{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th226.htm","path":"gno/th2/th226.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th226.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\nThis Sermon has as its subject the Common or General Mind\u2014Great Mind, Good Mind, Good Daimon. For Mind, as we are told (\u00a7 2), is the Benefactor of men (\u03b5\u1f50\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03ad\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd); He is the Good Shepherd, the Good Husbandman, the Good Physician, as He is called in different tractates.\nFrom a critical standpoint, the point of greatest interest is that our Hermes in no less than three places (\u00a7\u00a7 1, 8, 13) quotes certain Sayings of the Good Daimon.\nNow the first of these quotations (\u00a7 1)\u2014\u201cGods are immortal men, and men are mortal Gods\u201d\u2014is one of the most cited Sayings of Heracleitus. 1 Hermes, however, does not mean to say that Heracleitus was Agothodaimon, but that Heracleitus was the mouthpiece of the Good Mind when he uttered this \u201cword\u201d (logos).\nNor was this the opinion of Hermes only; it was the belief apparently of Heracleitus himself when he declared:\n\u201cNot because you hear me say so, but because you hear the Reason (Logos) so declare, is it wise to confess that All are One.\u201d 2\nAt any rate the term Logos, as used by Heracleitus, in connection with such a declaration, is taken by Hippolytus 3 to mean the All-pervading Reason, and not the normal reason of man.\nWhat, then, is our surprise to find the second of\n[paragraph continues] Hermes\u2019 quotations of a Saying of the Good Daimon qualified by the words (\u00a7 8): \u201cAnd had He set it down in written words\u201d or \u201cin writing,\u201d when that quotation begins with the words: \u201cAll are One\u201d 1\u2014the root-formula of Heracleitus.\nSuch Sayings of Heracleitus must have been the common property of all the philosophers of the time and of their pupils. But the quotation of Hermes does not end with the formula of Heracleitus; it continues, how far exactly it is difficult to determine. Reitzenstein (p. 127) would apparently make it end with the word \u201c\u00c6on,\u201d but I am inclined to think it goes to the end of \u00a7 8. In either case it includes the term \u201c\u00c6on.\u201d\nIf, now, we turn to the third quotation from the Sayings of the Good Daimon (\u00a7 13), we are at once struck with its remarkable resemblance to the form of teaching in C. H., xi. (xii.) 4. Though there is no precise verbal agreement, there is a striking identity of style of formula.\nIn our treatise, however, the Saying is used in authoritative illustration of the meaning of the Reason (Logos), whereas in the \u201cMind to Hermes,\u201d\u2014that is, in the Sermon of the Good Daimon Himself to Hermes\u2014Reason is omitted, Mind and Reason being there transcended by \u00c6on and Mind.\nMoreover, the whole style of what follows this quotation in our treatise is exactly the same as the style of instruction in C. H., xi. (xii.)\u2014short categorical formul\u00e6; and, further, the previous quotation (\u00a7 8) contains the key-word \u00c6on, which characterizes the teaching of the \u201cMind to Hermes.\u201d\nI therefore conclude that our Hermes is using a more\nintimate instruction, known only to the Hermes-grade, and not published for the Tat-degree; and that this is the meaning of his saying that it has not been written down. He means simply that it has not yet been allowed to be published for those in the Tat-stage.\nThere were, then, other treatises now lost of the same type as that of the \u201cMind to Hermes\u201d; in them there were quotations from the Sayings of Heracleitus; the \u201cObscure Philosopher\u201d being regarded as one who had come into direct contact with the Logos or Mind, and as one, therefore, who spoke with the authority of direct revelation.\nThe next point of critical interest is the sentence in \u00a7 7:\n\u201cI meant not that, but that the Mind-led man, my son, though not a fornicator, will suffer just as though he had committed fornication, and though he be no murderer, as though he had committed murder.\u201d\nIf we now turn to the quotation which Clement of Alexandria 1 gives us from Book XXIII. of the Exegetica, of Basilides, we read:\n\u201cFor just as the babe, who, although it hath done no wrong previously, or actively committed any sin, yet hath the capacity of sin in it,\u2014whenever it is subjected to suffering, is advantaged and reaps many benefits, which otherwise are difficult to gain; in just the selfsame way is it, that although a perfect man may not have sinned in act, and yet doth suffer pains, he suffereth them in just the selfsame fashion as a babe; having within himself the tendency to sin, but refusing to embrace the opportunity to sin, he doth not\nsin. So that even for such a man as this we ought not to suppose the incapacity for sin.\n\u201cFor just as it is the will to commit fornication that constitutes the fornicator, even though he does not find the opportunity of actually committing fornication, and the will to commit murder that constitutes the murderer, although he may not be actually able to effect his purpose; so also in the case of the \u2018sinless\u2019 man I mean, if I see him suffering, even if he has actually done no sin, I shall say he is evil by his will to sin. For I will say anything rather than that Providence is evil.