Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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"The traditional estimate of Gnosticism, then, requires to be reconsidered, in the light of the Poemandres. It belongs to a time when religious definitions were still in the making — a time, therefore, when the limits of free discussion were not yet straitly drawn. Hence the various permutations of religious belief which we find in Irenseus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, would not be admitted by their exponents to be in conflict with the Christian faith, but would rather be regarded as exhibiting new and fruitful applications of principles common to all. Ecclesiastical opinion ultimately settled down in one direction rather than another. But until this process was complete, each living system of belief might count upon a possible victory,2 and so, among others, the system which may be traced in the Poemandres. And the Poemandres is so far from being a merely heretical production, that
1 Namely, that of the Good Shepherd.
a This is a reflection of Me'nard's sensible view.
its relation to orthodox belief may fairly be indicated by saying that it answers to the earlier intellectual position of Clement of Alexandria." l
We should say rather that the difficulties in which our essayist is evidently involved by his hypothesis of Christian origin, would be considerably lessened by accepting the evidence on all hands which a more extended study of the Trismegistic and allied literatures affords, and by treating what he refers to as Gnosticism without qualification as the Christianised Gnosis, and not as Gnosticised Christianity.
We thus find Granger compelled, in keeping with the above, to guess the date of the "Poemandres" as towards the end of the second century ; but even so, he feels dissatisfied with himself, for he has to add: " Nor does this date preclude us from finding occasional traces of even earlier material."
However we may dissent from Granger's conclusions as to the " Pcemandres," we agree with him in the importance he ascribes to the Gospel according to the •Egyptians, in connection with which he writes 2 :-
" It is instructive to note that Salome, who plays so prominent a part in the Gospel according to the Egyptians, is the mother of St John,3 and that the same Gnostic circles in which this gospel is current were also those in which we hear for the first time of the Fourth Gospel. That is to say, the Fourth Gospel comes to us from the hands of the Alexandrine Gnostics. The system of Valentinus is really a somewhat fancif ul commentary upon the opening chapters of St John's Gospel1 Heracleon, the first great commentator 2 upon St John, was both a Gnostic and at the same time was really the master of Origen, and through him helped to determine the development of the orthodox theology. Now, the key to the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel is to be found in the Gnostic ideas which underlie the Poemandres, ideas to which Heracleon furnishes the clue. But the commentators have refused the help which the Gnostics could give, and the Fourth Gospel has been consistently misunderstood owing to the exaggerated stress which has been laid upon the doctrine of the Xo'yo?."
1 Ibid., p. 406.
2 Ibid., p. 411.
3 I have never come across this statement before, and so regret that G. has not given his authority. If such were the tradition, it would be exceedingly instructive. Salome, however, in the fragments of this Gospel preserved to us, says categorically that she has never " brought forth."
I am not quite clear what the last sentence is intended to mean. Too great stress cannot be laid upon the doctrine of the Logos, for it is, as we shall show, the fundamental concept of Hellenistic theology ; but too great stress can and has been laid upon the illegitimate claim that the Proem of the Fourth Gospel embodies a peculiarly Christian doctrine.
Moreover, if the Fourth Gospel emerges in Alexandrine circles and is so essentially Gnostic, how can it be ascribed, as Granger appears to ascribe it, to "St John " ? A very different conclusion seems to follow from Granger's premisses.
The conclusion of the most recent study by English scholarship on our " Poemandres " is as follows :
" The Poemandres, then, is a very striking exponent of the religious and philosophical ideas amid which