{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th1/th114.htm","path":"gno/th1/th114.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th1/th114.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\nII. 1. Wherefore the longing for the Godly state is a desire for Truth, and specially the [truth] about the Gods, in so much as it doth embrace reception of the sacred [things]\u2014instruction and research; 1 a work more holy than is all and every purging rite and temple-service, and not least pleasing to that Goddess whom thou servest, in that she is particularly wise and wisdom-loving, seeing her very name doth seem to indicate that knowing and that gnosis 2 is more suitable to her than any other title.\n2. For that \u201cIsis\u201d is Greek, 3 and [so is] \u201cTyph\u014dn\u201d\u2014in that he\u2019s foe unto the Goddess, and is \u201cpuffed up\u201d 4 through [his] unknowing and deceit, and tears the Holy Reason (Logos) into pieces and makes away with it; the which the Goddess gathers up again and recomposes, and transmits to those perfected in the art of divinising, 5\u2014which by the means of a continually sober life\nand by [their] abstinence from many foods and sexual indulgences, tempers intemperate pleasure-love, and doth accustom [them] to undergo, without being broken down, the rigorous tasks of service in the sacred [rites], the end of which is gnosis of the First and Lordly One, the One whom mind alone can know, 1 for whom the Goddess calls on [them] to seek, though He is by her side and one with her.\n3. Nay more, the very appellation of the holy [place] doth plainly promise gnosis, that is eid\u0113sis, of That-which-is; for it is named Iseion, as though \u201cof them who shall know\u201d 2 That-which-is, if that with reason (logos) and with purity 3 we enter in the holy [places] of the Goddess.\n262:1 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd . . . \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b6\u03ae\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd. Mathesis was the technical Pythagorean term for gnosis.\n262:2 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b5\u1f30\u03b4-\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0-\u03b9\u03c3-\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7\u03bd\u2014word-plays on \u1f36\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2.\n262:3 Cf. lx. 2. The Egyptian of Isis is \u0226st.\n262:4 \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c5\u03c6\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\u2014a play on \u03c4\u03c5\u03c6\u03ce\u03bd\u2014lit., \u201cwrapped in smoke (\u03c4\u1fe6\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2),\u201d and because one so wrapped in smoke or clouds has his intelligence darkened, hence \u201cpuffed up with conceit,\u201d crazy and demented. Typh\u014dn is the dark or hidden side of the Father.\n262:5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03ce\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 (not in L. and S. or Soph.); it presumably comes from the stem of \u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c9, which means: (i.) to smoke with sulphur and so purify; (ii.) to make divine (\u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03c2), and so transmute into godship. The sentence may thus also mean \u201cthose initiated into the sulphur rite\u201d\u2014a not impossible rendering when we remember the Alchemical literature which had its source in Chemia-Egypt. It will also permit us to connect brimstone with Typh\u014dn\u2014hoofs and all!\n263:1 Or the Intelligible\u2014\u03bd\u03bf\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6.\n263:2 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2-\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f44\u03bd\u2014a play on \u1f30\u03c3-\u03b5\u1fd6-\u03bf\u03bd\u2014fut. of \u221a\u03dd\u03b9\u03b4 (vid) from which comes also \u03b5\u1f34\u03b4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 above. This may also mean \u201cseeing\u201d as well as \u201cknowing,\u201d and thus may refer to the Epopteia or Mystery of Sight, and not the preliminary Mystery of Hearing (Mu\u0113sis).\n263:3 \u1f41\u03c3\u03af\u03c9\u03c2\u2014another play on \u1f36\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2; cf. lx. 3.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1: IX. Plutarch: Concerning ...","type":"page"}