Hellenic · Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II · 19 of 21
The Encomium of Kings (Part 3)
Arrested from the senses which I had before, . . . . 2; for [now] I see thy Greatness identical with thy distinctive form.
Her. Even in this thou art untrue 3; the mortal form doth change with every day. ’Tis turned by time to growth and waning, as being an untrue thing. 4
6. Tat. What then is true, Thrice-greatest One?
Her. That which is never troubled, son, which cannot be defined; that which no colour hath, nor any figure, which is not turned, which hath no garment, which giveth light; that which is comprehensible unto itself [alone], which doth not suffer change; that which no body can contain. 1
Tat. In very truth I lose my reason, father. Just when I thought to be made wise by thee, I find the senses of this mind of mine blocked up.
Her. Thus is it, son: That which is upward borne like fire, yet is borne down like earth, that which is moist like water, yet blows like air, 2 how shalt thou this perceive with sense—the that which is not solid nor yet moist, which naught can bind or loose, of which in power and energy alone can man have any notion,—and even then it wants a man who can 3 perceive the Way of Birth in God 4?
7. Tat. I am incapable of this, O father, then?
Her. Nay, God forbid, my son! Withdraw into thyself, and it will come; will, and it comes to pass; throw out of work the body’s senses, and thy Divinity shall come to birth; purge from thyself the brutish torments—things of matter.
Tat. I have tormentors then in me, O father?
Her. Ay, no few, my son; nay, fearful ones and manifold.
Tat. I do not know them, father.
Her. Torment the first is this Not-knowing, 1 son; the second one is Grief; the third, Intemperance; the fourth, Concupiscence; the fifth, Unrighteousness; the sixth is Avarice; the seventh, Error 2; the eighth is Envy; the ninth, Guile 3; the tenth is Anger; eleventh, Rashness; the twelfth is Malice.
These are in number twelve; but under them are many more, my son; and creeping through the prison of the body 4 they force the man that’s placed within 5 to suffer in his senses. But they depart (although not all at once) from him who hath been taken pity on by God 6; and this it is which constitutes the manner of Rebirth. And . . . . 7 the Reason (Logos).
8. And now, my son, be still and solemn silence keep! Thus shall the mercy that flows on us from God not cease.
Henceforth rejoice, O son, for by the Powers of God thou art being purified for the articulation of the Reason (Logos).
Gnosis of God hath come to us, and when this comes, my son, Not-knowing is cast out.
Gnosis of Joy hath come to us, and on its coming, son, Sorrow will flee away to them who give it room. The Power that follows Joy do I invoke, thy Self-control. O Power most sweet! Let us most gladly bid it welcome, son! How with its coming doth it chase Intemperance away!
9. Now fourth, on Continence I call, the Power against Desire. . . . . 1 This step, my son, is Righteousness’ firm seat. For without judgment 2 see how she hath chased Unrighteousness away. We are made righteous, son, by the departure of Unrighteousness.
Power sixth I call to us,—that against Avarice, Sharing-with-all. 3
And now that Avarice is gone, I call on Truth. And Error flees, and Truth is with us.
See how [the measure of] the Good is full, my
son, upon Truth’s coming. For Envy hath gone from us; and unto Truth is joined the Good as well, with Life and Light.
And now no more doth any torment of the Darkness venture nigh, but vanquished [all] have fled with whirring wings.
10. Thou knowest [now], my son, the manner of Rebirth. And when the Ten is come, my son, that driveth out the Twelve, the Birth in understanding 1 is complete, and by this Birth we are made into Gods.
Who then doth by His mercy gain this Birth in God, abandoning the body’s senses, knows himself [to be of Light and Life 2] and that he doth consist of these, and [thus] is filled with Bliss.
11. Tat. By God made steadfast, father, no longer with the sight my eyes afford I look on things, but with the energy the Mind doth give me through the Powers. 3
In heaven am I, in earth, in water, air; I am in animals, in plants; I’m in the womb, before the womb, after the womb; I’m everywhere!
But further tell me this: How are the torments of the Darkness, when they are twelve in number, driven out by the ten Powers? What is the way of it, Thrice-greatest one?
12. Her. This dwelling-place 1 through which we have just passed, my son, is constituted from the circle of the types-of-life, this being composed of elements, twelve in number, but of one nature, an omniform 2 idea. For man’s delusion there are disunions 3 in them, son, while in their action they are one. Not only can we never part Rashness from Wrath; they cannot even be distinguished.
According to right reason (logos), then, they 4 naturally withdraw once and for all, in as much as they are chased out by no less than ten powers, that is, the Ten.
For, son, the Ten is that which giveth birth to souls. And Life and Light are unified there, where the One hath being from the Spirit. According then to reason (logos) the One contains the Ten, the Ten the One.
13. Tat. Father, I see the All, I see myself in Mind.
Her. This is, my son, Rebirth—no more to look on things from body’s view-point (a thing three ways in space extended), 5 . . . 6 though this Sermon (Logos) on Rebirth, on which I did not
comment 1;—in order that we may not be calumniators 2 of the All unto the multitude, to whom indeed the God Himself doth will we should not.
14. Tat. Tell me, O father: This Body which is made up of the Powers, is it at any time dissolved?
Her. Hush, [son]! Speak not of things impossible, else wilt thou sin and thy Mind’s eye be quenched.
The natural body which our sense perceives is far removed from this essential birth.
The first must be dissolved, the last can never be; the first must die, the last death cannot touch.
Dost thou not know thou hast been born a God, Son of the One, even as I myself?
15. Tat. I would, O father, hear the Praise-giving with hymn which thou didst say thou heardest then when thou wert at the Eight [the Ogdoad] of Powers.
Her. Just as the Shepherd did foretell [I should], my son, [when I came to] the Eight. 3
Well dost thou haste to “strike thy tent,” 4 for thou hast been made pure.
The Shepherd, Mind of all masterhood, 1 hath not passed on to me more than hath been writ down, for full well did He know that I should of myself be able to learn all, and hear what I should wish, and see all things.
He left to me the making of fair things 2; wherefore the Powers within me, e’en as they are in all, 3 break into song.
16. Tat. Father, I wish to hear; I long to know these things.
Her. Be still, my son; hear the Praise-giving now that keeps [the soul] in tune, Hymn of Re-birth—a hymn I would not have thought fit so readily to tell, had’st thou not reached the end of all.
Wherefore this is not taught, but is kept hid in silence.
Thus then, my son, stand in a place uncovered to the sky, facing the southern wind, 4 about the sinking of the setting sun, and make thy worship; so in like manner too when he doth rise, with face to the east wind.
Now, son, be still!
THE SECRET HYMNODY
17. Let every nature of the World receive the utterance of my hymn!
Open thou Earth! Let every bolt of the Abyss be drawn for me. Stir not, ye Trees!
I am about to hymn creation’s Lord, both All and One.
Ye Heavens open, and ye Winds stay still; [and] let God’s deathless Sphere receive my word (logos)!
For I will sing the praise of Him who founded all; who fixed the Earth, and hung up Heaven, and gave command that Ocean should afford sweet water [to the Earth], to both those parts that are inhabited and those that are not, for the support and use of every man; who made the Fire to shine for gods and men for every act.
Let us together all give praise to Him, sublime above the Heavens, of every nature Lord!
’Tis He who is the Eye of Mind; may He accept the praise of these my Powers!
18. Ye Powers that are within me, hymn the One and All; sing with my Will, Powers all that are within me!
O blessed Gnosis, by thee illumined, hymning through thee the Light that mind alone can see, 1 I joy in Joy of Mind.
