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

1 Cannes also comes to teach from the Waters of the Euphrates ; the Jewish overwriter of the Naassene Document (see "Myth of Man in the Mysteries " ) equates Euphrates with Great Jordan, and this with the Stream of Ocean ; and, curiously enough, Origen (xxviii.) ascribes the Ophite teaching to a certain Euphrates, of whom no one else has ever heard. It is, however, a common error of the Church Fathers to mistake a principle of the Qnosis for the founder of a heresy.

2 See Salmon, loc. sup. rit.

virtues of the soul to the one and the digesting of its vices to the other, is not so surprising. Further, they could be regarded as the right-hand or left-hand arcs or hemispheres of the Wheel, or Sphere, or Egg, according to celestial topography ; whereas in Egyptian terrestrial parallelism the right hand was to the north and the left hand the south, upper and lower Egypt. Curiously enough, in Isa. xxx. 6, Behemoth is called the monster " of the south land." x

Whether or no the writer of the " Poemandres " was directly influenced by the precise forms of tradition to which we have referred, is impossible to determine; but that he was influenced by the general ideas as symbolized is indubitable, and that he understood the esoteric meaning of the "hippopotamus" and "crocodile" symbols in Egyptian mysticism is highly probable.

THE " FENCE OF FIRE "

Origen (xxxi.), moreover, tells us that, according to the Ophites, the consciousness of the soul after passing through the domain of the animal -formed Kulers, broke through what was called the " Fence of Iniquity," and so turned towards the higher spheres, through which it also had to pass. In the seventh and highest of them, over which ruled the Virtue which was called Horaeus,2 it addresses the Euler thereof with an apology or defence of its own innocence, beginning with the words : " O thou who hast transcended the ' Fence of Fire ' without fear ! "

This Fence of Fire was symbolised in the form of the Diagram which Origen (xxxiii.) had before him, as a circle of fire with a flaming sword lying across its diameter. This must then have been intended to represent the Sphere of Fire, or Angel or Guardian of the Gate, which had to be passed before the Celestial Paradise could be entered, for the flashing, circling blade is said to have guarded the " Tree of Gnosis and of Life."

1 According to Cheyne's rendering in the above-quoted article.

2 That is, presumably, the Horus-like ; thus showing traces of an Egyptian element.

The same idea of a typical Boundary or Fence meets us in the " Poemandres." It is Man who breaks through the seven spheres and also their enclosing Sphere, the Might or Power that circumscribed the Fire. The root idea is the same. The point of view of Hermes, however, like that of the Ophite Gnostics, is not the passage round the Circle of Necessity of the souls of the unregenerate, as in the Vision of Er, but of the Straight Ascent of the soul of the initiate, his breaking through the spheres. It is the ascent of a soul who has reached the Hermes-stage, or Thricegreatest grade, the final stage of winning its freedom, the Ascent after the last compulsory birth — the Ascent " as now it is for me " (§ 25).

XIII

PLATO: CONCEKNING METEMPSYCHOSIS

" AND the soul's vice is ignorance. For that the soul who hath no knowledge of the things that are, or knowledge of their nature, or of Good, is blinded by the body's passions and tossed about.

"This wretched soul, not knowing what she is, becomes the slave of bodies of strange form in sorry plight, bearing the body as a load ; not as the ruler, but the ruled."— a H., x. (XL) 8.1

For the better understanding of this passage, we may appropriately refresh the memory of our readers with the Platonic doctrine of the transmigration of souls, as given in the Phcedrus, 248 ff., using for this purpose the best translation we have in English, namely, that of Stewart,2 as a basis, but often departing from it for greater clearness.

THE SOUL AND HER MYSTERIES IN THE " PHJEDRUS "