Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
4 Compare Isaiah xlv. 7 : " I form the light and create darkness : I make peace and create evil : I the Lord do all these things." Cf. G. H.,\. 23, "the avenging daimon" ; and ibid., 15, "Within the Harmony he hath become a slave."
5 Called in the Trismegistic literature the " Religion of the
Mind " (Mentis religio). See P. S. A., xxv.
in its theurgic phase. In it Hermes is regarded as the Mind1 or Logos. The Mind is invoked to enter the mind and heart (I. 10).2 With the shining out of the Mind, the Spiritual or Intelligible Light shines forth in the world and man (v. 3). The Mind is thus the guide of souls.3 He is also identified with the Good Daimon (of whom Chnuphis or Horus are variants), with the Great Ocean, the Heaven-Space or Celestial Nile, the Great Green, the Light, the JE>on.
In connection with the above invocations Keitzenstein gives the text of a very interesting ritual of lower theurgy, or rite of the sacred flame, which he characterises by the term " mystery of lychnomancy or lamp-magic." This is the lower side of such high vision as is referred to in "The Shepherd of Men" treatise and in the rite described in the following passage of the Pistis Sophia, 272, 373 :
" Jesus said unto his disciples : Come unto me ! And they came unto him. He turned to the four quarters of the world, and spake the Great Name over their heads, and blessed them, and breathed on their eyes.
1 Compare the cosmogony in Dieterich, Abraxas, 17, 43 : " Through the Bitterness of God, there appeared Mind . . . that restrains the heart, and was called Hermes." With this peculiar phrase " Bitterness of God" compare the " Bitter Chaos " of the hymn at the end of the J. source of the Naassene Document in "The Myth of Man" chapter; also the "Bitter Water" or Chaos of the Sethian System (Hipp., Philos., v. 19) ; so also Julian, in Oration V., who writes : " The oracles of the gods declare that through purification not only our soul but also our bodies are judged worthy of being greatly helped and presei'ved, for it is said in them that ' the mortal vesture of bitter matter is preserved.1," Is it thus possible that the "Bitterness" of Jacob Bohnie may be a reminiscence of the ancient Gnosis?
2 For pure Egyptian parallels see R. 24, n. 1.
3 See the theogony in Dieterich, op. tit., 18, 75 : " And the soul came into being. And God said : ' Thou shalt move all things . . . Hermes guiding thee.' " Compare G. H., x. (xi.) 21 : " But on the pious soul the Mind doth mount, and guide it to the Gnosis' light ;" also xii. (xiii.) 12, ix. (x.) 10, iv. (v.) 11, vii. (viii.) 2.
" Jesus said unto them : Look, see what ye may see !
" And lifting up their eyes they saw a great Light, exceeding vast, which no dweller on earth could describe.
" He said to them again : Gaze into the Light, and see what ye may see !
" They said : We see fire and water, and wine and blood."
VI. THE MYSTIC KITE OF THE FLAME
[Revised text, R. 25-27. Wessely, op. dt., " Griechische zauberpapyrus von Paris und London" (Vienna, 1888), 68, 930 ff.]
(a) Invocation to the Light l
1. I invoke thee, 0 God, the living one,2 who dost show forth thy splendour in the fire, thou unseen Father of the Light ! 3 Pour forth thy strength ; awake thy daimon, and come down into this fire ; inspire it with [thy] holy spirit ; show me thy might, and let the house of the almighty God, which is within this light, be opened for me! Let there be light, —
1 These rubrics I have added, following the example of Reitzenstein, but not his wording.
2 Compare the expression "Jesus the living [one]" found frequently in the Introduction to the " First Book of leou " (Carl Schmidt, Gnostische Schriften in koptischer Sprache aus dem Codex Brucianus (Leipzig, 1892), 142-145 — reprinted with his recent translation of the Pistis Sophia in Band I. of his Koptisch gnostische Schriften (Leipzig, 1905) ; and also the Preface to the newest found logoi : " These are the . . . words which Jesus, the living [one], spake " (Grenfell and Hunt, New Sayings of Jesus, London, 1904).
3 Compare in the same writings the oft-repeated " Father of all fatherhood, Boundless Light."
[thy] breadth-depth-length-height-ray;1 and let the
Lord, the [God] within, shine forth !
(&) A Stronger Form to be used if the Flame dies down