Thrice Greatest Hermes - Vol3-Excerpts and Fragments
Thrice Greatest Hermes - Vol3-Excerpts and Fragments
Thrice Greatest Hermes - Vol3-Excerpts and Fragments
M '
i-
Thrice-Greatest Hermes
Thrice-Greatest Hermes
Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy
and Gnosis
By
G. R. S. Mead
/. EXCERPTS BY
PAGE
Ex. I.
Commentary ........
OP PIETY AND TRUE PHILOSOPHY . . . 3
12
Ex. VII.
ABLE
Commentary
.........
OP BODIES EVERLASTING AND BODIES PERISH-
........ 30
33
...
Ex. IX.
Commentary ........
OP THE DECANS AND THE STARS 45
54
Commentary
AND FATE .......
RULE OP PROVIDENCE, NECES-
........ 55
57
VI CONTENTS
PAGB
Ex. XI. OF JUSTICE
Commentary ........ 58
59
V
Ex. XVIII. OF SOUL,
Commentary ........ 77
79
COMMENTARY
Argument 134
Sources? 146
The Direct Voice and the Books of Hermes . 147
CONTENTS Vll
PAGE
Kamephis and the Dark Mystery . . . .149
Kneph-Kamephis 151
Hermes I. and Hermes II. . . . .152
The Black Kite 155
Black Land .158
The Pupil of the World's Eye .
-
. . .159
The Son of the Virgin . . . . . .160
The Mystery of the Birth of Horus . . .162
"Ishon" 165
The Sixty Soul-Regions 168
Plutarch's Yogin .169
The Plain of Truth 171
The Boundaries of the Numbers which Pre-exist
in the Soul 173
The Mysterious " Cylinder " 175^
The Eagle, Lion, Dragon and Dolphin . . . 180
Momus 182
The Mystic Geography of Sacred Lands . .184
COMMENTARY
Argument 204
Titleand Ordering
The Books of Isis and Horus
The Watery Sphere and Subtle Body
.... . . .
206
207
209
The Habitat of Encarnate Souls 210
IV. TERTULLIAN
i.
ii.
Hermes the Master of all Physics
Hermes the Writer of Scripture
..... 226
227
iii. Hermes the First Preacher of Reincarnation . . . 227
iv. Hermes on Metempsychosis
FRAG. 1 228
V. CYPRIAN
God is beyond all Understanding 229
VI. ARNOBIUS
The School of Hermes 230
VII. LACTANTIUS
i.
Thoyth-Hermes and his Books on the Gnosis . .231
FRAG. II 233
TheHistorical Origin of the Hermetic Tradition . 233
ii.
Uranus, Cronus and Hermes, Adepts of the Perfect
Science 234
iii. Divine Providence 235
iv. On Mortal and Immortal Sight
FRAG. Ill 235
v.
vi.
Man made Image of God
after the
Hermes the First Natural Philosopher
..... . .
236
237
vii. The Daimon-Chief 237
viii. Devotion in God-Gnosis
FRAG. IV 238
ix. The Cosmic Son of God
FRAG. V. .
239
CONTENTS IX
PAGE
x. The Demiurge of God .240
xi. The Name of God
FRAG. VI 241
VIII. AUGUSTINE
i.-iii. Three Quotations from the Old Latin Version of the
" "
Perfect Sermon . 249
The Pyramid
FRAG. XIII. 254
X CONTENTS
PAGE
The Nature of God's Intellectual Word
FRAG. XIV 255
FRAG. XV 256
Concerning Spirit
FRAG. XVIII 258
" "
The To Asclepius of Cyril's Corpus . . . 259
v. From "The Mind' 3
260
vi. Osiris and Thrice-greatest Agathodaimon
FRAG. XIX 261
" Let there be Earth "
!
FRAG. XX 262
X. SUIDAS
Hermes speaks of the Trinity 268
An Orphic Hymn 269
II. JAMBLICHUS
Abammon
Hermes the
the Teacher
Inspirer
Those of the Hermaic Nature
....... 285
286
288
The Books of Hermes 289
The Monad from the One 291
The Tradition of the Trismegistic Literature . . 291
Bitys 294
Ostanes-Asclepius 296
From the Hermaic Workings 297
The Cosmic Spheres 299
IV. CONCLUSION
PAGE
An Attempt at Classifying the Extant Literature . 306
Of Hermes 306
To Tat 308
To Asclepius 310
To Ammon 311
Of Asclepius 312
Oflsis 312
From the Agathodaimon Literature . . . .313
Of Judgments of Value 314
The Sons of God 316
Concerning Dates . . . . . . .319
The Blend of Traditions 321
Of Initiation 323
A Last Word 325
V. INDEX
Excerpts by Stobaeus
VOL. III.
EXCERPT I.
190-194; W. i. 273-278.
1
"
Menard, Livre IV., No. i. of Fragments from the Books
of Hermes to his Son Tat," pp. 225-230.)
2
I. Her. Both for the sake of love to man, and
3
piety [now], to God, I my son, for the first
4
time take pen in hand.
1
G. = Gaisford (T.), Joannis Stobasi Florikgium (Oxford,
1822), 4 vols. ; lo. Stob. EC. Phys. et Ethic. Libri Duo (Oxford,
1850), 2 vols.
M. = Meineke (A.), Joh. Stob. Flor. (Leipzig, 1855, 1856), 3
vols. ;
Joh. Stob. EC. Phys. et Ethic. Lib. Duo (Leipzig, 1860), 2 vols.
W. = Wachsmuth (C.), Jo. Stob.Anthologii Lib. Duo Priores
. . . EC. Phys. et Ethic. (Berlin, 1884), 2 vols.
H. = Hense (0.), /. Stob. Anth. Lib. Tert. (Berlin, 1894), 1
vol., incomplete.
2
I have numbered the paragraphs in all the excerpts for
convenience of reference.
3
etxrejScfos, it might also be rendered by worship.
4 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
pious grow.
For never, son, can an embodied soul that
has once leaped aloft, so as to get a hold upon
the truly Good and True, slip back again into
the contrary.
For when the soul [once] knows the Author
4 5
of its Peace, 'tis filled with wondrous love, and
1
Or give worship unto God,
2 In 5
itstrue sense of wisdom-loving. fvtrp6vtf
4
Gf. C. ff., xiii. (xiv.) 3, Comment.
6
Cf. P. S. A., ix. 1 ; xii. 3.
OF PIETY AND TRUE PHILOSOPHY 5
dragging down.
1
Where A^0r? (forgetfulness) is opposed to fyoos (love), that is
to say, reminiscence, the secret of the fide-no-is (mathesis) of the
their slavery.
Or 2
1
is born. Or dies.
3
irpSarov 6 6ebs, Sevrfpov 6 /c^(T/xos, rp'nov & Hi/Opuiros. Gf. P. S. A. ,
"
x. : The Lord of the Eternity (^Eon) is the first God ; second is
Cosmos ;
man's the third."
4 rb
Lit. sensible part, atV0irrrfir.
5 irav rb
as opposed to ovffia. (essence).
8v,
6 The
meaning of ex-istence, being the coming out of pure being
into the state of becoming.
8 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
immortal.
Not every body's subject to disease ;
all bodies
5
The good law of the mighty [One] is the
body.
The deathless shares not in the mortal [part] ;
things in heaven ;
the things in heaven shower
1
Or dies. 2
There is a lacuna in the text.
3
Or energies.
4
Lit. go.
6
Lit. comes.
OF PIETY AND TRUE PHILOSOPHY 11
COMMENTARY
Patrizzi thought so highly of this excerpt that he
chose it for Book I. of his collection. He, however,
erroneously made the persons of the dialogue Asclepius
and Tat, instead of Hermes and Tat an unaccountable
1
Or Providence ; cf. 15 above. 2
Lit. than itself.
OF PIETY AND TRUE PHILOSOPHY 13
original.
1
who them a
"
Cf. R. (p. 128), calls Collection of Sayings of
Hermes."
EXCEEPT II.
[of Him]
impossible.
For that the Bodiless can never be expressed
in body, the Perfect never can be comprehended
by that which is
imperfect, and that 'tis difficult
shadow of appearance.
So far off from the stronger [is] the weaker,
1
Hense's text ends with xlii. 17 ;
the second part has
apparently never been published.
2
Or think of.
OP THE INEFFABILITY OF GOD 15
I have mind,
it Tat, I have it in
in my my
mind, that what cannot be spoken of, is God.
COMMENTAEY
Justin Martyr quotes these opening words of our
excerpt verbatim, assigning them to Hermes (Cohort., 38 ;
1
Otto, ii. 122).
The substance of the second sentence is given twice
by Lactantius in Latin (Div. Institt., ii. 8 ; Ep. 4) ;
in
the second passage the Church Father also quotes
verbatim the first sentence of our excerpt, and from his
introductory words we learn that they were the beginning
of a written sermon from Hermes to his son (Tat).
The four sentences are also quoted in almost
first
1
Which "
see for Commentary under Fragments."
16 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
OF TRUTH
from Patrizzi " Of
(Title (p. 46b), preceded by : Thrice-
greatest Hermes to Tat."
Text : under heading " Of Hermes
Stob., Flor., xi. 23, :
1.
Concerning Truth,
[Her.'} Tat, it is not
VOL. III. 17 2
18 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
of the True.
And these are not all
things, but few [of
them] the rest consist of falsity and error, Tat,
;
left false.
The
picture, too, has all the other things, but
Thus there is
nothing true on earth, [so
father?
1
Taking eVflaS* with the preceding clause.
*
Of. 1 above.
OF TRUTH 21
1
Is it not, rather, false, coming and going, in
" "
not true. Man's an appearance. And appear-
ance is extreme untruth.
3
6. [^otf.] But these external bodies, father,
4
they are brought to being by the Forefather
[of them they have their matter true.
all],
1
Cf. Ex. vii. 2, and 7 below. -
Or perishing.
8
Or are corrupted, or perish.
4
That is, the Sun ; c/. 6 above. 5
Lit. genesis.
OP TRUTH 23
possibly be true ?
COMMENT
The excerpt seems complete in itself, but whether it
1.
[Her.~\ There is, then, That which tran-
1
scends being, beyond all things existent, and
all that really are.
or it may mean
that they have a sameness in the fact that their
motions enter into themselves " again."
24
GOD, NATURE AND THE GODS 25
COMMENT
I have supplied the
title for the sake of uniformity.
If we compare our
extract with Ex. vii, and especially
the last sentence of the former with the first sentence
of 2 of the latter, and note that in Stobaeus the one
excerpt follows almost immediately on the other, we
shall be fairly well persuaded that they both come from
the same collection namely, the Sermons to Tat.
Presumably God and Nature.
1
2
vo-finariKoi, a very rare form, and may possibly mean
perceptible.
3
votifiaruv.
4
Or spirits. The last clause, "and regulates," etc., is absent
from some MSS., and is, therefore, considered spurious by some
editors; but its unexpectedness is a strong guarantee of its
genuineness. The "spirits" are the prands of Hindu physio-
logical psychology ; cf. G. H.> x. (xi.) 13, Comment., and Exs. xv.
2, xix. 3.
EXCERPT V
[OF MATTER]
(I have added the title, it being the same as that of the
main section of Stobaeus, Patrizzi (p. 51) giving only the
" From the
simple heading [Sermons] to Tat."
Text: Stobseus, Phys., xi. 2, under the heading: "Of
Hermes from the [Sermons] to Tat"; G. p. 121 ; M. i.
84,
85; W. i. 131.
"
Menard, Livre IV., No. viii. of Fragments from the
Books of Hermes to his son Tat," p. 250.)
1
Matter is the vase of genesis, and genesis, the
mode of energy of God, who's free from all
1
Or receptacle or field of genesis, or birth (ayyeiov
The idea of a vessel or vase of birth was a familiar symbol with
the Pythagoreans ptrayyiff^s (from the simile of pouring water
;
out of one vessel into another) being one of their synonyms for
n letempsy chosis.
OF MATTER 27
took forms ;
for she, contriving the forms of her
2
Compare this with the Christian Gnostic commentator
a/j.op<j>ia.
OF TIME
(Title from Patrizzi (p. 38b) ;
followed by : "To the
Same Tat."
Text: Stob., Phys., viii. 41, under heading: "Of Hermes
"
from the [Sermons] to Tat ; G. p. 93 ; M. i. 64.
"
Menard, Livre IV., No. v. of Fragments from the Books
of Hermes to his Son Tat," p. 241.)
is already past.
28
OF TIME 29
1
this, and future [time] doth not exist, in its not
3
without them in their sameness, and their one-
" "
Of Hermes From the [Sermons] to Ammon to Tat ;
W. i. 290-292.
M($nard, Livre IV., No. iii. of "Fragments from the
Books of Hermes to his Son Tat," pp. 238, 239.)
I.
[Her.] The Lord and Demiurge of all eternal
[now].
Committing them unto themselves, and co-
possible.
For that the latter did create from the first
2 ;
and Lact., D. I., iv. 6.
4 the elements.
. Ex. viii. 5. Sc.
32 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
day.
For know, [my] son, that if our bodies did not
rest at night, we should not last a single day.
sleep.
For 'tis the relaxation and the recreation of
the jointed limbs ;
it also operates within,
,
used by Plato (ap. Clem. Alex., 703), and the Pytha-
goreans (TimseusLocr., 100 A, 101, c, E), and the Later
Platonists, for the body as the tabernacle of the soul. See
especially the response of the Oracle at Delphi, when consulted
concerning the state of the soul of Plotinus after death, as quoted
"
by Porphyry in his Life of Plotinus But now since thou hast
:
struck thy tent, and left the tomb of thy angelic soul" (see my
"
Lives of the Later Platonists" in The Theosophical Rmiew (July,
1896), xviii. 372. Cf. Ex. iii. 1 and 5 ; and U. H., xiii. (xiv.)
12 and 15.
2
Added by Heeren to complete the sense.
BODIES EVERLASTING AND BODIES PERISHABLE 33
COMMENT
Patrizzi's title is by no means descriptive of the
main contents of the excerpt, which is evidently from
the Sermons of Hermes to Tat, and from the same
collection of these from which Stobaeus has taken the
pository Sermons.
1
Gf. 0. H., xvi. 7, note.
VOL. III.
EXCERPT VIII.
greatest Hermes."
Text: Stob., Phys., xxxv. 6, under the heading: "From
the [Sermons] to Tat"; G. pp. 284-291; M. i. 198-203;
W. i. 284-289.
teaching as to those.
For thou hast said somewhere 1 that science
and that do constitute the rational's energy. 2
art
According to this
reasoning, [therefore], it
follows of necessity that the irrational lives are
1
That is in some previous sermon.
2
Action or operation, fvepyeiav tlvai TOV \OJIKOV. Cf. 11
below.
3
Or animals.
34
OF ENERGY AND FEELING '
35
proper energy.
For that which is, shall ever be ;
for that this
2
1
Or energizing. Lit. energize.
3
ffundruHriv, cf. Ex. vii. 2 ; cf. also the ^VXOXTIS of K. K., 9.
OF ENERGY AND FEELING 37
2
change of age, co-operate with the soul's rational
part.
But all these energies depend on bodies. From
3
godly bodies they descend to mortal [frames],
these body-making [energies] ; each one of them
is [ever] active, either around the body or the
soul.
"Myth of Man").
3 Or the bodies of the Gods, the heavenly bodies, or
divine,
the spiritual and immortal bodies of the soul.
38 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
?
[mine]
Her. Thus understand it, Tat ! When soul
made to disappear.
For body without [the exercise of] energy
3
could not experience these things.
This energy, accordingly, continues with the
is the weaker.
The stronger, too, being in authority and
free, doth lead ;
the [weaker] follows [as] a
slave.
8. The
energies, then, energize not only bodies
that are ensouled, but also [bodies] unensouled,
i
p.ev au>/j.a x^pis 'J'ux*? 5 " Svuarai, rb 8^ tlvai SCOTCH, 7
undergo.
2
For energy's the name, son, for just the
embody it.
mischievous.
For that both joy, though [for the moment]
it
provides sensation joined with pleasure,
5
immediately becomes a cause of many ills to
1
Of. 8 above, and note.
2 *& Kopv<f>T)s 1jpT7)VTai.
fj.ias
Compare this with Plato, Phcedo,
i.60 B, where Socrates speaks of the pleasant and the painful as
"
two (bodies) hanging from one head " (tic mas
3
Or animals.
4
That is, the sensation of pleasure and pain.
6
Sc. by contrast.
OF ENERGY AND FEELING 43
COMMENT
Again, as with the last excerpt, the earlier editions
of Stobseus have Asclepius and Tat as the persons of
1
That is, soul and energies.
44 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
"
the arts and sciences are man's. Seeing, however, that
" "
The Key is an Epitome of the General Sermons to
Tat, the statement may also have been made in one of
these sermons.
In either case the existence of these General Sermons
is presupposed, and, therefore, it may be that our
excerpt is, again, one of the Expository Sermons to Tat.
The beginning of the Sermon has clearly been omitted
by Stobseus, and apparently the end also.
EXCERPT IX.
xiii. (xiv.) 1 ;
and Ex. xviii. 1.
