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

3 Cf. § 7, below ; G. H., xiii. (xiv.) 1 ; and Exs. ix. 1 and xviii. 1. The title must be so translated, I think, in spite of the fact that in the introductory words of the above treatise the term is immediately followed by the antithesis "rebirth" (iraXtyyeveffia), as though the Sermons were on birth or genesis (yei/eo-ts), — which, as we know from the Naassene Document, was the subject of the Lesser Mysteries, whereas Rebirth was that of the Greater. Everard gives " in the general speeches " ; Parthey, " in communibus " ; Menard, " dans les discours generaux " ; Chambers, " in the Generalities."

being an epitome, is a further teaching that presupposes a prior instruction already given in "The General Sermons," and so stands out as a more intimate exposition of the inward doctrine of the higher grades of the school.

Reitzenstein (p. 461) would have it that the doctrine of Sermons, ix. (x.) and x. (xi.), is a mediate one between the dualism of vi. (vii.) and the pronounced pantheistic mysticism of v. (vi.) and xi. (xii.) ; but I should fancy that these labels, even if they are correctly attached, would not represent such overwhelming contradictions to the Trismegistic doctors as they appear to do to their modern critics. There were different points of view ; there were different grades of instruction; every doctrine had more truth in it at the proper time and in the right place. In any case this sermon is one of the most beautiful tractates preserved to us.

THE WILL OF GOD

1. Our treatise begins with the statement that the universe and all therein is due to the Energy or Effective Working of God— that is to say, His Will. This Will is immutable and constant — the Law of the universe.

How subtly these philosophers in their most intimate circles used these terms may be seen from the Gnostic Doctor, Basilides, who writes :

"Naught was, — neither matter, nor substance, nor voidness of substance, nor simplicity, nor impossibility of composition, nor inconceptibility, nor imperceptibility, neither man, nor angel [Hermetice, daimon], nor God ; in fine, neither anything at all for which man has ever found a name, nor any operation which falls within the range either of his perception or conception.

" Such, or rather far more removed from the power of man's comprehension, was the state of Non-Being, when the Deity beyond Being, without thinking, or feeling, or determining, or choosing, or being compelled, or desiring, willed to create universality."

" When I use the term will," writes Basilides, " I do so merely to suggest the idea of an operation transcending all volition, thought, or sensible action." 1

2. God's Energy, or Self-realization, is, then, His Will (Oe\rja-i$) ; His Essence (ovarta) or Substance is " to will the being of all things " ; in brief, He is the Very Subsistence (i/Tra/o^?) of all — a term which subsequently came into great prominence in the later Platonic philosophy.

3. In § 3 we have a clear distinction drawn between the transcendent idea of God as Creator or Wilier, and the ordinary conception of God as Maker or Fabricator or Demiurge — a distinction that meets us in almost every Gnostic system. In our treatise, however, there is no setting of the one idea over against the other in any sense of antagonism. It is only stated that the self-operation of Deity transcends all such limited conceptions as that of a Maker or Fabricator.

OF GNOSIS AND ECSTASIS

4. The distinctive feature of God as the Good, or the Desirable, the Supreme Consummation, is " that He should be known " (TO yvwpi^ecrQai) ; in other words, the science of all sciences is the Gnosis of God.

5. The Vision Glorious, the One Sight, is next spoken of under the simile of the shining of a Eay of the Light

1 Hipp., Philos., vii. 21 (ed. D. and S., p. 358) ; F. F. F., pp.
257, 258.

and Life of the Spiritual Sun into the mind. This consummation of Ecstasis,1 we are told, was a transcending of the limitations of body, and was a faculty possessed by the forebears ("wpoyovoi) of the " race " into which Hermes and now Tat are being born ; these ancestors are mentioned under symbolic Greek names, evidently a substitute for Egyptian ones, for the reference is clearly to the priesthood of some past civilization of the Nile Land. At the same time, it can be referred to certain grades of super-men, regarded as gods, who had reached to certain stages of celestial dignity.2