Sing with me praises all ye Powers!
Sing praise, my Self-control; sing thou through me, my Righteousness, the praises of the Righteous; sing thou, my Sharing-all, the praises of the All; through me sing, Truth, Truth’s praises!
Sing thou, O Good, the Good! O Life and Light, from us to you our praises flow!
Father, I give Thee thanks, to Thee Thou Energy of all my Powers; I give Thee thanks, O God, Thou Power of all my Energies!
19. Thy Reason (Logos) sings through me Thy praises. Take back through me the All into [Thy] Reason—[my] reasonable oblation 1!
Thus cry the Powers in me. They sing Thy praise, Thou All; they do Thy Will.
From Thee Thy Will 2; to Thee the All. Receive from all their reasonable oblation. The All that is in us, O Life, preserve; O Light illumine it; O God in-spirit it. 3
It is Thy Mind that plays the Shepherd 4 to Thy Word, 5 O Thou Creator, Bestower of the Spirit [upon all]. 6
20. [For] Thou art God; Thy Man 1 thus cries to Thee through Fire, through Air, through Earth, through Water, [and] through Spirit, through Thy creatures.
’Tis from Thy Æon I have found Praise-giving; and in Thy Will, 2 the object of my search, have I found rest.
Tat. By thy good pleasure 3 have I seen this Praise-giving being sung, 4 O father; I have set it in my Cosmos too.
Her. Say in the Cosmos that thy mind alone can see, my son.
Tat. Yea, father, in the Cosmos that the mind alone can see; for I have been made able by thy Hymn, and by thy Praise-giving my mind hath been illumined. But further I myself as well would from my natural mind send praise-giving to God.
21. Her. But not unheedfully, my son.
Tat. Ay. What I behold in mind, that do I say.
To thee, thou Parent of my Bringing into Birth, as unto God I, Tat, send reasonable offerings. 5 O God and Father, thou art the Lord, thou art the Mind. Receive from me oblations
reasonable as thou would’st wish; for by thy Will all things have been perfected.
Her. Send thou oblation, son, acceptable to God, the Sire of all; but add, my son, too, “through the Word” (Logos).
Tat. I give thee, father, thanks for showing me to sing such hymns.
22. Her. Happy am I, my son, that thou hast brought the good fruits forth of Truth, products that cannot die.
And now that thou hast learnt this lesson from me, make promise to keep silence 1 on thy virtue, and to no soul, my son, make known the handing on to thee the manner of Rebirth, that we may not be thought to be calumniators. 2
And now we both of us have given heed sufficiently, both I the speaker and the hearer thou.
In Mind 3 hast thou become a Knower of thyself and of our [common] Sire.
Footnotes
219:1 ἐν τοῖς γενικοῖς. Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 1 and 7.
219:2 παλιγγενεσία.
219:3 Reading ἐπὶ τῆς τοῦ ὄρους μεταβάσεως with P., and not κατα-βάσεως with R. Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 15; Jamb., D. M., viii. 6.
220:1 κόσμου.
220:2 Reading ἀπηλλοτρίωσα with the majority of the editors, and not the ἀπήδρισα of R.
220:3 τὰ ὑστερήματα ἀναπλήρωσον.
220:4 παραδοῦναι, the word used for the giving of this lesson or inner instruction is the technical term for the “handing on” of a doctrine or being initiated into it.
220:5 R.’s reading would make this refer to Hermes: “I know not from what womb thou com’st to birth.” But the whole instruction seems to favour the usually accepted reading.
220:6 σοφία νοερά.
220:7 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 5.
221:1 τῆς ἐν ἐμοὶ οὐσίας τῆς νοητῆς.
221:2 Cf. Ex. i. 3.
221:3 ἄπλαστον, that is to say, not made up, non-fictitious, not compounded; that is, simple—the opposite of compounded.
221:4 Cf. below, § 7: the man “who hath been taken pity on by God”; and also §10.
221:5 πλαστόν.
222:1 γενεσιουργός.
222:2 A lacuna unfortunately follows.
222:3 ψεύδῃ.
222:4 ὡς ψεῦδος.
223:1 Cf. P. S. A., xxxi..3.
223:2 Cf. C. H., iv. (v.) 1.
223:3 Retaining the reading δεόμενου δὲ τοῦ δυναμένου.
223:4 τὴν ἐν θεῷ γένεσιν—cf. § 10.
224:1 ἄγνοια.
224:2 ἀπάτη.
224:3 δόλος.
224:4 Cf. C. H., xvi. 15.
224:5 ἐνδιάθετον.
224:6 Cf. above, § 3: “brought to birth out of God’s mercy”; and also § 10.
224:7 A lacuna in the text.
225:1 Something has here evidently fallen out in the text.
225:2 χωρὶς κρίσεως. If, however, we must read κτίσεως with the majority of the editors, I cannot understand the various translations. Everard gives “without labour”; Parthey, “nulla contentione”; Ménard, “sans combat”; Chambers, “without contention.” I would, therefore, render it: “See how she hath chased out Unrighteousness without a home”; for it seems to me that in χωρὶς κτίσεως we have the exact antithesis of ἕδρασμα. Righteousness has here her firm seat or abode, and Unrighteousness is thus naturally without a home.
225:3 κοινωνίαν.
226:1 νοερὰ γένεσις, lit., intellectual birth.
226:2 Completed from C. H., i. 22.
226:3 τῇ διὰ δινάμεων νοητικῇ ἐνεργείᾳ.
227:1 σκῆνος,—tent or tabernacle of the human soul. Cf. below, § 15.
227:2 Cf. commentary on C. H., xi. (xii.) 16.
227:3 διαζυγαὶ—the opposite of συζυγίαι.
227:4 That is, the Twelve.
227:5 As opposed to some other dimension, presumably.
227:6 Some words are evidently missing.
228:1 See § 1.
228:2 διάβολοι, compare § 22. The lacuna probably contained some reference to keeping silence.
228:3 Cf. C. H., i. 26.
228:4 λῦσαι τὸ σκῆνος. Cf. above, § 12. The meaning is generally to free oneself from the trammels of the body. Compare the Pythian Oracle concerning Plotinus: “But now since thou hast struck thy tent and left the tomb of thy daimonic soul” (νῦν δ᾽ ὅτε δὴ σκῆνος μέν ἐλύσαο, σῆμα δ᾽ ἔλειψας ψυχῆς δαιμονίς). Porphyry, Plotini Vita, xxii.; cf. Ex. vii. 3; Ex. iii. 1.
229:1 Cf. C. H., i. 2.
229:2 Sc. psalms and praise-giving.
229:3 Sc. prophets.
229:4 Also used of the south-west quarter. The “south wind” is thought to have extended from SSE. to W.
230:1 τὸ νοητὸν φῶς.
231:1 Cf. below, 21.
231:2 Cf. P. S. A., Comment, and R. 39, n. 1.
231:3 The Spirit being Light and Life.
231:4 ποιμαίνει, acts as a shepherd or feeds; Pœmandres is thus the Shepherd of men or the feeder of men, He who gives them the heavenly food.
231:5 The Word or Reason or true Man in man.
231:6 πνευματοφόρε δημιουργέ.
232:1 Cf. C. H., i. 32.
232:2 βουλή.
232:3 θέλημα.
232:4 Cf., for instance, The Ascension of Isaiah, i. 6: “In the twentieth year of the reign of Hezekiah, Isaiah had seen the words of this prophecy.”—Charles’ Trans. (London, 1900), p. 5.
232:5 Cf. above, § 18.
233:1 Cf. P. S. A., xxxii. 4.