2
These are the "Horoscopes" of P. S. A., xix. 3. Cf. also
Origen, C. Cels., viii. 58 R. 225, n. 1.
;
3
Or energy.
45
46 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
1
The zodiac ; irtpl rov a>8m/coC KVK\OV t) TOV o0rfpou, of which
the second member is probably a gloss ;
but see 8 below.
2
Or sphere.
3
Qr
OF THE DECANS AND THE STARS 47
1
They share the motion of the Planetary
Spheres, and [yet] have equal powers with the
2 3
[main] motion of the Whole, crosswise the
Seven.
4
They'rechecked by nothing but the All-
own self.
2
1
That is, the Decans. Or Universe.
3
This refers to the astronomical system the
underlying
Pythagoreo-Platonic tradition, as, for instance, set forth allegori-
cally and symbolically by Plato in the famous passage in The
TimcRus (36 B, c). "The entire compound he (the Demiurge)
divided lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another
at the centre like the letter X, and bent them into a circular
1
place without their action.
Nay, further still, bear this in mind. If they
rule over them, and we are in our turn beneath
the Seven, dost thou not think that some of
their activity extends to us as well, [who are]
5
and they 4 have ministers and warriors too.
6
And they in [everlasting] congress with them 7
10
Or animals. " The Decans.
OF THE DECANS AND THE STARS 51
1
Bear, just in the middle of the Circle of the
2
Animals, composed of seven stars, and with
another corresponding [Bear] $ above its head.
Its
energy is as it were an axle's, setting
nowhere and nowhere rising, but stopping [ever]
in the self-same space, and turning round the
same, giving its proper motion* to the Life-
5
producing Circle, and handing over this whole
universe from night to day, from day to night.
6
And after this there is another choir of stars,
to which we have not thought it proper to give
names but they who will come after us, 7 in
;
1
The Great Bear. " Behold the Bear
Compare up there that
circles round the Pole."
2 3
The zodiac. The Little Bear.
4 5
Lit. energy. Cf. 1 above.
6 7
Sc. the Bear. Cf. P. S. A., xii. 3 ;
xiv. 1.
8
That is, apparently, invent them out of their own heads hap-
hazard.
9 "
Referring, presumably, to the phenomena of shooting stars."
52 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
2
See the same idea in Plutarch, De Is. et Os., iv. 5, concerning
lice.
3
The comets ruv Ka\ov/j.fvuv KOIJ.CTWV.
*
v. Lit. below.
OF THE DECANS AND THE STARS 53
6
Cf. Ex. i. 6.
54 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
from these ?
COMMENTAKY
The
earlier editors of Stobseus (apparently following
the mistake of Patrizzi) have Asclepius instead of Tat
as the second person of the dialogue, which is clearly
1.
[Tat.] Rightly, father, hast thou told me
all ;
now further, [pray,] recall unto my mind
what are the things that Providence doth rule,
and what the things ruled by Necessity, and in
like fashion also [those] under Fate.
[Her.~\ I said there were in us, Tat, three
species of incorporals.
l
The first's a thing the mind alone can grasp ;
2
it thus is colourless, figureless, massless, pro-
ceeding out of the First Essence in itself, sensed
3
by the mind alone.
And there are also, [secondly,] in us, opposed
1
Or an intelligible something.
2
Or bodiless.
3
That is,the intelligible essence.
55
56 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
1 2
to this, configurings, of which this serves as
3
the receptacle.
But what has once been set in motion by the
4
Primal Essence for some [set] purpose of the
5
Reason (Logos), and that has been conceived
[by it], straightway doth change into another
form of motion this is the image of the Demi-
;
6
urgic Thought.
2. And there is [also] a third species of in-
[and] species.
Of these there are two [sets of] differences.
The first [lies] in the quality pertaining
specially unto themselves ;
the second [set is]
of the body.
The special qualities are figure, colour, species,
space, time, movement.
[The differences] peculiar to body are figure
1
Sc. of opposite nature to the first incorporal, as negative to
positive, say.
2
<TXTj/iaT($Ti7Ts that is, the "somethings" more subtle or ideal
than figures or shapes, types, or prototypes, or paradigms of
some kind.
3
That is, plays the part of matter, "womb," or "nurse" to
these.
5
4
Lit. intelligible. Or received.
6 Heeren
Or Mind. (as also all editors subsequent to him)
thinks that something has here fallen out of the text, because he
finds no second incorporal
specifically mentioned ; but the duality
of the demiurgic thought, active arid passive, creative and con-
ceptive, will do very well for the second.
7
Or appearance.
CONCERNING THE RULE OF PROVIDENCE, ETC. 57
COMMENT
1 have taken the
title from the concluding words,
[OF JUSTICE]
(I have added the title, the excerpt not being found in
Patrizzi.
Text :
Stob., Phys., iii. 52, under the vague heading :
1.
[Her.~\ For there hath been appointed,
[my] a very mighty Daimon turning in
son,
the universe's midst, that sees all things that
men do on the earth.
Just as Foreknowledge 1 and Necessity have
been set o'er the Order of the gods, in the same
way is Justice set o'er men, causing the same to
act on them.
For they rule the order of the things
o'er
COMMENT
The title and place of this excerpt has been discussed
in the Commentary on C. H., xii. (xiii.) 6. It belongs
to the Tat-Sermons, and in the collection of Lactantius
probably stood prior to the Sermon of Hermes to Tat,
"About the General Mind." 4
1
This recalls Philo's description of the Therapeuts, who
were "taught ever more and more to see," and strive for the
"intuition" or "sight of that which is," rys rov &VTOS fleas
(Philo, D. V. a, 891 P., 473 M.).
2
That is, through the natural accidents that attend life in a
body.
3
That is, in their way of living h r$
4
Compare with it Exx. x., xii., xiii.
EXCERPT XII.
[Sermons] to Ammon."
" Of Hermes
Text Stob., Phys., v. 20, under heading
: :
"
from the [Sermons] to Ammon ; G. p. 70 ;
M. i.
48, 49 ;
W. i. 82.
"
Menard, Livre IV., No. ii. of Fragments of the Books
of Hermes to Ammon," p. 258.)
W. i. 79, 80.
" of the Books
Me"nard, Livre IV., No. i. of Fragments of
Hermes to Ammon ").
Now what supporteth the whole World, 2 is
Providence what holdeth it together and en-
;
circleth it about, is
[called] Necessity ;
what
drives on and drives them round, 3 is Fate,
all
2
but Providence [itself] extends itself to Heaven.
For which cause, 3 too, the Gods revolve, and
4
speed round [Heaven], possessed of tireless,
never-ceasing motion.
But Fate [extends itself in Cosmos] ;
for
OF SOUL [I.]
"
from the [Sermons] to Ammon ; G. pp. 282, 283 ; M. i.
196, 197; W. 281, 282.
Me"nard, Livre IV., No. iii. of " Fragments of the Books
of Hermes to Ammon," pp. 259, 260.)
something.
For it is them] in power, and prior
prior [to
stands not in any need of consequents.
"In something," furthermore, means space,
and time, and nature " towards something,"
;
""
because of something," [this] means body, for
'tis because of
body that there is time, and space,
and nature.
64 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
away.
But. changing, it doth alternate from one
203, 204 W.
i. 289, 290.
;
Spirit.
This [spirit] falling in the womb does not
remain inactive in the seed, but being active it
transforms the seed, and [this] being [thus]
transformed, develops growth and size.
1
0t5<ru simply ; but as there is a play in the original on the
words <f>6<ris, <j>6ovcra, <f>vfiv, and <f>vo/j.4vois, I have tried to retain it
1
Or image of a figure, e?5\oy . .
2
rV 8e ftpaarriK-fiv.
3
Or vehicle,
4
rrjs SiavoTjTiKris CT?S, of the purposive rational life, otherwise
called the Harmony.
5 6
Sc. the Harmony. Reading iJ/ux^J for tyvxy-
1
The new-born babe.
8 "
Compare Plutarch, Frag., v. 9 (ed. Didot) : For you should
know the intercourse and the conjunction of the soul with body is
contrary to nature."
9
It is not easy to disentangle the subjects of some of the above
clauses.
10
Sc. the thing's.
68 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
COMMENTARY
Patrizzi is evidently at fault in running this on to Ex.
xiv. without a break. The subject again is not so much
" " "
Of Soul Of Conception and Birth," but as the
as
1
Sc. the rational movement.
2
CWTJKWS, this may perhaps have some reference to the circle
of lives, or the zodiac.
OF SOUL 69
(I have added the title, Patrizzi (p. 40b) having only the
" To the Same Ammon."
heading :
1 2
For, sharing in the form of life, it lives ;
it
tellectual life.
3
It is called living through the life, and
rational through the intellect, and mortal
through the body.
Soul is, accordingly, a thing incorporal,
possessing [in itself] the power of freedom
from all change.
For how would be possible to talk about
it
Harmony.
There are three forms of the becoming, the
" "
that is, Of Hermes ;
G. pp. 324, 325 ; M. i. 228,
229 ;
W. i. 321, 322.
Menard, Livre IV., No. vi. of " Fragments of the Book
of Hermes to Ammon," pp. 265, 266.)
by cowardice.
" "
And appetite is matter, too ; if it doth
75
76 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
*
1
Cf. G. JET.,
x. (xi.) 1 and 7 ;
xiii. (xiv.) 1 ;
and Ex. ix. 1.
2
Or energies.
77
78 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
corruptible.
2. The Soul, however, is in perpetual motion,
in that perpetually it moves itself, and makes
[its] motion active [too] in other things.
And according to this reason, every Soul
so,
active of itself.
For moved
it is in it, and moves itself.
COMMENT
The mention of the General Sermons (1) raises the
229, 230 ;
W. i. 324, 325.
" Books
Menard, Livre IV., No. viii. of Fragments of the
of Hermes to Ammon," pp. 269, 270.)
2 3
when it thinks with [it,]
it doth attract [unto
4
itself] the Harmony's intention.
But when it leaves behind the body Nature
5
makes, it bideth in and by itself, the maker of
6
itself in the noetic world.
It ruleth its own reason, bearing in its own
7
thought a motion (called by the name of life)
1 2
v6Tj/j.a. ffvvvoovva.
3 4
Sc. the reason. Sidvoiav.
6
Lit. the physical body.
6 This might here be translated " the self-purposive," to pick
up the word-play on v6^/j.a a
7
Or purpose, vo^tiari.
80
OF SOUL 81
VOL. III. 6
82 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
COMMENT
As Exx. xvi.-xix. follow one another in Stobseus, it is
highly probable that they are all taken from the same
group of sermons, and as their contents are so similar
to those of Exx. xiv. and xv., and these are stated by
1
Lit. organic senses ; cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 17.
2
Lit. spirituous sight.
3 4
That is, the sensible or phenomenal world. rb <f>povovv.
OP SOUL 83
"
Stobaeus to be from the Sermons to Ammon," we are
160, 161.
Me"nard, Livre IV., No. i. of "Fragments Divers," pp. 271,
272.)
1
THERE is, then, essence, reason, thought, per-
2
ception.
Opinion and sensation move towards per-
ception ;
reason directs itself towards essence ;
own self.
And thought interwoven with perception,
is
2
[to choose] the worse, according to our will.
And if
[our] choice clings to the evil things,
it doth consort with the corporeal nature [and] ;
this choice.
8
Since, then, the intellectual essence in jis js_
Absolutely free, [namely] the reason that
embraces all in thought, and that it ever is
a law unto itself and self-identical, on this
account Fate does not reach it* ^WW
Thus furnishing from the First God,
it first
5
it sent forth the perceptive reason, and the
whole reason which Nature hath appointed unto
them that come to birth.
COMMENT
I have supplied a temporary heading for the sake of
OF ISIS TO HORUS
" From Isis."
(Title in Patrizzi (p. 45) is
Text: Stob., Flor., xiii. 50, under the heading: "Of
Hermes from the [Sermon] of Isis to Horus " ; G. i. 328 ;
i. 265
M. ; H. iii. 467.
*
the Intercession (or Supplication, ITpeo-jSetas) of Isis."
Menard, Livre IV., No. ii. of "Fragments Divers," p.
272.)
COMMENT
This fragment is clearly not in the style of the
excerpt from the "Sermon of Isis to Hermes" (Ex.
xxvii.) it is far more closely reminiscent of C. H. xvi.
; t
87
EXCEKPT XXII.
[AN APOPHTHEGM]
(Text :
W., i.
34, 5.)
COMMENT
This fragment belongs to a type of Hermetic literature
of which it is the sole surviving specimen. It is in
form identical with the Isis and Horus type but what
;
"
Hermes ;
G. p. 65 M. i. 45 ; W. i. 77. The same verses
are read in the appendix to the Anthologia Palatina, p.
768, n. 40.)
91
92 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
COMMENT
This is the only known specimen of verses attributed
to the Trismegistic tradition. Liddell and Scott, how-
"
ever, under VVKTL$OVYI$" do not question this attribu-
tion, while Clement of Alexandria (Strom., vi. p. 633
[this is a reference of Wachsmuth's which I cannot
" "
verify]) praises the Hymns of the Gods of Hermes.
On the contrary, in Anthol. Palat., p. 442, n. 491, the
seventh verse is ascribed to Theon of Alexandria.
3
I. So speaking Isis doth pour forth for Horus
the sweet draught (the first) of deathless-
1
Or "Apple of the Eye of the World" see Commentary.
Referred to as K. K., i.e. Kdprj K&r/toi/.
2
Curiously enough, though the page-headings throughout have
"Minerva Mundi," the heading of p. 28 still stands "Pupilla
Mundi" showing that Patrizzi himself was puzzled how to
translate the Greek, and had probably in the first place translated
it throughout "Pupilla Mundi," or "Apple of the Eye of the
World." In his Introduction (p. 3), however, Patrizzi writes :
"
But there is extant also another [book of Hermes] with the title
of The Sacred Book, which we found in Cyprus, in a monastery
' 3
called Enclistra, at the same time as the rest of the books, and
which John Stobseus has inserted in his Physical Eclogues
together with other fragments." This would seem to suggest that
Patrizzi had seen the original Sermon, and that its main title was
" The
Sacred Book."
3
I have numbered the
paragraphs for convenience of reference.
94 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
1
ness which souls have custom to receive from
Gods, and thus begins her holiest discourse
:
(logos)
1
of times, with certain hidden influences bestow-
"
holy books, who have been made by my
immortal hands, by incorruption's magic spells,
. . .* free from
decay throughout eternity
remain and incorrupt from time Become un- !
1
The text is here again hopeless. Meineke's emendation
(Adnot., p. cxxx.) &s . . . which makes
QapudKcp xp'"**s irncpary
Hermes smear the books with some magical ointment is in-
genious, but hardly satisfactory, though Wachsmuth adopts it.
2
This is
purely conjectural ;
the text is utterly corrupt.
VOL. III. 7
98 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
thoroughly ;
until out of the compost smiled a
"
breathe." But even so it must be said that the further reason
(viz., similarity of behaviour) given for the choice of the term
we recall the theory of Origen and his predecessors that the soul
(tyvx-fi) was so-called precisely because it had grown cold and
fallen away from the Divine heat and life. With the term cf.
the ffupdrtHris of Exx. viii. 5, vii. 2.
100 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
"
Souls, ye children fair of Mine own
Breath and My solicitude, whom I have now with
2
My own Hands brought to successful birth and
consecrate to My own world, give ear unto these
words of Mine as unto laws, and meddle not
with any other space but that which is appointed
for you by My will.
and punishments."
12. And having said these words, the God,
who is
my Lord, mixed the remaining cognate
elements (Water and Earth *) together, and, as
before, invoking on them certain occult words,
words of great power though not so potent as
the first, He set them moving rapidly, and
breathed into the mixture power of life and ;
1
So Meineke in notes, following Cantor, instead of the
traditional " visible."
104 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
creeping things.
15. They then, my son, as though they had
done something grand, with over-busy daring
armed themselves, and acted contrary to the
commands they had received and forthwith they
;
might be chastised.
" "
16. Then sending for me," Hermes says, He
'
"
I'll
join to them Desire, my Lord, and Bliss,
*
Qf. Plat. 0*., 108.
106 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
"
20. Heaven, thou source of our begetting,
Either, Air, Hands and holy Breath of God
our Monarch, ye most brilliant Stars, eyes of
the Gods, tireless light of Sun and Moon, co-
"
How wretchedly shall we endure to hear our
kindred breaths breathe in the air, when we no
"
Lord, and Father, and our Maker, if so it
"
Love and Necessity shall be your
Souls,
1
lords, they who are lords and marshals after
Me of all. 2 Know, all of you who are set under
My unageing rule, that as
long as ye keep you
free of sin, ye shall dwell in the fields of Heaven ;
"
1
Of. Tim. 42 A : When they should be implanted in bodies
by necessity . . .
they should have sensation
. . .and love."
. . .
2
Vf. Frag, xxiii.
"
3
Cf. Tim., 42 B He who lived well during his appointed
:
time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there he
would have a blessed and congenial existence. But if he failed
in attaining this, at the second birth, he would pass into a woman,
and if, when in that state of being, he did not desist from evil, he
would be continually changed into some brute who resembled
him which he had acquired, and would not
in the evil nature
cease from his and transformations until he followed the
toils
*
revolution of the same' and the like within him, and overcame
' '
1
Lit. "their spirits" which apparently link the souls with
their bodies.
