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

of heaven and earth, forms a feature of the Egyptian religion which is as sublime as the belief in the resurrection of the dead in a spiritual body, and as the doctrine of everlasting life."

Thoth is then the Logos of God, who in his relation to mankind becomes the Supreme Master of Wisdom,1 the Mind of all masterhood.

We will now turn to one whose views are considered heterodox by conservative and unimaginative critics,2 who confine themselves solely to externals, and to the lowest and most physical meanings of the hieroglyphics— to one who has, I believe, come nearer to the truth than any of his critics, and whose labours are most highly appreciated by all lovers of Egyptian mystic lore.

THE VIEWS OF A SCHOLAR-MYSTIC

The last work of W. Marsham Adams 3 deserves the closest attention of every theosophical student. Not, however, that we think the author's views with regard to a number of points of detail, and especially with regard to the make-up of the Great Pyramid, are to be accepted in any but the most provisional manner, for as yet we in all probability do not know what the full contents of that pyramid are, only a portion of them being known to us according to some seers. The chief merit of the book before us is the intuitional grasp of

1 " Thoth the Wise " of the « Inscription of London " § 4 (R. 64), to which we shall refer later on.

2 See the reviews on the below-mentioned work in The Athenceum of 31st December 1898, and The Academy of 31st December 1898 and 7th January 1899.

3 The Book of the Master, or The Egyptian Doctrine of the Light born of the Virgin Mother (London, 1898) — a sequel to his study entitled The House of the Hidden Places, a Clue to the Creed of Early Egypt from Egyptian Sources (London, 1895).

its author on the general nature of the mystery-cultus, as derived from the texts, and especially those of the Eitual or the so-called Book of the Dead, as Lepsius named it, setting a bad fashion which is not yet out of fashion. The Egyptian priests themselves, according to our author, called it The Book of the Master of the Secret House, the Secret House being, according to Adams, the Great Pyramid, otherwise called the " Light."

THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF THE INNER TRADITION
OF EGYPTIAN WISDOM

In his Preface the author gives us clearly to understand that he regards the Wisdom of Egypt as forming the main background of some of the principal teachings of Early Christianity; and that this view is strongly confirmed by a careful study of the Trismegistic literature and its sources, will be made apparent in the course of our own labours. But before we proceed to quote from the former Fellow of New College, Oxford, whose recent death is regretted by all lovers of Egypt's Wisdom, we must enter a protest.

Mr Adams has severely handicapped his work; indeed, he has destroyed nine-tenths of its value for scholars, by neglecting to append the necessary references to the texts which he cites. Such an omission is suicidal, and, indeed, it would be impossible for us to quote Mr Adams were it not that our Trismegistic literature permits us — we might almost say compels us — to take his view of the spiritual nature of the inner tradition of Egyptian Wisdom. Not, however, by any means that our author has traversed the same ground ; he has not even mentioned the name of the Thricegreatest one, and seems to have been ignorant of our treatises. Mr Adams claims to have arrived at his conclusions solely from the Egyptian texts themselves, and to have been confirmed in his ideas by personal inspection of the monuments. In fact, he considers it a waste of time to pay attention to anything written in Greek about Egyptian ideas, and speaks of " the distortion and misrepresentation wherein those ideas were involved, when filtered through the highly imaginative but singularly unobservant intellect of Greece." l Thus we have a writer attacking the same problem from a totally different standpoint — for we ourselves regard the Greek tradition of the Egyptian Gnosis as a most valuable adjunct to our means of knowledge of the Mind of Egypt — and yet reaching very similar conclusions.

THE HOLY LAND OF EGYPT AND ITS INITIATES