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

" The whole of this company (0/acrop) have voluntarily deprived themselves of the possession of aught in abundance, thinking little of things dear to the flesh. Now athletes are men whose bodies are well cared for and full of vigour, men who make strong the fort, their body, against their soul ; whereas the [athletes] of 1 Z)c Sept., §§ 3, 4 ; M. ii. 279, P. 1175 (Ri. v. 21, 22).

[this] discipline, pale, wasted, and, as it were, reduced to skeletons, sacrifice even the muscles of their bodies to the powers of their own souls, dissolving, if the truth be told, into one form — that of the soul, and by their mind becoming free from body.

"The earthly element is, therefore, naturally dissolved and washed away, when the whole mind in its entirety resolves to make itself well-pleasing unto God. This race is rare, however, and found with difficulty ; still it is not impossible it should exist." l

And in another passage, when referring to the small
number of the "prudent and righteous and gracious,"
Philo says :

" But the ' few,' though rare [to meet with], are yet not non-existent. Both Greece and Barbary [that is, non-Greek lands] bear witness [to them].

"For in the former there nourished those who are pre-eminently and truly called the Seven Sages — though others, both before and after them, in every probability reached the [same] height — whose memory, in spite of their antiquity, has not evanished through the length of time, while that of those of far more recent date has been obliterated by the tide of the neglect of their contemporaries.

" While in non-Grecian lands, in which the most revered and ancient in such words and deeds [have nourished], are very crowded companies of men of worth and virtue; among the Persians, for example, the [caste] of Magi, who by their careful scrutiny of nature's works for purpose of the gnosis of the truth, in quiet silence, and by means of [mystic] images of piercing clarity (rpavwrepa^ e^aa-ea-iv) are made initiate into the mysteries of godlike virtues, and in their turn initiate [those who come after them]; in 1 Dt Mut. Norn., § 4 ; M. i. 583, P. 1049 (Ri. iii. 163, 164).

India the [caste] of the Gymnosophists, who, in addition to their study of the lore of nature, toil in [the fields of] morals, and [so] make their whole life a practical example of [their] virtue.

"Nor are Palestine and Syria, in which no small portion of the populous nation of the Jews dwell, unfruitful in worth and virtue. Certain of them are called Essenes, in number upwards of 4000, according to my estimate. " *

Philo then proceeds to give an account of these famous mystics.

In Egypt itself, however, he selects out of the many communities of the Therapeutse and Therapeutrides (which the Old Latin Version renders Cultores et Cultrices pietatis)2 only one special group, with which he was presumably personally familiar and which was largely Jewish. Of this order (o-uoTiy/xa)3 Philo gives us a most graphic account, both of their settlement and mode of life. By means of this intensely interesting sketch of the Contemplative or Theoretic Life, and by the parallel passages from the rest of Philo's works which Conybeare has so industriously marshalled in his "Testimonia," we are introduced into the environment and atmosphere of these Theoretics, and find ourselves in just such circumstances as would condition the genesis of our Trismegistic literature.

The whole of Philo's expositions revolve round the idea that the truly philosophic life is an initiation into the Divine Mysteries ; for him the whole tradition of Wisdom is necessarily a mystery-tradition. Thus he tells us of his own special Therapeut community, south of Alexandria :

1 Quod Om. Prob. L., § 11 ; M. ii. 456, P. 876 (Ri. v. 284, 285).

2 C., p. 146, 1. 13.

3 D. V. C., § 9 ; M. ii. 482, P. 900 (Ri. v. 319, C. 111).

" In every cottage there is a sacred chamber,1 which is called semneion and monasterion? in which, in solitude, they are initiated into the mysteries of the solemn life." 3