Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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6 Sc. the Seven Rulers or Energies of the Fate-sphere, — not refuse ; but they boasted as though He had been brought into servitude [to them]." l
14. For Hesiod said that the outer man was the
" bond " 2 by which Zeus bound Prometheus.
Subsequently, in addition to this bond, he sends him another, Pandora,3 whom the Hebrews call Eve.
For Prometheus and Epimetheus4 are one Man,
according to the system of allegory, — that is, Soul and
Body.
MAN THE MIND
And at one time He 5 bears the likeness of soul, at another of mind, at another of flesh, owing to the imperfect attention which Epimetheus paid to the counsel of Prometheus, his own mind.6
15. For our Mind 7 saith :
FRAGMENT XXVII.
For that the Son of God having power in all things, becoming all things that he willeth, appeareth as he willeth to each.8
1 This is evidently a quotation from a Greek translation of one of the Books of the Clialdaeans (§§ 9, 10) in the Serapeum. It seems to me to be a " source " on which both the Hebrew and non-Hebrew Hellenists commentated in Alexandria. Thus both the commentator in S. and J. in the Naassene Document and the Poamandrists of the period would use it in common.
a Theog., 614. 3 Cf. §§ 3 and 19.
4 That is, Fore-thought and After-thought. 5 Sc. Man.
6 I am almost persuaded that § 14 is also a quotation or summary and not the simple exegesis of Zosimus ; the original being from the pen of some non-Hebrew Hellenistic allegorizer.
7 That is, Pcemandres, the Shepherd of men.
8 Cf. § 7 above ; evidently a quotation from the " Inner Door." Compare also the logos quoted by S. (§ 8) in the Naassene Document from some Hellenistic scripture : " I become what I will, and am what I am." Do Hermes and S. then both depend on
16. Yea, unto the consummation of the cosmos will He come secretly, — nay, openly associating with His own, — counselling them secretly, yea through their minds, to settle their account with their Adam, the blind accuser,1 in rivalry with the spiritual man of light.2
THE COUNTERFEIT DAIMON
17. And these things come to pass until the Counterfeit Daimon3 come, in rivalry with themselves, and wishing to lead them into error, declaring that he is Son of God, being formless in both soul and body.
But they, becoming wiser from contemplation of the same scripture, in the form of an apocalypse ; that is, does Hermes in his " expository sermon " depend on the direct teaching of the Mind to himself, which would be instruction in the first person ?
1 rv(f>\TjyopovvTos. The lexicons do not contain the word. It is probably a play on Karriyopovvros. Cf. note on "blind from birth" of C. in the Conclusion of Hippolytus in " Myth of Man" (vol. i. p. 189).
2 That is, presumably, though in one aspect only, the soul that sees in the Light as opposed to the blind body. This passage reflects the same thought-atmosphere as that which surrounds the saying underlying Matt. v. 25 ( = Lk. xii. 57-59): "Agree with thine adversary quickly whiles thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Amen, I say unto thee, thou shalt not come forth thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." The third Evangelist, instead of the vague " agree," preserves the technical terms aini\\dxOai, used of the discharge of a debt (c/. the technical Kara\\ay^v ex*iv of our text), and irpditTup, an officer charged with the collection of taxes and debts. This Saying was interpreted by the Gnostics as having reference to the reincarnation of the soul into another body in order to discharge its karmic debts.
3 6 a.vriij.ip.05 Salfjiwv. The term "counterfeit spirit" ( occurs frequently in the Pistis Sophia.
Him who is truly Son of God, give unto him *• his own Adam for death,2 rescuing their own light spirits for [return to] their own regions where they were even before the cosmos [existed].3 . . .
18. And [it is] the Hebrews alone and the Sacred Books of Hermes [which tell us] these things about the man of light and his Guide the Son of God, and about the earthy Adam and his Guide, the Counterfeit, who doth blasphemously call himself Son of God, for leading men astray.4