233:2 διάβολοι, slanderers, calumniators; compare § 13; also Ex. i. 16.
233:3 νοερῶς.
Gnosticism and Hermetica
COMMENTARY
CONCERNING THE TITLE
“The Secret Sermon on the Mountain” is the main title given in all the MSS., with the exception of A; the subsidiary contents-title is evidently derived from the same edition to which we owe the other contents-titles preserved in our Corpus. Reitzenstein (p. 193), however, thinks that the main title has arisen by mistake. What the mistake is he does not tell us; perhaps he means that in our Sermon there is no mention of “On a Mountain,” but rather, as in § 1, if we accept his reading, of “Down a Mountain.” But in this we cannot follow him; for the whole teaching is precisely “On the Mount”—to the top of which Tat has now come. For the “Mountain” was symbolic of stages of inner development, and in § 9 we are told precisely: “This step (the fifth) is Righteousness’ firm seat,”—showing that the Mountain was conceived as an ascent or stair of steps as is so often seen in Egyptian frescoes.
THE TERM APOCRYPHON
Again, with regard to the title, the term “Secret” (ἀπόκρυφος—apocryphal) is used in its original sense of hidden away, meaning esoteric or not put into circulation, as applied to a logos or sermon, or a collection of logoi or sayings.
A logos in this sense had very much the same meaning for our Ancients as the Sanskrit mahā-vākyam (“great saying”) has to-day for an Indian theosophist who applies the term to the great mystical utterances of the Upaniṣhads; such as: “That art thou” (Tat tvam asi), etc.
In classical antiquity these logoi or logia were
regarded as words of wisdom, and were the most sacred legacies of the sages to humanity. These oracular utterances were frequently collected together, and even prior to the days of syncretism formed the most sacred “deposits” (διαθῆκαι) of various nations; the same term being subsequently given to the Christian Bible.
Thus Herodotus calls Onomacritus, the first collector of the archaic Orphic Hymns, a “depository of oracles” (διαθέτην χρησμῶν),—the word carrying the meaning of “one who arranges,” corresponding exactly to the term Vyāsa in Sanskrit, the supposed “author” of the Mahābhārata.
Such collections of logoi or logia were then generally called “deposits,” the word also sometimes bearing the meaning of “testaments” as containing the expression of the Divine will or dispensation. The same term is used by Strabo (x. 482) of the Laws of Lycurgus; it was also applied by the Orphics and Pythagoreans to such sacred laws 1; while Ecclesiastical writers subsequently used it in reference to the Canonical Books. 2
The Orphics and Pythagoreans also called these collections “sacred utterances” (ἱεροὶ λόγοι); and even Clement of Alexandria refers to such a saying of Orpheus as “that truly sacred utterance” (τὸν ὄντως ἱερὸν λόγον).
That such collections were kept secret is not surprising; indeed, such must have been the case from time immemorial. But even on the ground of purely Greek and Roman history, we are not without information of collections of oracles carefully guarded as the secret scriptures or bibles of nations.
Cicero 3 speaks of such a bible of the Veii. The Athenians, in the time of the Kings, possessed a similar
bible of logia 1; and Dinarchus 2 tells us that the safety of the State depended on this secret scripture (ἀπορρήτους διαθῆκας) These occult sayings (ἀπόθεντα ἔπη) are further called by Suidas (s.v.) “withdrawn volumes” (βιβλία ἀνακεχωρηκότα)—that is to say, books withdrawn from public perusal, or, in other words, apocryphal, hidden or secret (ἀπόκρυφα).
And not only was this the case with the ancient writings themselves, but also with the commentaries upon them, and by degrees with everything referring to them, until finally we find Themistius the rhetorician, in the fourth century, speaking of that “mass of Archaic wisdom not open to the public or in general circulation, but scarce and occult.” 3
We have, therefore, translated the term by “secret” as conveying the proper meaning of the epithet in the title, and not by “apocryphal,” a word that nowadays connotes the judgment of a theological canon.
THE THREE STAGES OF PROBATION
1. In the first paragraph Tat definitely refers to three Stages of Probation, before he is deemed fit to hear the Sermon on Rebirth.
(i) First there is the General or Preliminary Instruction contained in a collection of discourses called the General Sermons (Γενικοὶ Λόγοι).
(ii) Next is the Stage where Tat becomes the Suppliant of Hermes, a stage characterized by Conversation or Dialogue (διαλεχθῆναι); that is to say, Tat was allowed to ask questions. This is further
symbolically described by a phrase, ἐπὶ τῆς τοῦ ὄρους μεταβάσεως, which is difficult to translate, but which seems to mean either Passing up, or Wending up, the Mountain, or Wending over the Mountain. That is to say, that Hermes was gradually leading Tat to the top of the Mountain, in plain words, as far as his normal intellect could carry him; the Top of the Mountain representing the highest point of unaided mental faculty.
This stage was, I believe, represented by the collection of Sermons to Tat, or Dialogues with Tat, known as the Διεξοδικοὶ Λόγοι—a term somewhat difficult to translate precisely.
The fundamental meaning of διέξοδος is a “way through and out,” a “pathway” or “passage,” or “means of escape.” It thus comes to mean the course of a narrative, or a detailed narrative, exposition, discussion. Hence also a “passage” of Scripture. As set over against γενικὸς (General), therefore, διεξοδικὸς would mean Detailed or Expository; but at the same time it would to the Greek ear suggest the meaning of the Means of Escape or the Way out of Ignorance.
(iii) The third Stage is that of Moral and Mental Purification. “Wherefore I got me ready and made the thought (τὸ φρόνημα) in me a stranger to the world-illusion” (τῆς τοῦ κόσμου ἀπάτης)—the Error that in § 7 sums up the first six vices, and is in § 9 driven out by Truth.
Stage ii. may have been technically known as that of the Suppliant, though, of course, of this we cannot be sure. In any case the term must be considered in close connection with Philo’s treatise On the Contemplative Life, which, as Conybeare tells us, most probably formed Book IV. of Philo’s voluminous work, or rather apology, De Legatione. The alternative title of this
work was The Suppliants. By “Suppliant” Philo tells us he means “one who has fled to God and taken refuge with Him.” 1
Here, however, the term is used in a narrower sense, as adapted to the personal relationship of disciple to master, who, during the time of probation, stands to him as the representative of God. The master is his spiritual father, the image of God the Father. 2
THE HOLY MOUNT OF INITIATION
As to the symbolic use of the term Mountain, I need hardly remind my readers that it was perhaps the most common figure employed in the apocalypses of the time. Instances come immediately crowding into the mind, such as the “Mount of Galilee” in the Askew and Bruce Gnostic Codices, on which all the great initiations and rites are performed by the Risen Lord; or the Mount Tabor 3 of The Gospel according to the Hebrews, “My Mother the Holy Spirit took me by one of the hairs of the head and carried me unto Mount Tabor”; or in the Acts of John, where the Vision of the Spiritual Crucifixion is shown to John on the Mount; or in The Gospel of Eve, where the Vision of the Great and Little Man is seen on the Mount; or in The Shepherd of Hermas, where the Angel of Repentance bears off Hermas to the Mount of Arcadia, etc. In every case the Mountain is no physical mountain, but the height of contemplation, an interior state of spiritual consciousness.
Stage iii., again, is of interest because of the terms in
which it is described; they may be compared with the same teaching in the Behnesa logos:
Jesus saith: “Except ye fast to the world, ye shall in nowise find the Kingdom of God.”