2
Reading ncra&o\<is.
112 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
Anecd. Ox., ii. 235, 32 ; JElian, H. A., v. 39, who follows Apion ;
R. 145, n. 3). But indeed this queer belief is a commonplace of
the Mediaeval Bestiaries, which all go back to their second
century Alexandrian prototype, the famous Physiologus, which
was doubtless in part based on Aristotle's History of Animals and
Pliny's Natural History.
2 taffft 8e KOI ynpd<rav. The reading is corrupt. But if we read
yripas for ynpd<rav, we have in the writer's ornate and somewhat
strained style lav yripas for the usual yijpas titSvvtiv found in
Aristotle (H. V., 5. 7. 10 ; 8. 17. 11) for the changing of a serpent's
THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD 113
"
Among the things that swim [they will be]
dolphins ; for dolphins will take pity upon those
who fall into the sea, and if they are still
"
What are these called, Hermes, Writer of
"
the Records of the Gods ?
" " "
And when he answered Men !
Hermes,"
he said, "it a daring work, this making man,
is
nature."
VOL. III. 8
114 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
thing.
"
Hast thou, his generator, judged it
good to
leave him free from care, who in the future
but they'll
dissect not only animals irrational,
dissect themselves, desiring to find out how
for him ;
and so he did all that he recommended,
speaking thus :
"
Ye Gods, ye who have been made of
all
"
Nemesis, the karmic deity, she from whom none can escape,
1
mighty work ;
and I myself will first begin."
30. He spake ; straightway in cosmic order
there began the differentiation of the up-to-then
black unity [of things]. And Heaven shone
forth above tricked out with all his mysteries ;
"
Take [these], holy Earth, take those, all-
118 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
fill with
hopes fair
things all ;
and let men fear
the vengeance of the Gods, and none will sin.
"
Should they receive due retribution for their
sins,they will refrain henceforth from doing
wrong they will respect their oaths, and no
;
all
indecency my undecaying state."
33. And Air too said :
"
Father, wonderful Creator of all things,
Daimon self-born, and Nature's Maker, who
through Thee doth conceive all things, now at
this last, command the rivers' streams for ever to
be pure, for that the rivers and the seas or
wash the murderers' hands or else receive the
murdered."
34. After came Earth in bitter grief, and
taking up the tale, son of high renown, thus
she began to speak :
"
sovereign Lord, Chief of the Heavenly
1
Ones, and Master of the Wheels, Thou Ruler of
us Elements, Sire of them who stand beside
Thee, from whom all things have the beginning
of their increase and of their decrease, and into
whom they cease again and have the end that
is due according to Necessity's decree,
their
"
For having naught to fear they sin in every-
thing, and from my heights, Lord, down [dead]
they fall by every evil art. And soaking with
the juices of their carcases I'm all corrupt.
Hence am Lord, compelled to hold in me those
I,
l
I may not
the story of [this] birth
tell ;
for it
separation of them ;
and some they will keep
for themselves, while those that are best suited
for the benefit of mortal men, they will engrave
on tablet and on obelisk.
1
(Jf. G. h. t
xiii. (xiv.) 3 (Com.).
THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD 123
pp. 201-208.)
125
126 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
power.
The king, then, is the last of all the other
Gods, but first of men ; and so long as he is upon
the Earth, he divorced from his true godship,
is
* ^ * * #
mother mine?
And Isis answered :
feet.
1
Something has evidently fallen out here, as the sentence is
nowhere completed.
132 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
earth and moving sun. The sun was thus thought to be nearer
the earth at its rising and setting, and consequently those at the
extremes of east and west were thought to be in danger of being
burnt up by its heat.
THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD 133
1
satrap, bestows the fruit of its own victory upon
the vanquished.
49. This too expound, lady, mother mine !
1
Some historical allusion may perhaps be suspected in this
term ;
but I can find nothing appropriate to suggest.
134 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
COMMENTARY
ARGUMENT
" "
1. Virgin of the World is a sacred sermon of
The
initiation into the Hermes-lore, the first initiation, in
which the tradition of the wisdom is handed on by the
hierophant to the neophyte, by word of mouth. The
instructor, or revealer, is the representative of Isis-
that even Isis herself had had to search out the hidden
records, and that too by means of the inner sight, when
she herself had won the power to see, and the True Sun
had risen for her mind.
5. But the strain of reconstructing the history of
" "
these primaeval Books of Hermes have no longer any
physical existence, if indeed they ever had any; he
knows that no matter what legends are told, or what-
ever the general priesthood may believe about ancient
Egypt.
6. This wisdom was held in safe
keeping for the
" "
souls of men ; it was a soul-gnosis, not a physical
"
habitat was in Upper Nature, the all-fairest station of
"
the aether the celestial cosmos.
1
Cf. the same idea as expressed by Basilides (ap. Hipp., Philos.,
vii. 27), but in reversed order, when, speaking of the consumma-
tion of the world-process, and the final ascension of the "Son-
ship" with all its experience gained from union with matter, he
says of the remaining souls, which have not reached the dignity
of the Sonship, that the Great Ignorance shall come upon them
for a space.
" Thus all the souls of this state of
existence, whose nature is
to remain immortal in this state of existence alone, remain with-
out knowledge of anything different from or better than this
state nor shall there be any rumour or knowledge of things
;
superior in higher states, in order that the lower souls may not
suffer pain by striving after impossible objects, just as though it
were longing to feed on the mountains with sheep, for such
fish
"
see without the They are shut down into a
light."
"heart's small compass"; the Sun of their being has
become a light-spark only, hidden in the heart. This
is, of course, the logos, the inmost reality in man.
22. The some amelioration of their
souls pray for
1
Of. Hermes- Prayer, iii. 3.
2
Thisof special interest as showing how the Egyptian
is
tradition, in this pre-eminent above all others, did not limit the
manifestation to the male sex alone.
144 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
"
The original text of Virgin of the World"
the
treatise is obviously broken only by the omission of the
Hymn of Osiris and Isis, and Excerpt ii. follows other-
wise immediately on Excerpt i. The subject is the
birth of royal souls, taken up from the instruction given
in K. K., 23, 24 above.
39. There are four chief spaces (i) Invisible Heaven, :
40. The king-soul is the last of the Gods but the first
of men l he
is, however, on earth a demigod only,
;
SOURCES ?
1
Compare this with the prdnds of Indian theosophy ;
see
C. H., x. (xi.) 13, Comment.
THE VIRGIN OP THE WORLD 147
sources that lay before the writer may have been, for
the story runs on straight enough in the same thought-
mould and literary form, in spite of the insertion of
somewhat contradictory statements concerning the
sources of information.
When, however, Keitzenstein (p. 136) expressly states
that the creation-story shows indubitable traces of two
older forms, and that this is not a matter of surprise,
as we find two (or moreprecisely four) different intro-
ductions, we are not able entirely to follow him. It
istrue that these introductory statements are apparently
at variance, but on further consideration they appear
to be not really self-contradictory.
unto me."
3 The type of Isis as utterer of "sacred sermons," describing
herself as daughter or disciple of Hermes, is old, and goes back
demonstrably to Ptolemaic times. R. 136, n. 4 ; 137, n. 1.
THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD 149
"
without reason that in the mysteries of
It is not
the Greeks, lustrations hold the first place, analogous
to ablutions among the Barbarians [that is, non-Greeks].
After these come the lesser mysteries, which have
some foundation of instruction and of preliminary
preparation for what is to follow and then the great ;
KNEPH-KAMEPHIS
But who was Kamephis in the theology of the
discover, hidden,
1
not manifest 2 ;
it is he who gives
3
light and also life ;
he is the King. The winged
crown upon his head, he adds, signifies that he moves
or energizes intellectually.
1
the epithet " utterly hidden" found in the " Words (Logoi)
Cf.
of Ammon," referred to by Justin Martyr, Cohort., xxxviii., and
the note thereon in " Fragments from the Fathers."
2
Typified by the dark- coloured body.
3
CWOTTO^S typified, presumably, by the girdle (the symbol of
the woman) and the staff (the symbol of the man).
*
Chron., xl. (ed. Dind., i.
72).
THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD 153
greater accuracy than the priests of Manetho's day ; but this one
may be allowed to question, unless the ancient texts are capable
solely of a physical interpretation.
2
The Hermes, presumably, who was fabled to be the son of
Heaven Ocean, the Great
the Nile, not the physical Nile, but the
Green, the Soul of Cosmos, and whom, we are told, the Egyptians
would never speak of publicly, but, presumably, only within the
circles of initiation. This Nile may be in one sense the Flood
that hid the Books of Hermes in its depths or zones ; but equally
so the son of Nile may be the first Hermes after the Flood.
THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD 155
contact with the Isis- tradition, but for Hermes II., who
was taught by Hermes I.
1
Wessley, Denkschr. d. k. Akad. (1893), p. 37, 1. 500.
2
So R., though meaning to which the lexicons give
this is a
" " "
no support ;
the verb generally meaning to defer or assent to."
156 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
remains on earth it ;
is he who would most fitly give
instructions on such matters, and indeed one of the
ancient mystery-sayings was precisely, "Osiris is a
dark God." 1
"
He who
is Lord in the perfecting black," might
3
mystic "sacred marriage," the intimate union of the
soul with the logos, or divine ray. Much could be
written on this subject, but it will be sufficient to
BLACK LAND.
"
But to return to the mysterious black." Plutarch
"
tells us :
Moreover, they [the Egyptians] call Egypt,
inasmuch as its soil is particularly black, as though
it were the black of the eye, Chemia, and
compare it
with the heart," 2 for, he adds, it is hot and moist, and
set in the southern part of the inhabitable world, in
the same way as the heart in the left side of a man. 3
Egypt, the "sacred land" par excellence, was called
Chemia or Chem (Hem), Black-land, because of the
nature of dark loamy
soil; it was, moreover, in
its
432, 433.
2
De Is. et Os., xxxiii.
3 with K. K., 47, where Egypt
Of. this is said to occupy the
position of the heart of the earth.
4 20 "
Cf. K. .ST., Ye brilliant stars, eyes of the gods."
:
character ;
and in the above-quoted passage he is
called "he who holds himself hidden in his eye," or
"he who veils himself in his pupil."
This pupil, then, concludes Eeitzenstein (p. 145), is
the "mysterious black." Is this, then, the origin of
this peculiar phrase ? If so, it would be connected
with seeing, the spiritual sight, the true Epopteia.
" "
cast aside the translation of Koprj KOO-JULOV,
traditional
as "Virgin of the World," and prefix to our treatise
"
as title the new version, The Pupil of the Eye of the
World"? It certainly sounds strange as a title to
unaccustomed ears, and differs widely from any other
titles of the Hermetic sermons known to us. But what
does the "Virgin of the World" mean in connection
with our treatise? Isis as the Virgin Mother is a
1
Compare also the Naassene document, 8, in the " Myth of
" the seven-
Man" chapter of the Prolegomena, where Isis is called
1
That is, the Temple of Kore. This can hardly be the Temple
of Persephone, as Dindorf (iii. 729) suggests, but rather the Temple
of Isis.
2
Cf. D. J. L., pp. 407 ff.
VOL. III. 11
162 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
Isis herself.
popular name for the Temple- watchman who called the hours.
THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD 163
Agathodaimon, Osiris.
the House of Isis, the divine lady. I shall behold sacred things
which are hidden, and 1 shall be led on to the secret and holy
things, even as they have granted unto me to see the birth of
164 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
" "
ISHON
But what more immediate interest is that the
is of
" 3
is in A.V. generally translated apple of the eye."
Thus we read in a purely literal sense, referring to
" "
weeping : Let not the apple of thine eye cease (Lam.
ii. 18).
was, however, a common persuasion, that the
It
" The
Man, of the size of a thumb, resides in the midst, within
in the self, of the past and the future the lord from him a man
;
Self, destined finally to become, or grow into the stature of, the
Great Self (Maha-purusha).
2
See the article, " Theosophic Light on Bible Shadows," in The
Theosophical Review (Nov. 1904), xxxv. 230, 231.
3
The minute image of a person reflected in the pupil of the
eye of another may to some extent account for the popular belief
underlying this identification.
166 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
"
He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye
(Zech. ii.
8).
" "
The apple of the eye (ishon) was, then, something
of great value,something very precious, and, therefore,
we read in the Wisdom-literature that the punishment
of the man who curses his father and mother is that
" "
his lamp shall be put out in obscure (ishon) darkness
(Prov. xx. 20) that is, that he shall thus extinguish the
his lamp was put out; there was dark night in his eye,
man of his, which should be his true light-
in that little
1
For the latest study on the subject, see Monseur (E. ), " L'Ame
Pupilline," Rev. de VHist. des Belig. (Jan. and Feb. 1905), who
discusses the significance in primitive religion of the reflected
" "
image to be seen in the pupil of the eye. This little man of
the eye was taken to be its soul, and to control all its functions.
" So
Cf.j for the idea in the mind of the ancients, Tim. 45 B
2
:
much of the fire as would not burn, but gave a gentle light, they
formed into a substance akin and
to the light of every-day life ;
the pure fire which is within us and related thereto they made to
flow through the eyes in a stream smooth and dense, compressing
the whole eye, and especially the centre part, so that it kept out
everything of a coarser nature, and allowed to pass only this pure
element."
168 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
" "
both " word and reason," so kore would mean both
" " " "
virgin and pupil of the eye but as it is
;
PLUTARCH'S YOGIN
In this connection, however, I cannot refrain from
l
appending a pleasant story told by Plutarch.
1
De Defectu Oraculorum, xxi., xxii. (42lA-422c), ed. G. N.
Bernardakis (Leipzig, 1891), iii. 97-101. See my paper,
"Plutarch's Yogi," in The Theosophical Review (Dec. 1891), ix.
295-297.
170 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
1
In this referring to the passage in the Timceus, (55 c D), which
runs " Now, he who, duly reflecting on all this, enquires whether
:
THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD 171
1
Our difficulty, however, is that Plutarch, in the words of one
of his characters, rejects the idea of this
numbering being in any
way Egyptian, and ascribes it to a certain Petron of Himera in
Sicily, thereby suggesting a probable Pythagorean connection.
THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD 173
311-335.
2 See
my Orpheus (London, 1896), pp. 255-262.
3 "
Taylor
Cf. (T.), Introd. to Timaeus," Works of Plato
(London, 1804), p. 442.
174 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
'
r
21
^
.................
3*
~W 32
" "
the 3 may have been regarded as falling into 4, so
making 12, and this stage in its turn have been regarded
"
as " falling into 5, and so .making 60.
1
Which may have been regarded as the prototypes of the
176 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
1
direct light on the subject. However, Proclus says
that Porphyry stated that among the Egyptians the
letter ^, surrounded by a circle, symbolized the mundane
soul.
It is curious that Porphyry should have referred this
"
The universe revolves round
a centre once in twenty-
four hours, but the orbits of the fixed stars take a
from that of the planets. The outer
different direction
and the inner sphere cross one another and meet again
at a point opposite to that of their first contact; the
first moving in a circle from left to right along the side
1
Comment, in Plat. Tim., 216c ; ed. C. E. C. Schneider
(Vratislaviae, 1847), p. 250.
2
A
passage which Proclus, op. cit., 213A (ed. Sch., p. 152)
further explains by means of the "harmonic canon" or ruler.
3
Jowett (B.), Dialogues of Plato (3rd ed., Oxford, 1892),
iii. 403.
4 "
Cf. text The motion of the same he carried round by
36c :
the side to the right, and the motion of the diverse diagonally to
the left," that is the side of the rectangular figure supposed to be
THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD 177
when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of time
[i.e.
the spheres of the sun, moon, and five planets] had attained
a motion suitable to them, and had become living creatures, having
bodies fastened by vital chains, and learned their appointed task,
moving in the motion of the diverse, which is diagonal, and passes
through, and is governed by the motion of the same, they revolved,
some in a larger and some in a lesser orbit. The motion of
. . .
1
Delitzsch also, in his Babel und Bibel, states that the great
debt of early Greece to Assyria will be made clear in a forth-
coming work of German scholarship.
180 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
" "
those of the grade were apparently previously
lion
invested with the disguises and masks of a series
of animal forms before they received the lion shape.
1
Ps. Augustine, Qucestt. Vet. et Nov. Test. (Migne, P. L. y torn,
xxxiv. col. 2214 f.).
2
De Abstinentia, iv. 16 (ed.
Nauck, p. 253).
3 Alexandria on the Basilidian theory of
Clement of
Of.
MOMUS
Finally, it may perhaps be of service to make the
reader a little better acquainted with Momus.
Among the Greeks Momus was the personification of
the spirit of fault-finding. Hesiod, in his Theogony
(214), places him among the second generation of the
children of Night, together with the Fates. From the
3
Cypria^ of Stasimus, we learn that, when Zeus, in
answer Earth's prayer to relieve her of her over-
to
4
population impious mankind, first sent the Theban
of
Metamorphoses, Book
1
xi.
