{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th1/th149.htm","path":"gno/th1/th149.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th1/th149.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n\u201cHe filled a mighty Cup with it [Mind], and sent it down, joining a Herald [to it], to whom He gave command to make this proclamation to the hearts of men: Baptize thyself with this Cup\u2019s baptism,\u201d etc.\u2014C. H., iv. (v.) 4.\nWhence came this idea of a Crater or Cup into our Trismegistic literature? Most scholars will answer unhesitatingly: From Plato. The Crater was the Cup in which the Creator mixed the Elements of the World-Soul; for we read in Tim\u00e6us (41 D), where Plato is treating of the formation of human souls:\n\u201cThus spake He, and once again into the Cup which He had used in blending and mingling the Soul of the Universe, He poured the remains of the Elements He had employed, and mingled them in much the same manner; they were not, however, pure as before, but in the second and third degree.\u201d\nI am, however, not inclined to attribute the origin of this symbolic expression simply to the imagery of Plato\u2019s poetic mind, but am far more inclined to believe that Plato was using a familiar figure of \u201cOrphic\u201d symbolism. The idea of not only an Ultimate Crater,\nbut of many subsidiary ones in the celestial and invisible realms, is closely connected with the \u201cOrphic\u201d idea of a Vortex.\nOrpheus is said to have called the \u00c6ther the Mighty Whirlpool. 1 This forms the Egg or Womb of Cosmos; it is a modification of Chaos or Rhea, the Eternally-flowing, the Mother of the Gods, the Great Container. Thus Proclus, in speaking of Chaos, says:\n\u201cThe last Infinity, by which also Matter (\u1f55\u03bb\u03b7) is circumscribed, is the Container, the field and plane of ideas. About her is \u2018neither limit, nor foundation, nor seat, but excessive Darkness.\u2019\u201d 2\nPlato, as we have seen, in his psychogony, speaks openly of this Cup or Crater (Mixing Space, or Vortex) in two aspects; in it the Deity mixes the All-Soul of universal nature from the purest Cosmic Elements, and from it He also \u201cladles out\u201d the souls of men, composed of a less pure mixture of these Elements.\nFurther, Macrobius tells us that Plato elsewhere indirectly refers to another aspect of this Cup.\n\u201cPlato speaks of this in the Ph\u00e6do, and says that the soul is dragged back into body, hurried on by new intoxication, desiring to taste a fresh draught of the overflow of matter, 3 whereby it is weighed down and brought back [to earth]. The sidereal [astral] Crater of Father Liber [Dionysus, Bacchus] is a symbol of this mystery; and this is what the Ancients called the\n[paragraph continues] River of Lethe, the Orphics saying that Father Liber was Hylic Mind.\u201d 1\nWe have here, therefore, a higher and lower Cup. Proclus, moreover, speaks of several of such Craters, when he writes:\n\u201cPlato in the Philebus hands on the tradition of the Vulcanic Crater . . . and Orpheus is acquainted with the Cup of Dionysus, and ranges many such Cups round the Solar Table.\u201d 2\nElsewhere, again, Proclus tells us that the Demiurge is said \u201cto constitute the psychical essences in conjunction with the Crater\u201d; this \u201cCrater is the peculiar cause of souls, and is co-arranged with the Demiurgus and filled from Him, but fills souls\u201d; thus it is called the Fountain of Souls. 3\nIf with these indications before us we might venture to generalize, we might say that, according to Orpheo-Pythagorean, Platonic, and Hermetic ideas, the \u201cmatter\u201d of every \u201cplane\u201d was thought of as proceeding from such a Crater or Cup, from within without, and the elements thereof as being refunded into such a Cup or Centre or Receptacle\u2014that is, from a more subtle, simpler, and inner phase to a more gross, complex, and outer phase, and vice vers\u00e2. In other words, the Crater is the \u201cmonadic\u201d or \u201catomic\u201d state of the matter of any given phase or state of existence.\nWith the above data before us, it will also be instructive to turn to the Vision of Arid\u00e6us (Thespesius)\nas related by Plutarch, 1 a vision that may be compared with profit with the Vision of Er as told by Plato. Thespesius is being conducted through Hades, or the Invisible World in contact with earth-life, by a kinsman who has \u201cpassed over,\u201d as Spiritists would say, and curiously enough he there comes across a Chasm and a Crater\u2014for part of the story runs:\n\u201cAfter these explanations he was conducted by his kinsman at great speed across an immense space, as it seemed, nevertheless easily and directly as though supported by wings of light-rays; until having arrived at a Vast Vortex (\u03c7\u03ac\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1) extending downwards, he was abandoned by the power that supported him.\n\u201cHe observed also that the same thing happened to the rest of the souls there, for checking their flight, like birds, and sinking down, they fluttered round the Vortex in a circle, not daring to go straight through it.\n\u201cInside it seemed to be decked like Bacchic caves 2 with trees and verdure and every kind of foliage, while out of it came a soft and gentle air, laden with marvellous sweet scents, making a blend like wine for topers, so that the souls feasting on the fragrance were melted with delight in mutual embraces, while the whole place was wrapt in revelry and laughter and the spirit of sport and pleasure. 3\n\u201cThespesius\u2019 kinsman told him that this was the Way by which Dionysus ascended to the Gods and\nafterwards took up Semele; 1 it was called the Place of L\u0113th\u0113 (Oblivion). 