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

Alexandria, in the Koreion,1 as it is called — an immense temple, that is to say the Precinct of the Virgin — after they have kept all-night vigil with songs and music, chanting to their idol, when the vigil is over, at cockcrow, they descend with lights into an underground crypt, and carry up a wooden image lying naked on a litter, with the seal of a cross made in gold on its forehead, and on either hand two similar seals, and on either knee two others, all five seals heing similarly made in gold. And they carry round the image itself, circumambulating seven times the innermost temple, to the accompaniment of pipes, tabors and hymns, and with merry-making they carry it down again underground. And if they are asked the meaning of this mystery, they answer : * To-day at this hour the Maiden (Kore), that is, the Virgin, gave birth to the MOB.'"

He further adds that at Petra, in Arabia, where, among other places, this mystery was also performed, the Son of the Virgin is called by a name meaning the "Alone-begotten of the Lord."2

Here, then, at Alexandria, in every probability the very environment of our treatise, we have a famous mystery-rite, solemnized in the Temple of the Virgin, who gives birth to a Son, the ^Eon. This, we shall not be rash in assuming, signifies not only the birth of the new year, but also still more profound mysteries, when we remember the words of the Naassene Document quoted above: "For such a man is the Virgin, big with child, conceiving and bearing a Son, — not psychic, not fleshly [nor, we may add, temporal], but

1 That is, the Temple of Kore. This can hardly be the Temple of Persephone, as Dindorf (iii. 729) suggests, but rather the Temple of Isis.

2 Cf. D. J. L., pp. 407 ff.

a blessed &on of ^Eons"— • that is, an Eternity of Eternities, an immortal God.

We should also notice the crowing of the cock, which plays so important a part in the crucifixionstory in the Gospels,1 and above all things the stigmata on the image, the symbols of a cosmic and human mystery.

THE MYSTERY OF THE BIRTH OF HORUS

In our own treatise the mysterious Birth of Horus is also referred to (35, 36) as follows.

Isis has handed on the tradition of the Coming of Osiris, the Divine emanation, the descent of the efflux of the Supreme, and Horus asks : " How was it, mother, then, that Earth received God's efflux ? " — where Earth may well refer to the "Dark Earth," a synonym of Isis herself.

And Isis answers: "I may not tell the story of [this] birth; for it is not permitted to describe the origin of this descent, 0 Horus, [son] of mighty power, lest afterward the way of birth of the immortal Gods should be known unto men."

Here I think we have a clear reference to the mysterious " Birth of Horus," the birth of the gods, — that is to say, of how a man becomes a god, becomes the most royal of all souls, gains the kingdom, or lordship over himself. This mystery was not yet to be revealed to the neophyte — Horus — and yet this Birth is suggested to Tat by Hermes — C. H., xiii. (xiv.) 2 — when he says: "Wisdom that understands in silence [such is the matter and the womb from out which Man is born] and the True Good the Seed."

The womb is the mysterious Silence, the matter is

1 Though some have conjectured that the "cock" was the popular name for the Temple- watchman who called the hours.

Wisdom, Isis herself, the seed is the Good, the
Agathodaimon, Osiris.

But in our treatise Horus has not yet reached to this high state ; Isis, as the introductory words tell us, is pouring forth for him " the first draught of immortality " only, " which souls have custom to receive from gods"; he is being raised to the understanding of a daimon, but not as yet to that of a god.