Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

3 Or of contemplative reason, synthesis as opposed to analysis.

€7ri6v/uLt]TiKov ', in the sphere of Mercury, the power of giving expression to and interpretation of feelings — which they call TO epw vevriKov ; on its entrance into the sphere of the Moon it brings into activity TO QVTIKOV — that is, the nature of making bodies grow and of moving them.

" And this [soul], though the last thing in the divine series, is nevertheless the first thing in us and in all terrestrial beings ; just as this body [of ours], though the dregs of things divine, is still the first substance of the animal world.

" And this is the difference between terrene bodies and supernal — I mean those of the heaven and stars and of the other elements1 — that the latter are summoned upwards to the abode of the soul, and are worthy of immunity from death from the very nature of the space in which they are and their imitation of sublimity.

" The soul, however, is drawn down to these terrene bodies, and so it is thought to die when it is imprisoned in the region of things fallen and in the abode of death. Nor should it cause distress that we have so often spoken of death in connection with the soul, which we have declared to be superior to death. For the soul is not annihilated by [what is called] its death, but is [only] buried for a time; nor is the blessing of its perpetuity taken from it by its submersion for a time, since when it shall have made it worthy to be cleansed clean utterly of all contagion of its vice, it shall once more return from body to the light of Everlasting Life restored and whole." 2

The characteristics of the spheres given by Macrobius are according to their simple energies; there is no

1 That is, the elements other than those of earth.

2 Ed. Eyssenhardt (F.), pp. 531 S. (Leipzig, 1893).

question of good or bad ; it is the " thinking " of the soul that conditions the use of these energies for beneficent or maleficent ends.

THE TRADITION OF SERVIUS

Servius, however, in his Commentary on Virgil's jflneid, vi. 714, hands on another tradition, in which the Spheres were regarded as inimical to the good of the soul, its evil propensities being ascribed to their energies. Some scholars are of opinion that Virgil in his famous Sixth Book is largely dependent on the ideas of popular Egyptian theology ; 1 however that may be, Servius writes as follows :

" The philosophers tell us what the soul loses in its descent through the separate spheres. For which cause also the Mathematici imagine that our body and soul are knit together by the powers of the separate divinities, on the supposition that when souls descend, they bring with them the sluggishness of Saturn, the passionateness of Mars, the lustfulness of Venus, the cupidity of Mercury, and the desire for rule of Jupiter. And these things perturb souls, so that they are unable to use their own energy and proper powers."

It is to be noticed that the characteristics of the Sun and Moon are omitted, and this points to a doctrine in which Sun and Moon were treated as distinct from " the five." So also in the " Books of the Saviour " appended to the Pistis Sophia document we find (pp. 360, 366 ff.) mention of only five planets. The

1 Of., for instance, Maass (E.), Die Tagesgotter in Rom und den
Provinzen, p. 33. See R. 53, n. 1.

tradition of this doctrine is exceedingly obscure,1 and does not immediately concern us, as our text works on a "seven" basis.

CRITICISM OF THE EVIDENCE

I have done my best to discover some consistent scheme by which the contradictory data in Macrobius, Servius, and Hermes might be reconciled, but the tabularising of their indications only makes confusion worse confounded.