Again, in Tat’s prayer for the consummation of his probation: “And now do thou fill up the things that fall short in me” (τὰ ὑστερήματα ἀναπλήρωσον), it should be noticed that we have the well-known technical terms of the Christianized Gnosis, the Plērōma and Hysterēma, or Fullness and Insufficiency.
THE BIRTH FROM ABOVE
The time has come for Tat to receive, through his master, the touch of the true Mind-consciousness, the Christ is to be born in his heart, the light of the Plērōma is to shine into his inmost being. It is to be a New Birth, a Regeneration (παλιγγένεσις), or Re-birth (ἀναγέννησις), in the sense of being born from Above (ἄνωθεν).
Compare John iii. 3: “Amen, Amen, I say unto thee; Except a man be born from Above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” And also 7: “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye (pl.) must be born from Above,”—where the comment on a prior saying, “Ye must be born from Above,” formally unsuited to the scheme of a dialogue between Jeschu and Rabbi Nakdimon, reveals the work of the Haggadist.
So also in 1 Pet. i. 22, 23: “Having made your souls holy by hearkening to the Truth 1 . . . being Re-born (ἀναγεγεννημένοι) not from the seed of destruction, but from the Seed that cannot be destroyed, through the Word 2 (Logos) of God, who lives and endures.” 3
These passages from the New Testament Scriptures are not, of course, cited to show any dependence of our Hermetic authors on the New Testament writers; but simply to show how they mutually explain one another. For indeed the doctrine of the New Birth and of the Sacred Marriage was beyond all else the crowning mystery of the Spiritual Way for all the mystic schools of the time. 1
THE VIRGIN BIRTH
2. The secret that Tat would learn is the Mystery of the Birth from the Virgin Womb—the Birth of Man, the Great Mystery of Regeneration. Many illustrations of the meaning of this pivot-doctrine of the Christian teaching might be quoted from Gnostic writings, but it will be sufficient to remind the reader of what the Jewish Commentator in the Naassene Document (§ 28) has written in contrasting the Great Mysteries (or the heavenly ones) with the Little Mysteries (those of fleshly generation). Speaking of the Mysteries of Regeneration, he writes:
“For this is the Gate of Heaven, and this is the House of God, where the Good God dwells alone; into which no impure [man] shall come, but it is kept under guard for the spiritual alone,—where when they come, they must cast away their garments, and all become bridegrooms, obtaining their true manhood, through the Virginal Spirit. For this is the Virgin big with child, conceiving and bearing a Son.”
And to this the Christian Commentator adds:—“not psychic, not fleshly, but a blessed Æon of Æons.”
The Jewish Commentator uses the language of Philo, who, as we have shown, centred his ideas round the conception of the Sacred Marriage and the Virginal Spirit.
So, too, does our treatise. The Womb is Silence, the silence of contemplation, the image of the Great Silence the Mother of the Æons in many a Christianized Gnostic System; the Matter is Wisdom; the Æon’s coming to consciousness in man is the Birth of Man the Son of God; and the Seed is the Good or Logos sown by the Will of the Father. This is the Birth of the Christ in man, the Great Mystery that awaits us when we have made ourselves strangers to the world-illusion.
Is this Son then, asks Tat, other than God? No, answers Hermes; it is the Mystery of Sameness, not of Difference; it is the Plērōma, not the Insufficiency,—“All in all, out of all powers composed,” the Common Fruit of the Plērōma, as the Valentinians would have expressed it.
THE RACE OF THE LOGOS
It is a Race, not an individual; it is We and no longer I. 1 This is the Race of the Logos; the Self-taught Race of Philo; or, as Hermes says: “This Race, my son, is never taught, but when He willeth it, its memory is restored by God.”
This is the ἀνάμνησις of Pythagoras and Plato,—the regaining of the consciousness of the Divine State; it must be self-perceived. And so Philo tells us:
“But as for the Race of Devotees who are taught ever more and more to see, let them strive for the intuition of That-which-is; let them transcend the sun which men perceive [and gaze upon the Light beyond, the
[paragraph continues] True Sun or Logos], nor ever leave this rank which leads to Perfect Blessedness. Now they who betake themselves to the [Divine] Service, [do so] not because of any custom, or some one’s advice or appeal, but are carried away by Heavenly Love.” 1
They are of the Race of Elxai, the Hidden Power or Holy Spirit, the Spouse of Iexai, the Hidden Lord or Logos. 2
THE SELF-TAUGHT
3. Hermes cannot teach to Tat this Birth in words, even as Isis is not permitted to declare it openly to Horus (K. K., 36):
“I may not tell the story of this Birth; for it is not permitted to describe the origin of thy descent, O Horus, son of mighty power, lest afterward the Way-of-Birth of the immortal Gods should be known unto men”—that is, the Mystery of the Birth of Horus.
Hermes can only guide Tat towards the realisation of the Blessed Sight, by putting himself into that sublime state of consciousness, so that Tat, so to speak, bathes, or is baptized in, his master’s spiritual presence, the Cup of the Mind. This, as we have seen already from several treatises, was the way of transmission of the Power of the powers, the true Laying-on of Hands.
Hermes describes the change that takes place in himself when he passes into the higher spiritual consciousness. He seems to “pass through himself”—to “involve” himself, as it is said somewhere in the Mahābhārata of the Ṛiṣhis—“into a Body that can never die,” that is, into a, or rather the, Essential or Cosmic Body, 3 that embraces the cosmos within it. The
way to do this is not taught, for it cannot be understood from any sensible experience, the outer physical form of the adept remaining as it was before. It is an inner change. The Birth of a Christ is the striking of a new keynote; everything remains apparently as it was before, but all things receive a new interpretation.
No physical sight, even of the greatest intensity, can penetrate the Veil of this Mystery.
“Thou seest me with eyes, my son; but what I am thou dost not understand.”
With this compare the marvellous Ritual of Initiation in The Acts of John:
“Who I am thou shalt know when I depart. 1 What I am seen to be, that am I not; but what I am, thou shalt see when thou comest.” 2
None but those who have reached the Christ-state can know it; no teaching will avail to explain its manner and its mysteries. It must be realized.
THE NEW CREATION
4. But Tat, who has “made himself ready,” is becoming quickened by the power of his master. His spiritual senses are being born; already he is losing touch with the physical; he no longer sees himself. But this is not enough; he must not only be able to lose consciousness of his physical body, and see and hear as though with the mind alone, but he must “invert” himself, pass right through himself, and no longer see things as without him, but all things as within him.
All this is a New Creation to be accomplished in the man himself. The Author or Genesiurge of Re-birth, as
contrasted with the Maker or Demiurge of Birth, is the One Man, the Logos, the Energic Reason and Will of God; the one is the Creator of the Immortal Body, the other is the Maker of the mortal frame.
THE WAY OF BIRTH IN GOD
5. The reading of the next sentence is faulty, and it is impossible to extract the correct meaning. The “Greatness” (τὸ μέγεθος) and “distinctive form” (χαρακτήρ) are terms familiar enough to us in Christian Gnostic writings. 1 Greatness connotes the same idea as Æon; “character” or “distinctive form” or “rank” is generally the impression from a typical original, and here stands for the form by which a man is recognised.
6. Hermes then proceeds to describe the nature of this Greatness or Æon, or Sameness, manifested in difference. It is, alchemically speaking, the One Element, which can only be comprehended by one Born in God—that is, by a God.
7. The way of this Birth is then described as a de-energizing, or throwing out of work of the body’s senses, with a corresponding energizing of the One Sense, the Æonic Consciousness; or as a purging out of
the tendencies of the lower nature, and replacing them by the energies of the Divine Powers.