\u201d 1\nProvidence, as in our treatise, is here the instrument of the Good (\u00a7 14), of the Will of God; it is the will of man that is the source of evil, as we learn from C. H., iv. (v.) 8: \u201cFor \u2019tis not God, \u2019tis we who are the cause of evil things, preferring them to good.\u201d\nIn our treatise, then, the very same problem is treated as in the Exegetica of Basilides. Hermes speaks of the \u201cMind-led man,\u201d the \u201cman who has the Logos in him\u201d; Basilides speaks of the \u201cperfect man.\u201d So also in C. H., iv. (v.) 4, the \u201cperfect man\u201d is he who has \u201creceived the Mind.\u201d\nThe ideas of Hermes and of Basilides are practically identical; the words of both are strikingly similar when they cite fornication and murder as typical sins, and these and no others.\nCompare again with this idea of the babe in Basilides the words of Hermes in C. H., x. (xi.) 15:\n\u201cBehold an infant\u2019s soul, my son, that is not yet cut off, because its body is still small and not as yet come unto its full bulk. . . . A thing of beauty altogether is such a soul to see, not yet befouled with body\u2019s passions, still all but hanging from the Cosmic Soul.\u201d\nAnd with this compare what Hippolytus 1 tells us of Valentinus:\n\u201cValentinus says that he once saw a babe that had only just been born, and that he proceeded to question it to find out who it was. And the babe replied and said it was the Logos.\u201d\nAnd also the Psalm of Valentinus quoted by the same heresiologist 2:\nAll things depending from Spirit I see;\nAll things supported by Spirit I view;\nFlesh from Soul depending;\nSoul by Air supported;\nAir from \u00c6ther hanging;\nFruits borne of the Deep;\nBabe borne of the Womb.\nHere, then, as in other instances, we have intimate points of contact between the Hermetic and Christian Gnosis. Is there, however, any question of direct plagiarism? I think not; but that the Christian doctors and the Hermetic philosophers were both in contact with the same body of inner teaching.\n4. With the action of the Mind on the soul in incarnation (\u00a7 4) compare C. H., x. (xi.), 18, 19, where the office of the Mind in respect to the soul out of incarnation is graphically described.\n6. In \u00a7 6 Hermes tells us that he has already spoken about Fate in others of his Sermons; while in \u00a7\u00a7 14 and 21 he three times refers to Necessity and Providence.\nIn this connection it is to be noticed that Lactantius (D. I., vi. 25), in quoting the last two sentences of our\ntreatise, says that he takes them from a Sermon by Hermes \u201cOn Justice.\u201d\nNow, Stob\u00e6us has preserved for us an Extract (xi.) from a Sermon dealing with Justice, Providence, Necessity and Fate; also an Extract (x.) from a Sermon of Hermes to Tat dealing with Fate, and ending with the words: \u201cSuch is the Sermon on the rule of Providence, Necessity and Fate.\u201d We have also an Extract (xiii.) \u201cOf Hermes from the Books to Ammon,\u201d entitled \u201cOf the General Economy,\u201d which deals with Providence, Necessity and Fate.\nThere were, then, according to Hermes, already existing not one but several Sermons on Fate, and, as we learn from Stob\u00e6us, not only in the Tat-literature but also in the Ammon-literature. It seems, then, probable that in the collection used by Lactantius the Tat-Sermons on Fate immediately preceded our treatise, and that one of these sermons (the one immediately preceding our treatise, presumably) was entitled \u201cOn Justice,\u201d thus confirming the title I have prefixed to the Stob\u00e6us Extract xi.\n22. Finally, in \u00a7 22 it has to be noticed that with the express teaching that Matter and Body are so far from being evil that they are Energies of God\u2014His materiality and corporality\u2014the charge of dualism against our philosophers must for ever be abandoned. Their doctrine was that of pan-monism; and, therefore, wherever we find signs of dualism, or even distinct statements of an indubitably dualistic nature, we must understand that this was a formal convenience for the better insistence upon the need of strenuous exertion to solve the mystery of the opposites, rather than an essential doctrine of the Gnosis.\n213:1 Diels, 62; Bywater, 67; Fairbanks, 67 (p. 40), which see for references to ancient authors who quote it.\n213:2 Diels, 50; Bywater, 1; Fairbanks, 1 (p. 24).\n213:3 Philos., ix. 9.\n214:1 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 25, and xvi. (\u201cDefinitions of Asclepius\u201d) 3; for references to the Magical and Alchemical literature, see R. 39, 1; 106, 5; 127, 3.\n215:1 Strom., IV. xii., \u00a7 82 (P. 600; S. 217): Dindorf., ii. 363.\n216:1 See F. F. F., 274, 275.\n217:1 Philos., vi. 42 (D. and S., 302); F. F. F., p. 306.\n217:2 Philos., vi. 37 (D. and S., 290); see emended text in Hilgenfeld (A.), Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums (Leipzig, 1884), p. 304; F. F. F., p. 307.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: I. Corpus Hermeticum: Commentary","type":"page"}