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

In the Third Sermon, Hermes also says : " It is not possible such mysteries should be declared to those master|to expand the teaching, could he do so. Cf. Appul., Metam., xi. 21, 22 ; P. 8. A., i.

1 fpWS TOIOVTOS.

2 That is, presumably, causing their seeming death.

3 That is, the individual life-breath, unless the reading Ivi- Kovpov irveiifjtari is corrupt. The Latin translator in Migne goes hopelessly wrong, as, indeed, is frequently the case. Cf. G. H., x. (xi.) 13, Comment ; P. S. A., vi. 4 ; Exx. iv. 2, xv. 2, xix. 3.

who are without initiation in the sacred rites " ; in P. S. A., i. 2, Hermes declares: "It is a mark of an impious mind to publish to the knowledge of the crowd l a tractate 2 brimming o'er with the full grandeur of divinity." The numinis majestas (grandeur of divinity) is precisely the same idea as the Spirit, the " Divine supremacy and power," as Cyril says referring to Hermes.

Finally, in the Third Sermon, Hermes makes the striking remark that the Love (epco?) of the Gnosis which urges on the disciples, is inspired by the Providence or Foresight of God — that is, by His Spirit; P. S. A., i. 28, ends with the words : " To them, sunk in fit silence reverently, their souls and minds pendent on Hermes' lips, thus Love (e/ow?) Divine3 began to speak."

The setting of the mode of exposition is then identical in the two Sermons, and we may thus very well refer them to the same collection.

v. Ibid., ii. 52 ; Migne, col. 580 B.

FROM "THE MIND"

To this I will add what Thrice-greatest Hermes wrote
" To his own Mind, " — for thus the Book is called.

(Cyril then quotes, with very slight verbal variants, the last question and answer in C. If., xi. (xii.) 22.)

In our Corpus the treatise is not written by Hermes to the Mind, but, on the contrary, it is cast in the mould of a revelation of " The Mind to Hermes," and is so

1 That is, the uninitiated, the profanum vulgus.

2 Tractatus • presumably logos in the original Greek.

3 Cf. also P. S. A., xx. 2 and xxi. 1, 3.

entitled. Cyril thus seems to have been mistaken.1 It may, then, have been that in the copy which lay before the Church Father, the title read simply : " The Mind."

vi. Ibid., ii. 55 ; Migne, col. 586 D.2

OSIRIS AND THRICE-GREATEST AGATHODAIMON

But I will call to mind the words of Hermes the
Thrice-greatest ; in " The Asclepius " 3 he says :

FEAGMENT XIX.

Osiris said : How, then, 0 thou Thrice-greatest,
[thou] Good Spirit,4 did Earth in its entirety
appear ?

The Great Good Spirit made reply :

By gradual drying up, as I have said ; and when the many Waters got commandment . . .5 to go into themselves again, the Earth in its entirety appeared, muddy and shaking.

Then, when the Sun shone forth, and without ceasing burned and dried it up, the Earth stood compact in the Waters, with Water all around.6

1 Of. R. 128, n. 1.

2 Texts of quotations reproduced in R. 127, n. 1.

3 From the quotations we can see that this could not have been the special heading of the treatise from which Cyril quotes, and which plainly belongs to the Agathodaimon type. Cyril probably means that the treatise, in his collection, came under the general title, " The Asclepius."

4 'A-ya^bs Sai/Jiwv.

5 The reading is an untranslatable airb row, where the lacuna is probably to be completed with " from the Lord of all."

6 A distinction is evidently drawn between the (heavenly)

"LET THERE BE EARTH"

Further, in yet another place [he writes] :

FKAGMENT XX.

The Maker and the Lord of all thus spake :
Let there be Earth, and let the Firmament
appear l !

And forthwith the beginning of the [whole] creation, Earth, was brought into existence.2

THE GENERATION OF THE SUN

So much about the Earth ; as to the Sun, he again says as follows :

FKAGMENT XXI.

Then said Osiris : 0 thou Thrice- greatest,
[thou] Good Spirit, whence came this mighty
one ?

Would'st thou, Osiris, that we tell to thee the generation of the Sun, whence he appeared ?

He came from out the Foresight of the Lord of all ; yea, the Sun's birth proceedeth from

Water and water (the companion element of earth). The text is immediately continued in Frag. xxi. below.

1 See 0. H., i. 18, Commentary.