{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th228.htm","path":"gno/th2/th228.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th228.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n\u201cThe Secret Sermon on the Mountain\u201d is the main title given in all the MSS., with the exception of A; the subsidiary contents-title is evidently derived from the same edition to which we owe the other contents-titles preserved in our Corpus. Reitzenstein (p. 193), however, thinks that the main title has arisen by mistake. What the mistake is he does not tell us; perhaps he means that in our Sermon there is no mention of \u201cOn a Mountain,\u201d but rather, as in \u00a7 1, if we accept his reading, of \u201cDown a Mountain.\u201d But in this we cannot follow him; for the whole teaching is precisely \u201cOn the Mount\u201d\u2014to the top of which Tat has now come. For the \u201cMountain\u201d was symbolic of stages of inner development, and in \u00a7 9 we are told precisely: \u201cThis step (the fifth) is Righteousness\u2019 firm seat,\u201d\u2014showing that the Mountain was conceived as an ascent or stair of steps as is so often seen in Egyptian frescoes.\nAgain, with regard to the title, the term \u201cSecret\u201d (\u1f00\u03c0\u03cc\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2\u2014apocryphal) is used in its original sense of hidden away, meaning esoteric or not put into circulation, as applied to a logos or sermon, or a collection of logoi or sayings.\nA logos in this sense had very much the same meaning for our Ancients as the Sanskrit mah\u0101-v\u0101kyam (\u201cgreat saying\u201d) has to-day for an Indian theosophist who applies the term to the great mystical utterances of the Upani\u1e63hads; such as: \u201cThat art thou\u201d (Tat tvam asi), etc.\nIn classical antiquity these logoi or logia were\nregarded as words of wisdom, and were the most sacred legacies of the sages to humanity. These oracular utterances were frequently collected together, and even prior to the days of syncretism formed the most sacred \u201cdeposits\u201d (\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b8\u1fc6\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9) of various nations; the same term being subsequently given to the Christian Bible.\nThus Herodotus calls Onomacritus, the first collector of the archaic Orphic Hymns, a \u201cdepository of oracles\u201d (\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b8\u03ad\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd),\u2014the word carrying the meaning of \u201cone who arranges,\u201d corresponding exactly to the term Vy\u0101sa in Sanskrit, the supposed \u201cauthor\u201d of the Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata.\nSuch collections of logoi or logia were then generally called \u201cdeposits,\u201d the word also sometimes bearing the meaning of \u201ctestaments\u201d as containing the expression of the Divine will or dispensation. The same term is used by Strabo (x. 482) of the Laws of Lycurgus; it was also applied by the Orphics and Pythagoreans to such sacred laws 1; while Ecclesiastical writers subsequently used it in reference to the Canonical Books. 2\nThe Orphics and Pythagoreans also called these collections \u201csacred utterances\u201d (\u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u1f76 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03b9); and even Clement of Alexandria refers to such a saying of Orpheus as \u201cthat truly sacred utterance\u201d (\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u1f78\u03bd \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd).\nThat such collections were kept secret is not surprising; indeed, such must have been the case from time immemorial. But even on the ground of purely Greek and Roman history, we are not without information of collections of oracles carefully guarded as the secret scriptures or bibles of nations.\nCicero 3 speaks of such a bible of the Veii. The Athenians, in the time of the Kings, possessed a similar\nbible of logia 1; and Dinarchus 2 tells us that the safety of the State depended on this secret scripture (\u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03c1\u03ae\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b8\u1fc6\u03ba\u03b1\u03c2) These occult sayings (\u1f00\u03c0\u03cc\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u1f14\u03c0\u03b7) are further called by Suidas (s.v.) \u201cwithdrawn volumes\u201d (\u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03b1 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03b7\u03ba\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1)\u2014that is to say, books withdrawn from public perusal, or, in other words, apocryphal, hidden or secret (\u1f00\u03c0\u03cc\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03c6\u03b1).\nAnd not only was this the case with the ancient writings themselves, but also with the commentaries upon them, and by degrees with everything referring to them, until finally we find Themistius the rhetorician, in the fourth century, speaking of that \u201cmass of Archaic wisdom not open to the public or in general circulation, but scarce and occult.