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.
16. He doth enjoin thee, He the great living God, who is for the eternities of the eternities, the shaker and the thunderer, who doth create each soul and every birth. Enter, appear to me, O Lord, joyous, benignant, gentle, glorious, free from all wrath ; for I adjure thee by the Lord [of all] !
(e) The Greeting when the Presence of the God is manifested
17. Hail Lord, 0 God of gods, thou benefactor . . . !
Hail to thy glories 2 ever more, 0 Lord !
(/) The Farewell to the God
18. I give thee thanks, 0 Lord. Depart, 0 Lord, to thine own heavens, thine own realms, and thine own v — an untranslatable reading. Is it Egyptian? — or is it intended for yuepWpetai' ? If the latter, it would presumably be connected with the Egyptian myth and cult of Memnon (see Roscher's Lexikon, coll. 2661 ff.). The Memnon cult was somehow connected with Hermes, for in the ruins of the temple were still (at the beginning of the third century) to be seen " statues of Hermes," according to Philostratus (Vit. Apoll., vi. 4), who also (Imag., i. 7) tells us that the Memnon statue was as a lyre which was struck by the rod (TT\T\KTPOV), that is the ray (^ a/cr/j), of the sun. If so, " the rod [of power], by which thou sendest forth the gods," that is thy rays, each god being a ray of the spiritual sun, might have the epithet Memnonian applied to it. But in our present lack of information, this interpretation seems very strained.
2 5rf|at — here meaning powers.
course, preserving me in health, free from all harm, free from all fear of any ka,1 free from all stripes, and all dismay, hearkening to me for all the days of [all] my life !
(g) The Farewell to the Flame
19. Depart, 0 holy ray ; depart, 0 fair and holy light of highest God !
In connection with the above, we may also take the following ritual-prayer used in the consecration of an amulet ring.
VII. A PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
[Revised text, R. 28, 29. Wessely, ibid., 84, 1598 ff.]
1. Thee I invoke, 0 greatest God, Lord everlasting, thou world-ruler, above the world, beneath the world, mighty sea-ruler ;
2. Who shinest forth at dawn, out from the East rising for all the world, and setting in the West !
3. Come unto me, thou who dost rise from the four winds, joyous Good Daimon, for whom the heaven is thy revelling-place ! 2
4. I call upon thy holy, mighty, hidden names which thou dost joy to hear.
5. When thou dost shine the earth doth sprout afresh, the trees bear fruit when thou dost laugh, the animals bring forth when thou dost turn to them.
6. Give glory, honour, grace, fortune and power . . . !
7. Thee I invoke, the great in heaven . . . , 0 dazzling Sun, who shed'st thy beams on all the world !
8. Thou art the mighty serpent, the chief of all the ptov. Cf. I. 5 above. VOL. I.
gods,1 0 thou who dost possess Egypt's beginning,2 and the end of all the world !
9. Thou art the [God] who saileth o'er the ocean ; thou art the [God] who doth come into sight each day.
10. 0 thou who art above the world, and art beneath the world, 0 mighty ruler of the sea, give ear unto my voice this day, this night, these holy hours [of thine], and through this amulet let that be done for which I consecrate it !
1 The serpent was a symbol of the Logos, and this is the idea underlying the so-called Ophite systems of the Gnosis.
2 This refers to the first nome of Upper Egypt, whose metropolis, Elephantine, was once the chief seat of the popular Agathodaimon cult (R. 29, n. 4). The " world " was thus the Egyptian civilised world, beyond which was the darkness of Ethiopia.
THE MAIN SOURCE OF THE TEISMEGISTIC
LITEEATUEE ACCOEDING TO MANETHO,
HIGH PEIEST OF EGYPT
HERMES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE HELLENISTIC
PERIOD
THE more intimate contact of Greek thought and philosophy with Egyptian lore and mystic tradition began immediately with the brilliant era of the Lagides, who gradually made Alexandria the intellectual and religious, philosophic and scientific, centre of the Hellenistic world.