Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
Jamblichus writes with the authority of an accredited exponent of the Egyptian Wisdom as taught in these mysteries, and under the name of "Abammon, the Teacher," proceeds to resolve the doubts and difficulties of the School with regard to the principles of the
1 The exact date of Jamblichus is very conjectural. In my sketches of the " Lives of the Later Platonists " I have suggested about A.D. 255-330. See The Theosophical Review (Aug. 1896), xviii. 462, 463.
sacred science as formulated by Porphyry. Jamblichus begins his task with these significant words l :
HERMES THE INSPIRER
"Hermes, the God who is our guide in [sacred] sermons, was rightly held of old as common to all priests. And seeing that it is he who has in charge the real science about the Gods, he is the same in all [our sacred sermons].2 And so it was to him that our ancestors attributed all the discoveries of their wisdom, attaching the name of Hermes to all the writings which had to do with such subjects.3 And if we also enjoy that share of this God which has fallen to our lot, according to our ability [to receive him], thou dost well in submitting certain questions on theology to us priests, as thy friends, for their solution. And as I may fairly suppose that the letter sent to my disciple Anebo was written to myself, I will send thee the true answers to the questions thou hast asked. For it would not be proper that Pythagoras and Plato, and Democritus and Eudoxus, and many others of the ancient Greeks,4 should have obtained fitting instruction from the recorders of the sacred science of their times, and that thou, our contemporary, who art of a like mind with these ancients, should lack guidance from the now living bearers of the title ' Common Teachers/ " 1
1 I translate from the text of Parthey (Berlin, 1857).
2 The term \6yos is, of course, used technically, as a sacred or inspired sermon or course of instruction.
3 irdvTa TO, otKcia ffvyypdfjLfjLara.
4 Parthey here adds the following interesting note : " The Egyptian teachers of Pythagoras were CEnuphis of On (Pint., De Is.et Os., 10) and Sonchis (Clem. Al., Strvm., i. 15, 69); Plato was the pupil of Sechnuphis of On (Clem. Lc.\ and of Chonuphis (Plut., De Gen. Socr., 578) ; Democritus was taught by Pammenes of Memphis (Georg. Sync., i. 471 Dind.) ; Eudoxus by Chonuphis of Memphis (Plut. and Clem. tt. cc.)." To this Parthey appends a list of some of the many other famous Greeks who owed their knowledge to Egyptian teachers, viz., Alcaeus, Anaxagoras of Clazomense, Appuleius, Archimedes, Bias, Chrysippus of Cnidus, Cleobulus, Daedalus, Decaeneus, Diodorus Siculus, Ellopion, Euripides, Hecataeus of Abdera, Hecatseus of Miletus, Hellanicus,
From the above important passage we learn that among the Egyptians the books which dealt technically with the science of sacred things, and especially with the science of the Gods, that is to say, with the nature of the hierarchy from man upwards to the Supreme Euler of our system, were regarded as " inspired." The Eay of the Spiritual Sun which illumined the sacred science was distinguished as a Person, and this Person, because of a partial similarity of attributes, the Greeks had long identified with their God Hermes. He was " common " to the priests of the sacred science, that is to say, it was this special Ray of the Spiritual Sun which illumined their studies. Not, however, that all were equally illumined, for there were many grades in the mysteries, many steps up the holy ascent to union