Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
6 Optov, — or may be " rush."
6 Lit., juniper-berries.
7 K<£AO/*OV, — probably Acorus calamus (cf. Ex. xxx. 23 et al.).
It is to be noticed that the ingredients are arranged in four sets of
four each.
8 That is to the sound of mantrdh, as a Hindu would say.
9 Cf. xlii. 2 and figure in note.
10 The kuphi being used at sundown.
5. Moreover, they polish up the image-making and receptive organ of dreams like a mirror, and make it clearer, no less than the playing on the lyre which the Pythagoreans used to use before sleep, thus charming away and sanifying the passionate and reason-less nature of the soul.
6. For things smelt call back the failing sense, and often, on the other hand, dull and quiet it by [their] soothing [effect], when their exhalations are diffused through the body ; just as some of the physicians say that sleep is induced when the vaporisation of the food, as it were creeping gently round the inward parts and groping about, produces a kind of tickling.
7. And they use kuphi both as draught and mixture ;
for when it is drunk it is thought to purge the intestines,
[but when applied externally l] to be an emollient.
8. And apart from these [considerations], resin is a work of the sun ; and myrrh [comes from] the exudation of the trees under the sun-heat; while of the ingredients of kuphi, some flourish more at night, like all things whose nature it is to be nourished by cool breezes and shade and dew and damp.
9. Seeing that the light of day is one and single, and Pindar tells us that the sun is seen "through empty aether";2 while air is a blend and mixture of many lights and properties, as it were of seeds dropped from every star into one [field].
10. Naturally, then, they use the former as incenses by day, as being single and having their birth from the sun ; and the latter when night sets in, as being mixed and manifold in its qualities.
1 A lacuna of 8 or 9 letters occurs here in E.
2 Olymp., i. 6.
AFTERWORD
So ends this exceedingly instructive treatise of Plutarch, which, in spite of the mass of texts and monuments concerning Asar and Ast which have already been deciphered by the industry of Egyptologists, remains the most complete account of the root mystery-myth of ancient Egypt. The myth of Osiris and Isis goes back to the earliest times of which we have record, and is always found in the same form. Indeed the " Ritual," the " Book of the Dead," which should rather be called the "Book of the Living," might very well be styled " The Gospel of Osiris."
It would be out of place here to seek for the historical origin of this Great Mystery ; certainly Osiris was originally something greater than a " water sprite," as Budge supposes. Osiris and Isis were and are originally, as I believe, cosmic or super-cosmic beings; for the Elder and Younger Horus, regarded macrocosmically, were the Intelligible and Sensible Worlds, and, regarded microcosmically, pertained to the mystery of the Christ-stage of manhood.
It may, of course, be denied that the ancient Egyptians were capable of entertaining any such notions; we, however, prefer the tradition of our Trismegistic tractates to the " primitive-culture " theories of anthropological speculation. That, however, such views were entertained in the first centuries is incontrovertible, as may be seen from a careful study of Philo of Alexandria alone. Thus to quote one passage out of many with regard to the two Horoi :
" For that this cosmos is the Younger Son of God, in that it is perceptible to sense. The Son who's older than this one, He hath declared to be no one [perceptible by sense], for that he is conceivable by mind alone.
But having judged him worthy of the Elder's rights,
He hath determined that he should remain with Him
alone." 1
When, moreover, we speak of the Christ-stage of manhood, we mean all that mystery that lies beyond the normal stage of man, including both the super-man stage and that of the Christ.
In any case, Plutarch is of the greatest service for understanding the atmosphere and environment in which the students of the Trismegistic tradition moved, and we have therefore bestowed more care upon him than perhaps the general reader may think necessary.
1 Quod Deus Jm., § 6 ; M. 1, 277, P. 298 (Ri. ii. 72, 73).
X
"HERMAS" AND "HERMES"
AN ANTICIPATION