Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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Egyptians, the initiated priest of Apollo and learned comparative mythologist continues : " The Greeks say that ' son ' (vi6v) comes from 'water' (ifSaros) and 'to moisten' (5<rai), and they call Dionysus ' Hyes ' (vyv) as Lord of the Moist (vypas) Nature, he being the same as Osiris." Stoll in Roscher's Lex. (sub w.) says that "Hyes" and "Hye" were respectively designations of Dionysus and Semele, and that the meaning is the "Moistener" and the "Moistened" (references loc. tit.). The nymphs who reared Bacchus were also called Hyades (Pherecydes, 46; p. JOS, ed. Sturz). Hyes was also a popular epithet of Zeus as god of rain. See also Lobeck, Aglaophamus, 782 and 1045 ff. ; Anecd., Bekk., p. 202 : Some say that Hyes=Attis, others that Hyes = Dionysus ; " for Zeus poured (So-s) ambrosia upon him." One of the names of Bacchus was Ambrosia (Pherecy., ibid. ; Non., xxi. 20). I would therefore suggest that the mystic cry " Hye Kye " meant " 0 Moistener beget ! "
1 Ps. xix. 4. That is the Sound ( = Word) of the Heavens ; quoted also in Rom. x. 18.
2 Cf, Od., xxiv. 5. And compare also Hamlet, I. i. :
" The sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets."
3 Od., ibid. ff.
4 Ps. cxviii. 22. Quoted in Matt. xxi. 42 ; Mark xii. 10 ;
Luke xx. 17 ; Acts iv. 11.
" Head " is the expressive Brain l of the Essence, from which [Brain] " every fatherhood " 2 has its expression —
J. — which " I insert in the foundation of Zion." 3 [By this] (H. he says) he4 means, allegorically, the plasm of man. For the Adamas who is " inserted " is [the inner man, and the " foundations of Zion " are 5] the " teeth " — the " fence of the teeth," as Homer says — the Wall and Palisade 6 in which is the inner man, fallen into it from the Primal Man, the Adamas Above — [the Stone] "cut without hands"7 cutting it, and brought down into the plasm of forgetfulness, the earthy, clayey [plasm].
(15) S. And (H. he says that) they followed Him squeaking8 — the souls, the Logos.
"Thus they went squeaking together; and he led them on,
Hermes, the guileless, down the dark ways."9
That is, (H. he says) [He led them] into the eternal lands free from all guile. For where (H. he says)
went they ?
(16) "They passed by the streams of Ocean, and by the White Rock,
By the Gates of the Sun, and the People of Dreams." 10 For He (H. he says) is Ocean — "birth-causing of gods and birth-causing of men " 1 — flowing and ebbing for ever, now up and now down.
1 Taken by C. from S. and J., § 20 ; but I think that C. has missed the true meaning of the "corner-stone" in the brain.
2 Of. Eph. iii. 15.
3 Is. xxviii. 16 — reading tvrdffffw for e>£c£AX« of LXX. ; quoted also in Eph. ii. 20 and 1 Pet. ii. 7.
4 Sc. Isaiah.
6 Completion of the lacuna by R.
6 x«P<fowM« — a technical term also-fpr the " Gnostic " supernal Horos or Boundary.
7 Dan. ii. 15.
* Compare the "complaints of the souls" in the K.K. fragments. 9jOd, xxiv. 9 f.
J. When Ocean flows down (H. he says), it is the birth-causing of men ; and when [it flows] up, towards the Wall and Palisade, and the " White Eock," it is the birth-causing of gods.
This (H. he says) is what is written :
"'I have said ye are Gods and all Sons of the Highest ' 2 — if ye hasten to flee from Egypt and get you beyond the Eed Sea into the Desert " ; that is, from the intercourse below to the Jerusalem Above, who is the Mother of the Living.3 " But if ye turn back again into Egypt" — that is, to the intercourse below — "'ye shall die like men.' " 4
For (H. he says) all the generation below is subject to death, but the [birth] begotten above is superior to death.
C. For from water alone — that is, spirit — is begotten the spiritual [man], not the fleshly ; the lower [man] is fleshly. That is (H. he says) what is written : " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." 6
H. This is their 6 spiritual birth.
J. This (H. he says) is the Great Jordan, which, flowing downwards and preventing the sons of Israel
1 Gf. II., xiv. 201, 246 ; Hymn. Orph., Ixxxiii. 2.
2 Ps. Ixxxii. 6.
3 Cf. Gal. iv. 27 : " But Jerusalem Above is free, which is our Mother." (W. and H. text.)