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

J. — from the Inexpressible — S. — as the hierophant himself — not emasculated like the " Attis," 2 but made eunuch with hemlock juice — C. — and divorced from all fleshly generation —

S. — in the night, at Eleusis, solemnising the Great Ineffable Mysteries, when the bright light streams forth,3 shouts and cries aloud, saying :

especially from the spinal marrow, of the slain bull. Sometimes the wheat-ears are represented as flowing like blood from the wound above the heart inflicted by the dagger of Mithras, the Bull-slayer (op. dt., i. 186, 187). The constellation of the Wheatear in the Virgin, which was supposed to give good harvests, presumably refers to the same idea (cf. Eratosth., Gataster., 9). See op. cit., i. 202, 205, n. 2. The wheat-ear, therefore, symbolised in one aspect the " generative seed " — in animals and men-animals the spermatozoa, in man a mystery. Mithraicism had the closest connection with the Phrygian Mystery Cult ; indeed, the Magna Mater Mysteries were used by it for the initiation of women, who were excluded from the Mithriaca proper.

1 The Light-spark of Pistis Sophia nomenclature.

2 That is, the hierophant initiate of the Great Mother.

3 M Tro\\if irvpi, lit., "to the accompaniment of much fire." This refers, I believe, to the brilliant ilhimination of the Temple, or, as it was variously called, the Initiation Hall (rtKtffT-fipiov), the Mystic Enclosure (/UUO-TIK&J o^/crfs) — though this was probably the inner court surrounding the Temple proper — the Great Hall (neyapov), or Palace (aydnropov). As Hatch says, in the tenth of his famous Hibbert Lectures for 1888 : "And at night there were the mystic plays : the scenic representations, the drama in symbol and for sight. The torches were extinguished ; they stood outside the Temple [in the Mystic Enclosure, presumably] in the silence and darkness. The door opened — there was a blaze of light — before them was enacted the drama." — Hatch (E.), The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church (4th ed., London, 1892). See also my "Notes on the Eleusinian Mysteries," in The Theosoph. Rev. (April 1898), xxii. p. 151.

" [Our] Lady hath brought forth a Holy Som Brimo
[hath given birth] to Brimos " —

— that is, the Strong to the Strong.

(27) J. And " [Our] Lady " (H. he says) is the
Genesis —

C. — the Spiritual, Heavenly [Genesis] —

J. — Above. And the Strong is he who is thus generated.

For it is the Mystery called " Eleusis " and " Anaktoreion " ; — " Eleusis," because we —

C. — the spiritual —

J. — come2 from Above, streaming down from Adamas, for eleus-esthai (H. he says) is " to come " ; and " Anaktoreion " [from anag-esthai, " leading back," that is 3 ] from " returning " 4 Above.5

This [Eeturn] (H. he says) is that of which those who are initiated into the great Mysteries of the Eleusinia speak.

(28) S. And the law is that after they have been initiated into the Little Mysteries, they should be further initiated into the Great.

" For greater deaths do greater lots obtain." 6

The Little (H. he says) are the Mysteries of c Heracleitus, Fr. (25, Diels ; 101, Fairbanks, First Philosophers of Greece). " Deaths " may also be rendered destinies, fates, or dooms.

1 See especially Lobeck, Aglaophamm, 587 ff.

2 tf\6o/jitv} this verb forming its tenses from \/ep and \/f\v0, and e\tvffts meaning also "coming."

3 Emend, by Keil.

4 avtb.Qt'tv.

6 It need hardly be said that this is all mystical word-play ; a.i>a.KT6pfiov is philologically derived from the same stem as &va£, "a king." Cf. the Anaktoron or Palace as the name of the Eleusinian Temple of Initiation.

Persephone Below ; concerning which Mysteries and the way leading there and —

C. — being broad and wide, — — taking [men] to Persephone, the poet also speaks :

" Beneath this there is another path death-cold, Hollow and clayey. But this l is best to lead To grove delightsome of far-honoured Aphrodite." 2

These 3 are (H. he says) the Little Mysteries —
C. — those of the fleshly generation —