2
Which Pindar and Herodotus ascribed to Homer himself.
3
See Frag. I. from the Scholion on Horn., II, i. 5 ff.
this."
4
De Partt. Animal., iii. 2.
6 And also at the end of his Hymn to Apollo, ii. 112; also
Epigram. Frag., 70.
6 7
Or., 49 ; ed. Jebb, p. 497. Of. Julian, Ep. ad Dionys.
8
Dial. Dew., xx. 2.
9
Hermot., xx. ; cf. Nig., xxxii. ; Dial. Deor., ix. ; Ver. Hist.,
ii. 3 ;
Bab. Fab., lix. ;
and Jup. Trag., xxii.
10
Dear. Gonsil, iv.
184 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
Asclepius.
The popular figure of Momus was that of a feeble
1
old very different representation from the
man, a
"
Every great people of antiquity, as a rule, regarded
its own
central city or most holy place as necessarily
the centre of the earth.
"
The Chaldeans held that their holy house of the '
"
One other key there is ... without which it is
useless to approach The Book of the Dead with the idea
of discussing any of those gems of wisdom for which
old Egypt was so famous. The knowledge of its
. . .
"
The Jewish and Egyptian priestly caste endeavoured
to map out their lands in accordance with their symbols
of spiritual things, so far as the physical features would
permit. This
symbolism of
mountain, city, plain,
desert, and river extended from the various parts and
furniture of the Lodge, to use Masonic phraseology, up
to the spiritual anatomy, as it were, of both macrocosm
and microcosm.
"
Thus in the Jewish Scriptures it is not difficult to
distinguish, in the prophetic battles of the nations that
were to rage round about Jerusalem, the same symbolism
as we have more directly expressed in a little old book
called TJie Siege of Mansoul, the author of which was
the John Bunyan of The Pilgrim's Progress, a man
who could well grasp the excellence of geographical
symbolism.
"I
cannot, of course, here enter at length into the
geographical symbols of Egypt, it would take too long ;
exceedingly involved.
190 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
" "
What then doth come from one and not
from "other," cannot be mingled with a different
thing wherefore it needs must be that the soul's
;
place of souls.
This so great air, however, has in it a belt to
which it is our use to give the name of wind, a
definite expanse in which it kept moving to
is
sixty spaces.
And in these sixty spaces dwell the souls, each
one according to its nature, for though they are
of one and the same substance, they're not of the
same dignity. For by so much as any space is
1
This appears to be a heading inserted by Stobseus (Phys., xli.
from sight.
1
The text is again very imperfect.
FROM THE SERMON OF ISIS TO HORUS 197
Horus said.
thyself, my son ;
and of philosophy Arnebes-
chenis ;
of poetry again Asclepius-Imuth.
13. For generally, my son, thou'lt find, if thou
The text is here very corrupt, and the reading of the last
1
1
and from this blend and union a certain vapour
rises, whichenveloped by the soul, but circu-
is
1
The text is faulty, the language artificial, the analogy strained,
and the sense accordingly obscure. Meineke reads : ytwaiov Se els
ftfto.
202 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
1
The text is utterly corrupt and has not yet been even
2
plausibly emended. Cf. 15 and 20.
FROM THE SERMON OF ISIS TO HORUS 203
body.
The fire and air, as tending upward, hasten
upward to the soul, which dwells in the same
regions as themselves the watery and the earthy
;
COMMENTAEY
ARGUMENT
The Sermon from which this Extract is taken plainly
belonged to the same class of literature as the K. K.
Excerpts. The writer is an initiate of a higher degree,
imparting instruction to his pupil by word of mouth.
FROM THE SERMON OF ISIS TO HORUS 205
" "
or moving airbelongs properly to this second
belt,
division, but has also authority over the first or lowest
division, which extends from the earth-surface to the
1
See Comments on K. K. y 10.
206 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
"
journeyed to Egypt that I might make the
I also
1
See Reitzenstein, Zwei religionsgesch. Fragen, 104 ff.
2 "
Plutarch, De Is. et Os., Ixviii. :
They say that of the trees in
Egypt the persea is
especially dedicated to her, and that its fruit
resembles a heart, and its leaf a tongue. For nothing that men
have is more divine than the word (logos), and especially the
[word] concerning the gods." The fruit of the persea grew from
the stem.
3
Gallus, 18.
FROM THE SERMON OF ISIS TO HORUS 209
" "
underground for Pythagoras is said to have descended
to them.
This is the Horus who is not only, after Osiris, the
lord of power and might, that is, Mng, but lord of
philosophy, as Arnebeschenis (12). For Arnebeschenis,
that is Har-nebeschenis, as Spiegelberg has shown, 1
is,
"
an Egyptian proper name, meaning Horus lord of
an important city in the Delta.
Letopolis," at one time
In the Alchemical literature also we meet with Horus
as a writer of books, as for instance in the superscription
"
Horus the Gold-miner to Cronus who is Ammon." 2
Here we see that Horus stands to Isis as Asclepius
toHermes Asclepius wrote books to Ammon, and so
;
1
Demotische Studien, i., "Agyptische u. griechische Eigen-
namen," p. 28 also p. 41)
(cf. ;
R. 135.
2
Berthelot, p. 103.
VOL. III. 14
210 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
"
They [the ancients] further add, that there is some-
thing of a plantal and plastic life l also, exercised by
the soul, in those spirituous and airy bodies after death ;
2
throughout the whole of them (as sponges), they
imbibing everywhere those vapours. For which cause,
they who are wise will in this life also take care of
using a thinner and dryer diet, that so that spirituous
body (which we have also at this present time within
our grosser body) may not be clogged and incrassated,
but attenuated. Over and above which these ancients
made use of catharms, or purgations, to the same end
and purpose also: for as this earthly body is washed
with water, so is that spirituous body cleansed by
cathartic vapours some of these vapours being nutri-
;
Melchizedek and leou, see " The Books of the Saviour," ibid., 365
ff.
;
and for Gabriel and Michael, ibid., 138.
II
JUSTIN MARTYE
i. Cohortatio ad Gentiles, xxxviii. ;
Otto (J. C. T.), ii. 122
(2d ed., Jena, 1849).*
plainly declares :
1
R. 138. The connection between this Ammon and Hermes
was probably the same as that which is said to have existed
between the king-god Thanms-Ammon and the god of invention
Theuth-Hermes. Thamus- Ammon was a king philosopher, to
whom Theuth brought all his inventions and discoveries for his
(Ammon's) judgment, which was not invariably favourable. See
the pleasant story told by Plato, Pheedrus, 274 c. Of. also the
notes on Kneph- Ammon, K. K., 19, Comment.
2 loc.
Stob., infra cit,
3
See Fragg. xi., xii., xiii., xv., xx., xxii., xxiii., xxiv. (?).
JUSTIN MARTYR 217
"
To find the Father and the Maker of this universe is a
3 4
Asclepius, who was also a healer, and was smitten by
the bolt [of his sire] and ascended into heaven . . .
one may be called, he has as his elder the one who gives
' '
the name. But Father,' and God,' and Creator,' and
'
ATHENAGOBAS
1
Libellus pro Christianis, xxviii. ;
Schwartz (E.), p. 57, 24
2
(Leipzig, 1891).
1
Written probably about 176-177 A.D.
2
In Texte u. Untersuchungen (von Gebhardt and Harnack),
Bd. iv.
3 and
Cf. R, pp. 2 160.
220
III.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 1
i.
Protrepticus, ii. 29 ;
Dindorf (G.), i. 29, (Oxford, 1869)
(24 P., 8 S.).
Ko.v6va. ;
this must mean a hollow wooden case shaped like a
ruler.
3
a-ToXiffT^s, called also i(p6<rro\os. This priestly office is usually
translated as the " keeper of the vestments," the " one who is over
the wardrobe." But such a meaning is entirely foreign to the
contents of the books which are assigned to him. He was
evidently the organiser of the ceremonies, especially the
processions.
4
that is to say, literally, books relating to the
fjioa-xofftppayiffTiKa
who " seals calves "
art of one picks out and for sacrifice. The
literal meaning originally referred to the selection of the sacred
Apis bull-calf, into which the power of the god was supposed to
have re-incarnated, in the relic of some primitive magic rite
which the conservatism of the Egyptians still retained in the
public cult. Its meaning, however, was later on far more general,
as we see by the nature of the books assigned to this division.
VOL. III. 15
IV.
TERTULLIAN 1
226
TERTULLIAN 227
1
Adsuevit. 2
Of. Phcedo, p. 70.
3 A Platonic philosopher, and contemporary of Galen (1 30-? 200
A.D.).
228 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
HERMES ON METEMPSYCHOSIS
FKAGMENT I.
That it
may give account unto the Father of
those things which it hath done in body.
from the body shall take place, then shall the judg-
ment and the weighing of its merit pass into its highest
daimon's power" a passage, however, which retains
far stronger traces of the Egyptian prototype of the idea
than does that quoted by Tertullian.
2 "
1
Determinatam. Tertullian marks it by an inquit."
V.
CYPEIAN 1
theology.
1
About 200-258 A.D.
229
VI.
ARNOBIUS 1
230
VII.
LACTANTIUS 1
i. Divinx Iwtitutiones, i.
6, 1 ; Brandt, p. 18; Fritzsche,
i. 13. 2
Hermeses ;
and after enumerating four of them in
succession, [he adds] that thefifth was he by whom
1
A pupil of Arnobius ;
flourished at the beginning of the
fourth century.
2
Brandt (S.), L. Caeli Firmiani Lactanti Opera Omnia, Pars
/., Divinae Institutiones
Epitome (Vienna, 1890). Pars II., to
et
1
Argos, according to the many ancient myths concerning him,
was all-seeing (Trav6irTTjs\ possessed of innumerable eyes, or, in one
variant, of an eye at the top of his head. Like Hercules, he was
of superhuman strength, and many similar exploits of his
powers
are recorded. In the lo-legends, Hera made Argos guardian of
the cow into which the favourite of Zeus had been metamorphosed.
Zeus accordingly sent Hermes to carry off his beloved. Hermes
is said to have lulled Argos to
sleep by means of his syrinx, or
pipe of seven reeds, or by his caduceus, and then to have stoned
him or cut off his head. See Reseller's Ausfuhr. Lex. d. griech. u.
rom. Myth., s.v. "Argos." It is to be noticed that instead of
"
The Pheneatians have
also a sanctuary of Demeter sumamed
FKAGMENT II.
2
Cf. P. S. A., xx. (p. 42, 16, Goldb.) et pass. ;
C. #., v. (vi.) 2.
3
Compare with Epitome 4 below.
4
Lactantius here quotes in Greek. Cf. P. S. A., xx. (p. 42, 27-
43, 3, Goldb.).
234 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
mistaken.
LACTANTIUS 235
DIVINE PROVIDENCE
For the World was made by Divine Providence, not
to mention Thrice-greatest, who preaches this. 2
FKAGMENT III.
1
Cf. G. #., x. (xi.) 5 ; P. S. A., xxxvii. 1. Also Lact., Epit.,
14. In my commentary on the passage I have shown that
first
THE DAIMON-CHIEF
Thus there are two classes of daimons, the one
and the other terrestrial.
celestial, The latter are
impure spirits, the authors of the evils that are done, 4
1
Cf. also Hermes-Prayer, iii. 11. R. 21, n. 11.
2
Date c. 494-434 B.C.
3 3
See also Ex. vii. ;
0. H., ii.
(iii.) 11.
4
Cf. G. H., ix. (x.) 3 ;
0. H., xvi. 10.
238 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
DEVOTION is GOD-GNOSIS
In fine, Hermes asserts that those who have known
God, not only are safe from the attacks of evil daimons,
but also that they are not held even by Fate. 2 He
says:
FKAGMENT IV.
" " 4
Devotion is God-Gnosis.
Asclepius, his Hearer, has also explained the same
"
idea at greater length in that " Perfect Sermon which
he wrote to the King.
Both, then, assert that the daimons are the enemies
and harriers of men, and for this cause Trismegistus
"
in mankind is piety ; and this does not appear in the
Latin translation of P. S. A. On the other hand,
Firmianus immediately refers by name to a Perfect
Sermon, which, however, he says was written by
Asclepius, and addressed to the King. Our Fragment
is, therefore, probably from the lost ending of 0. ff. t
FEAGMENT V.
1 2
Sc. the Logos as Cosmos. Gf. Frag. x.
3
For last clause, see (7, H., i. 12. Gf. also Ps. Augustin., 0.
Quinque Hcereses, vol. viii., Append, p. 3 E, Maur.
4
Lactantius himself also gives a partial translation of this
passage in his Epitome, 42 (Fritz., ii. 140).
LACTANTIUS 241
FRAGMENT VI.
FKAGMENT VII.
first and the one God," and Lact., ibid., vii. 18, 4
" God of first
:
might, and Guider of the one God." See also G. H., i. 10, 11,
xvi. 18 ; Cyril, C. Jul, i. 33 (Frag, xiii.), and vi. 6 (Frag.
xxi.) ;
and Exx. iii. 6, iv. 2. Of. also Ep. 14 below.
2 18 below.
Cf. vii.
3 P. S. A., Commentary.
Sc. will (j8oj5A.ij<m). Gf. especially
4
This is plainly from the same source as the following
Fragment.
6
Gf. G. H., i. 5 ;
and Lact. and Cyril, passim (e.g. Fragg. xxi.,
xxii.).
VOL. III. 16
242 THRICE- GREATEST HERMES
"
His own father and His own mother." 2
"
Unto this Word (Logos), my son, thy adoration and
thy homage pay. There is one way alone to worship
God, [it is] not to be bad/'
FKAGMENT VIII.
blessing] only.
1
See above, ibid., ii. 10, 13, Comment.
LACTANTIUS 245
CONTEMPLATION
FKAGMENT IX.
" For
compare C. H., iv. (v.) 2 contemplator (Qtar-fis) of God's
:
1
Grenfell (B. P.) and Hunt (A. S.), New Sayings of Jesus,
p. 13 (London, 1904).
2
Of. iv. 7 above.
LACTANTIUS 247
"
of The Perfect Sermon," after an enumeration of the
evils of which we have spoken, he adds :
FKAGMENT X.
"
To comprehend God
difficult, to speak [of Him]
is
A REPETITION
1
See i. 6 and iv. 8 above.
2
The is a verbatim translation of the text of the
first clause
Stobsean Extract ii., while the second is a paraphrase even of L.'s
own version from the Greek (see ii. 8 above). We learn, how-
ever, the new scrap of information that the quotation is from the
beginning of the sermon.
3
The reference to the " Demiurge
" looks back to iv. 6, 9.
VIII.
AUGUSTINE
i. De Givitate Dei, xxiii. ; Hoffmann (E.), i. 392 (Vienna,
1
1899-1900).
CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA 1
1
The date of Cyril's patriarchate is 412-444 A.D.
2 Gursus Completus, Series Graeca,
Migne (J. P.), Patrologice
torn. Ixxvi. (Paris, 1859). 8. P. N. Gyrilli ... Pro Christiana
251
252 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
"
In order then that we may come to things of a like
nature you
(?),
have Hermes
not heard that our
divided the whole of Egypt into allotments and portions,
1
measuring off the acres with the chain, and cut canals
for irrigation purposes, and made nomes, 2 and named
the lands [comprised in them] after them, and estab-
lished the interchange of contracts, and drew up a list
3
of the risings of the stars, and [the proper times ] to cut
3
Sc. of the moon.
4
o <rwTtOeiKt>s 'Afl^vTjcn, a phrase which Chambers (p. 149) erro-
"
neously translates by which he [Hermes] having composed for
"
Athenians R. (p. 211, n. 1 ) thinks this redactor was some Neo-
!
platonist.
CYRIL OP ALEXANDRIA 253
FKAGMENT XL
1
If, then, there be an incorporeal eye, let it go
forth from body unto the Vision of the Beautiful ;
unreproducible in English.
4
That is, presumably, the "First Sermon of the Expository
"
[Sermons] to Tat (see Comment to the Stobaean Excerpt).
6
See also Fragg. xii., xiii., xv., xx., xxii., xxiii., xxiv. (?).
254 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
FRAGMENT XII.
THE PYRAMID
And the same again [declares] :
FRAGMENT XIII.
1 "
R. (p. 43) glosses this with out of the month of God," but I
see no necessity for introducing this symbolism.
2
The is applied to both Logos
adjective ytvinos ("fecund")
and Physis (Nature) might thus be varied as seedful and
;
it
FKAGMENT XIV.
He thus named. 1
FRAGMENT XV.
0v<re'x77, that is, that which has physis, or nature, or the power of
production.
2
TUV irpbs rbv Tctr
CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA 257
MIND OF MIND
And Hermes also says in the Third Sermon of those
to Asclepius :
FRAGMENT XVI.
It is not possible such mysteries [as these]
HE is ALL
And after some other things he says :
FRAGMENT XVII.
Without Him [is] neither god,
2
nor angel, nor
daimon, nor any other being. For He is Lord
of all, [their] Father, and [their] God, and Source,
and Life, and Power, and Light, and Mind, and
Spirit. For all things are in Him and for His
3
sake.
