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

by the epithet " helpless " and " abominable," corresponding with the rational and irrational aspects of the soul as set forth in our sermons.

wind, he brought near to the net which his father Ann had given him." 1

Now in the Hymns of the popular Hermes-cult found in the Greek Magic Papyri, one of the most favourite forms of address to Hermes is "0 thou of the four winds." Moreover, we may compare with the rope with which the Fishers " rope the abominable fiends of earth," the passage of Athenagoras to which we have already referred, and in which he tells us concerning the Mysteries that the mythos ran that Zeus, after dismembering his father, and taking the kingdom, pursued his mother Rhea who refused his nuptials. " But she having assumed a serpent form, he also assumed the same form, and having bound her with what is called the 'Noose of Hercules' (TW /taAoi^ei/ft) fH/oa/cAeiamK&> dp/mart), was joined with her. And the symbol of this transformation is the Rod of Hermes."

Here again it is the symbolic Caducous that represents the equilibrium between the opposed forces; it is the power of Thoth that binds and loosens ; he holds the keys of heaven and hell, of life and death. It is further quite evident that Atheuagoras is referring to a Hellenistic form of the Mysteries, in which the influence of Egypt is dominant. The " Noose of Hercules " is thus presumably the " Noose of Ptah." Now Ptah is the creator and generator, and his " Noose " or " Tie " is probably the Ankh-tie or symbol of life, the familiar crux ansata, of which the older form is a twisted rope, probably representing the binding together of male and female life in generation. Ptah is also the God of Fire, and we should not forget that it is Hephaistos in Greek myth who catches Aphrodite and Ares in a Net which he has cunningly contrived — at which the gods laughed in High Olympus.

1 King (L. W.), Babylonian Religion, p.^71.

In the list of titles of the numerous works belonging to the cycle of Orphic literature, one is called The Veil (IleVXo?) and another The Net (At'/cri/ov).1

In the Panathenaea the famous Peplum, Veil, Web, or Robe of Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, was borne aloft like the sail of a galley ; but this was the symbol only of the Mysteries. Mystically it signified the Veil of the Universe, studded with stars, the manycoloured Veil of Nature,2 the famous Veil or Robe of Isis, that no " mortal " or " dead man " has raised, for that Veil was the spiritual nature of the man himself, and to raise it he had to transcend the limits of individuality, break the bonds of death, and so become consciously immortal.

Eschenbach 3 is thus quite correct when, in another of its aspects, he refers this Veil to the famous Net of Vulcan. Moreover Aristotle, quoting the Orphic writings, speaks of the " living creature born in the webs of the Net " ; 4 while Photius tells us that the book of Dionysius ^Egeensis, entitled Netting, or Concerning Nets (At/cTfa/ca), treated of the generation of mortals.5 And Plato himself likens the intertwining of the nerves, veins, and arteries to the " network of a basket " or a bird-cage.6

All of which, I think, shows that Thoth's Temple of the Net must have had some more profound significance in its name than that it was a building in which "the emblem of a net, or perhaps a net itself, was venerated," as Budge lamely surmises.

1 See my Orpheus (London, 1896), pp. 39 and 44 ff.

2 Of. Philo, De /Som., i. (v. 92— Pfeiff) — rb tt^icoiKiKov Saturn*

rovrovl rbv KOff^ov.

3 Eschenbach (A. C.), Epigenes de Poesi Orphica (Nurnberg,
1702), p. 51.