\u201d 3\nWe have, therefore, translated the term by \u201csecret\u201d as conveying the proper meaning of the epithet in the title, and not by \u201capocryphal,\u201d a word that nowadays connotes the judgment of a theological canon.\n1. In the first paragraph Tat definitely refers to three Stages of Probation, before he is deemed fit to hear the Sermon on Rebirth.\n(i) First there is the General or Preliminary Instruction contained in a collection of discourses called the General Sermons (\u0393\u03b5\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u1f76 \u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03b9).\n(ii) Next is the Stage where Tat becomes the Suppliant of Hermes, a stage characterized by Conversation or Dialogue (\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5\u03c7\u03b8\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9); that is to say, Tat was allowed to ask questions. This is further\nsymbolically described by a phrase, \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f44\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b2\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2, which is difficult to translate, but which seems to mean either Passing up, or Wending up, the Mountain, or Wending over the Mountain. That is to say, that Hermes was gradually leading Tat to the top of the Mountain, in plain words, as far as his normal intellect could carry him; the Top of the Mountain representing the highest point of unaided mental faculty.\nThis stage was, I believe, represented by the collection of Sermons to Tat, or Dialogues with Tat, known as the \u0394\u03b9\u03b5\u03be\u03bf\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u1f76 \u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03b9\u2014a term somewhat difficult to translate precisely.\nThe fundamental meaning of \u03b4\u03b9\u03ad\u03be\u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 is a \u201cway through and out,\u201d a \u201cpathway\u201d or \u201cpassage,\u201d or \u201cmeans of escape.\u201d It thus comes to mean the course of a narrative, or a detailed narrative, exposition, discussion. Hence also a \u201cpassage\u201d of Scripture. As set over against \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u1f78\u03c2 (General), therefore, \u03b4\u03b9\u03b5\u03be\u03bf\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u1f78\u03c2 would mean Detailed or Expository; but at the same time it would to the Greek ear suggest the meaning of the Means of Escape or the Way out of Ignorance.\n(iii) The third Stage is that of Moral and Mental Purification. \u201cWherefore I got me ready and made the thought (\u03c4\u1f78 \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1) in me a stranger to the world-illusion\u201d (\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f00\u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2)\u2014the Error that in \u00a7 7 sums up the first six vices, and is in \u00a7 9 driven out by Truth.\nStage ii. may have been technically known as that of the Suppliant, though, of course, of this we cannot be sure. In any case the term must be considered in close connection with Philo\u2019s treatise On the Contemplative Life, which, as Conybeare tells us, most probably formed Book IV. of Philo\u2019s voluminous work, or rather apology, De Legatione. The alternative title of this\nwork was The Suppliants. By \u201cSuppliant\u201d Philo tells us he means \u201cone who has fled to God and taken refuge with Him.\u201d 1\nHere, however, the term is used in a narrower sense, as adapted to the personal relationship of disciple to master, who, during the time of probation, stands to him as the representative of God. The master is his spiritual father, the image of God the Father. 2\nAs to the symbolic use of the term Mountain, I need hardly remind my readers that it was perhaps the most common figure employed in the apocalypses of the time. Instances come immediately crowding into the mind, such as the \u201cMount of Galilee\u201d in the Askew and Bruce Gnostic Codices, on which all the great initiations and rites are performed by the Risen Lord; or the Mount Tabor 3 of The Gospel according to the Hebrews, \u201cMy Mother the Holy Spirit took me by one of the hairs of the head and carried me unto Mount Tabor\u201d; or in the Acts of John, where the Vision of the Spiritual Crucifixion is shown to John on the Mount; or in The Gospel of Eve, where the Vision of the Great and Little Man is seen on the Mount; or in The Shepherd of Hermas, where the Angel of Repentance bears off Hermas to the Mount of Arcadia, etc. In every case the Mountain is no physical mountain, but the height of contemplation, an interior state of spiritual consciousness.\nStage iii., again, is of interest because of the terms in\nwhich it is described; they may be compared with the same teaching in the Behnesa logos:\nJesus saith: \u201cExcept ye fast to the world, ye shall in nowise find the Kingdom of God.