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

Of living things, my son, some are made friends with fire, and some with water, some with air, and some with earth, and some with two or three of these, and some with all.

And, on the contrary, again some are made enemies of fire, and some of water, some of earth, and some of air, and some of two of them, and some of three, and some of all.

For instance, son, the locust and all flies flee fire ; the eagle and the hawk and all high-flying birds flee water; fish, air and earth; the snake avoids the open air. Whereas snakes and all creeping things love earth ; all swimming things [love] water ; winged things, air, of which they are the citizens ; while those that fly still higher [love] the fire and have their habitat near it. Not that some of the animals as well do not love fire ; for instance salamanders, for they even have their homes in it. It is because one or

1 Some historical allusion may perhaps be suspected in this term ; but I can find nothing appropriate to suggest.

another of the elements doth form their bodies outer envelope.

50. Each soul, accordingly, while it is in its body is weighted and constricted by these four. Moreover it is natural it also should be pleased with some of them and pained with others.

For this cause, then, it doth not reach the height of its prosperity ; still, as it is divine by nature, e'en while [wrapped up] in them, it struggles and it thinks, though not such thoughts as it would think were it set free from being bound in bodies.

Moreover if these [frames] are swept with storm and stress, or of disease or fear, then is the soul itself tossed on the waves, as man1 upon the deep with nothing steady under him.

COMMENTARY

ARGUMENT

1. The " Virgin of the World " is a sacred sermon of initiation into the Hermes-lore, the first initiation, in which the tradition of the wisdom is handed on by the hierophant to the neophyte, by word of mouth. The instructor, or revealer, is the representative of Isis- Sophia, and speaks in her name, pouring forth for her beloved son, the new-born Horus, the first draught of immortality, which is to purge away the poison of the mortal cup of forgetfulness and ignorance, and so raise him from the " dead."

1 For &vdpwiros Meineke reads dvflep'*0* ("asphodel"), and compares Callimachus, H. in Del., 193 : ira\tppoir) &s. But I see no necessity for this strained " emendation."

This pouring-forth explains that the divine economy is perfect order, mystery transcending mystery, — each state of being, and each being, a mystery to those below that state.

This order no mortal intellect can ever grasp ; nay, in the far-off ages, when as yet there were no men, but only Gods, those essences that know no death, the first creation of the World-creator, — even these Gods, these mysteries to us, were in amazement at the glories of the greater mysteries which decked the Heaven with their unveiled transcendent beauty. Even these Gods did not know God as yet.

2. The Gods were immortal, but unknowing; they were intoxicated with Heaven's beauty, amazed, nay awestruck, at the splendour of the mysteries of Heaven. Then came there forth another outpouring of the Father over all; He poured the Splendour of His Mind into their hearts and they began to know.1

With this representation is blended a mythical historical tradition which suggests that all this was brought about for an " earth " on which our humanity had not as yet appeared, in far-off distant days when apparently our earth was not as now, ages ago, the purest Golden Age when there were Gods, not men. In that race of Gods, those of them in whom the ray was no low-burning spark, but a divine flame, were the instructors in the heavenly wisdom.

3. Of these was Hermes, a race or " being " rather than an individual ; these " Sons of Fire " left the record of their wisdom engraved on "stone" in symbol, in charge of others of the same race but less knowing than themselves ; and so they ascended to Heaven.

1 The arising of the knowledge of God among the Gods, and the gradual descent of this knowledge down to man, reminds us somewhat of the method of the descent of the " Gospel " in the system of Basilides.