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

" They [the ancients] further add, that there is something of a plantal and plastic life l also, exercised by the soul, in those spirituous and airy bodies after death ; they being nourished too, though not after the same manner, as these gross earthly bodies of ours are here, but by vapours ; and that not by parts or organs, but throughout the whole of them (as sponges),2 they imbibing everywhere those vapours. For which cause, they who are wise will in this life also take care of using a thinner and dryer diet, that so that spirituous body (which we have also at this present time within our grosser body) may not be clogged and incrassated, but attenuated. Over and above which these ancients made use of catharms, or purgations, to the same end and purpose also: for as this earthly body is washed with water, so is that spirituous body cleansed by cathartic vapours ; some of these vapours being nutritive, others purgative. Moreover, these ancients further declared concerning this spirituous body, that it was not organized, but did the whole of it, in every part throughout, exercise all functions of sense, the soul hearing and seeing, and perceivng all sensibles, by it everywhere. " 3

THE HABITAT OF EXCARNATE SOULS

But to return to our treatise ; the dwelling-place of excarnate souls is the Air, the sublunary region of four main layers, which are successively subtler and finer as they are more removed from the earth ; the uppermost limit of the Air is coterminous with the fiery or setheric realms (6), the habitat of the gods.

1 rf}s 0imK7js CWTJJ, — that is, vegetative.

2 Endosmosis and exosmosis.

3 Philoponus, Procem. in Aristot. de Anima, as given in Cudworth's Intellectual System (ed. 1820), iii. 506 ff. ; see my Orpheus, pp. 278, 279.

In the different zones, or firmaments, or layers of this s Air, dwell not only excarnate souls, during the period between their incarnations, but also those which have never yet been shut in body — that is, presumably, the daimones (8).

With regard to the manner in which souls are kept in their appropriate spaces after the death of the body, and the way in which they are brought back to appropriate bodies, and the two ministers of Providence (9), it is of value to note that in this we have a simple outline of what is explained at great length and in much detail in the Coptic Gnostic work called Pistis Sophia. It would, however, occupy too much space here to deal with the representations of the Egyptian Gnostic work on this subject in a satisfactory manner, and as the text is now accessible in English, it can easily be consulted by the reader.1

1 For Melchizedek, the " Receiver of light and Guide of souls," see P. £, passim, and especially 35-37, 292, 327 ; for Zorokothora- Melchizedek and leou, see " The Books of the Saviour," ibid., 365 ff. ; and for Gabriel and Michael, ibid., 138.

II

References and Fragments in the Fathers

I.
JUSTIN MARTYE

i. Cohortatio ad Gentiles, xxxviii. ; Otto (J. C. T.), ii. 122 (2d ed., Jena, 1849).*

THE MOST ANCIENT OF PHILOSOPHERS

Now if any of you should think that he has learnt the doctrine concerning God from those of the philosophers who are mentioned among you as most ancient, let him give ear to Ammon and Hermes. For Ainmon in the Words (Logoi) concerning himself 2 calls God " utterly hidden " ; while Hermes clearly and plainly declares :

To understand God is difficult ; to speak [of Him] impossible, even for one who can understand.3

THE "WORDS OF AMMON"

This passage occurs at the very end of the treatise.
Justin will have it that the most ancient of all the
philosophers are on his side.

1 The Exhortation is considered by most pseudepigraphic, but is supposed by others to be the earliest work of Justin, which may be placed conjecturally about 130 A.D. ; the First Apology is generally ascribed to the year 148 A.D.

2 Taking the reading irepl eaurou (Otto, n. 13), adopted in R. 138.

3 Quoted also by Lactantius, D. I. Epit., 4 ; Cyril Alex., Con.
JuL, i. 31 ; and Stobaeus, Flor., Ixxx. [Ixxviii.], 94 (Ex. ii. 1).

These are Ammon and Hermes. Justin, moreover, knows of certain Words (Logoi), or Sermons, or Sacred Utterances of Ammon, which must have been circulating in Greek, otherwise it is difficult to see how Justin was acquainted with them. They were evidently of an apocalyptic nature, in the form of a self-revelation of Ammon or God.