This is the Mystery of Repentance (μετανοῖα), not a change of mind only, but a change throughout the whole nature; all things in the man turn towards God.
The forces or energies of the soul have no direction in themselves; it is the will of man that can turn them “downwards” or “upwards,” so that they become vices or virtues.
OF THE TEN AND THE TWELVE
8., But not only does Hermes set forth a formal exposition of this Repentance in terms of the conquest and driving out of the Horde of Vices by the Company of Virtues, but at the same time he performs an efficacious theurgic rite of invocation whereby he enables Tat to realize the instruction in immediate experience.
The Virtues that Hermes invokes are not abstractions, but definite substantial powers; they are, in fact, the “filling up” of Tat’s “insufficiency”; in other words, they are what the Christian Gnostics would have called the Æons of the Plērōma.
Behind all there is a definite scheme of numbering. There is a Twelve and a Ten and a Seven and a Three and a One.
The Torments of the Darkness are the Twelve; they are not torments in themselves, but only for him who is in Error. They are Twelve yet are they one, for though they are “pantomorph” or “omniform,” yet are they of one nature; the Twelve are thus conditioned by the main irrational “types of life,” or animal natures,—the so-called zodiac.
These divisions are not, however, fundamental, they are solely for man’s delusion or error; in action they
are one—that is, they keep man in Error or Ignorance. Thus they can be regarded as one, or two, or three, or four, or six; and so combined and recombined.
Twelve, then, is the nature of the “animal soul” in man—the number of his going-forth into externality. This out-going is arrested when man repents, and turns himself to return, to go within; the cosmogonical is transformed by the soteriological; the “enformation according to substance” gives place to the “enformation according to gnosis.” As Ignorance characterized the Twelve, so does Gnosis characterize the Ten, the Perfect Number or Number of Perfection.
The Going-forth was that of the multiplication of species—Twelve (3 × 4 or 2 × 6); the Return is Ten, that is the Seven and the Three; and Seven is addition (3 + 4) and not multiplication.
Multiplication seems here to mean the generation, by two parents, of things of the same kind and power; while addition signifies the intensification of the same nature to a higher power.
The Ten is “that which giveth birth to souls”—that is, human souls; and not only human souls, but, in its consummation, to divine souls.
It may, perhaps, be of interest here to set down simple lists of the vices and virtues as given in our treatise, and to append to them the list of vices in C. H., i. 24 and 26.
1. Not-knowing.
1. Gnosis.
2. Grief.
2. Joy.
3. Intemperance.
3. Self-control.
4. Concupiscence.
4. Continence.
5. Unrighteousness.
5. Righteousness.
6. Avarice.
6. Sharing-with-all.
7. Error.
7. Truth.
8. Envy.
9. Guile.
8. The Good.
10. Anger.
9. Life.
11. Rashness.
10. Light.
12. Malice.
1. Growth and Waning.
First Zone.
2. Device of Evils.
Second Zone.
3. Guile of the Desires.
Third Zone.
4. Arrogance.
Fourth Zone.
5. Daring and Rashness.
Fifth Zone.
6. Getting Wealth.
Sixth Zone.
7. Falsehood.
Seventh Zone.
8. Those-that-are.
Eighth.
9. The Powers in a band.
Ninth.
10. The Father.
Tenth.
It is at once seen that the first seven virtues are arranged so as to be the direct antitheses of the first seven vices. The root of the Twelve is Ignorance; indeed, all the Twelve are permutations of Ignorance. They seem to be twelve, whereas they are but one in nature; again, not only are they twelve, but manifold (§ 12).
Thus, for instance, Rashness and Wrath or Anger are but one, and so of the rest; the permutations are infinite. This may be seen from the septenary classification in “The Shepherd” treatise, where we have: Guile of the Desires (3), a combination of Guile (9) and Desire or Concupiscence (4); Device of Evils (2), a combination of Guile (9) and Malice (12); Unholy Daring and Rashness (5), a combination of Unrighteousness (5) and Rashness (11); Getting Wealth by evil means (6), a combination of Guile (9) and Avarice (6). So also just as Anger (10) and Rashness (11) are one, so are Envy (8) and Avarice (6) but aspects of the same
thing; and so again Intemperance (3) and Concupiscence or Desire (4), Grief (2) and Ignorance (1), etc.
All are summed up in Ignorance, or Error, just as the seven virtues are summed up in Gnosis or Truth. 1 And just as Ignorance is the source of vice, so is Knowledge or Gnosis the beginning of Truth. Gnosis is not the end but the beginning of the Path, the end of it is God or the Good.
The difference between the “Pœmandres” arrangement and the categories of our treatise is conditioned by the fact that in the former the process of transformation in the case of a good man after death is described, whereas in the latter the Way of Rebirth in a living man is set forth.
That the Virtues (and Vices, therefore) were categorized according to the fundamental numbers of the Gnosis may be seen in most systems of Christian Gnostic æonology; indeed, it was a common plan of the general Gnostic theosophy of the time. In our treatise we have set forth the manner of the immediate practical ethical realization of what might be taken by a superficial student of Gnostic æonology as an empty schematology of purely metaphysical abstractions. 2 These things, however, meant everything to the Gnostic; they were fullnesses—no abstractions, but transcendent realities.
So also in the Shepherd of Hermas (Vis. iii. 8, 7), just as in our treatise, we are presented with the Vision of a Band of seven Women, each the mother of the next, seven Virtues, called: Faith, Continence, Simplicity, Freedom-from-malice, Seriousness, Gnosis (ἐπιστήμη), Love.
And not only do we have the Seven, but also the
[paragraph continues] Twelve, twelve Maidens (Sim. xv. 1-3): Faith, Continence, Power, Long-suffering, Simplicity, Freedom-from-malice, Chastity, Joyfulness, Truth, Understanding, Concord, Love.
To these are opposed twelve Women in dark robes: Infidelity, Incontinence, Disobedience, Error, Grief, Depravity, Wantonness, Quickness-to-wrath, Falsehood, Folly, Slander, Hate.
Zosimus also speaks of the Twelve Fates (Μοῖραι) of Death, and associates them with the Passions. 1
But, indeed, the subject is infinite, for it is the consummation of all right endeavour and all true progress in humanity. We must, then, leave it for the present, to avoid running to too great length in these comments. Sufficient for the moment to point to the fact that the Ten is not only the Wedding Garment of Purity, but also the Robe of Power or Glory. In its consummation also it is the Garment of the Christ, the One Robe without seam throughout, for the Ten contains the One, and the One contains the Ten.
THE DAWN OF COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS
13. The result of this Potent Invocation of the Powers,—that is to say, the realization of the full meaning of the sacred rite which consummates itself in the consciousness of Hermes, and so communicates itself in some measure to Tat, 2—is that Tat begins to “see”; “I see the All, I see myself in Mind.”
“In heaven am I, in earth, in water, air; I am in animals, in plants; I’m in the womb, before the womb, after the womb,—I’m everywhere” (§ 11).
Compare this with C. H., xi. (xii.) 22, where Hermes is himself being taught by Mind:
“Collect into thyself all senses of all creatures,—of
fire, and water, dry and moist. Think that thou art at the same time in every place, in earth, in sea, in sky; not yet begotten, in the womb, young, old and dead, in after-death conditions.”
This is, as we have seen, a pure Egyptian formula, and connotes the opening of the “cosmic consciousness.”
This consciousness, whatever else it may be, is a transcending of our three-dimensional limitation of consciousness,—that of the “body’s view-point,—a thing three ways in space extended.”