2\n\u201cWherefore he would not suffer Thespesius to stay there, though he wished to do so, but forcibly dragged him away, explaining how that the rational part of the soul was melted and moistened 3 by pleasure, while the irrational part, and that which is of a corporeal nature, being then moistened and made fleshly, awakens the memory of the body, and from this memory come a yearning and a desire which drag down the soul into\ngeneration . . . the soul being weighed down with moisture.\n\u201cNext Thespesius, after travelling another great distance, seemed to be looking at a huge Cup, 1 with streams flowing into it; one whiter than the foam of the sea or snow, another like the purple which the rainbow sends forth, while from a distance the others were tinged with other colours, each having its own shade.\n\u201cBut when he came closer, the Cup itself (into which they flowed)\u2014the surroundings disappearing, and the colours growing fainter\u2014lost its varied colouring and only retained a white brilliance.\u201d\nCompare also the Hellenist writer in the Naassene Document (\u00a7 17 S.): \u201cThe Greek theologi generally call Him [the Logos] the \u201cHeavenly Horn of M\u0113n,\u201d because he has mixed and mingled all things with all.\u201d\nOn this the Jewish Gnostic writer comments: \u201cThis is the Drinking Vessel,\u2014the Cup in which \u2018the King drinketh and divineth.\u2019\u201d\nIt is, says the Hellenist commentator again, \u201cthe Cup (of Anacreon) speaking forth speechlessly the Ineffable Mystery.\u201d\nThe Jewish commentator was a contemporary of Philo\u2019s, and the Hellenist was prior to him; thus we see that the Cup symbol was used in precisely the same significance as in our text in at least the first century B.C., and that the idea was referred to the Greek theologers\u2014in other words, the Orphics\u2014and not to Plato.\nWith the above data before us, I think we may be persuaded without difficulty that the idea of the Cup, or Mixing-Bowl, did not owe its origin to any invention of Plato\u2019s, but that the greatest of philosophers, when he makes use of the symbol, does but employ a familiar image well known to his audience\u2014as, indeed, is very apparent in the summary fashion in which he introduces the figure. In other words, the symbol or image was a commonplace of the Orphic tradition, and doubtless, therefore, familiar to every Pythagorean.\nNow, in our treatise it is noticeable that this Cup-symbol is equated with the Monad 1 or Oneness\u2014a technical Pythagorean term.\n451:1 \u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u03ce\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03c7\u03ac\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 (Simplicius, Ausc., iv. 123); magna vorago (Syrianus, Metaph., ii. 33a). Cf. Prolegg. ch. xi., \u201cThe Orphic Tradition of the Genesis of the World-Egg.\u201d\n451:2 Comment. in Tim., ii. 117. See my Orpheus, p. 154.\n451:3 Gnostic\u00e8, \u201cthe superfluity of naughtiness.\u201d\n452:1 Comment, in Som. Scip., XI. ii. 66.\n452:2 Comment. in Tim., v. 316 (Taylor\u2019s trans.).\n452:3 Taylor (T.), Theology of Plato, V. xxxi.\n453:1 De Sera Numinis Vindicta, xxii. (ed. Bernardakis, iii. 454-466).\n453:2 Were the Bacchic Mysteries then celebrated in caves?\n453:3 This is clearly in correspondence with the \u201cAstral Crater of Father Liber\u201d of Macrobius.\n454:1 His \u201cmother,\u201d from the under-world; referring to the mysteries of generation and the indestructibility of life. Semele in giving birth to Dionysus the Son of Zeus (the Creative Power), is said to have been killed by the Power of her Lord, but she was subsequently restored to life among the Gods by the Power of her Son. In reincarnating, it is said that part of the soul in giving birth to itself in this state \u201cdies.\u201d The \u201cchild\u201d then born may, in his turn, in the case of one perfect, become the saviour of his \u201cmother,\u201d now become his spouse, and raise her, who is also himself, to a higher state.\n454:2 Compare Pistis Sophia (336, 337), which tells us how certain k\u0101rmic agencies \u201cgive unto the old soul [prior to reincarnation] a Draught of Oblivion composed of the Seed of Iniquity, filled with all manner of desire and all forgetfulness. And the moment that that soul drinketh of that Draught, it forgetteth all the spaces [or regions] through which it hath travelled, and all the chastisements through which it hath passed; and that deadly Draught of Oblivion becometh a body external to the soul, like unto the soul in every way, and its perfect resemblance, and hence they call it the \u2018counterfeit spirit.\u2019\u201d\nBut in the case of the purified soul it is different; for a higher power \u201cbringeth a Cup full of intuition and wisdom, and also prudence, and giveth it to the soul, and casteth the soul into a body which will not be able to fall asleep or forget, because of the Cup of Prudence which hath been given unto it, but will be ever pure in heart and seeking after the Mysteries of Light, until it hath found them, by order of the Virgin of Light, in order that [that soul] may inherit the Light for ever.\u201d (Ibid., 392, \u201cBooks of the Saviour.\u201d)\n454:3 Compare the \u201cMoist Essence\u201d of C. H., i. 4, and iii. (iv.) 1.\n455:1 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u2014bowl or basin.\n456:1 It is of interest to notice that one of the apocryphal Books of Moses was called The Monad, and another The Key; this argues an early date and wide renown for our two treatises so entitled. See R. 182, n. 3.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1: XV. Concerning the Crater or Cup","type":"page"}