CONCERNING SPIRIT
And
again, in the same Third Sermon of those to
Asclepius, in reply to one who questions [him] con-
cerning the Divine Spirit, the same [Hermes] says as
follows :
FKAGMENT XVIII.
4
Had there not been some Purpose of the
Lord of all, so that I should disclose this word
That Light and Life.
1
is, See G. H., i. 9: "God, the
Mind, . . .
being Life and Light."
2
Lit. outside of Him.
3 For a fuller statement of the idea in this paragraph, see C. H. y
ii. (iii.) 14. Cyril thinks that the above two Fragments refer
to the Father, Son (Mind of mind and Light of light) and Holy
Ghost (the Divine supremacy and power), and is thus the source
of the statement in Suidas (s.v. "Hermes") that Trismegistus
spoke concerning the Trinity.
4
Or Providence, irp6voia. R (203, n. 2) refers this to a belief
that only when some internal prompting gave permission to the
CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA 259
that it raises
up all things, each in its own
degree, and makes them live, and gives them
nourishment, and [finally] removes them from
2 3
its holy source, aiding the spirit, and for ever
" "
THE To ASCLEPIUS OF CYRIL'S CORPUS
1
fpWS TOIOVTOS.
2
That presumably, causing their seeming death.
is,
3
That the individual life-breath, unless the reading Ivi-
is,
Mind."
2
vi. Ibid., ii. 55 ; Migne, col. 586 D.
FEAGMENT XIX.
Osiris said :
How, then, thou Thrice-greatest,
4
[thou] Good Spirit, did Earth in its entirety
?
appear
The Great Good Spirit made reply :
FKAGMENT XX.
says as follows :
FKAGMENT XXI.
FKAGMENT XXII.
THE FIRMAMENT
Moreover the Hermes who is with them 5 Thrice-
This evidently an immediate continuation of Frag. xix.
is
FRAGMENT XXIII.
be correct.
CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA 265
"
the [sermon] To Asclepius," concerning those unholy
daimons against whom we ought to protect ourselves,
and flee from them with all the speed we can :
FRAGMENT XXIV.
Moreover, as perfectly wise He established
2
Order and opposite in order that things
its ;
AN UNREFERENCED QUOTATION
"
(Chambers (p. 154) gives the following, Gyrill. Contra
Julian. citing Hermes" but without any
, reference, and
I can find it nowhere in the text :)
FEAGMENT XXV.
If thou understandest that One and Sole God,
thou wilt find nothing impossible ;
for It is all
virtue.
tions.Cyril's quotation (v. 176) from Julian, in which the
Emperor refers to Hermes, is given under " Julian."
C, an epithet applied by Pindar (Fr. 29) to Zeus.
2
3
This seeins somewhat of a piece with the contents of the
" First Sermon to Tat." See Fragg. xi., xii., xiii., xv
Expository ,
SUIDAS 1
1
Date uncertain ; some indications point to as late as the
twelfth century ; if these, however, are due to later redaction,
others point to the tenth century.
2
He is above them as Lord and Father, as Mind and Light ;
and they are in Him as Lady and Mother, as Spirit and Life.
268
SUIDAS 269
AN ORPHIC HYMN
"
Thee, Heaven, I adjure, wise work of mighty God ;
ANONYMOUS
AND here we may conveniently append a reference
to the Dialogue of an ancient Christian writer on
astrology a blend of Platonism, Astrology, and Chris-
1
tianity entitled Hermippus de Astrologia Dialogus,
from the name of the chief speaker.
This writer was undoubtedly acquainted with our
Corpus, for he quotes (p. 9. 3) from G. H., i. 5 (p. 21, ;
1
Kroll (G.) and Viereck (P.), Anonymi Ohristiani de Astrologia
Dialogus (Leipzig, 1895). Of. R. p. 210.
270
Ill
ZOSIMUS
ON THE ANTHROPOS-DOCTRINE
(ZOSIMUS flourished somewhere at the end of the
third and beginning of the fourth century A.D. He
was a member of what Eeitzenstein (p. 9) calls the
Poimandres-Gemeinde, and, in writing to a certain
Theosebeia, a fellow-believer in the Wisdom-tradition,
though not as yet initiated into its spiritual mysteries,
he urges her to hasten to Poimandres and baptize
herself in the Cup. 1 The following quotation is of first
importance for the understanding of the Anthropos-
Doctrine or Myth of Man in the Mysteries.
In one of the Books of his great work distinguished
by the letter Omega, and dedicated to Oceanus as the
"
Genesis and Seed of all the Gods," speaking of the
uninitiated, those still beneath the sway of the
Heimarmene or Fate, who cannot understand his
revelations, he writes 2 :)
AGAINST MAGIC
"
5. Hermes, however, in his About the Inner Door,"
doth deprecate [this] magic even, declaring that:
1
The man, [the man] who knows himself,
spiritual
should not accomplish any thing by means of magic,
e'en though he think it a good thing, nor should he
force Necessity, but suffer [her to take her course],
2
according to her nature and decree [he should] ;
FRAGMENT XXVI.
6. And
being so minded (he says), and so
ordering his life, he shall behold the Son of God
becoming all things for holy souls, that he may
draw her 4 forth from out the region of the Fate
into the Incorporeal [Man].
7. For having power in all, He becometh all
6
things, whatsoever He will, and, in obedience
to the Father['s nod], through the whole Body
doth He penetrate, and, pouring forth His Light
into the mind of every [soul], He starts it 6
2
1
Cf. C. H. t
i. 21. Or decision or judgment.
3 4 the SOUl.
rpidSa. Sc.
5
LJf.
15 below. Zosimus is apparently condensing from the
original.
6
Sc. the soul or mind.
276 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
like man, who inEgypt their tradition says was Theuth, observing
that sound was infinite, first distinguished in this infinity a certain
number of pure sounds [or vowels], and then other letters [or
sound elements] which have sound, but are not pure sounds [the
semi-vowels] these two exist [each] in a definite number and
; ;
Send me then one of your wise men who can read for me the
book I have found "? " R. 363.
7
Presumably referring to the whole Body of the Heavenly
Man, to whose Limbs all the letters were assigned by Marcus.
278 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
NlKOTHEOS
12. His authentic [name], however, I know not,
owing to the so long [lapse of time 2 ] for Nikotheos 3
;
1
irpo<n)yopiK6v, this signifies generally the prcenomen as
*
The Father exists exalted above all the perfect. 3
He [N.] hath
revealed the Invisible and the perfect Triple-power."
In the Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry (c. xiv.), among the list of
" "
Gnostics against whose views on Matter the great coryphaeus
of Later Platonism wrote one of the books of his Enneads (II. ix.),
there is mention of Nikotheos in close connection with Zoroaster
and others (S. 603 ft). If we now turn to Schmidt's Plotins
titellung zum
Gnosticismus und kirchlichen Christentum (Leipzig,
1900), in which he has examined at length the matter of the
treatise of Plotinus and the passage of Porphyry, we find him
[they said] being free from [her 5 ] ills and free from
6
their activities.
"
And He, on account of this
'
freedom from ills/ did
"Light."
2
This is evidently a quotation.
Reading ^lairv^^vos with the Codd., and not Smirveo/ieV^
3
Rulers of the Fate to " squeeze out the light from the souls and
"
FRAGMENT XXVII.
of the Books
of the Clialdaeans ( 9, 10) in the Serapeum. It
seems to me to be a " source " on which both the Hebrew and
non-Hebrew Hellenists commentated in Alexandria. Thus both
the commentator in S. and J. in the Naassene Document and the
Poamandrists of the period would use it in common.
a 3
Theog., 614. Cf. 3 and 19.
4 5
ThatFore-thought and After-thought.
is, Sc. Man.
6 I
am almost persuaded that 14 is also a quotation or
summary and not the simple exegesis of Zosimus the original ;
person ?
1
rv(f>\TjyopovvTos. The lexicons do not contain the word. It
is probably a play on Karriyopovvros. Cf. note on "blind from
birth" of C. in the Conclusion of Hippolytus in " Myth of Man"
(vol. i. p. 189).
2
That
is, presumably, though in one aspect only, the soul that
Him who is truly Son of God, give unto him his own *
18. And [it is] the Hebrews alone and the Sacred
Books of Hermes [which tell us] these things about
the man of light and
Guide the Son of God, and his
about the earthy Adam and his Guide, the Counterfeit,
who doth blasphemously call himself Son of God, for
4
leading men astray.
19. But the Greeks call the earthy Adam Epimetheus,
who is counselled by his own mind, that is, his
2
1
The Counterfeit Daimon. Or execution.
3 The two last paragraphs are
apparently also quoted or
summarized from a Hellenistic commentary on a Book of the
Hebrews, translated into Greek, and found in the libraries of
the Ptolemies. It is remarkable that the contents of this book
are precisely similar not only to the contents of the Books from
which J. quotes in the Naassene Document, but also to the
ideas about the Chaldaeans which the commentator of S. sets
forth.
4
If we can rely on this statement of Zosimus, this proves
that there was a developed Anthropos-doctrine also in the Tris-
megistic Books, as apart from the Chaldsean Books, that is,
that the Premandrists did not take it from the Chaldaean Books,
but had it from their own immediate line of tradition, namely,
the Egyptian.
5 6
Cf. 13 above. Lit. changing his mind.
7
A lacuna occurs in the text. could almost persuade We
ourselves that Zosimus had the text of S. and even the source
of J. before him. For " Blessed Land," cf. 7 above.
ZOSIMUS 283
"
But be not thou, lady, [thus] distracted, as, too,
I bade thee in the actualizing [rites], and do not
turn thyself about this way and that in seeking after
God but in thy house be still, and God shall come to
;
1
Berth., p. 244 ;
for a revised text see R. 214, n. 1.
2 The twelve tormenting or avenging daimones of G. H., xiii.
(xiv.).
3
The famous Egyptian Theurgist and Magician who is fabled
to have contended with Moses while others say he was the
;
instructor of Moses.
284 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
2
things of matter, and make for harbour in Pcernandres'
3
arms, and having dowsed thyself within His Cup, return
4
again unto thy own [true] race."
1
The soul having now found itself wings and become the
winged globe.
2 3
eVl riv FIot/AeWSpa (sic). Of. C. H., IV. (v.) 4.
^
Of. 0. H., i. 26, 29.
II.
JAMBLICHUS
ABAMMON THE TEACHER
THE evidence of Jamblichus 1
is
prime importance of
authenticity.
Jamblichus writes with the authority of an accredited
exponent of the Egyptian Wisdom as taught in these
mysteries, and under the name of "Abammon, the
Teacher," proceeds to resolve the doubts and difficulties
of the School with regard to the principles of the
1
The exact date of Jamblichus is very conjectural. In my
sketches of the " Lives of the Later Platonists " I have suggested
about A.D. 255-330. See The Theosophical Review (Aug. 1896),
xviii. 462, 463.
285
286 THRICE-GREATEST HEKMES
" 1
Teachers/
priests.
JAMBLICHUS 293
1
The Mind in its creative aspect.
2
Sc. This Way up to God.
3 4
See Commentary on C. H. (xvi.). Or secret shrine.
5 6
Op. ait,., viii. 5. Ibid., x. 7.
7
by some writers with one of the last kings of the
Identified
BITYS
"
And see the Picture (TTIVGL^) that both
there shall it
1
See notes appended to the extract from Zosimus.
2
As has already been supposed by Hoffmann and Kiess in
King (C. W.), The Gnostics and their Remains, 2nd ed.
4
OSTANES-ASCLEPIUS
But is Ostanes the Magian Sage of tradition, or may
we adopt the brilliant conclusion of Maspero, and
equate Ostanes with Asclepius, and so place him in the
same circle with Bitys, or rather see in Bitys an
"Asclepius"?
At any rate the following interesting paragraph of
l
Granger deserves our closest attention in this
connection, when he writes:
"
Maspero, following Goodwin, has shown that Ostanes
is the name of a deity who belongs to the cycle of
1 " The Poemander
Granger (F.), of Hermes Trismegistus," in
The Journal of Theological Studies, vol. v., no.
19, ap. 1904
(London), p. 398.
JAMBLICHUS 297
Jamblichus,
2
we append a passage to show the striking
"
We must explain you how the question stands
to
period. This then being so, the soul that descends into
us from the worlds 5 keeps time with the circuits of
these worlds, while the soul from the Mind, existing in
us in a spiritual fashion, is free from the whirl of
1
Especially in Book VIII., which is entirely devoted to an ex-
position of Hermaic doctrine, and ought perhaps to be here trans-
lated in full. I have, to select the
however, preferred passages
definitely characterizedby Jamblichus as Hermaic.
a
Who must be read in the original and not in the inelegant
and puzzling version of Taylor, the
only English translation.
The Second Mind according to " The Shepherd."
4
The Seven Spheres of the Harmony. 6
The Seven Spheres.
JAMBLICHUS 299
"
With regard to partial existences, then, I mean in
the case of the soul in partial manifestation, 3 we must
admit something of the kind we have above. For just
such a life as the [human] soul emanated before it
"
We say that [the Spiritual Sun and Moon, and the
rest] are so far from being contained within their
Bodies, that on the contrary, it is they who contain
these Bodies of theirs within the Spheres of their own
"
Each of the [Seven] Planetary Spheres is a complete
World containing a number of divine offspring, which
are invisible to us, and over all of these Spheres the
Star 3 we see is the Kuler. Now Fixed Stars differ
from those 4 in the Planetary Spheres in that the former
have but one Monad, namely, their system as a whole 5 ;
1
Julian the Emperor reigned 360-363 A.D. It was during
the last year of his reign that he wrote Contra Christianas.
2
Also Taylor (Thomas), The Arguments of the Emperor Julian
against the Christians (London, 1809), p. 36.
3
Lit.
" from the succession "
(StaHoxys).
4 " "
4ifKf>oir'fi(favros
) to come habitually to ; &n0o/T7jcm is used
"
of the coming upon one," or inspiration of a God.
303
304 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
FKAGMENT XXVIII.
Conclusion
AN ATTEMPT AT CLASSIFYING
THE EXTANT LITERATURE
BEFORE we proceed append our concluding remarks,
to
down some attempt at classify-
it will be as well to set
OF HERMES
First and foremost, standing in a class by itself, must
be placed :
"
C. H. i. The Pcemandres."
"
C. H. xi. (xii.). Mind unto Hermes."
309
310 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
" "
Sayings of Agathodaimon referred to in the Tat
Sermon, C. H. xiL (xiiL), probably belonged to the most
archaic deposit of the Trismegistic literature, and may be
" "
compared with the Sayings of Ammon mentioned by
Justin Martyr. These belonged, presumably, originally
solely to the Hermes-grade.
"
With the same type as the conclusion of the Pcem-
andres" in its present form, that is to say with a
later development, we must classify :
"
Ex. xxii. An Apophthegm of Hermes."
Ex. xxiv.
"
A Hymn of the Gods."
"
Frag. xxvi. From The Inner Door."
"
Frag, xxvii For Our Mind saith."
To TAT
We know that the Tat-instruction was divided into
CONCLUSION 311
"
(a) The General Sermons," of which C. H. x. (XL)
"The Key" is said to be the epitome or rather
summation and (b) " The Expository Sermons," of
;
quires.
2
This seems to be a complete sermon, and to be presupposed in
C. H. xii. (xiii.) ; as also Ex. xi.
3 Exx. x.-xiii. probably go here as being part of the " Sermons
on Fate to Tat * ; but they are assigned otherwise by Stobaeus.
312 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
2
Exx. iii.
(?)." Of Truth."
3
Ex. iv.
4
Exx. v., vi., vii., viii., ix.
C. H. "The Cup." 6
iv. (v.).
1
These all seem to go together from the same Sermon or Book,
which in the case of Frag. xv. is definitely assigned by Cyril to
the "First of the Expository Sermons." The beginning of the
Sermon is given in Lact. xxiv., and a reference in Lact. xiii.
2
Seems to be a complete tractate.
3
By comparison with Ex. vii.
4 " the most
Ex. ix. is characterised as authoritative and chiefest
of them all," and therefore came, presumably, at the end of one of
the Books of these Sermons.
A complete tractate, containing heads or summaries of
6
To ASCLEPIUS
"
C. H. ii.
(in.). An Introduction to the Gnosis
of the Nature of All Things."
C. H. vi. (vii.). "In God Alone is Good."
"
C. H. ix. (x.). About Sense." l
(xv.)." A Letter
2
C. H. xiv. to Asclepius."
Fragg. xvi.-xviii.
"
In this Third Book it is probable that The Perfect
"
Sermon was included in
Cyril's Corpus. This sermon,
which the longest we possess, was evidently originally
is
"
The Perfect Sermon."
For the fragments of the lost Greek original of this
OF ASCLEPIUS
It is remarkable that Asclepius, the most learned of
the Three, writes his treatises and letters, not to philo-
OF Isis
"
Ex. xxi. Of Isis to Horus."
