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

This (H. he says) is [His organ of] Hearing ; for it is labyrinth-like.

And the name of the third is Tigris. " This is that which flows the opposite way to the Assyrians." 3

This (H. he says) is [His organ of] Smell, for the current of it is very rapid ; and it " flows the opposite way to the Assyrians," because after the breath is breathed out, on breathing in again, the breath that is drawn in from without, from the air, comes in more rapidly, and with greater force. For this (H. he says) is the nature of respiration.

" And the fourth river [is] Euphrates." 4

This (H. they say) [is] the mouth, through which by the utterance of prayer and entrance of food, the (? C. — spiritual, perfect) man is rejoiced, and nourished and expressed.5

This [River] (H. he says) is the Water above the
Firmament.6

C. Concerning which (H. he says) the Saviour hath said :

" If thou hadst known Who it is Who asketh, thou wouldst have asked from Him [in return], and He would have given thee to drink of Living Water bubbling [forth]." 7

1 Cf. Gen. ii. 11, 12. 2 Ibid., 13.

3 Ibid., 14. 4 Ibid.

6 The substance of this is also to be found in the " Simonian " tradition " refuted " by Hippolytus.

6 Cf. Gen. i. 7. 7 Cf. John iv. 10.

J. To this Water (H. he says) every nature comes, each selecting its own essence, and from this Water there comes to each nature what is proper [to it] (H. he says), more surely than iron to magnet,1 and gold to the bone 2 of the sea-hawk, and chaff to amber.

C. And if any man (H. he says) is " blind from birth," 3 and hath not seen " the True Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," 4 — let hin» see again through us, and let him see as it were through —

J.5 —Paradise, planted with Trees and all kinds of seeds, the Water flowing amid all the Trees and Seeds, and [then] shall he see that from one and the same Water the Olive selects and draws Oil, and the Vine Wine, and each of the rest of the Trees according to its kind.

1 Lit., the Heracleian stone.

2 KtpictSi. Of. Hipp., Phil, v. 17, on system of Sethiani (S. 198, 36). Both S. and C. translate it correctly as "spina" meaning " backbone " ; it has, however, been erroneously translated as " spur." Plutarch, De Is. d Os., Ixii. 3, tells us that the load-stone was called by the Egyptians " bone of Horus " ; and Horus is the "hawk" par excellence, the "golden hawk." Cf. Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 246, who says that we are informed by Manetho (thus making Manetho the main source of Plutarch) that the " load-stone is by the Egyptians called the ' bone of Horus,' as iron is the 'bone of Typho.'" In the chapter of the Ritual dealing with the deification of the members, the backbone of the deceased is identified with the backbone of Set (xlii. 12). Elsewhere (cviii. 8) the deceased is said " to depart having the harpoon of iron in him." This seems to suggest the black backbone of death and the golden backbone of life.

3 Of. John ix. 1 ; rv<f>\bs IK ytvfrris, perhaps mystically meaning "blind from (owing to) genesis." Cf. the "blind accuser" in the Trismegistic treatise quoted by Zosimus in our Fragments.

4 John i. 9.

5 This is evidently to be attributed to J., or rather his " Simonian " source, as it follows directly on the sentence about " every nature selecting." Either C. has suppressed the opening words of J.'s paragraph and substituted his own gloss, or H. has mangled his text.

But (H. he says) that Man is of no honour in the World, though of great honour [in Heaven, betrayed x] by those who know not to those who know Him not, being accounted " as a drop from a cask." 2

But we (H. he says) —

• C. — are the spiritual [men] who — J. — choose for ourselves from —
• C. — the Living Water —

J. — the Euphrates, that flows through the midst of Babylon, what is proper [to each of us] — journeying through the True Gate —

C. — which is Jesus the Blessed.

And of all men we alone are Christians,3 accomplishing the
Mystery at the third Gate —

J. — and being anointed with the Ineffable Chrism from the Horn,4 like David [was], not from the flask 5 of clay, like Saul —

C. — who was fellow- citizen with an evil daemon of fleshly desire.

H. These things, then, we have set down as a few out of many.
For innumerable are the attempts of their folly, silly and crazy.
But since we have, to the best of our ability, exposed their
unknowable Gnosis, it seems best to set down the following also.