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

Conductor and Keconductor of souls,1 and Cause of souls, has not escaped the notice of the poets (H. of the Gentiles), when saying :

" But Cyllenian Hermes summoned forth the souls
Of men mindful " 2—

— not the " suitors " of Penelope (H. he says), hapless wights! but of those who are roused from sleep, and have their memory restored to them —

" From what honour and [how great] degree of blessedness." 3

J. That is, from the Blessed Man Above — H. — or Original Man, or Adamas, as they 4 think —

J. — they 5 have been thus brought down into the plasm of clay, in order that they may be enslaved to the Demiurge of this creation, Esaldaios 6 —

H. — a fiery God, fourth in number, for thus they call the Demiurge and Father of this special cosmos.7

1 Psychagogue and psychopomp — or leader and evoker of souls — apparently here meaning him who takes souls out of body and brings them back a^ain to it.

2 nvjiffT-fipuv — lit., meaning " recalling to mind " ; and also "suitors." Cf. Od., xxiv. 1 ff.

3 Empedocles, On Purifications (Diels, 119 ; Stein, 390 ; Karsten, 11; Fairbanks, First Philosophers of Greece, 206); Empedocles continues : " . . . have I fallen here on the earth to consort with mortals ! "

4 The Naassenes, in H.'s opinion.

5 The souls.

6 Some editors think this is a mistake for laldabaoth. The name, however, appears in the system of Justinus (Hipp., Philos., v. 26) as Esaddaios, evidently the transliteration of El Shaddai, as one of the twelve Paternal Angels, the Sons of Elohim, the Demiurge of the sensible world, and of Eden, the Maternal Potency or Nature.

* 'rov IStKov K6fffj.ov — the cosmos of species and not of wholes. Cf. § 17 below for the passage of C. from which H. takes this.

(13) S. " And he x holds a rod in his hands,

Beautiful, golden ; and with it he spell-binds the eyes of men, Whomsoever he would, and wakes them again too from sleep." 2

This (H. he says) is He who alone hath the power of life and death.3

J. Concerning Him it is written: "Thou shalt shepherd them with a rod of iron." 4

But the poet (H. he says), wishing to embellish the incomprehensibility of the Blessed Nature of the Logos, bestowed upon Him a golden instead of an iron rod.

S. " He spell-binds the eyes " of the dead (H. he says), and " wakes them again too from sleep " — those who are waked from sleep and become " mindful." 5

C. Concerning them the Scripture saith : " Awake thou that sleepest, and rise, and Christ will give thee light." a

This is the Christ, the Son of Man (H. he says), expressed in all who are born from the Logos, whom no expression can express.

S. This (H. he says) is the Great Ineffable Mystery of the Eleusinia : " Hye Eye." 7

Compare Ptah-Hephaistos, the Demiurge by Fire, the Fourth, in the Inscription of London given in Chap. VI. above.

1 Sc. Hermes.

2 The continuation of the above quotation — Od., xxiv. 2 ff.

3 Cf. C. H., i. 14: "he who hath power over the lives of cosmos."

4 Ps. ii. 9 — same reading as LXX.

6 Or " get back memory," or " become suitors."

6 Eph. v. 14 — a shortened form of the present Pauline text ; Paul himself, however, seems to be quoting from some older writing. If the intermediate reading (fintyatfffi for evKJHitffet) can stand (see W. H., Ap. 125), it would mean "Christ shall touch thee " with His rod.

7 Cf. Plutarch, De 7s. et Os., xxxiv. After saying that Osiris, or the Logos, is symbolised as Ocean and Water, and that Thales took his idea of Primal "Water, as the cause of things, from the

J. And that (H. he says) all things have been put under Him, this too has been said : " Into all the earth hath gone forth their sound." 1

(14) S. And "Hermes leads them, moving his rod, and they follow, squeaking " 2 — the souls in a cluster, as the poet hath shown in the following image :

" But as when bats into some awesome cave's recess Fly squeaking — should one from out the cluster fall Down from the rock, they cling to one another." 3

J. The " rock " (H. he says) means Adamas. This
(H. he says) is the " corner-stone " —

C. — " that hath become the head of the corner." 4 For in the