THE VOW OF SILENCE
The mystery of this New Birth in consciousness is to be kept secret; therefore Hermes has not commented on it, presumably in the Expository Sermons; moreover, it must even now be kept secret (§ 22), and therefore is the treatise a Secret Sermon. The reason for this is given both here and in § 22: “That we may not be thought to be calumniators” (διάβολοι), by the Many or Unknowing. What may be the precise meaning of this phrase I do not know, and can only speculate.
Those who had reached the full grade of Hermes are to keep silence on their “virtue” or power (§ 22); they were never to boast of their Gnosis. If they did, it would only bring the Gnosis into contempt; for they would still appear as ordinary men, would probably often say and do things, when they were not in the higher state of consciousness, which fell below the standard of their high ideals, and so they would be slanderers or calumniators of the Gnosis before the world.
14. The New Birth is further characterized as the Essential Birth (ἡ οὐσιώδης γένεσις); it was the birth of
the Essential Man, the God, Son of the One, to which other treatises refer. 1
OF THE OGDOAD
15. Tat now desires to hear the Praise-giving of the Powers, which only those can sing who have reached the stage called Eighth, or the Ogdoad; this is the state above the Harmony or the Hebdomad of Fate (C. H., i. 26). The man is now free and no longer a slave. It is the power of prophetic hymnody, for the man now hears the True Harmony of things and is above the Concatenation of Difference; it is the state “that keeps the soul in tune.” He who has reached this height can ever sing in tune; it is the state of the Hearer of the Eternal Praise-giving, and those who reach it can express it infinitely, each in his own fashion.
The idea of the Ogdoad is represented in many a Christian Gnostic system, especially in the Valentinian tradition, which has many Egyptian elements in it.
So we read in the Excerpts from Theodotus appended to the writings of Clement of Alexandria:
“Him whom the Mother 2 brings to birth, she leadeth unto Death and to the world; but him whom Christ brings to rebirth, He changeth into Life, unto the Ogdoad.” 3
Many were the names given to the Ogdoad by the Christian Gnostics,—such as the Jerusalem Above, Wisdom, the Land flowing with milk and honey, the Holy Spirit, the Land of the Lord, the Mesotes.
These terms were, however, with the exception of the last, Jewish synonyms; the term Ogdoad itself
was in all probability Egyptian. Thus in one of the Magic Papyri we read:
“Having known the power of the book, thou shalt hide it, my son. For in it there is stored the Authentic Name, which is the Name Ogdoad,—He who doth order and doth regulate all things.” 1
A HYMN FOR MORNING AND FOR EVENING PRAYER
16. The Hymn that follows is to be kept secret—that is to say, it is to be taken by Tat as an example of the form of prayer he is now to use in his private devotions, and is therefore probably intended to replace some other form of prayer which he had hitherto been using, as was the custom in such communities.
The instruction to use it at sunset and sunrise, in the open air, reminds us of the appended passages to “The Shepherd” treatise, where we read (§ 29):
“And when even was come and all sun’s beams began to set, I bade them all give thanks to God.” 2
Compare also what Philo tells us of the Therapeuts:
“Twice a day, at dawn and even, they are accustomed to offer up prayers; as the sun rises praying for the sunshine, the real Sunshine, that their minds may be filled with Heavenly Light, and as it sets praying that their soul, completely lightened of the lust of the senses and sensations, may withdraw to its own Congregation and Council-chamber, there to track out Truth.” 3
So also Apollonius of Tyana is said to have prayed and meditated three times a day: at daybreak (Phil., V. A., vi. 10, 18; vii. 31), at mid-day (vii. 10), and at
sundown (viii. 13); and with regard to “keeping silence on their virtue,” we are told of the Later Pythagoreans, of whom he was so conspicuous an example:
“In particular they kept the rule of silence regarding the Divine Service [that is, the Gnosis]. For they heard within them many Divine and unspeakable things on which it would have been difficult for them to keep silence, had they not first learned that it was just this Silence which spoke to them” (i. 1). 1
And so the Hymn has to be heard in silence; all earthly sounds must be stilled for the Heavenly Harmony to be heard.
17. It is to be noticed that in four out of the five MSS. the title “Secret Hymnody” is followed by the indication “Logos IV.”
Reitzenstein (p. 345, n. 21) thinks that the three prior “Logoi” were:
I. “Holy art Thou, O God”—C. H., i. 31, 32.
II. “The Glory of all things is God”—C. H., iii. (iv.).
III. “Whither stumble ye, sots?”—C. H., vii. (viii.).
The latter two, however, are not hymns; the only other hymn in our Corpus being:
“Who then may sing Thee praise of Thee?”—C. H., v. (vi.) 10, 11.
Our Hymn is a Hymn to the Sun, it is true, but to the Spiritual Sun, not the physical orb of day. It is to the Eye of Mind that these orisons are addressed—to the All-seeing Light.
Nor is this Eulogy a formal Te Deum, but a potent theurgic Praise-giving. All nature is to thrill with the joy of this thankfulness.
Most beautiful is this Song of Praise, all of it, but we would specially call attention to the words:
“Thy Reason sings through me Thy praises. Take back through me the All into Thy Reason—my reasonable oblation 1! From Thee Thy Will; to Thee the All!”
The Outbreathing of the Universe through the Reason or Logos 2 is the manifestation or realisation of the Will of God. The Logos is Son, Will is Mother and God Father.
The Inbreathing of the Universe is through Man (“Thy Man thus cries to Thee,” § 20): “Take back through Me the All.” This is accomplished in the first instance by the sacrifice of the reason, of man’s small limited reason, to the Great Reason of things.
And yet the All, the Universe itself, is not something other than God; it is all God.
“From Thee Thy Will”; Thou art the Source of all. “To Thee the All”; Thou art the End of all, the Desirable One, The Good.
Compare with this the Hymn in the Jewish deposit of the Naassene Document:
“From Thee is Father, and Through Thee Mother,—the two Immortal Names, Parents of Æons, O Thou who hast the Heaven for thy City, O Man of Mighty Names!”
Also notice: “The All that is in us, O Life, preserve; O Light, illumine it; O God, in-spirit it!” And compare it with § 12, where we are told: “While Life and Light are unified there, where the One hath being from the Spirit.”
The Prayer is for the Baptism of Light—Illumination by the Gnosis 1; this was the Dowsing in the Mind of “The Cup” treatise, even as true Baptism in primitive Christianity was called Illumination or φωτισμός.
“THROUGH THE WORD”
21. Tat now feels himself impelled to utter praises himself. He says what he feels. His master has given him the impulse, has made the conditions for him whereby he is conceived as a Child of God, a Prophet. But as yet he is not grown into the stature of a true Seer. His higher nature has received the germ, but this must have time to develop, and only gradually will its power descend into his lower mind.
At present his thankfulness is poured forth to his master, who has performed the theurgic rite of initiation (“All things have been perfected”) for him.
But Hermes restrains him; it is not to the master that his thanks are due, but to God. And if he cannot as yet give thanks direct to God, then let him send those thanks—“acceptable oblations”—to God “Through the Word.”
And that this was and is the practice of universal Christendom requires no pointing out;—the most striking parallel to the wording of our treatise being 1 Pet. ii. 5: “Spiritual oblations acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
Tat has now passed from the rank of Hearer to that of Knower; he is now a true Gnostic: “Thou hast become a Knower of thyself, and of our Sire.”
Compare logos 2 of the latest found Sayings at Oxyrhynchus:
“(Strive therefore?) to know yourselves, and ye shall know ye are Sons of the (almighty?) Father; (and?) ye shall know that ye are in (the City of God? 1), and ye are (the City? 2).”
