Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

The form of expression, of course, may be susceptible of a geographical treatment, but as yet I am not satisfied that any clear heredity has been made out for this supposed interpolation. The Feminine Divinity, next the Highest God, is not set over against that God, but is His own Will. He is in the Pleroma Vision as much and as little male and female as in the general narrative. He transcends all opposites and contains all opposites in Himself.

What is clear, however, is that in the combination of both visions we have before us a simple and early form of the Gnosis which we meet with later in Christian over-workings, and especially in the very elaborate expositions of the Basilidian and Valentinian schools, the systems of which can, in their main elements, be paralleled and compared point by point with our treatise ; but this would be too lengthy a proceeding in our present study, for it would require a volume to itself in any way adequately to treat of it.1

1 The reader, however, may be referred to the chapters on
"The Basilidian Gnosis," "The Valentinian Movement," "Some
Outlines of ^Eonology," and " The Sophia-Mythus," in F. F. F.,
pp. 253-357.

THE SECOND EMANATION

9. We now return to the main narrative. Within the World-Egg, which was encircled by the Mighty Power (the Gnostic Horos), there had already been developed three Cosmic Elements (not our mixed elements) — Fire, Air, and Water-Earth. This had been effected by the descent of the Cosmic Logos into the Primal Elements of Disorder. As the Logos descended, Fire and Air ascended, and the Logos remained in Water-Earth. This was the result of the First Outpouring from the Potency of the Pleroma, the First Word uttered by Mind.

The Second Outpouring of Mind was of Mind no longer regarded as Light only, but as Light and Life, Male-Female. This emanation appeared as Enforming Mind — that is, the Fashioner or Former, Artificer or Demiurge of lives or souls ; it was the ensouling of the Ordered Elements of Nature with lives, whereby these Elements were drawn together into forms.

The Great Mind, as Light and Life, reflected itself in the " pure formation " of Nature — that is to say, in Fire and Spirit (Air), Fire for Light and Spirit for Life, to further enform things.

The Mighty Power or Self-limitation of Mind, the Boundary that no mortal can pass, marks off the formative area of the whole cosmos. This area, however, was by no means only the mixed sensible world (cosmos) which we perceive with our present physical senses. On the contrary, there are within it various orders (cosmoi) of the main cosmos. For the Ordering Mind, as the Enformer or Soul-fashioner, differentiates itself into seven Ruling Forms or Spheres which " enclose " the mixed sensible cosmos ; these spheres, therefore, must be of a psychic nature — that is to say, of a pure or subtle substance ; they are Forms of subtle matter endowed with reason. They constitute the Cosmic Engine of the fashioning of souls, or psychic natures, and of their perpetual transforming. Their energies and activities are those of Fate, or the ordered sequence of cause and effect, symbolized by spheres perpetually entering into themselves.