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

All are summed up in Ignorance, or Error, just as the seven virtues are summed up in Gnosis or Truth.1 And just as Ignorance is the source of vice, so is Knowledge or Gnosis the beginning of Truth. Gnosis is not the end but the beginning of the Path, the end of it is God or the Good.

The difference between the " Poemandres " arrangement and the categories of our treatise is conditioned by the fact that in the former the process of transformation in the case of a good man after death is described, whereas in the latter the Way of Rebirth in a living man is set forth.

That the Virtues (and Vices, therefore) were categorized according to the fundamental numbers of the Gnosis may be seen in most systems of Christian Gnostic aeonology ; indeed, it was a common plan of the general Gnostic theosophy of the time. In our treatise we have set forth the manner of the immediate practical ethical realization of what might be taken by a superficial student of Gnostic seonology as an empty schematology of purely metaphysical abstractions.2 These things, however, meant everything to the Gnostic; they were fullnesses — no abstractions, but transcendent realities.

So also in the Shepherd of Hermas (Vis. iii. 8, 7), just as in our treatise, we are presented with the Vision of a Band of seven Women, each the mother of the next, seven Virtues, called : Faith, Continence, Simplicity, Freedom-from-malice, Seriousness, Gnosis (eTaem}/*^), Love.

And not only do we have the Seven, but also the

1 Cf. P. S. A., xxix. 2.

2 The usual way, indeed, in which it is taken.

Twelve, twelve Maidens (Sim. xv. 1-3): Faith, Continence, Power, Long-suffering, Simplicity, Freedomfrom-malice, Chastity, Joyfulness, Truth, Understanding, Concord, Love.

To these are opposed twelve Women in dark robes :
Infidelity, Incontinence, Disobedience, Error, Grief,
Depravity, Wantonness, Quickness-to-wrath, Falsehood,
Folly, Slander, Hate.

Zosimus also speaks of the Twelve Fates (Moi/oat) of Death, and associates them with the Passions.1

But, indeed, the subject is infinite, for it is the consummation of all right endeavour and all true progress in humanity. We must, then, leave it for the present, to avoid running to too great length in these comments. Sufficient for the moment to point to the fact that the Ten is not only the Wedding Garment of Purity, but also the Eobe of Power or Glory. In its consummation also it is the Garment of the Christ, the One Eobe without seam throughout, for the Ten contains the One, and the One contains the Ten.

THE DAWN OF COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS

13. The result of this Potent Invocation of the Powers, —that is to say, the realization of the full meaning of the sacred rite which consummates itself in the consciousness of Hermes, and so communicates itself in some measure to Tat,2 — is that Tat begins to " see " ; "I see the All, I see myself in Mind."

" In heaven am I, in earth, in water, air ; I am in animals, in plants ; I'm in the womb, before the womb, after the womb, — I'm everywhere " (§ 11).

Compare this with G. H., xi. (xii.) 22, where Hermes is himself being taught by Mind :

" Collect into thyself all senses of all creatures, — of

1 Berthelot, 244 ; R. 214. 2 Cf. G. H., i. 7 ; xi. (ixi.) 6.

THRICE-GREATEST HERMES

fire, and water, dry and moist. Think that thou art at the same time in every place, in earth, in sea, in sky ; not yet begotten, in the womb, young, old and dead, in after-death conditions."

This is, as we have seen, a pure Egyptian formula, and connotes the opening of the " cosmic consciousness/'

This consciousness, whatever else it may be, is a transcending of our three-dimensional limitation of consciousness,— that of the "body's view-point, — a thing three ways in space extended."

THE Vow OF SILENCE

The mystery of this New Birth in consciousness is to be kept secret; therefore Hermes has not commented on it, presumably in the Expository Sermons ; moreover, it must even now be kept secret (§ 22), and therefore is the treatise a Secret Sermon. The reason for this is given both here and in § 22 : " That we may not be thought to be calumniators" (8id/3o\ot), by the Many or Unknowing. What may be the precise meaning of this phrase I do not know, and can only speculate.