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

( ZOSIMUS flourished somewhere at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century A.D. He was a member of what Eeitzenstein (p. 9) calls the Poimandres-Gemeinde, and, in writing to a certain Theosebeia, a fellow-believer in the Wisdom-tradition, though not as yet initiated into its spiritual mysteries, he urges her to hasten to Poimandres and baptize herself in the Cup.1 The following quotation is of first importance for the understanding of the Anthropos- Doctrine or Myth of Man in the Mysteries.

In one of the Books of his great work distinguished by the letter Omega, and dedicated to Oceanus as the " Genesis and Seed of all the Gods," — speaking of the uninitiated, those still beneath the sway of the Heimarmene or Fate, who cannot understand his revelations, — he writes 2 :)

THE PROCESSIONS OF FATE.

1. Such men [our] Hermes,in his " Concerning Nature," hath called mind-less, — naught but " processions " 3 of

1 Op. sub. cit., p. 245.

2 Berthelot, Les Akhimistes grecs, pp. 229 ff. For a revised text, see R. pp. 102-106.

3 irofATr&s, — processions, shows, or pageants. Cf. C. H., iv. (v.)
7 : " Just as processions pass by in the middle of the way without

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Fate, — in that they have no notion1 of aught of things incorporal, or even of Fate herself who justly leads them, but they blaspheme her corporal schoolings, and have no notion of aught else but of her favours.

"THE INNER DOOR"

2. But Hermes and Zoroaster have said the Kace of Wisdom-lovers is superior to Fate, by their neither rejoicing in her favours, — for they have mastered pleasures, — not by their being struck down by her ills, — for ever living at the "Inner Door/'2 and not receiving3 from her her fair gift, in that they look unto the termination of [her] ills.4

3. On which account, too, Hesiod doth introduce Prometheus counselling Epimetheus, and doth tell him5 not to take the Gift6 from Zeus who rules Olympus, but send it back again, — [thus] teaching his own brother through philosophy7 to return the Gifts of Zeus, — that is, of Fate.

4. But Zoroaster, boasting in knowledge of all things Above, and in the magic of embodied speech,8 being able to do anything but take the road from others, so do such men move in procession through the world led by their bodies' pleasures."

1 Or "in that they display naught" — QavTafrnevovs.

2 Codd. fvav\ia. R. reads tv ivavKiy, which is supported by the title of the Trismegistic treatise mentioned in the next paragraph but one. I feel almost tempted to propose to read eV av\ia (fr. &v\os — " immaterial," the being in a state free from uA.7? or "matter"), and so to translate it "for ever living in the immaterial."

3 Codd. KaraSfx^^01' R« reads /cetTa5e/x«0'0aK I suggest Kara-

4 Codd. KUKUV, which I prefer to R.'s KO.KOV.

s Op. d Dies, 86. 6 Sc. Pandora ; cf. §§ 14 and 19 below.

7 Or wisdom-loving.

professes that all ills of Fate, — both special [ills] and general [ones], — are [thus] averted.

8 Presumably what the Vaidic theurgist would call mantravidyd.

AGAINST MAGIC

5. Hermes, however, in his " About the Inner Door," doth deprecate [this] magic even, declaring that:

The spiritual man, [the man] who knows himself,1 should not accomplish any thing by means of magic, e'en though he think it a good thing, nor should he force Necessity, but suffer [her to take her course], according to her nature and decree2; [he should] progress by seeking only, through the knowledge of himself and God, to gain the Trinity3 that none can name, and let Fate do whate'er she will to her own clay — that is, the body.

FRAGMENT XXVI.

6. And being so minded (he says), and so ordering his life, he shall behold the Son of God becoming all things for holy souls, that he may draw her 4 forth from out the region of the Fate into the Incorporeal [Man].

7. For having power in all, He becometh all things, whatsoever He will,6 and, in obedience to the Father['s nod], through the whole Body doth He penetrate, and, pouring forth His Light into the mind of every [soul], He starts it6 back unto the Blessed Region,1 where it was before it had become corporal, — following after Him, yearning and led by Him unto the Light.

1 Cf. C. H.t i. 21. 2 Or decision or judgment.

3 rpidSa. 4 Sc. the SOUl.

5 LJf. § 15 below. Zosimus is apparently condensing from the original.

6 Sc. the soul or mind.

THOTH THE FIRST MAN