\u201d\nAgain, in Tat\u2019s prayer for the consummation of his probation: \u201cAnd now do thou fill up the things that fall short in me\u201d (\u03c4\u1f70 \u1f51\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03c0\u03bb\u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd), it should be noticed that we have the well-known technical terms of the Christianized Gnosis, the Pl\u0113r\u014dma and Hyster\u0113ma, or Fullness and Insufficiency.\nThe time has come for Tat to receive, through his master, the touch of the true Mind-consciousness, the Christ is to be born in his heart, the light of the Pl\u0113r\u014dma is to shine into his inmost being. It is to be a New Birth, a Regeneration (\u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03b3\u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2), or Re-birth (\u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2), in the sense of being born from Above (\u1f04\u03bd\u03c9\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd).\nCompare John iii. 3: \u201cAmen, Amen, I say unto thee; Except a man be born from Above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.\u201d And also 7: \u201cMarvel not that I said unto thee, Ye (pl.) must be born from Above,\u201d\u2014where the comment on a prior saying, \u201cYe must be born from Above,\u201d formally unsuited to the scheme of a dialogue between Jeschu and Rabbi Nakdimon, reveals the work of the Haggadist.\nSo also in 1 Pet. i. 22, 23: \u201cHaving made your souls holy by hearkening to the Truth 1 . . . being Re-born (\u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03b5\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9) not from the seed of destruction, but from the Seed that cannot be destroyed, through the Word 2 (Logos) of God, who lives and endures.\u201d 3\nThese passages from the New Testament Scriptures are not, of course, cited to show any dependence of our Hermetic authors on the New Testament writers; but simply to show how they mutually explain one another. For indeed the doctrine of the New Birth and of the Sacred Marriage was beyond all else the crowning mystery of the Spiritual Way for all the mystic schools of the time. 1\n2. The secret that Tat would learn is the Mystery of the Birth from the Virgin Womb\u2014the Birth of Man, the Great Mystery of Regeneration. Many illustrations of the meaning of this pivot-doctrine of the Christian teaching might be quoted from Gnostic writings, but it will be sufficient to remind the reader of what the Jewish Commentator in the Naassene Document (\u00a7 28) has written in contrasting the Great Mysteries (or the heavenly ones) with the Little Mysteries (those of fleshly generation). Speaking of the Mysteries of Regeneration, he writes:\n\u201cFor this is the Gate of Heaven, and this is the House of God, where the Good God dwells alone; into which no impure [man] shall come, but it is kept under guard for the spiritual alone,\u2014where when they come, they must cast away their garments, and all become bridegrooms, obtaining their true manhood, through the Virginal Spirit. For this is the Virgin big with child, conceiving and bearing a Son.\u201d\nAnd to this the Christian Commentator adds:\u2014\u201cnot psychic, not fleshly, but a blessed \u00c6on of \u00c6ons.\u201d\nThe Jewish Commentator uses the language of Philo, who, as we have shown, centred his ideas round the conception of the Sacred Marriage and the Virginal Spirit.\nSo, too, does our treatise. The Womb is Silence, the silence of contemplation, the image of the Great Silence the Mother of the \u00c6ons in many a Christianized Gnostic System; the Matter is Wisdom; the \u00c6on\u2019s coming to consciousness in man is the Birth of Man the Son of God; and the Seed is the Good or Logos sown by the Will of the Father. This is the Birth of the Christ in man, the Great Mystery that awaits us when we have made ourselves strangers to the world-illusion.\nIs this Son then, asks Tat, other than God? No, answers Hermes; it is the Mystery of Sameness, not of Difference; it is the Pl\u0113r\u014dma, not the Insufficiency,\u2014\u201cAll in all, out of all powers composed,\u201d the Common Fruit of the Pl\u0113r\u014dma, as the Valentinians would have expressed it.\nIt is a Race, not an individual; it is We and no longer I. 1 This is the Race of the Logos; the Self-taught Race of Philo; or, as Hermes says: \u201cThis Race, my son, is never taught, but when He willeth it, its memory is restored by God.\u201d\nThis is the \u1f00\u03bd\u03ac\u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 of Pythagoras and Plato,\u2014the regaining of the consciousness of the Divine State; it must be self-perceived. And so Philo tells us:\n\u201cBut as for the Race of Devotees who are taught ever more and more to see, let them strive for the intuition of That-which-is; let them transcend the sun which men perceive [and gaze upon the Light beyond, the\n[paragraph continues] True Sun or Logos], nor ever leave this rank which leads to Perfect Blessedness. Now they who betake themselves to the [Divine] Service, [do so] not because of any custom, or some one\u2019s advice or appeal, but are carried away by Heavenly Love.