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

Assyrians call thee thrice-longed-for Adonis ; all Egypt [calls thee] Osiris ; the Wisdom of Hellas [names thee] Men's Heavenly Horn ; the Samothracians [call thee] august Adama ; the Hsemonians, Korybas ; the Phrygians [name thee] Papa sometimes, at times again Dead, or God,1 or Unfruitful, or Aipolos, or Green Eeaped2 Wheat-ear, or the Fruitful that Amygdalos brought forth, Man, Piper . . . Attis ! "

H. He [S.] says that this is the Attis of many forms of whom they [NN., in H.'s opinion] sing as follows :

S. " Of Attis will I sing, of Khea's [Beloved] ;— not with the boomings 3 of bells, nor with the deep-toned 4 pipe of Idsean Kuretes ; but I will blend my song with Phoebus' music of the lyre. Evoi ! Evan ! — for [thou .art] Pan, [thou] Bacchus [art], and Shepherd of bright stars ! "

HIPPOLYTUS' CONCLUSION

H. For these and suchlike reasons these [Naassenes] frequent what are called the Mysteries of the Great Mother, believing that they obtain the clearest view of the Universal Mystery from the things done in them.

For they have nothing beyond the [mysteries] therein enacted except that they are not emasculated. Their sole "accomplishment," [however,] is the business of the Eunuch, for they most severely and vigilantly enjoin to abstain, as though emasculated, from intercourse with women. And the rest of their business, as we have stated at length, they carry out just like the Eunuchs.

School of Pythagoras (see s.w. in Sophocles' Lex.). Schneidewin and Cruice adopt Hermann's " emendation," &Kpi<r^a. (mutilation), but I prefer the reading of the Codex, as referring to the " mournful piper," or Logos, in the flowing " discord " of Rhea or Chaos, and therefore the " song " that Rhea is beginning to sing as she changes from Chaos to Cosmos.

1 Perhaps Quick, for Qtls is from Of-ttv, "to run," to imitate the word-play of our mystics.

2 Or cut. 3 pArfou. * Lit., " bellower."

And they honour nothing else but "Naas,"1 being called
Naasseni. And Naas is the Serpent —

J.2 — from whom (H. he says) are all those [things] called naous 3 under heaven, from naas.

To that Naas alone every shrine and every rite of initiation and every mystery (H. he says) is dedicated ; and, in general, no initiation can be found under heaven in which a naos does not play a part, and [also] the Naas in it, from which it has got the name of naos.

(H. Moreover, they say that) the Serpent is the
Moist Essence —

H. — just as [did] also Thales the Milesian 4 —

J. — and (H. that) naught at all of existing things, immortal or mortal, animate or inanimate, can hold together without Him.

[And they say] (H. that) all things are subject to Him, and (H. that) He is Good, and has all things in Him as in " the horn of the one-horned bull " ; 5 so that He distributes beauty and bloom to all that exist according to each one's nature and peculiarity, as though permeating all, just as [the River] " proceeding forth out of Eden and dividing itself into four sources." 6

H. And they say that Eden is His Brain, as though it were bound and constricted in its surrounding vestures like heavens ; while Paradise they consider to be the Man as far as His Head only.

This Eiver, then, coming forth out of Eden (H, that is, from His Brain), is divided into four streams.

1 The Hebrew Nahash, as we have already seen.

2 There being more of J. than of H. in this, I have printed it as J. though it is a defaced J. I am also persuaded that in what follows we have a quotation from a " Simonian " document by J. rather than J. himself.

3 That is, temples.

4 Who derived all things symbolically from " Water."

5 Cf. Deut. xxxiii. 17. 6 Of. Gen. ii. 10 (LXX.).

And the name of the first river is called Pheison.

L-i
" This is that which encircles all the land of Evilat,

there where is the gold, and the gold of that land is fair ; there too is the ruby and the green stone." l

This (H. he says) is His Eye — by its dignity and colours bearing witness to what is said.

The name of the second river is Gedn. " This is that which encircles all the land of ^Ethiopia." 2