Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
He learns the great secret that to have one's thoughts always in heaven is as erroneous as to have them always on earth ; that there is a higher mode of existence, when the things of heaven and earth are within each other, and not apart.
As the Introduction to The Book of the Great Logos according to the Mystery has it:
" Jesus saith : Blessed is the man who knoweth this Word (Logos), and hath brought down the Heaven and borne up the Earth and raised it Heavenwards." 1
Heaven and Earth must kiss each other for this consummation, this truly Sacred Marriage.
And yet in the third Synoptic (xvi. 25, 26) we read :
" Jesus saith : If any man come unto Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own soul also, he cannot be My disciple. "
Here we have precisely the same word " hate " (fjna-el) as in our text. That, however, this " dark saying " was interpreted in a mystical sense by Gnostic tradition, as by no means referring to physical parents but to the past causes of our imperfections,2 I have already pointed out on several occasions 3 ; we may therefore conclude that in a gnostic teaching, such as is our treatise, the terms " hate " and " body " are not to be literally interpreted.
1 Codex Brucianus ; see F. F. F., p. 520.
2 Cf. the Pistis Sophia, 341-343, where the text is given as : " He who shall not leave father and mother to follow after Me is not worthy of Me," and explained by the Saviour to mean : " Ye shall leave your Parents the Rulers, that ye may be Children of the First Everlasting Mystery."
3 See, for instance, Extracts from the" Vdhan" (London, 1904), pp. 374-376.
8. And that this is so may be seen from the declaration in § 8 : " For 'tis not God, 'tis we who are the cause of evil things, preferring them to good " ; — where the cause of evil is not assigned to the body but to man's own choice. And finally, to clinch our contention, we would refer the reader to the Sermon to Asclepius, 0. H., vi. (vii.) 6 :
" Such are the things that men call good and beautiful, Asclepius — things which we cannot flee or hate."
THE GNOSIS AND ITS BLESSINGS
9. In § 9 we have to notice the phrase : " Therefore to It Gnosis is no beginning ; rather is it that Gnosis doth afford to us the first beginning of Its being known"; and compare it with the logos quoted by the Jewish commentator in the Naassene Document (§ 25) : " The Beginning of Perfection is Gnosis of Man, but Gnosis of God is Perfect Perfection."
The claim for the Gnosis is therefore a modest one. The Gnosis is not an end in itself ; it is but the beginning of the True Knowledge of God. They who receive the Baptism of the Mind are made " perfect men," not Perfect ; not until they have received this touch of the Christ-consciousness have they reached true manhood.
Those who have received this Baptism know why they have come into being, — the purpose of life. They become consciously immortal; they know they are deathless, they do not only believe it ; their immortality is no longer a belief, it is a fact of knowledge.
They have won their freedom from Death and Fate, and know the real constitution of the cosmos up to the Threshold of the Good, the Plain of Truth— that is to say, presumably in Buddhist terms, as far as the Nirvanic state of consciousness. Not yet, however, have they entered Nirvana — that is to say, become one with the Logos. They have seen the Sight or Vision of Nirvana, but not entered into the Promised Land, that " Blessed Space," which, as Basilides tells us, " can neither be conceived of nor characterized by any word." l The Vision is an earnest of what they may be. They have become Gods, it is true, already, or, in other words, enjoy the same freedom and consciousness as the Gods or Angels, but there is a still more transcendent state, when they will be at-oned with Deity Himself.
THE ANCIENT PATH
Hard as it is to leave the "things we have grown used to," the things habitual, it must be done if we are to enter into the Way of the Gnosis. But no new Path is this, no going forth into new lands (though it may have all the appearance of being so). The entrance on the Path of the Gnosis is a Going-Home, it is a Eeturn — a Turning-Back (a True Kepentance). " We must turn ourselves back unto the Old Old Way " (TO. TraXaia KOI apyala).