\u201d 1\nThey are of the Race of Elxai, the Hidden Power or Holy Spirit, the Spouse of Iexai, the Hidden Lord or Logos. 2\n3. Hermes cannot teach to Tat this Birth in words, even as Isis is not permitted to declare it openly to Horus (K. K., 36):\n\u201cI may not tell the story of this Birth; for it is not permitted to describe the origin of thy descent, O Horus, son of mighty power, lest afterward the Way-of-Birth of the immortal Gods should be known unto men\u201d\u2014that is, the Mystery of the Birth of Horus.\nHermes can only guide Tat towards the realisation of the Blessed Sight, by putting himself into that sublime state of consciousness, so that Tat, so to speak, bathes, or is baptized in, his master\u2019s spiritual presence, the Cup of the Mind. This, as we have seen already from several treatises, was the way of transmission of the Power of the powers, the true Laying-on of Hands.\nHermes describes the change that takes place in himself when he passes into the higher spiritual consciousness. He seems to \u201cpass through himself\u201d\u2014to \u201cinvolve\u201d himself, as it is said somewhere in the Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata of the \u1e5ai\u1e63his\u2014\u201cinto a Body that can never die,\u201d that is, into a, or rather the, Essential or Cosmic Body, 3 that embraces the cosmos within it. The\nway to do this is not taught, for it cannot be understood from any sensible experience, the outer physical form of the adept remaining as it was before. It is an inner change. The Birth of a Christ is the striking of a new keynote; everything remains apparently as it was before, but all things receive a new interpretation.\nNo physical sight, even of the greatest intensity, can penetrate the Veil of this Mystery.\n\u201cThou seest me with eyes, my son; but what I am thou dost not understand.\u201d\nWith this compare the marvellous Ritual of Initiation in The Acts of John:\n\u201cWho I am thou shalt know when I depart. 1 What I am seen to be, that am I not; but what I am, thou shalt see when thou comest.\u201d 2\nNone but those who have reached the Christ-state can know it; no teaching will avail to explain its manner and its mysteries. It must be realized.\n4. But Tat, who has \u201cmade himself ready,\u201d is becoming quickened by the power of his master. His spiritual senses are being born; already he is losing touch with the physical; he no longer sees himself. But this is not enough; he must not only be able to lose consciousness of his physical body, and see and hear as though with the mind alone, but he must \u201cinvert\u201d himself, pass right through himself, and no longer see things as without him, but all things as within him.\nAll this is a New Creation to be accomplished in the man himself. The Author or Genesiurge of Re-birth, as\ncontrasted with the Maker or Demiurge of Birth, is the One Man, the Logos, the Energic Reason and Will of God; the one is the Creator of the Immortal Body, the other is the Maker of the mortal frame.\n5. The reading of the next sentence is faulty, and it is impossible to extract the correct meaning. The \u201cGreatness\u201d (\u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2) and \u201cdistinctive form\u201d (\u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1) are terms familiar enough to us in Christian Gnostic writings. 1 Greatness connotes the same idea as \u00c6on; \u201ccharacter\u201d or \u201cdistinctive form\u201d or \u201crank\u201d is generally the impression from a typical original, and here stands for the form by which a man is recognised.\n6. Hermes then proceeds to describe the nature of this Greatness or \u00c6on, or Sameness, manifested in difference. It is, alchemically speaking, the One Element, which can only be comprehended by one Born in God\u2014that is, by a God.\n7. The way of this Birth is then described as a de-energizing, or throwing out of work of the body\u2019s senses, with a corresponding energizing of the One Sense, the \u00c6onic Consciousness; or as a purging out of\nthe tendencies of the lower nature, and replacing them by the energies of the Divine Powers.\nThis is the Mystery of Repentance (\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u1fd6\u03b1), not a change of mind only, but a change throughout the whole nature; all things in the man turn towards God.\nThe forces or energies of the soul have no direction in themselves; it is the will of man that can turn them \u201cdownwards\u201d or \u201cupwards,\u201d so that they become vices or virtues.\n8., But not only does Hermes set forth a formal exposition of this Repentance in terms of the conquest and driving out of the Horde of Vices by the Company of Virtues, but at the same time he performs an efficacious theurgic rite of invocation whereby he enables Tat to realize the instruction in immediate experience.