues the theme of Amun’s preeminent causative role by explaining how the various “developments” of the creation in fact derive from, and are manifestations of, Amun himself. The entire pantheon is nothing more than the sum total and image of the creator, whose existence precedes theirs (lines C2-6). The first elements of the creation—the Primeval Mound and the sun—as well as the pre-creation universe that surrounded them, all emanate from the creator (lines C7-9). The primordial Monad, and its first development into the void and the sun, are also his manifestations (lines C10-17). And his was the voice that pronounced the first creative utterance, shattering the stillness of nonexistence and setting the entire process of creation in motion (lines C18-26).

In many Egyptian sources the creation of life involves three elements: the creation of a body, the transfer to that body of some part of the divine essence of the creator, and the animation of the body by the breath of life... The second element, the transfer of the divine essence, eventually led to the concept that all deities, or even all living beings, were not just made by a transcendent creator but were in some sense forms of the creator... The creator was sometimes referred to as “the One Who Made Himself into Millions” or “He Who Made Himself into Millions of Gods.” Creation could be seen as a process of differentiation, in which one original force was gradually divided (without necessarily diminishing itself) into the diverse elements that made up the universe... Before creation begins there is no division into genders. The creator seems to include both the male and female principles. Creator deities were commonly called “the father and mother of all things”...

The intellectual powers that enabled the creator to bring himself/herself into existence and to create other beings were sometimes conceptualized as deities. The most important of these were the gods Sia, Hu, and Heka. Sia was the power of perception or insight, which allowed the creator to visualize other forms. Hu was the power of authoritative speech, which enabled the creator to bring things into being by naming them. In Coffin Texts spell 335, Hu and Sia are said to be with their “father” Atum every day...

From at least as early as the New Kingdom, the god Ptah could represent the creative mind. Then Sia and Hu were identified as the heart and tongue of Ptah. This concept is expounded in the so-called Memphite Theology and in various hymns to Ptah. The Ancient Egyptians believed that the heart was the organ of thought and feeling. So Ptah was said to have made the world after planning it in his heart. It was “through what the heart plans and the tongue commands” that everything was made... It reconciles the separate creation myths of Atum of Heliopolis and Ptah of Memphis and includes a first-person account by Ptah of how he created all life through his powers of thought and speech. This section has often been compared to the famous opening of St. John’s gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God”...

A Middle Kingdom text set in the turbulent First Intermediate Period compares humanity with a flock and the (unnamed) creator with the good shepherd who cares for them. “For their sakes He made heaven and earth, and drove away the rapacity of the waters. So that their nostrils should live He made the winds. They are images of Him, come forth from His flesh. For their sakes He rises in heaven. For them He made plants and flocks"... New Kingdom hymns to the creator god Amun also refer to god making people “in his own image” but are vague about how this was done...

Shu and Tefnut were the children of the creator sun god... Shu and Tefnut were produced by an androgynous creator god, usually identified as Atum or Ra-Atum... At first, Shu and Tefnut were not fully differentiated from the creator. In the Coffin Texts they are often treated as a trinity: “the one who developed into three.” This may be why the monotheistic theology of King Akhenaten found a place for Shu and Tefnut as aspects of the god of light. Some early statues of Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti, probably represent them as Shu and Tefnut.

Maat’s role in creation is expressed in chapter 80 of the Coffin Texts (c.2000 BC) where Tefnut, the daughter of Atum, is identified with maat, the principle of cosmic order, who, together with Shu, the principle of cosmic ‘life’, fills the universe (Faulkner 1973: 83–7; Junge 2003: 87–8). Maat is, therefore, one of the fundamental principles of the cosmos, present from the beginning, like the personification of Wisdom in the later Biblical tradition (Wisdom of Solomon 7, 22; 7, 25; 8, 4; 9, 9). This concept of creation and the role of maat has also been likened to that found in Plato’s Timaeus (30a–b), where the creator demiurge forms a cosmos governed by reason by replacing disorder with order (Junge 2003: 88)...

