Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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19. But the Greeks call the earthy Adam Epimetheus, who is counselled by his own mind, that is, his brother, not to receive the gifts of Zeus. Nevertheless being both deceived 5 and repenting,6 and seeking the Blessed Land. . . .7
But Prometheus, that is the mind, interprets all things and gives good counsel in all things to them who have understanding and hearing. But they who have only fleshly hearing are "processions of Fate."
1 The Counterfeit Daimon. 2 Or execution.
3 The two last paragraphs are apparently also quoted or summarized from a Hellenistic commentary on a Book of the Hebrews, translated into Greek, and found in the libraries of the Ptolemies. It is remarkable that the contents of this book are precisely similar not only to the contents of the Books from which J. quotes in the Naassene Document, but also to the ideas about the Chaldaeans which the commentator of S. sets forth.
4 If we can rely on this statement of Zosimus, this proves that there was a developed Anthropos-doctrine also in the Trismegistic Books, as apart from the Chaldsean Books, — that is, that the Premandrists did not take it from the Chaldaean Books, but had it from their own immediate line of tradition, namely, the Egyptian.
5 Cf. § 13 above. 6 Lit. changing his mind.
7 A lacuna occurs in the text. We could almost persuade ourselves that Zosimus had the text of S. and even the source of J. before him. For " Blessed Land," cf. § 7 above.
His ADVICE TO THEOSEBEIA
To the foregoing we may append a version of Zosimus' advice l to the lady Theosebeia, to which we have already referred, as offering an instructive counterpart to 0. H., xiii. (xiv.). After a sally against the " false prophets," through whom the daimones energize, not only requiring their offerings but also ruining their souls, Zosimus continues :
" But be not thou, 0 lady, [thus] distracted, as, too, I bade thee in the actualizing [rites], and do not turn thyself about this way and that in seeking after God ; but in thy house be still, and God shall come to thee, He who is everywhere and not in some wee spot as are daimonian things.
" And having stilled thyself in body, still thou thyself in passions too — desire, [and] pleasure, rage [and] grief, and the twelve fates 2 of Death.
" And thus set straight and upright, call thou unto thyself Divinity ; and truly shall He come, He who is everywhere and [yet] nowhere.
"And [then], without invoking them, perform the sacred rites unto the daimones, — not such as offer things to them and soothe and nourish them, but such as turn them from thee and destroy their power, which Mambres3 taught to Solomon, King of Jerusalem, and all that Solomon himself wrote down from his own wisdom.
"And if thou shalt effectively perform these rites,
1 Berth., p. 244 ; for a revised text see R. 214, n. 1.
2 The twelve tormenting or avenging daimones of G. H., xiii.
(xiv.).
thou shalt obtain the physical conditions of pure birth. And so continue till thou perfect thy soul completely.
3 The famous Egyptian Theurgist and Magician who is fabled to have contended with Moses ; while others say he was the instructor of Moses.
" And when thou knowest surely that thou art perfected in thyself, then spurn . . . from thee l the natural things of matter, and make for harbour in Pcernandres' 2 arms, and having dowsed thyself within His Cup,3 return again unto thy own [true] race." 4
This was how Zosimus understood the teaching of the Trismegistic tradition, for he had experienced it.
1 The soul having now found itself wings and become the winged globe.
2 eVl riv FIot/AeWSpa (sic). 3 Of. C. H., IV. (v.) 4.
^ Of. 0. H., i. 26, 29.
II.
JAMBLICHUS
ABAMMON THE TEACHER
THE evidence of Jamblichus1 is of prime importance seeing that it was he who put the Later Platonic School, previously led by the purely philosophical Ammonius, Plotinus and Porphyry, into conscious touch with those centres of Gnosis into which he had been initiated, and instructed it especially in the Wisdom of Egypt in his remarkable treatise generally known by the title On the Mysteries. The authorship of this treatise is usually disputed; but as Proclus, who was in the direct tradition, attributes it to Jamblichus, the probabilities are in favour of its authenticity.