"
C. H. (xviii.). The Encomium of Kings."
CONCLUSION 317
OF JUDGMENTS OF VALUE
We now approach the conclusion of our task, but
with the feeling that the whole matter should be put
aside for years before any attempt be made to set down
they give allegiance, is the end of all ends, and the highest
of all heights, and that the other countless forms are of
the Enemy of their God. My God, or rather God, for He
is the Father of all, has no enemies He has many sons,
;
" "
If, nevertheless, I am still judged as a calumniator
by some, it isbut natural injustice and quite under-
standable. There is, however, no real Injustice in the
universe, and he who would be Justified and rise again
with Osiris, must balance mortal seeming justice and
injustice to reach the true equilibrium, and so be free
of mortal opinion, and stand in the Hall of Truth. It
is to the bar of this Judgment Hall that all men in
CONCLUSION 321
CONCERNING DATES
And now let us turn to the Eeligion of the Mind,
which is also the Religion of the Heart for is not
Thoth Lord of the heart of man ?
In the first place we have endeavoured faithfully to
investigate every statement or suggestion that can be
thought to be indicative of date, and we have not
succeeded in any single instance in fixing a precise date
for any sermon or fragment. What, however, we have
been able to do, is to clear the ground of many false
developed.
Wisdom transcends this mode of mind ;
for ratio-
cination not ecstasis, the practical intelligence is not
is
Egypt ;
it ishidden in her glyphs and symbols and holy
signs. But that Gnosis will never yield its secret to
those who persist in interpreting these symbols of the
OF INITIATION
every side ?
A LAST WOKD
But it is very possible that some who have done me
the honour of reading to the end, will say " This man :
Abyss, i. 408, ii. 27, 80, 81, 269. wealth -giving, i. 402.
Accuser, blind, iii. 281. Mon or JEons, 182, i. ii. 240.
Achaab, the Husbandman, ii. 265. ^Eon-doctrine, the, i. 387, ii. 190.
Air, ii. 342, iii. 66, 129, 210. with Unseen Father, i. 70.
Air very air, iii. 17. American Encyclopaedia, i. 24.
Air-spaces, 205. iii. Amme-ha-Aretz, iii. 321.
Akasha-Ganga, i. 110. Ammianus Marcellinus, i. 113.
Akhmim, i. 282. Ammon, i. 100, 101, 149, 273, 471,
Akron, i. 364. ii. 308
King, iii. 293
;
Kronos ;
Alalkomeneus, i. 148, 286. 307, 313 words of, iii. 152, 215,
;
309 ; one and, i. 136, ii. 230, i. 424 eldest of all, i. 198 ; evil,
;
All-seed Potency, ii. 30. ii. 282 ; circle of, iii. 46, 51 ;
All-seeing Light, ii. 253. earthy, iii. 301 ; sacred, ii. 52,
All-sense, ii. 364, 396. 383, iii. 102, 288; worship of,
All-soul, ii. 145. i. 353.
Apophthegm of
Hermes, iii. 88. 367.
Apostles, Memoirs of, i. 195. Asar-Hapi, i. 302.
Apotheosis, ii. 163 of Hermes, ;
Ascension of Isaiah, ii. 232.
iii. 222. Ascent of the Soul, ii. 41 ff. ;
Beauty, ii. 8, 28, iii. 54; of the Birthday of the Eye of Horus, i.
Gnosis, ii. 123 ; of the Good, ii. 331 of the Sun's Staff, i. 331.
;
144, 145, 163 ; of the Truth, ii. Birthdays of the Gods, i. 279 of ;
239 ;
of the Mon, iii. 160 ; blind aery, iii. 145 ;
of bliss, ii. 45 ;
from, i. 189, iii. 281 ; Chamber divine, ii. 93 ; elements of, iii.
demiurge of, ii. 244 ; engine of, God, ii. 85 of the Great Man, ;
ii. 39 ; essential, ii. 228, 250 ; in i. 425 house of, ii. 321 ; of
;
76, 95, ii. 242, iii. 122, 157, 160, 195 of the Law, ii. 44 mixture
; ;
of a divine, i. 75 new, ii. 239, ; and, ii. 124, 130 spirituous, iii. ;
parent of my bringing- in to, ii. that can never die, ii. 221 times ;
Bodying, iii. 31, 36, 38. Breath, iii. 199 ; gift of, iii. Ill ;
Book concerning the Logos, ii. 265. Buddhism, Great Vehicle of, ii. 44.
Book of the Master, i. 68, 77, Buddhist seer, i. 379.
78. Budge, i. 52,
89, 103, 367.
Book of Ostanes, iii. 277. Builder, mind as, ii. 153.
Book, The Sacred, i. 75. Builder- Souls, iii. 140.
Books, canonical, ii. 235 of the ; Builders, iii. 139, 140.
Chaldaeans, i. 392, ii. 81 ff., iii. Bull-born, i. 311.
280, 321 ; preserved from flood, Burials of Animals, i. 293, 295 ;
of
i. 113 ; on the Gnosis, iii. 231 ; Osiris, i. 295.
Hermaic, iii. ;
293
of Hermes, i. Burn living men, i. 355.
100, 115, 196, 342, 380, iii. 282, Burns his food publicly, i. 270.
289 of Hermes described by Clem.
; Busiris, i. 293, 305.
of A., iii. 222 hieratic, iii. 225 ;
; Buto, i. 315, 347.
of Isis, iii. 316 of Isis and ; Buys Plato, i. 351.
Horus, i. 481, iii. 208 ; of Isis Byblos, i. 284-286.
to Horus, iii. 316 ; Lord of, i.
53 ; of Manetho, i. 104 of ;
Cabiri (Kabiri), i. 127.
Moses, i. 456, ii. 158 of the ; Caduceus, i. 61, iii. 232.
Saviour, i. 418 ; of Taautos, ii. Canutes, i. 142.
279 of Thoth, i. 122, 124 ;
;
Call thou me not Good, ii. 72.
Victim-Sealing, iii. 223, 224. Called, i. 147.
Bootes, i. 288. Calumniators, ii. 233, 250, iii. 317.
Boreas, iii. 132. Cambyses, 277, 322.
i.
Chalcidius, i. 19, 435, ii. 159. Churning the Ocean, iii. 180.
Chaldseans, i. 196, 327, ii. 53 ; Chwolsohn, ii. 57.
Books of the, i. 392, 465, ii. 81 Cicala, song of, ii. 292.
ff., iii. 280, 324 mystery-tradi-
; Cicero, ii. 235.
tion, i. 138. Circle of the All, iii. 47 ; of animals,
Chamber of Birth, i. 75 ; of Flames, iii. 46, 51 Life-producing, iii.
;
i. 75 ;
of Gold, i. 75. 51 ;
of Necessity, i. 428 ; of Sun,
Chambers, i. 34, iii. 218, 266 ; iii. 52;
of types-of-life, ii. 194,
opinion of, i. 34 f. 227.
Champollion, i. 27. Circles, seven, iii. 47. ii. 76,
Chaos, i. 150, 338, 388, 389, ii. 27, Circuit (Eudoxus), 269. i.
Common hearth, iii. 171 ; reason, ii. 179 ; meaning of, ii. 85 ;
i. 346 ; teachers, iii. 287. order, ii. 134 paradigm of, ii. ;
Companions of Horus, i. 270, 290 ; 196 ; passions of, ii. 185 re- ;
Cosmos, ii. 325, 337, 377, iii. 39 ; Cross, i. 286, ii. 367 ; seal of a, iii.
Animal-Soul of, i. 353 beautiful, ;
161.
ii. 147 ; most wise Breath, ii. Crosswise, iii. 24, 47.
118 of Cosmos, i. 91 course of,
; ; Crown of lives, i. 71.
ii. 133; divine mysteries of, iii. Crux ansata, i. 61.
325 ;egg or womb of, i. 451 ; Cry (of Nature), ii. 34.
imitator of eternity, ii. 368 ; Oudworth, i. 32.
second God, ii. 125 good, ii. ;
Cult 6f Jlsculapius, i. 468 ;
of
358 ;great body of, ii. 128 ; Jesus, ii. 138.
higher, ii. 378 Horus, i. 338 ; ;
Cultores et Cultrices pietatis, i.
Cup, ii. 86, iii. 273 ; of Anacreon, Darkness, i. 91, 325, 451, ii. 4, 13,
i. 167, 193, 455 ; baptism in the, 79, 80, 81 ; carapace of, ii. 121 ;
284 ; which I drink, i. 168 ; of ii. 25 torment of, ii. 226, 245.
;
Daimon, i.
324, 443
avenging, i. ; 39.
91, ii. 15, 40 Chnum the Good, ; Decans, i. 100, iii. 45 ; Egyptian
i. 477 counterfeit, iii. 281
; ;
names of, iii. 54 ; Six-and-thirty,
essence of, is activity, ii. 273 ; iii. 45, 46.
evil, i. 355 Good, i. 84, 97,
; Deep, Infinite, i. 390.
402, ii. 156, 199, 203, 204, 206, Deer, form of a, i. 191.
iii. 150, 155, 255 ; Good Deinon, i. 307.
Holy, i.
94 ; mind a, ii. 154, 171 ; self- Delphi, i. 256, 310; Oracle at, i. 349.
born, iii. 120. Demagogue (in Plato), i. 431.
Daimon-Chief, iii. 237. Demeter, i. 305, 318, 345, 350, iii.
Daimones, ii.375, iii. 49 ;
313, 232 limbs of, i. 347 ; wanderings
;
149 space,
; ii. 26 ; wisdom, i. from the Head Above, i. 169 ;
of
87, 91. Kore, i. 350 ; of Man, ii. 34.
340 INDEX
Triad of, i. 476 the Twelve, i. ; Earth, ii. 209, iii. 66, 130, 261 ;
169 of Wisdom, iii. 303.
; the black, i. 156 ; blood-red, iii.
Discipline of the Priests, iii. 224 ;
277 ; fiery, iii. 277 fleshly, iii.
;
Earth-and-Water, ii. 5, 8, 37. plaint of, iii. 118 ; four, ii. 311 ;
Earth-born, ii. 49 folk, ii. 122. ; friendship and enmity with, iii.
Ebers Papyrus, i. 50. 133.
Ebionites, i. 369. Elephantine, i. 320, 477.
Ebony, i. 87. Eleusinian logos, i. 175 ; mysteries,
Eclipses, i. 321. i. 59, 160.
Ecstasis, i. 251, ii. 157, 161, 303. Elohim, Sons of, i. 159.
Eden, i. 159 ; brain, i. 187 ; river Elxai, i. 71 ; Book of, i. 369.
of, i. 187. Elysian state, i. 152.
Edersheim, i. 200. Emanation, holy, iii. 121.
Efflorescence, iii.100. Emanations, i. 84.
Efflux, God's, 121, 122. iii. Embalmment, Ritual of, i. 460.
Egg, i.
125, 126, 131, 326, 389, 462, Embarking, i. 321.
ii 282 ;
Child of, i. 139 ; first, i. Embryology, ii. 102.
391 God from, i. 392 ; skull-like,
; Embryonic stages of Incarnation
i. 391 ;
sphere or, i. 427 ; throb- (Pistis Sophia}, iii. 68.
bing, i. 182. Empedocles, i. 159, 300, 435, ii.
Essence, ii. 269, iii. 84 ; first, iii. of, iii. 165; heart's, ii. 121 of ;
55 of God,
;
ii. 113, 199 ;
in- Horus, i. 336 ;
House of, i. 288 ;
i. 187, 388, 390, 454, ii. 4, 75 ; ii. 308 ; of mind, ii. 253 ;
pupil
one, i. 391 primal, iii. 56 ; of ; of, i. 84, 394
Pupil of the ;
Eudoxus, 269, i.
274, 293, 305, 217.
332, 343, 345. Fate-Sphere, ii. 41, 282, 283.
Euhemerus (see Evemerus), ii. 162. Fates, 439. i.
Eunomus the Locrian, 300. ii. Father of the aeons, i. 411 Alone ;
Few, the, i. 207, ii. 346, iii. 11. Flood, i. 106, ii. 83, iii. 154, 276 ;
Fiery body, ii. 154, 171 ; ruler, i. books preserved from the, i. 113 ;
166 ; whirlwinds, i. 409. in Egypt, i. 317 He who in- ;
Fishers, i. 59, 61 ; of men, i. 59, From Thee to Thee, ii. 231, 254.
372. Fruit, Perfect, i. 182.
Fishes, i. 373. Fruitful, i. 177.
Five, i. 336 ; branched, i. 266, Fulgentius, iii. 305.
285 Fifths, the,
; i. 203 ; Mer- Fullness, iii. 325 ; of Godhead, ii.
Flies, iii. 51, 133, 190. Christ, ii. 249 of shame, i. 153,;
or, 182.
iii. formation according to, ii. 246 ;
Garrucci, ii. 56. gate of, iii. 318 ; gates of, ii. 120,
Gate, guardian of the, i. 428 of ; 123 goal of, ii. 139 of God, i.
; ;
heaven, i. 181, ii. 240 which ; 147, ii. 150, 225, iii. 243, 326 ;
Gautama the Buddha, iii. 317. 147, 178, iii. 323 masters of, ii. ;
Genera, ii. 313 ff. restorer of all, ; Mind, ii. 167 ; Ophite systems of,
ii. 310 and species, ii. 378.
; i. 98 path of, ii. 98, 195
;
be- ;
158, 219, 236, 264, iii. 45, 77, Sabsean, ii. 140; end of science,
308. ii. 147 ; seers of, ii. 94 ; Sethian,
Generation, i. 333. ings, ii. 257 ; they who are in, ii.
Generative Law, the, i. 191. 131, 137, 138 ; of truth, i. 207 ;
all, i. 406 ;
of fire and darkness, virtue of soul, ii. 167 ; way of, ii.
i. 197
ground ; of, i. 337 matter's
; 98.
becoming or, ii. 177 moist ; Gnostic, i. 377 elements in Her- ;
all the gods, iii. 273 soul is ; Horos, i. 250, ii. 348 Jottings, ;
cause of all in, i. 151 ; vase of, things seen in the mysteries, iii.
iii. 26 wheel of, i. 426, ii. 274,
; 150, 156.
283. Gnosticism, Hermeticism another
Geography, mystic, iii. 130 ;
of name for, ii. 192.
sacred lands, iii. 184. Goal of Gnosis, ii. 139 ;
of piety,
Gephyraeans, i. 350. iii. 5.
ii. 165 ; house of, i. 79 ; king of, 244 born from rock, i. 95
; ;
97, 131, 146, 246, iii. 76 ; of the works of, iii. 245 cosmos, second, ;
all, ii. 296 ; archaic, iii. 322 ; ii. 125 creator, iii. 293
; cup- ;
votion joined with, ii. 114; of ciples of, i. 254 ; efflux of, iii.
thingsdivine, iii. 233 ; of divinity, 122, 162 from egg, i. 392 energy
; ;
INDEX 345
ii. 199 ; eye of, i. 247, ii. 312 ; thee, i. 59 will of, ii. 160, 220,
;
face of, i. 218 ; father, ii. 67 ; 395, iii. 195 wisdom of, ii. 176. ;
85 first-born,
; ii. 203 ; gift of, devotion is, ii. 131, 136.
ii. 87, 95 ; gnosis of, i. 147, ii. God-the-Mind, male and female,
150, 225, 243, 329; and
iii. ii. 7.
Gods, ii. 67 ; Good, ii. 240 ; is God-words, i. 134.
good, ii. 66 ; Good is, ii. 110, Goddess-of-child-bed-town, i. 355.
112 ; the Good of, 189 ;
ii.
Godhead, fullness of, ii. 117.
greatness of, ii. 244 ;
herald of, Godlessness, ii. 200.
ii.95 ;
house of, i. 171, 181, ii. Gods, ii. 145 ; birthdays of, i. 279 ;
240 ; ignorance of, ii. 120 ;
choir of, ii. 206 ;
creation of, iii.
100, iii. 236, 244 two images ; ii. 272 ; Egyptians don't mourn
of, ii. 326
ineffability
; 14, of, iii. if they believe in, i. 351 ; food
216 ; inner, ii. 294 ; knower of of, i. 86 ; genesis and seed of all,
true, ii.97, 196 ; Laughter, Son iii. 273 ; great, i. 127, 347 ;
of, i. 220; law of, iii. 195; hymn of, iii. 91 ; inerrant, ii.
light of, i. 232; likeness with, 145; intelligible, iii. 25; lan-
ii. 132 ;
love of, ii. 323 lyre of, ; guage of, ii. 279, iii. 323 im- ;
iii. 305
imperishable Mind, iii.