Footnotes
235:1 Grotius, ap. Jablonski, ii. 397; Lobeck, Aglaoph., p. 714.
235:2 Euseb., Chron., 99 A.
235:3 De Div., i. 44.
236:1 Herod., v. 90.
236:2 Or. c. Demos., 91, 20.
236:3 Or., IV. 60: “στῖφος ἀρχαιας σοφίας, οὐ κοινῆς οὐδε ἐν μέσῳ κυλινδουμένης ἀλλὰ σπανίου καὶ ἀποθέτου.”
238:1 De Sac. Ab. et C., i. 186, 33.
238:2 See the praise-giving of Tat, § 21.
238:3 “The Mountain of Light,” the traditional scene of the Transfiguration.
239:1 Precisely as did Tat.
239:2 Cf. precisely the same formula in our treatise, § 21.
239:3 That is, of God as Æon and God as Life, which is the union of God as Mind and Logos.
240:1 The antiquity of the ideas connected with this spiritual mystery may be seen from what Reitzenstein (pp. 227 ff.) has to say concerning mystic συνουσία or congress; of it, as perhaps of nothing so much in the world, may it be said corruptio optimi pessima.
241:1 Compare the Song of the Powers in Pistis Sophia (pp. 16, 17), where the “We” alternates with the “I.”
242:1 D. V. C., M. 473, 10; P. 891.
242:2 See D. J. L., pp. 374, 375.
242:3 Cf. R. 52. But compare especially § 6, and C. H., iv. (v.) 1.
243:1 That is, when the Presence is withdrawn,—by contrast.
243:2 Texts and Studies, V. i. 14.
244:1 The term “Greatness,” however, is probably of Egyptian derivation. In the Papyrus Insinger, written somewhere during the last half of the first century B.C. and first half of the first century A.D., according to Spiegelberg, God’s Wisdom and Providence are praised (coll. xxxv., xxxvi.). The superscription of this section runs: “The Four-and-Twentieth Teaching: The Instruction: Learn the Greatness of God, that thou mayest let it come into thine heart” (xxxv. 17); and later on: “He knoweth the Blasphemer who thinketh wickedness, He knoweth the Pious with the Greatness of God in his heart. The tongue, before even it is questioned—its words God knoweth” (xxxvi. 3-5). This is further explained by the sentence: “Thoth is heart and tongue of the Pious; lo! his house is God!” (xxxv. 19). R. 237.
248:1 Cf. P. S. A., xxix. 2.
248:2 The usual way, indeed, in which it is taken.
249:1 Berthelot, 244; R. 214.
249:2 Cf. C. H., i. 7; xi. (ixi.) 6.
251:1 Cf. P. S. A., vii. 2.
251:2 Sc. the Lower Mother, Nature.
251:3 Exx. ex Theodot., § 80 (ed. Dindorf, iii. 453).
252:1 Leyden Papyrus W. S., 139, 45 (Leemans); cf. also ibid., 141, 5; R. 54. For further comments on the Ogdoad, see Commentary on C. H., i. 26.
252:2 Cf. also P. S. A., xli. 1.
252:3 D. V. C., M. ii. 475; P. 893.
253:1 See my Apollonius of Tyana, pp. 123 and 120.
254:1 Cf. 1 Pet. ii. 5: “Ye also as living stones are built up, a spiritual house for holy service, to offer up spiritual oblations acceptable to God through Jesus Christ,” And also Rom. xii. 1: “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, to present your bodies as a living oblation, holy, well-pleasing unto God,—your reasonable service.”
254:2 Hesychius in his Lexicon defines Logos as the “Cause of Activity,” or that which underlies action,—ἡ τοῦ δράματος ὑπόθεσις.
255:1 Compare γνῶσις ἁγία, φωτισθεὶς ἀπὸ σοῦ (§ 18); φῶτιζε φώς (§ 19); ἐπιφώτισταί μου ὁ νοῦς (§ 21).
256:1 Sc. the Ogdoad.
256:2 Cf. 1. Pet. ii. 5: “Ye are built up as living stones, a spiritual house for service.”
Gnosticism and Hermetica
CORPUS HERMETICUM XIV. (XV.)
[A LETTER] OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES TO ASCLEPIUS
UNTO ASCLEPIUS GOOD HEALTH OF SOUL! 1
(Text: P. 128-134; Pat. 49, 50.)
1. Since in thy absence my son Tat desired to learn the nature of the things that are, and would not let me hold it over, as [natural to] a younger son fresh come to gnosis of the [teachings] on each single point,—I was compelled to tell [him] more, in order that the contemplation 2 [of them] might be the easier for him to follow.
I would, then, choosing out the chiefest heads of what was said, write them in brief to thee, explaining them more mystic-ly, 1 as unto one of greater age and one well versed in Nature.
2. If all things manifest have been and are being made, and made things are not made by their own selves but by another; [if] made things are the many,—nay more, are all things manifest and all things different and not alike; and things that are being made are being made by other [than themselves];—there is some one who makes these things; and He cannot be made, but is more ancient than the things that can.
For things that can be made, I say, are made by other [than themselves]; but of the things that owe their being to their being made, it is impossible that anything should be more ancient than them all, save only That which is not able to be made.
3. So He is both Supreme, and One, and Only, the truly wise in all, as having naught more ancient [than Himself].
For He doth rule o’er both the number, size and difference of things that are being made, and o’er the continuity of their making [too].
Again, things makeable are seeable; but He cannot be seen.
For for this cause He maketh,—that He may not be able to be seen.
He, therefore, ever maketh 1; and therefore can He ne’er be seen.
To comprehend Him thus is meet; and comprehending, [it is meet] to marvel; and marvelling, to count oneself as blessed, as having learnt to know one’s Sire.
4. For what is sweeter than one’s own true Sire? Who, then, is He; and how shall we learn how to know Him?
Is it not right to dedicate to Him alone the name of God, or that of Maker, or of Father, or rather [all] the three;—God for His Power, and Maker for His Energy, and Father for His Good?
Now Power doth differ from the things which are being made; while Energy consisteth in all things being made.
Wherefore we ought to put away verbosity and foolish talk, and understand these two—the made and Maker. For that of them there is no middle [term]; there is no third.
5. Wherefore in all that thou conceivest, in all thou nearest, these two recall to mind; and think all things are they, reckoning as doubtful naught, nor of the things above, nor of the things below, neither of things divine, nor things
that suffer change or things that are in obscuration. 1
For all things are [these] twain, Maker and made, and ’tis impossible that one should be without the other; for neither is it possible that “Maker” should exist without the “made,” for each of them is one and the same thing.
Wherefore ’tis no more possible for one from other to be parted, than self from self.
6. Now if the Maker is naught else but That which makes, Alone, Simple, Uncompound, it needs must do this [making] to Itself,—to Which its Maker’s making is “its being made.” 2
And as to all that’s being made,—it cannot be
[paragraph continues] [so made] by being made by its own self; but it must needs be made by being made by other. Without the “Maker” “made” is neither made nor is; for that the one without the other doth lose its proper nature by deprivation of that other.
If, 1 then, all things have been admitted to be two,—the “that which is being made” and “that which makes,”—[all then] are one in union of these,—the “that which leadeth” and the “that which followeth.”
The making God is “that which leadeth”; the “that which is being made,” whatever it be, the “that which followeth.”
7. And do not thou be chary of things made because of their variety, from fear of attribution of a low estate and lack of glory unto God.
For that His Glory’s one,—to make all things; and this is as it were God’s Body, the making [of them]. 2
But by the Maker’s self naught is there thought or bad or base.
