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

For of the universal principles there are three kinds [or races] — the angelic, psychic, and earthy ; and three churches — angelic, psychic, and earthy — named the Elect, Called, and Bound.

These are the chief heads from a very large number of doctrines,6 which, he says, James, the Brother of the Lord, handed on to Mariamne.7

1 Geryon, the triple-headed or triple-bodied Giant, who plays a prominent part in the myth of Hercules.

2 Or spiritual, psychic, and earthy.

3 That is, the learning to know.

4 Of. § 25, J.

6 That is, as we shall see later, C. 0 \6ya>v.

7 Celsus (c. 150-175 A.D.) knows of groups of Harpocratians — that is, worshippers of Horus; — some of whom derived their tradition from Salome, others from Mariamne, and others again from Martha (Origen, C. Celsum, v. 62). This suggests an Egyptian setting. (For Salome and Maria or Miriam (Mariamne), the Sisters of Jesus, see D. J. L., 405 f . ; for Martha, Our Lady, see ibid., 375 ff.) In the Gnostic Acts of Philip, Mariamne, or Mariamme (both forms being found in the MSS., according to R. A. Lipsius, Die apokr. Apostelgeschichten — Brunswick, 1884 — iii. 12), is the "virgin sister" of Philip, and plays an important rule as prophetess. She is to Philip as Thekla to Paul, or Helen to Simon. Compare with this the "sister wife" whom Paul demands the right to take about like " the rest of the Apostles and the Brethren of the Lord and Cephas " (1 Corinth, ix. 5 ; D. J. L., 229). Salmon (art. " Mariamne " in Smith and Wace's D. of Christ. Biog., iii. 830) refers to the Mary (Magdalene) of the Pistis Sophia, the chief questioner of the Master and His favourite disciple, the

But in order that we may put an end to the lying accounts of these impious [heretics] concerning Mariamne, and James, and the Saviour Himself,1 let us come to the Initiations from which they get this myth — if you like [to call it so] — to the non-Grecian and Grecian [Initiations] ; and let us see how, by combining together the secret Mysteries of all the Gentiles which must not be spoken of, and by telling lies about the Christ, they take in those who do not know that these things are the Orgies of the Gentiles.

Now, since the foundation of their system is Man Adamas, and they say it has been written of him, " Who shall declare his generation ? " 2 — learn how they have taken the undiscoverable and contradictory generation of Man and plastered it on the Christ.

THE MATERIAL FOR THE KECOVERY OF THE ORIGINAL
HELLENISTIC DOCUMENT

(1) S. " Earth (say the Greeks3) first brought forth Man — bearing a fair gift, desiring to be mother not of plants without feeling, nor of brutes without reason, but of a tamed God-loving life.

"Difficult is it (H. he says4) to discover whether it was among the Boeotians that Alalkomeneus rose from the Kephisian Lake as first of men ; or whether