;
i. 152, 176 mountain of, i. 244 ;
;
226 ; name of, i. 198, 234, ii. of, i. 399 scribe of, i. 53
; scribe ;
seeds of, ii. 131, 137; seer of, 75 ; Horus, i. 76 One, Dwelling ;
282 ;
332 ; sons of, i.
song of, ii. gnosis of, ii. 113, 144, 163 ; God,
198, 229, iii. 217, 316 sons of, ;
ii. 240 ; is God, ii. 110, 112 ; of
in Hellenistic theology, iii. 218 ; God, ii. 189 good-will of, iii. ;
ii. 220 ; sphere of, ii. 230 ; imperfect, i. 320 ; Itself, iii. 293 ;
spirit of, ii. 81 ;
is spirit, ii. 71 ; law, iii. 8 ; Logos, i. 333 ; mind,
two temples 228 ; beyond of, i. ii. 127, 155, 156 news, i. 141 ; ;
understanding, 229 un- iii. ; path of the, ii. 190 ; own path
wearied spirit, ii. 290; way of of, ii. 189, 196, iii. 330 ; perfect,
birth in, ii. 223, 244 ; way up to, i. 205 physician, i. 461, ii. 213 ;
;
346 INDEX
iii. 261 ;
threshold of, ii. 97 ; a, i. 185 of divinity, ii. 309
; ;
142, ii. 24, 25, 238 ; fragment of Green, Great, i. 92, 94, 132, 176,
a lost, i. 153 According to the ; 424, iii. 154 tree, i. 266. ;
Graves, dead shall leap forth from, 350, 362, 453, ii. 337, 338;
i. 172. vision of, i. 223 ; visit to, i.
Great Announcement, i.
184, ii. 380 ; way of salvation from, i.
70, 170, 317. 152.
Great, art divine, ii. 169, iii. 299 ; Hadrian, i. 195.
beast, i. 425 ; beasts, i. 424 ;
Haf, i. 462.
body of Cosmos, ii. 128 ;
bound- Haggadist, ii. 239.
ary, ii. 29, 35 ; creator, Light, Haimos, i. 169.
i. 71, 79 ; fish, i. 425 ; Gods, i. Hall of the Altar, i. 74 of the ;
127, 347 ; Green, i. 84, 92, 94, Child in his Cradle, i. 74, 75 ;
131, 132, 176, 424, iii. 154; of the Golden Rays, i. 75.
heart, i. 131 ; ignorance, iii. 140 ; Halm, i. 56.
initiator, ii. 21 ; Jordan, i. 163 ; Hands, 101, 117.
iii.
sea, iii. 163 ; serpent, ii. 27, Harnack, i. 469, ii. 55.
35 snake, ii. 26
;
Vehicle of ;
Harnebeschenis (see Arnebeschenis),
Buddhism, ii. 44 ; work, iii. i. 76, iii. 209.
317, 329 year, iii. 290.; Harper, story of, ii. 291.
INDEX 347
i. 75 ; kingdom of, i. 185 ; king- of, i. 374 Old Latin version of,
;
of, i. 126 : sound of, i. 161. of, i 369, ii. 238, 248, iii. 319 ;
152; (II.), i. 104, iii. 152 ;(!!!.), Hierarchies, ii. 276, 314, 340, 342.
iii.303 Alchemical literature, i.
; Hieratic, iii. 276 books, iii. 225. ;
Hexads, ii. 117. birth of, i. 75, 76, 95, iii. 122,
Hexsemeron, iii. 117. 157, 160, 162, 242 ; birthday of
Hezekiah, ii. 232. Eye of, i. 331 ; Birthdays of, i.
Hibbert Journal, ii. 71. 332 ;
bone of, i. 189, 343 how ;
Hidden mystery in silence, the, i. born, i.315; Books of Isis and, iii.
167 Places, House of the, i. 68.
;
208 ;
Books of Isis to, iii. 313 ;
INDEX 349
gold-miner, iii. 209 ; golden, i. 120 great, iii. 140 mystery of,
; ;
I am thou, i. 85, 87, 89, ii. 24. Initiation, iii. 323; the "in
I-em-Hetep, i. 457. black," i. 91 ; Cup of, ii. 94;
laldabaoth, i. 139, 159, 422. into Divine Mysteries, i. 208 ;
lao, i. 411. doctrines of, i. 73 final, ii. 43 ; ;
Julian, the Emperor, i. 113, iii. and escort of souls of, hi. 127 ;
303. presidents of common weal and
Juniper, i. 364, 365. peace, ii. 293 ; successions of, i.
Jupiter, i. 416, 418, 419. 315.
Jupiter Ammon, Hymn to, i. 149. Kingsford and Maitland, i. 15.
Just, the, i. 70, 79, 156. Kingship of Heavens, i. 167, ii. 43.
Justice, i. 359, iii. 58, 243 ; engine Klea, i. 260, 264, 310 to, i. 276. ;
279. 149.
Kakodaimon, i. 448. Korybas, i. 169.
Kamephis, iii. 107, 149, 159, 167. Koshas, ii. 168.
Karma, instrument of, iii. 116. Kriophoros, ii. 54.
Karmic, agents, ii. 282 ; scales, Kroll, i. 100, 101.
Teller of the, i. 72 ; wheel, ii. 83. Kronos (see Cronus), i. 151, 278,
Kastor, i. 306. 298, 307, 322, 350; that is,
Kathopanishad, ii. 168, 317. Ammon, ii. 279 whether blest
;
Kid, thou hast fallen into the milk, of all wisdom, iii. 208.
i. 191.
Lagides, i. 99.
King, Ambassador of the, i. 250 ; Lake Mareotis, ii. 403.
Ammon, i. 77, ii. 280 ; Corre- Lame, i. 334.
spondence of Asclepius with the, Lamp-magic, i. 92.
ii. 278 ; of
glory, i. 171 God as ; Land, Black, iii. 158 ; Blessed, iii.
shepherd and, i. 226 the high- ;
282 of Eternal Dawn, i. 8"0
; ;
King (L. WO. i. 61, 328, 344, 348. Lang, Andrew, i. 258.
King-soul, iii. 144. Language, of Gods, ii. 279 ;
of the
Kingdom of the Heavens, the, i. Word, i. 54.
185 ; within man, i. 155. Larks, i. 356.
Kingdoms, downfalls of, iii. 48. Lauchert, i. 56.
Kings, iii. Ill, 126 ; Catalogue of, Laughter, i. 221 ;
seven peals of,
i. 277 divine, i. 106 encomium
; ;
iii. 137.
of, ii. 299 eulogy of, ii. 298
; ; Law, body of, ii. 44 ; generative, i.
glorious fame of, ii. 292 guard ; 191; of God, iii. 195; good, iii. 8.
352 INDEX
Laya, 260.
ii. treasure of, i. 246 ; veil, ii. 28,
Layers, iii. 194. 29, 31.
Laying-on of hands, ii. 242. Light-Darkness, iii. 278.
Lazarel, Loys, i. 10. Light-giver, 179. i.
Lepsius, i. 49, 69. Lion, i. 56, 90, 290, 314, 422, 446,
Lethe, Plain of, i. 447 ;
River of, 449, 180.
iii.
Love, i. 77, 125, 338, ii. 12, 39, iii. descent of, 34 dual nature of,
ii. ;
iii. 260 ; divine, ii. 94, 309, 346, essential, ii. 116, 251, 319, 321 ;
Lycurgus, i. 274 laws ; of, ii. 235. mighty wonder, ii. 315 the ;
Lydus, i. 403, 404, ii. 342, 361, mind, iii. 280 ; mind-led, ii.
385. 203 ; mystery of, i. 141 ; new,
Lyre, Pythagoreans used, i. 366 ; ii.43 ; one, ii. 222, 244 original, ;
Martha, i.
71, 147. and, iii. 195 ; restored, ii. 221.
Martial, i. 116. Memphis, i. 105, 292, 293, 347,
Martyrdom of Peter, ii. 108. 460 ;
brazen gates at, i. 303 ;
466 ;
of masters, iii. 317 of the ; 167, 455.
wheels, iii. 120. Menander acts Menander, i. 351.
Master-architect, i. 48. Menard, views of, i. 27 ff.
Masterhood, ii. 47, iii. 324. Mendes, i. 320 ; goat at, i. 356.
Mastery, i. 80. Mene, iii. 91.
Mastich, i. 365. Menelaos, i. 296.
Materiality, ii. 212, 218. Mercabah, iii. 173 ;
or Chariot of
Mathematici, i. 292, 336 ; theory Ezekiel, i. 238 ;
vision of, i.
of, i. 318. 154.
Mathesis, i. 262, ii. 264, 372, iii. 5. Merciful (Potency), i. 237.
Matter, i. 225, 276, 334, 336, 338, Mercury, i. 417, 418, 419.
339, 389, 390, 415, 451, ii. 125, Mercy-seat, i. 238.
176, 210, 211, 241, 269, 332, Merriment, ii. 346.
333, 335, 343, iii. 26, 66, 226, Mesopotamia, i. 171.
278 ; becoming of, ii. 177 ; blend Mesore, i. 349.
of, iii. 103 cosmos, ii. 336 ; ; Mesotes, ii. 251.
fourfold, i. 389 ; by itself, ii. Messala, i. 403, 407.
181 is one, ii. 118 pure, ii. 7 ;
; ; Messiah-ites, i. 190.
root of, ii. 26. Metamorphoses, i. 150 ;
of soul, ii.
Musician, God, ii. 288 ; the, ii. 291. 54, 91, iii. 280, 282 analysis ; of,
Mustard seed, i. 247. i. 142.
Mut (see Mot), i. 337. Naassene Hymn, ii. 109.
Myer, Qdbbalah of, i. 281. Naasseries, i.141.
Myriad-eyed, i. 184. Naasseni, i. 146.
Myrrh, i. 332, 364, 366. Nai, i. 294.
Mysteries, iii. 251 Anthropos- ; Nakdimon, Rabbi, ii. 239.
theory of, i. 193 ; of Assyrians, Naked, 211, 213, 373, 374.
i.
240 ;
of Great Mother, i. 186 ; energetic speech of, ii. 267.
hierophants of, i. 212 Hippolytus ; Naos, i. 187.
and divulging of, i. 140 most ; Nature, iii. 25 Arise blessed, i ;
!
deity, i. 225 ; deity, Cronus, i. love and, iii. 110, 264 ; spindle
400 ;epoptic, i. 178 at third ; of, i. 440 ;
throne of, i. 447 ;
ii. 90, 98
Palestine, i. 208. Olympian, ii. 171 ; of
;
Pawnbroking bye law, i. 242. Philip, Acts of, i. 147 ; Gospel of, i.
Payni, i. 305. 142.
Peace, author of its, iii. 4 ; virtue Philo,i.
211, ii. 128, 137 of Alex- ;
i. 199
Pelousios, i. 287. monotheist, i. 231.
;
24 perfect, i. 178.
;
work 233.
of, i.
Plotins Stellung zum Gnosticismus, Proclus, i. 101, 106, 435, ii. 169 ;
Poleis, 177.
i. iii. 61, 195, 235, 258, 260 ; and
Poleitai, i. 177. fate, iii. 36, 55, 60 ; legislative,
Poles, i. 87 ; seven, i. 95, 402. i. 237 ; ministers of, iii. 206,
Polichne, i. 292. 211.
INDEX 361
159. ii. 92 ;.
and monad, i. 403.
Psychosis, iii. 99, 102, 168.
Ptah, i. 457, iii. 148 ; the great, i. Ra, i. 131 ;
and Apep,
i. 57 ; heart
i. 138, iii. 148 ; temple of, i. Race, i. 205, 207, ii. 20, 50, 162,
130 workshop of, i. 457.
; 221, 290 of Elxai, ii. 242 of ; ;
Ptolemies, i.
102, 103 ;
libraries of Rachel, i. 178, 220.
the, iii. 277. Raise the dead, i. 273.
Ptolemy, Gnostic, ii. 371 ; the Raisins, i. 364.
saviour, i. 301 ; (II.), i. 103, Ram of perfectioning, the, i. 212.
105; (IV.), i. 460; (IX.), i. Ramses III., i. 131.
463 (X.), i. 466 (XL), i. 466.
; ; Raphael, i. 422.
Ptolemy Philadelphia, i. 104 ; Rashness, ii. 224.
Letter of Manetho to, i. 103. Raven, i. 286, 352, iii. 181.
Pulse, i. 349. Ray, iii. 288 of God, ii. 275. ;
ding garment of, ii. 249. 357 ; hymn of, ii. 229 ; lord of,
Purusha, ii. 168. i.50 ;
manner of, ii. 221, 224,
Pyanepsion, i. 350. 226, 233, 264 ; sermon on, ii.
Sea-hawk, bone of, i. 189, 343. iii. 33, 54, 309 ; of Fate, ii. 217 ;
iii. 79
Seal, i. 395, mighty type
; General, i. 462, ii. 141, 145, 236,
of, i. 395 ;
which marked victims, 264, iii. 45, 77, 308.
iii. 223. Serpent, i. 86, 87, 97, 98, 146, 344,
Sealers, i. 306. ii. 4, 301 of Darkness, ii.
26, ;
Sensation, iii. 41 ; corpse of, ii. 332 virgins, i. 176 wise ones,
; ;
121 ; energy and, of, iii. 40 ; i. 458 worlds, the, ii. 179
; ;
ii. 231, 372 ; pure, ii. 55 of ; Solar, boat, i. 270 ; table, i. 452.
bright stars, i. 186, ii. 56 sym- ; Soldier, ii. 276, iii. 50.
bolic representation of, i. 372 ; Soli, i. 438.
true, i. 238 who hath his fold
; Solid, iii. 174.
in the west, i. 373. Solomon, iii.283.
Shore, other, ii. 89. Solon, i. 103, 108, 274.
Short-armed, 295. i.
Son, of God, i. 138, 157, 198, 220,
Shrine-bearers, 225. iii. 226, ii. 28, 116, 118, 140, 222,
Shu, i. 131, 133. 241, iii. 239, 275, 280, 282 ; only
Si-Osiri, i. 380. beloved, i. 224 ; eldest, i. 227 ;
Sibylline, literature, ii. 330 ;
of man, i. 150, 160, ii. 43, 138 ;
oracles, iii. 235 ; writers, ii. 49. of the One, ii. 228, 251 ; only, ii.
Sickness, health and, iii. 203. 196 ; of virgin, iii 160, 161 ;
Siddhis, ii. 197. younger, ii.
192, 257.
Siege of Mansoul, iii. 186. Sonchis, i. 274.
Sige (Silence), ii. 163. Song, of holiness, ii. 50 ; of Linus,
Sight, mortal and immortal, iii. i. 293 ; of the
powers, ii. 42, 43 ;
holy, ii. 16&; promise of, ii. 219, one man, i. 234; of Satan, iii.
233 vow of, ii. 250.
;
319 ofSeth, i. 113, 114.
;
Simon, Jules, i. 434. Sonship, ii. 43, 50, iii. 140 ; wings
Simon Magus, ii. 108. of, i. 390.
Simonian, gnosis, ii. 107, 317 ; Sophia, i. 335 ; Above, i. 74, ii. 76.
tradition, i. 184, 188. Sophia-aspect of Logos, i. 49.
Simonides, i. 296. Sophia-mythus, i. 334, 377, ii. 26,
Sinai, i. 384. 30, 32, iii. 226.
Single, love, ii. 330 ; sense, ii. 389. Sophist, i. 431.
Sinope, i. 302. Sorrow, ii. 225.
Sins, forgiveness of, i. 251. Sosibius, i. 302.
Siren, i. 442. Sothiac, i. Ill cycles, iii. 290.;
167 ; 425
group, health i. ; 293 ; eight, ii. 275 ;
seven
of, ii. 265 rational
257, iii. ; planetary, iii. 60, 300 ; Proclus
impress in, i. 230 ; infant's, ii. on, iii. 300 ; six, ii. 276 Tar- ;
iii. 108
equal to stars, iii. 100
; ; Spiritual, baptism, ii. 92 ; birth, i.
ordering of, iii. 191 power of ;
163 ; crucifixion, ii. 238 ; eyes,
sight of, i. 214 Proclus on ;
i. 214 ; prototype of humanity,
descent of, i. 435 royal, iii. 125 ; ;
i. 139 ; sun, ii. 253, 300 ; way,
simile of animals in a cage and, ii. 240.
iii. 190 two, iii. 298 ;warder ; Spirituous body, 210. iii.
148 ; egg, i. 427 ; eighth, ii. 42 Statues, ii. 351 ; of judges, i. 276.
ff. ; of fire, i. 428 ; God's death- Stending, i. 310.
less, ii. 230 ; watery, iii. 209. Steward, ii. 358.
Spheres, boundary of the, ii. 195 ; Stewart, i. 429, 439.
cosmic, iii. 299 ; of destiny, iii. Stigmata, iii. 162.
366 INDEX
Varro, i.
110, 407. Void, ii. 64, 374.
Vase of genesis, iii. 26. Vortex, i. 389, 390, 453, ii. 187.
Vedanta, ii. 107. Vow of Silence, ii. 250.
Vedantavadins, ii. 107. Vulcan, net of, i. 62.
Vegetative, iii. 210. Vulcanic Crater, i. 452.
Vehicles of the soul, ii.167. Vulture, i. 90.
Veii, bible of the, ii. 235. Vyasa,li, 235.
Venus (Isis), i. 382.
Vergecius, Angelus, i. 10. Wagenfeld, i. 123, 124.
Vestments, keeper of the, iii. 223. Wagner, ii. 94.
Vestures, ii. 152. Wall, i. 90, 163.
Vettius Valens, i. 101, 102. Walton, Alice, i. 461.
Vices, horde of, ii. 245 ; and War, i. 327 in heaven,; iii. 118 ;
Virginal Spirit, i. 181, 182, ii. 240, Osiris is, i. 156 sinuous, ii. 4;;
Will, ii. 142 ; of God, ii. 160, 220, it is custom to call angels, i. 243 ;
395. ladder of, i. 139 of Thoth, i. ;
Wind, i. 396. 63 ;
three more-than-mighty, i.
