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

But there is another and still more profoundly interesting side of the subject which we cannot expect to find treated in a purely philological, technical, and critical treatise. The more one studies the best of these mystical sermons, casting aside all prejudice, and trying to feel and think with the writers, the nearer one is conscious of approaching the threshold of what may well be believed to have been the true Adytum of the best in the mystery-traditions of antiquity. Innumerable are the hints of the greatnesses and immensities lying beyond that threshold — among other precious things the vision of the key to Egypt's wisdom, the interpretation of apocalypsis by the light of the sun-clear epopteia of the intelligible cosmos.

Such greatnesses and such mysteries have a power and beauty which the most disreputable tradition of the texts through unknowing hands cannot wholly disguise, and they are still recognisable, even though thus clad in the rags of their once fair garments, by those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

But to return to the points we raised in the opening of this chapter.

If we now re-state the problems we are considering in the interrogative form, we shall have to find answers to the following questions :

Why did the early Church Fathers accept the Trismegistic writings as exceedingly ancient and authoritative, and in their apologetic writings quote them in support of the main impersonal dogmas of Christianity ?

Why, in the revival of learning, for upwards of a century and a half did all the Humanists welcome them with open arms as a most valuable adjunct to Christianity, and as being in accord with its main doctrines, so much so that they laboured to substitute Trismegistus for Aristotle in the schools ?

Finally, why during the last two centuries and a half has a body of opinion been gradually evolved, infinitesimal in its beginnings, but well-nigh shutting out every other view, that these writings are Neo-platonic forgeries?

The answers to these questions are simple: — The Church Fathers appealed to the authority of antiquity and to a tradition that had never been called in question, in order to show that they taught nothing fundamentally new — that, in brief, they taught on main points what Hermes had taught. They lived in days too proximate to that tradition to have ventured on bringing any charge of plagiarism and forgery against it without exposing themselves to a crushing rejoinder from men who were still the hearers of its "living voice" and possessors of its "written word."

The scholars of the Kenaissance naturally followed the unvarying tradition of antiquity, confirmed by the Fathers of the Church.

Gradually, however, it was perceived that, if the old tradition were accepted, the fundamental originality of general Christian doctrines — that is to say, the philosophical basis of the Faith, as apart from the historical dogmas peculiar to it — could no longer be maintained. It, therefore, became imperatively necessary to discredit the ancient tradition by every possible means. With what success this policy has been attended we have already seen ; we have also reviewed this growth of opinion, and shown its baseless character and the straits to which its defenders have been put.

From the clouds of this obscurantism the sun of Thrice-greatest Hermes and the radiance of his Gnosis have once more shone forth in the skies of humanistic enquiry and unprejudiced research. He is no longer to be called bastard, and plagiarist, and thief of other people's property, but must be regarded as a genuine teacher of men, handing on his own, and giving freely of his substance to all who will receive the gift.

Ill

THOTH THE MASTER OF WISDOM

THOTH (TEHUTI)