These things are passions which accompany the making process, as rust doth brass and filth doth body; but neither doth the brass-smith
make the rust, nor the begetters of the body filth, nor God [make] evil.
It is continuance in the state of being made 1 that makes them lose, as though it were, their bloom; and ’tis because of this God hath made change, as though it were the making clean of genesis.
8. Is it, then, possible for one and the same painter man to make both heaven, and gods, and earth, and sea, and men, and all the animals, and lifeless things, and trees, and yet impossible for God to make all things?
What monstraus lack of understanding; what want of knowledge as to God! 1
For such the strangest lot of all do suffer; for though they say they worship piously and sing the praise of God, yet by their not ascribing unto Him the making of all things, they know not God; and, added unto this not-knowing, they’re guilty even of the worst impiety to Him—passions to Him attributing, or arrogance, or impotency.
For if He doth not make all things, from arrogance He doth not make, or not being able,—which is impiety [to think].
9. One Passion hath God only—Good; and He who’s Good, is neither arrogant nor impotent.
For this is God—the Good, which hath all power of making all.
And all that can be made is made by God,—that is, by [Him who is] the Good and who can make all things. 1
But would’st thou learn how He doth make, and how things made are made, thou may’st do so.
10. Behold a very fair and most resemblant image—a husbandman casting the seed into the ground; here wheat, there barley, and there [again] some other of the seeds!
Behold one and the same man planting the vine, the apple, and [all] other trees!
In just the selfsame way doth God sow Immortality in Heaven, and Change on Earth, and Life and Motion in the universe.
These are not many, but few and easy to be numbered; for four in all are they,—and God Himself and Genesis, in whom are all that are.
Footnotes
257:1 εὖ φρονεῖν. I do not know the exact meaning of this expression. Everard translates “to be truly wise”; Parthey, “recte sapere” following Patrizzi; Ménard, “sagesse”; Chambers, “to be rightly wise.” I would suggest that εὖ φρονεῖν was the form used among these disciples of the Inner Way for the usual χαίρειν. Instead of wishing one another happiness, they wished each other wisdom, good thought, right thinking, good health of soul.
257:2 θεωρία.
258:1 That is to say, more fully and profoundly, as to one more advanced in the mystic science.
259:1 Cf. C. H., xvi. 18.
260:1 τῶν ἐν μυχῷ. I do not know what is the exact meaning of this expression. Everard translates “things that are in darkness or secret”; Parthey, “quæ sunt in abdito”; Ménard, “dans les profondeurs”; Chambers, “those in secrecy.” I suggest that the technical term μυχός, signifying generally a shut-in or locked-up place (conclave, as Damascius translates it), is to be referred, along the line of Platonic and Pythagorean tradition, to Pherecydes. Porphyry (De Antro Nymph., C. 31) tells us that the synonyms “μυχοί (chambers?), recesses (or pits), caverns, doors, gates” were used by Pherecydes as symbolical expressions to signify “the geneses and apogeneses of souls,” whatever these terms may mean exactly. The “birth” and “decease” of a soul, in this connection, presumably mean its coming into the world of genesis out of the womb of the World-soul, and its reception back again into the bosom of the great Mother. If this be so, our text would seem to indicate that things are in two states,—in a state of change (that is, in the active condition), and again in a passive condition, in the state which Indian philosophers call laya or pralaya. See for the μυχοί of Pherecydes Sturz’s Pherecydis Fragmenta, pp. 43 ff. (Leipzig, 1824).
260:2 Or genesis.
261:1 From here to the end of the sermon, with the exception of the final sentences of § 7 and § 10, and the third sentence of § 9, and with a few very slight verbal variants, is quoted by Cyril, Contra Julianum, ii. 64 (Migne, col. 598 D).
261:2 Cf. C. H., xvi. 18.
262:1 Or genesis.
263:1 This sentence, which appears to be very tautological, is omitted by Cyril.
Gnosticism and Hermetica
COMMENTARY
ASCLEPIUS AND TAT
Fabricius, in his Bibliotheca Græca, 2 says that the title should be “On the Nature of the All,” and that he has recovered it from Cyril, C. Jul., ii., but I cannot verify this statement.
The form of this treatise is different from any of the
preceding, being that of a letter. It evidently belongs to the Asclepius-Tat type of tradition, as in C. H., x. (xi.): “My yesterday’s discourse I did devote to thee, Asclepius, and so ’tis only right I should devote to-day’s to Tat.”
The distinction drawn between Tat and Asclepius is of interest; Tat is the younger,—who has only “just come to Gnosis of the teaching on each single point.” Can this mean that he has only just been permitted to share in the “Expository Sermons” or “Detailed Discourses”? It is probable, for C. H., x. (xi.) 1, continues: “And this the more because ’tis the abridgment (epitome) of the General Sermons which he has had addressed to him.”
Asclepius is older, and already ἐπιστήμων τῆς φύσεως—well-versed in the study of Nature.
What may be the exact significance underlying these personifications it is very difficult to say; but the same facts, whatever they may have been, are clearly referred to in K K. (Stob., Ecl., i. 49; p. 386, 24 W.); especially the later accession of “Asclepius” to the School, and the fact that “Tat,” because of his too great “youth,” could not have handed on to him the tradition of the complete or all-perfect contemplation (ὁλοτελὴς θεωρία)—that is, of the mathēsis or gnōsis, or, in other words, the “learning of the things that are, the contemplating of their nature and the knowing God” (C. H., i. 3); or the “being taught the nature of the all and the Supreme Vision” (ibid., 27).
This view of the tradition of the School seems to clash entirely with the other view set forth in C. H., xiii. (xiv.), where Tat has handed on to him the “manner of Rebirth,” but a probable explanation has already been attempted in the “Prolegomena,” chap, xvi.: “The Disciples of Thrice-greatest Hermes.”
COMPARE WITH “MIND UNTO HERMES”
The treatise itself requires little commentary; the similarity of its doctrine, however, with that of the “Mind unto Hermes” is remarkable. For instance, compare the last sentence of § 7 of our treatise with C. H., xi. (xii.) 14: “For that indeed He hath no other one to share in what He works, for working by Himself, He ever is at work, Himself being what He doth.”
Compare also the first sentence of § 8 with C. H., xi. (xii.) 20: “Behold what power, what swiftness thou dost have! And canst thou do all of these things, and God not do them?”
THE GOOD HUSBANDMAN
With the Good Husbandman “image” (§ 10) compare:
“Come unto me, Good Husbandman, Good Daimon, Harpocrates, Chnouphis . . . who rollest down the stream of Nilus, 1 and minglest with the Sea . . . as man with woman.” 2
And in the Alchemical literature:
“[Come then], and coming contemplate, enquire of Acharantus (?), the Husbandman, and learn of Him, what is it that is sown, and what that which is reaped; and thou shalt learn that he who soweth corn shall reap corn also, and he who soweth barley shall in like manner reap barley.” 3
So also Zosimus in the “Book Concerning the Logos”:
“And that I tell thee truth, I call to witness Hermes, when he says: Go unto Achaab (?), the Husbandman, and thou shalt learn that he who soweth corn gives birth to corn.” 4
Footnotes
263:2 Ed. Harles (4th ed.), vol. i. lib. i. cap. vii.
265:1 The Heavenly River of fructifying essence.
265:2 Abhandl. d. Berl. Akad. (1865), p. 120, 26; R. 143.
265:3 Berthelot, p. 30.
265:4 Berthelot, p. 89.
Gnosticism and Hermetica
CORPUS HERMETICUM (XVI.)
THE DEFINITIONS OF ASCLEPIUS UNTO KING AMMON