Even the ‘monotheist’ Akhenaten, while aiming to abandon all myths in favour of a single divine concept of the Aten, still mobilized some very old mythical constellations in order to enhance his claim to the throne. He declared himself the sole son of his god, and his ka and representative on earth (Silverman 1995: 74–9), while presenting himself – in both text and image – as Shu, the firstborn son of the Heliopolitan creator god Atum... The triad of Atum, Shu and Tefnut is significant; there is reference to the time when Atum ‘became three’ (Coffin Texts II, 39c–e). His ka (‘vital power’) is present in his two children (Pyramid Texts 1652a–1653a). During the reign of Akhenaten, the iconography of the king, his queen Nefertiti and the Aten reflects that of Shu, Tefnut and Atum...

The Pyramid Texts trace the king’s birth back to the time of the primordial creator god. He is said to have been born from the self-impregnated sun god Ra or Atum; or even from Nun. An inscription in Theban Tomb 49 reads ‘The king was born in Nun before heaven and earth came into being’. The Memphite Theology united the king with Ptah.

It would be easy to assume that the creation of an abstract entity called 'Understanding of Re' is the work of the Greeks, with their supposedly unique facility for philosophical abstraction. But that is not the case. The hypostasising - or personifying as a divine being in its own right - of a specific abstraction called P-eime nte-re, 'Understanding of Re' or 'Intelligence of Re', may not be attested elsewhere in Coptic; however, it is very familiar indeed in Egyptian religion itself. From the earliest known period the Egyptians were extremely fond of personifying - and divinising - abstractions, but the most important of all these deities were two in particular: Sia, 'Understanding' or 'Intelligence', and Hu, 'Word' or 'Command'. Already in the Pyramid Texts Sia stands at the right hand of Re. From then on he is 'the representative of Re' or Re's messenger; sometimes he is effectively equated with Re, but usually he is 'the son of Re', his chief assistant along with Hu - in the creation of the universe. It is certainly no coincidence that we find the same fundamental idea of a divine, personified Intelligence coupled with a divine, personified Word in the first of the Hermetica, where Poimandres as the divine Intelligence (Nous) is assisted by a personified Word (Logos) in the creation of the universe. But that is a matter we shall come back to later...

As noted earlier, the tendency among scholars who adhere to the Greek etymology of the name has been to claim - with more than a little proprietorial interest - that here we have a revealing example of the Hermetica's indebtedness to Judaeo-Christian tradition, in the form of the idea of a divine 'shepherd of men'. But apart from the fact that the notion of a shepherd of men has a long history stretching back to the dawn of Greek literature, and apart from the further fact that this history can be traced back earlier still, via Mycenaean culture, to its roots in the Near East, what has also been missed is the evidence indicating that the Jewish and Christian ideas of God, saviour or spiritual guide as a shepherd evolved out of one religious tradition in particular: the Egyptian. There, naturally enough, the role was associated with one god above all--Re, 'the good shepherd of men', ever attentive, ever-conscious of the needs of his flock--and also with other Egyptian gods who performed the function of delegate or executor for Re...

Then we come to the roles attributed, throughout the first of the Hermetica, to a divine personified Intelligence (nous) and a divine personified Word (logos) as responsible for the creation of the universe. Certain superficial, and dissatisfying, analogies can be drawn here with the roles played by logos and nous in earlier Greek philosophical tradition or in Philo of Alexandria; but in the vividness of the personifications and the exactness of the details these Hermetic figures correspond unmistakeably to the functions of Thoth - or Sia - and Hu in Egyptian theological tradition. It is the same with the repeated identification, again running through the first of the Hermetica, of the divine Nous or Poimandres with Life. This, too, makes little sense in terms of Greek philosophy; but it corresponds exactly to the fact that in Egyptian tradition Thoth, like Sia, is the giver of abundance and the 'lord of life'.

