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

" Ye have heard what I said unto you : I am not of this world, the Comforter is among you, teach through the Comforter. As the Father has sent Me, even so send I you. Amen, I say unto you, I am not of this world ; but John shall be your father, till he shall go with Me into Paradise. And He anointed them with the Holy Spirit."

So also in an addition to John xix. 26-30, we read :

" He saith to His mother, Weep not ; I go to My Father and to Eternal Life. Behold thy son! He will keep My place. Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother ! Then bowing His head He gave up the Ghost."

Here then at the Supreme Crisis the Master constitutes John the spiritual Father of the School in His place. So is it with Tat.

THE TRIAD OF DISCIPLES

The idea of triads and other groups (e.g. of five and seven) united in the Presence of a Master, is familiar to the student of Druidical mysticism. In our " Perfect Sermon" we have such a triad, each disciple distinguished by strongly-marked characteristics ; the tuning of these into one harmony, so that, to use another and a familiar simile, the disciples may be as the fingers of one hand, for the Master's use, is a matter of enormous difficulty. One is characterised by Power, another by Knowledge, and another by Love. All three must sink their individually strongest characteristic in a supreme sacrifice, where all blend together into the Wisdom of the Master. This seems to me to be the inner purport of our " Perfect Sermon," and whatever may be the history of the evolution of the forms of the literature, the eternal fact of the nature of the intimate teaching of the Christ to the Three was known to our writer.

CHNUM THE GOOD DAIMON

Let us now turn to the type of Trismegistic literature in which Osiris and Isis came forward as disciples ; and first of all let us take a glance at the God Chnum, Chnubis, or Chnuphis (Knuphis), whose name occurs in so many of the Abraxas and Abraxoid gems.

Chnum was for Southern Egypt precisely what Ptah of Memphis was for Northern Egypt. He was the Fashioner of men, even as a potter makes pots on a wheel. Chnum was Demiurge and God of the heart. The chief centre of his cult was at Syene and the Island of Elephantine. Here he was regarded as the Father of Osiris. And so we hear of astrological dialogues between Chnum and Osiris, as, for instance, when we are told :

"And all that Kouphis, who is with them [the Egyptians], the Good Daimon, handed on, and his disciple Osiris philosophized." l

These writings were grouped with those of Nechepso, and also with our Trismegistic writings. Compare the passage in Firmicus Maternus which runs :

" All things which Mercurius (Hermes) and Chnubis [?] handed on to ^Esculapius (Asclepius), which Petosiris discovered and Nechepso." 2

1 Cramer, Anecd. Ox., iii. 171, 20.

2 Fir. Mat., iv. procem. 5 (Skutsch and Kroll, p. 196, 21).
' The " and Chnubis " is the emendation of B. for the unintelligible

letters " einhnusuix."

OSIKIS DISCIPLE OF AGATHODAIMON THE
THRICE-GREATEST