Windows, not eyes, iii. 109. 165.
Winds, four, i. 84. Work, great, iii. 314, 326.
Wine, of ignorance, ii. 120 ; of, World, old age of, ii. 356 end of, ;
399.
of Virgin, i.
Yedidyah ha-Alakhsanderi, i. 200.
Women, band of seven, ii. 248 ; Yoga, ii. 163 of Flotinus, i. 251.
;
330, 359 ; above, ii. 359 ; below, The Telescope of, i. 13.
ii. 359 ; bull of, iii. 183 ; cosmic Zorokothora, iii. 211.
breath, i. 313 ; date of, i. 149 ; Zosimus, i. 157, 270, ii. 249, 265,
essence-chief, ii. 341 ; gifts of, iii. 273 ; and the Anthropos-
iii. 274 ; lame, i. 343
; Phrygius, doctrine, i. 196 ; visions of, i.
i. 172 ; sons of, iii. 217. 380.
III. The Gnosis according to its Friends. Greek Original Works in Coptic
Translation ; the Askew, Bruce, and Akhmim Codices.
'
learns nothing of these opinions [the so-called Gnostic heresies '] except by way of refuta-
tion and angry condemnation. In Mr. Mead's pages, however, they are treated with im-
partiality and candour These remarks will suffice to show the unique character
of this volume, and to indicate that students may find here matter of great service to the
rational interpretation of Christian thought." Bradford Observer.
"
Whatever may be the worth of the Gnostics' speculations, there seems to be little
doubt that these early heretics, among whom were some deep thinkers, as well as men of
blameless character, have not been very impartially dealt with by their orthodox opponents,
and those who wish to see their views treated in a more sympathetic way than has been
usual with ecclesiastical historians, will do well to read this able volume of Mr. G. R. 8.
Mead. . . The book, Mr. Mead explains, is not intended primarily for the student,
. .
but for the general reader, and it certainly should not be neglected by anyone who is inter-
ested in the history of early Christian thought." The Scotsman.
"
The work is one of great labour and learning, and deserves study as a sympathetic
estimate of a rather severely-judged class of heretics." Glasgow Herald.
"
Written in a clear and elegant style The bibliographies in the volume
"
are of world-wide range, and will be most valuable to students of theosophy Atiatic
Quarterly.
"
Mr. Mead writes with precision and clearness on subjects usually' associated with
bewildering technicalities and mystifications. Even the long-suffering general reader '
could go through this large volume with pleasure. That is a great deal to say of a book on
such a subject. Light.
"
This striking work will certainly be read not only with the greatest interest in the
select circle of the cultured, but by that much larger circle of those longing to learn all about
Truth May be summed up as an extraordinarily clear exposition of the Gnosig
of the Saints and the Sages of philosophic Christianity." The Roman Herald.
"
Mr. Mead does us another piece of service by including a complete copy of the Gnostic
Hymn of the Robe of Glory and a handy epitome of the Pistis Sophia is another
. . .
item for which the student will be grateful." The Literary Guide.
"
The author has naturally the interest of a theosophist in Gnosticism, and approaches
the subject accordingly from a point of view different from our own. But while his point
of view emerges in the course of the volume, this does not affect the value of his work for
those who do not share his special standpoint Mr. Mead has at any rate ren-
dered us an excellent service, and we shall look forward with pleasure to his future studies."
The Primitive Methodist Quarterly.
"
The writing of the present work has been a congenial task to Mr. Mead, and he has
brought to bear, lovingly and zealously, upon the portraiture of the figure of Christ and of
early Christianity all the knowledge which a deep study of Oriental religions from their
emotional side could furnish. The book is published by the Theosophical Publishing Society,
and bears, of course, the marks of its associations but it may be stated at the outset that
;
there is very little of what is commonly regarded as the Theosophic method apparent in the
work, which is the product of a scholarly though, withal, very devotional spirit
In his endeavour to realise the object which he has set himself, Mr. Mead has traversed a
wide field In fine, we have in his volume a bird's-eye view of the whole field
Justice was not done to the Gnostics by their opponents, and we cannot wonder. Moderns,
....
like Harnack, however, have tried to make amends, and Mr. Mead has done his best. We
commend this book to all who are tired of Christianity, and who want something deeper
than the Lord's Prayer, more sublime than Paul's hymn to Love, and more practical than
the Sermon on the Mount." The Christian World.
"
Mr. Mead is a sympathetic student, and regards the theosophists, of whom he is one,
' '
as the inheritors, more or less, of the Knowledge of the early Gnostics, who, while
anathematised as heretics, powerfully influenced the thought of the Christian Church in
its earlier centuries. Mr. Mead is as far removed from the received orthodoxy as the men
whose speculations he discusses." The Manchester Guardian.
"
L'opera, cui 1'autore da modestamenti il nome di Brevi studi, e invero il frutto di dotte
e pazientissime ricerche, di vasta e profunda erudizione ; e d'interesse grande per il soggetto
che tratta ed e accessibile anche a chl non sia uno studioso di religione comparata od un
teologo, per la maniera abile e piacevole con cui il 'sogetto e trattato. L'autore stesso spiega
perch e voile cosi 1'opera sua con queste parole poiche io stimo tal sogetto di profundo
:
GERMAN TRANSLATION.
FRAGMENTE EINES VERSCHOLLENEN GLAUBENS. Ins Deutsche ubersetzt von A. von
Ulrich. Berlin : C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn.
This is the First Attempt that has been made to bring together All the Existing Sources of
Information on the Earliest Christian Philosophers.
Apollonius of Tyana :
A critical Study of the only existing Record of his Life, with some Account of the War of
Opinion concerning him, and an Introduction on the Religious Associations and Brother-
hoods of the Times and the possible Influence of Indian Thought on Greece.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
Introductory, ii. The Religious Associations and Communities of the First Century,
i.
Mr. Mead's work is careful, scholarly, and critical, yet deeply sympathetic with those
spiritual ideals of life which are far greater than all the creeds Will be found
very useful to English readers." Bradford Observer.
"
With much that Mr. Mead says about Apollonius we are entirely disposed to agree."
Spectator.
a readable and well-studied account of him, reviewing what little remains known of his life,
and inquiring, without controversy, what must have been the character of one who had so
real an influence on the religious life of his time .....
The book is rich in sugges-
tions of the actualities of the religious life of the ancient world when Christianity was still
in its infancy. It is well worthy of the attention of all who are interested in the subject."
The Scotsman.
"
This little book is an attempt to tell us all that is definitely known of one of the most
extraordinary figures in history. It is done in the main with absolute impartiality,
. . .
and with considerable learning. It is not a satisfactory book, but it is useful and interesting,
and, in default of anything better, it may be recommended." Saturday Review.
"
The task Mr. Mead has set himself is to recover from Philostratus' highly romantic
narrative the few facts which can be really known, and to present to the public a plain and
simple story which shall accord with the plain and simple life of the humble Tyanean and ;
he has achieved no little success. His book is thoroughly readable, the manner of writing
most attractive, and his enthusiasm evidently sincere .....
Mr. Mead's last work is
a thoroughly scholarly one, and he has contributed a very valuable page to philosophical
history." Chatham and Rochester Observer.
"
Mr. Mead's works are always worth reading. They are characterised by clearness,
sanity, and moderation they are scholarly, and are always conceived in a profoundly
;
religious spirit. The bibliographies are excellent. With Mr. Mead's workmanship we have
only one fault to find. In order to give elevation to the utterances of his hero, he not only
affects poetical expressions which is permissible and poetical inversions of speech which
are not permissible but he indulges hi a whole page of irregular blank verse. Mr. Mead is
master of an excellent prose style, and Pegasus is a sorry hack when Pegasus goes lame."
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
"
This well-written volume affords a critical study of the only existing record of the
lifeof Apollonius of Tyana .....
His principles, his mode of teaching, his travels in
the east and in the south and west, his mode of life, his sayings, letters, and writings and
bibliographical notes, are all set forth in a clear and interesting style." Asiatic Quarterly
Review.
"
Verfasser will auf Grund der philostratischen Biographic ein Bild vom Leben und
Wirken des Apollonius geben. Es fehlt ihm dazu nich an besonnenen Urteil, eben so wenig
an der ndtigen Belesenheit in der einschlagigen Litteratur Verf halt sich auch, ..... .
obwohl offenbar selbst Theologe, frei von der theologischen Voreingenommenheit, die bei
der Beurteilung des Apollonius so frtih und so lange Unheil gestiftet hat." Wochenschrift
fur klassische Philologie.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
Preamble A Glimpse at the History of the Evolution of Biblical Criti-
cism The
"
Word of God " and the " Lower Criticism " The Nature of
the Tradition of the Gospel Autographs Autobiographical Traces in the
Existing Documents An Examination of the Earliest Outer Evidence
The Present Position of the Synoptical Problem The Credibility of the
Synoptists The Johannine Problem Summary of the Evidence from all
Sources The Life-side of Christianity The Gospel of the Living Christ.
200 pp. Large octavo. Cloth, 4s. 6d. net.
isnot altogether what one would wish the Conservatives were, after all, fighting for what
they held to be very precious but it is substantially true." Spectator.
" '
Mr. Mead describes his book as a study in the most recent results of the higher and
the lower criticism.' The description is incomplete rather than inadequate, for the study
is made from a neo-Gnostic point of view, and under neo-Gnqstic prepossessions. . . .
Mr. Mead has shown, in previous volumes, how the fascinating glamour of their writings
has attracted him, and, though they are mainly represented by imperfect but suggestive
fragments, he has done his best to reconstruct them and to revive, where possible, their lin-
gering vitality. His work, on these lines, has met with due appreciation He
regards Gnosticism as a suppressed religion which may yet result in an all-embracing creed,
which will combine and focus the scattered rays now dispersed abroad among divergent
faiths." Sheffield Daily Telegraph.
"
In his modest preamble the author describes himself as neither scientist nor theologian,
but as a friendly spectator, who, as a devoted lover of both science and religion, has no
'
partisan interest to serve, and, as a believer in the blessings of that true tolerance which per-
mits perfect liberty in all matters of opinion and belief, has no desire to dictate to others
what their decision should be on any one of the many controversial points touched upon.'
Further on he strongly advises the disturbed reader, who fears to plunge deeper into
' ' '
the free waters of criticism,' to leave the matter alone, and content himself with the creed*
'
and cults of the churches.' We, therefore, cannot complain if in the sequel he puts forth ' '
conclusions widely different from those generally held, even in this advanced age, by the
average thoughtful student. He claims to treat the subject without fear or favour,' and,
'
but he finds in the popular Evangelical doctrine of the living Christ an adumbration of the
ancient wisdom of the condemned Gnostics. But the Christ of Mr. Mead's teaching is one
of a sacred brotherhood, including Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, and other great enlighteners
of the race. These are all living spiritual energies, inspiring and guiding mankind in its toil-
some quest for truth and righteousness. Readers will find in Mr. Mead's thoughtful and
scholarly pages much that will help in that rational and spiritual reconstruction which ia
the great religious task of the hour." Yorkshire Daily Observer.
"'O l^,/9pj0rj EpsuvnTrK TWV o-p^wv TOW ppicrriavta-/u,o'j x. Gr. E. S. Mead s^n/utoo-i-
iva-tv
o-pri /xsXjTflv Trspl rrn; x^arTi&viwg QiXoaoQioK; l^a^uc, ^'axr*x>iy. . . . 'O
x. Mead flvs si? TWV xofvQaiuv (rxaTravEwv r5c spEuvrmxr/? Taurn<; Epya<r*ac xal
9rav o , T ypa^Si xpiva* ioiaovo-j 7rpoa-o%ri<; atov. . . .
'EjawvECjutsvo? t>7ro
tianity, and their uniqueness lies in the fact that very few writers ever enter the fields where
Mr. Mead works with such praiseworthy diligence. The ordinary reader trusts too implicitly,
in these matters, to his Geikie and his Farrar, and even the student who has the dash of the
heretic in him is too easily contented with his Renan. For both these classes of readers Mr.
Mead's chapters will open up new fields of thought. The reader will find himself in the midst
of those fierce fanaticisms, and weird, occult theosophies which were part of the atmosphere
in which infant Christianity grew. Without an adequate acquaintance with these, Christian
origins cannot be understood. This knowledge Mr. Mead's readers will obtain if they follow
him closely, and their view of the beginnings of Christianity will be correspondingly full and
true." The Yorkshire Daily Observer.
"
Mr. Mead's previous wanderings in historic by-ways have resulted in much curious
lore associated with Gnosticism and the Neo-Platonists, and he seems to have been
attracted to this adjacent field as one likely to contain hidden treasure For
those who desire an introduction to this branch of literature, Mr. Mead has made it easily
accessible." The Sheffield Daily Telegraph.
"
Written by a professed theosophist, this work is yet entirely free from the taint of
dogmatism of any kind. It is indeed a valuable contribution to the literature on the subject,
which is as abundant as it is chaotic. The author has collected and reviewed this mass, and
has summarised and criticised it until he has shaped it into something of a coherent whole.
The Rabbinical and other Hebrew legendary and historical matter dealing with the reputed
origin and life of the Messiah is carefully sifted, and the subject is approached with befitting
reverence That the book is most valuable from a suggestive point of view
cannot be denied. It merits the attention of all interested in Christian criticism." The
Scotsman.
and preserves a philosophical calm thought." The Chatham and Rochester Observer.
"
The author of this learned work is not propounding a mere theological riddle, nor can
he be said to be coming forward wantonly merely to increase the number of puzzles that
confront the student of Christian origins The author has been a very diligent
student of the Talmud, and perhaps his lengthened account of that extraordinary body of
traditions is one of the best in our language The argument throughout is marked
by great erudition and remarkable modesty." The Glasgow Herald.
"
The question is not a fool's question. It is serious, and Mr. Mead takes it seriously."
The Expository Times.
"
Mr. Mead has done much first-rate work, on untraditional lines, in early Church his-
tory, and has propounded theorems of which a good deal more will be heard. He always
writes as a scholar, with complete avoidance of infelicities of theological utterance such as
too often have handicapped suggestive heterodoxies." The Literary World.
"
The materials for the further pursuit of the inquiry are all brought together in this
volume, and the author is at very evident pains to hold the balance carefully as between
the different authorities whom he quotes. He has read everything of any importance that
has been published relating to the subject of which he treats. He is evidently a very widely
read man, and is possessed of much critical acumen, as also of all the best qualifications of
historical inquiry and original research. The work will, we doubt not, be largely read by
Christian theologians." The Asiatic Quarterly Review.
"
This is the fifth book by Mr. Mead that we have had the pleasure of bringing before
our readers. In our notices of his earlier volumes we have been glad to recognise, whether
we agreed with him or not, the learning, the earnestness, the scientific method, and the deep
religious spirit by which they have been animated. The title of the present volume will,
we anticipate, cause many readers to regard it as a piece of cranky speculation. . . .
Mr. Mead has brought out not simply an interesting but a valuable work, even apart from
the special thesis which he investigates." The Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review.
"
I would direct the attention of educated scholarly men to a very remarkable book
. . written by G. R. S. Mead
. . I invite our educated and serious-
minded Protestanb clergymen everywhere to read this book and tell me, privately, what
they think about it." Standish O' Grady, in The All Ireland Review.
"
A much more remarkable collection of apocrypha is the subject of a curious book by
Mr. Mead, known to the small public who are interested in such things as learned in the fan-
tasies of Gnosticism We have not often read a learned book from which we
dissent so widely with more genuine interest, and we are bound to recognise the dignified
and scholarly fashion in which Mr. Mead puts forward his theses, strange and Impossible as
some of them seem to us to be. The Pilot.
documents we possess, and Mr. Mead deserves the gratitude of students of Church History
and of the History of Christian Thought, for his admirable translation and edition of this
curious Gospel." Glasgow Herald.
"
Mr. Mead has done a
service to other than Theosophists by his translation of the,
'
This curious work has not till lately received the attention which it deserves.
Pistis Sophia.'
.... He
has prefixed a short Introduction, which includes an excellent bibliography.
Thus, the English reader is now in a position to judge for himself of the scientific value of
the only Gnostic treatise of any considerable length which has come down to us." Guardian.
"
From a scholar's point of view the work is of value as illustrating the philosophico-
mystical tendencies of the second century." Record.
"
Mr. Mead deserves thanks for putting in an English dress this curious document from
the early ages of Christian philosophy." Manchester Guardian.
PLOTINUS.
With Bibliography. Octavo. Cloth, Is. net.
VOLUME I.
VOLUME II.
FRENCH TRANSLATION.
LA THEOSOPHIE DES VEDAS: NEUF UPANISHADS.
Traduction fran9aise, de E. Marcault. Paris : Librairie de 1'Art Independant,
10 rue Saint-Lazare.
Orpheus.
With three Charts and Bibliography. Will serve as an Introduction
to Hellenic Theology. Octavo. Cloth, 4s. 6d. net. (Out of
print. )
1598
HGT5
1906
V.3
C.I
ROBA
~\