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

fashion, but which have their roots in pre-Christian traditions of a very varied nature within the general characteristic of a syncretic Gnosticism — we find that after treating of the Celestial Hebdomad, he continues as follows :

" Besides the higher hebdomad of the seven angels, the Ophite system told of a lower hebdomad. After the serpent in punishment for having taught our first parents to transgress the commands of laldabaoth was cast down into this lower world, he begat himself six sons,1 who with himself form a hebdomad, the counterpart of that of which his father laldabaoth is chief. These are the seven demons, the scene of whose activity is this lower earth, not the heavens ; and who delight in injuring the human race on whose account their father had been cast down. Origen (Adv. Gels., vi. 30) gives their names and forms from an Ophite Diagram ; Michael in form as a lion, Suriel as an ox, Raphael as a dragon, Gabriel as an eagle, Thautabaoth as a bear, Erataoth as a dog, Onoel as an ass."

Here, I think, we are on the track of one aspect of a general mystery-tradition that Hermes has "philosophized." I say one aspect, for the " Ophite " tradition is not a single form of tradition, but a medley of traditions containing a number of forms ; it is a complex or syncretism of Chaldsean, Persian, and Egyptian elements, patched together, or " centonized," if we may use the term, with Jewish industry.

1 In Irenseus (C. Hear., I. xxx. 5 ; ed. Stieren, i. 266) this sevenfold serpent is the son of laldabaoth (the Creative Mind), and is said to be " mind," also " crooked mind," coiled up like a serpent.

THE SIMPLER FORM OF THE TRISMEGISTIC GNOSIS

The wealth of symbolism and profusion of mysterious personifications with which these systems of subjective imagery were smothered, could exercise only a partial fascination on the clear-thinking, philosophical mind which had been trained in the method of Plato. If such a mind was combined with the mystic temperament, as was indubitably the case with the writer of our " Poemandres " treatise, his main effort would be to simplify and categorize in the terms of philosophy at the expense of apocalyptic detail ; nevertheless, when a man lived in the midst of such ideas, and was presumably in intimate relations with mystics and seers of all sorts, he could not but be strongly affected by the main presuppositions of all such apocalyptic, and the general notions of the schematology of the Unseen World, which all students of such matters at that period seem to have accepted in common.

We thus find that our Trismegistic literature, though dealing throughout with the Gnosis, treats it in a far more simple way than any other known system of the time. Nevertheless, even the complex imagery of the Ophite schools is occasionally summed up in a few graphic general symbols, and these, too, representing probably the oldest elements in them.

CONCERNING LEVIATHAN AND BEHEMOTH

From the confused description by Origen1 of the famous but exceedingly puzzling Ophite Diagram that both Celsus and Origen had before them, though in different forms, we can make out with certainty only that this chart of the Unseen Spaces was divided into three main divisions — Upper, Middle, and Lower. The Middle Space contained a geometrical diagram of a group of ten circles surrounded by one great circle. This Great Circle was called Leviathan, and the grouping of circles within it was apparently divided into a three and a seven. The Lower Space had in it a grouping of seven circles, the circles of the seven ruling daimones (xxx.) — elsewhere called Archontics — and the whole group was apparently called Behemoth (xxv.).

1 C. Gels., VI. xxv. ff.

Celsus, quoted by Origen (xxvii.), tells us that the doctrine was that on the death of the body two groups of angels range themselves on either side of the soul,1 the one set being called " Angels of Light " and the other " Archontics " — evidently intended for " Angels of Darkness." Thus the evil soul was thought to be led away by the Daimones to Behemoth, and the pure soul to Leviathan.

We cannot enter into the endless discussions concerning these two Great Beasts, mentioned together in Job xl. 15-24, and separately in Isaiah and Psalms ; the most recent research comes to the conclusion that " it would seem that Leviathan was regarded as lord of the ocean and Behemoth of dry land." 2