The implicit ‘cosmogonic monotheism’ typical of ancient Egypt, deriving everything that exists (including the gods) from one single divine source, the sun god, is made explicit in two ways: in a radically exclusivist form by the revolution of Akhenaten, and in an inclusivist form with the rise of the theological discourse that eventually arrived at the idea that all gods are One. This monistic theology of All-Oneness lives on as a countercurrent to western monotheism in the Hermetic and Neoplatonic traditions until today...

The idea of the world as the embodiment of a soul-like god and of God as a soul animating the world remains central in Egyptian theology even after the New Kingdom and the flourishing of its theological discourse. We are dealing here with the origin of a conception of the divine which was to become supremely important in late antiquity: the “cosmic god,” the supreme deity in Stoicism, Hermeticism, and related movements... Their most explicit codification is to be found in the texts forming the Corpus Hermeticum. The “pantheistic” motif of the One and the millions appears in the Greek texts as the One and the All, to hen kai to pan, or hen to pan, and so on, and in a Latin inscription for Isis as una quae es omnia. The “cosmotheistic” aspect is expressed in statements about the world as the body of God...

The discourse of explicit theology arrives at a solution of the problem of how to correlate god and gods that may be summarized by the formula “All gods are One.” This is the form of cosmotheistic and hypercosmic monotheism characteristic of Hellenistic and late antique religiosity, and which can also be found in Mesopotamian, Iranian, and Indian texts. Egypt, however, is the civilization where these ideas can be traced back to a much earlier age than elsewhere and where they can be explained as the result of a long development.

The issue of intellectual and religious cross-cultural interchange is extremely complex, and no culture can be credited with being the source of all thought. Yet, the fact that many images and concepts, as formulated in the Hibis texts, reappear very similarly in Apocalyptic, Gnostic, Hermetic, Orphic, and Magical texts – in addition to the philosophical works of Plato, Iamblichus, and Plotinus – deserves serious attention. The additional fact, moreover, that many of these texts either were written in Egypt (i.e. Gnostic, Hermetic, and Magical texts) or claim Egyptian origin (e.g. Plato’s Timaeus, Iamblichus’s De mysteriis, Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride) should arouse even greater interest. In effect, classical and other texts claiming to reflect Egyptian concepts or mysteries do in fact reflect authentic Egyptian sources. More importantly, they correspond precisely with religious texts that actually date to this crucial period of heightened cultural exchange...

"So did you establish your throne in Ankhtawy,
As Amun-Re, Ba Lord of the firmament,
These (both) mean: your form in the initial moment,
When you arose as Amun-Re-Ptah."

This is another example of a "three-tier" world or, more appropriately, of a trinity. These three deities appear together at Hibis as recipients of a Maat-Offering scene. Noting the Graeco-Roman correspondences of Egyptian deities (Amun = Zeus, Osiris-Ptah = Hades, Re = Helios) one should compare the following Orphic statement quoted by both Macrobius and Julian: "Zeus, Hades, Helios Serapis: three gods in one godhead!" More explicitly dealing with Egyptian religion, Iamblichus aptly described the various aspects of the demiurge (Kneph):

"The demiurgical intellect, master of truth and wisdom, when he comes in the creation and brings to light the invisible power of hidden
words, is called Amun, but when he infallibly and artistically, in all truth, creates every thing, he is called Ptah (a name which the Greeks
translate Hephaistos, only observing his ability as an artisan)"...

This description of Amun-Re "whose length and width are without boundaries," yet who is also "remote" and "mysterious" of visible form, as the source of "millions" should be compared with the following Hermetic description of god:

"For this is his body, neither tangible nor visible nor measurable
nor dimensional nor like any other body; it is not fire nor
water nor air nor spirit, yet all things come from it"...

He “creates everything,” “dwells in everything,” is “lord” of everything, but he is not everything. Amun was supposed to be transcendent, and the Egyptian priests made it clear that natural phenomena were merely terrestrial manifestations, or Bas, of Amun.