\nThe Virtues that Hermes invokes are not abstractions, but definite substantial powers; they are, in fact, the \u201cfilling up\u201d of Tat\u2019s \u201cinsufficiency\u201d; in other words, they are what the Christian Gnostics would have called the \u00c6ons of the Pl\u0113r\u014dma.\nBehind all there is a definite scheme of numbering. There is a Twelve and a Ten and a Seven and a Three and a One.\nThe Torments of the Darkness are the Twelve; they are not torments in themselves, but only for him who is in Error. They are Twelve yet are they one, for though they are \u201cpantomorph\u201d or \u201comniform,\u201d yet are they of one nature; the Twelve are thus conditioned by the main irrational \u201ctypes of life,\u201d or animal natures,\u2014the so-called zodiac.\nThese divisions are not, however, fundamental, they are solely for man\u2019s delusion or error; in action they\nare one\u2014that is, they keep man in Error or Ignorance. Thus they can be regarded as one, or two, or three, or four, or six; and so combined and recombined.\nTwelve, then, is the nature of the \u201canimal soul\u201d in man\u2014the number of his going-forth into externality. This out-going is arrested when man repents, and turns himself to return, to go within; the cosmogonical is transformed by the soteriological; the \u201cenformation according to substance\u201d gives place to the \u201cenformation according to gnosis.\u201d As Ignorance characterized the Twelve, so does Gnosis characterize the Ten, the Perfect Number or Number of Perfection.\nThe Going-forth was that of the multiplication of species\u2014Twelve (3 \u00d7 4 or 2 \u00d7 6); the Return is Ten, that is the Seven and the Three; and Seven is addition (3 + 4) and not multiplication.\nMultiplication seems here to mean the generation, by two parents, of things of the same kind and power; while addition signifies the intensification of the same nature to a higher power.\nThe Ten is \u201cthat which giveth birth to souls\u201d\u2014that is, human souls; and not only human souls, but, in its consummation, to divine souls.\nIt may, perhaps, be of interest here to set down simple lists of the vices and virtues as given in our treatise, and to append to them the list of vices in C. H., i. 24 and 26.\n| 1. Not-knowing. | 1. Gnosis. | \n| 2. Grief. | 2. Joy. | \n| 3. Intemperance. | 3. Self-control. | \n| 4. Concupiscence. | 4. Continence. | \n| 5. Unrighteousness. | 5. Righteousness. | \n| 6. Avarice. | 6. Sharing-with-all. | \n| 7. Error. | 7. Truth. | \n| 8. Envy. | | \n| 9. Guile. | 8. The Good. | \n| 10. Anger. | 9. Life. | \n| 11. Rashness. | 10. Light. | \n| 12. Malice. | | \n| | | \n| 1. Growth and Waning. | First Zone. | \n| 2. Device of Evils. | Second Zone. | \n| 3. Guile of the Desires. | Third Zone. | \n| 4. Arrogance. | Fourth Zone. | \n| 5. Daring and Rashness. | Fifth Zone. | \n| 6. Getting Wealth. | Sixth Zone. | \n| 7. Falsehood. | Seventh Zone. | \n| | | \n| 8. Those-that-are. | Eighth. | \n| 9. The Powers in a band. | Ninth. | \n| 10. The Father. | Tenth. | \nIt is at once seen that the first seven virtues are arranged so as to be the direct antitheses of the first seven vices. The root of the Twelve is Ignorance; indeed, all the Twelve are permutations of Ignorance. They seem to be twelve, whereas they are but one in nature; again, not only are they twelve, but manifold (\u00a7 12).\nThus, for instance, Rashness and Wrath or Anger are but one, and so of the rest; the permutations are infinite. This may be seen from the septenary classification in \u201cThe Shepherd\u201d treatise, where we have: Guile of the Desires (3), a combination of Guile (9) and Desire or Concupiscence (4); Device of Evils (2), a combination of Guile (9) and Malice (12); Unholy Daring and Rashness (5), a combination of Unrighteousness (5) and Rashness (11); Getting Wealth by evil means (6), a combination of Guile (9) and Avarice (6). So also just as Anger (10) and Rashness (11) are one, so are Envy (8) and Avarice (6) but aspects of the same\nthing; and so again Intemperance (3) and Concupiscence or Desire (4), Grief (2) and Ignorance (1), etc.\nAll are summed up in Ignorance, or Error, just as the seven virtues are summed up in Gnosis or Truth. 1 And just as Ignorance is the source of vice, so is Knowledge or Gnosis the beginning of Truth. Gnosis is not the end but the beginning of the Path, the end of it is God or the Good.\nThe difference between the \u201cP\u0153mandres\u201d arrangement and the categories of our treatise is conditioned by the fact that in the former the process of transformation in the case of a good man after death is described, whereas in the latter the Way of Rebirth in a living man is set forth.\nThat the Virtues (and Vices, therefore) were categorized according to the fundamental numbers of the Gnosis may be seen in most systems of Christian Gnostic \u00e6onology; indeed, it was a common plan of the general Gnostic theosophy of the time. In our treatise we have set forth the manner of the immediate practical ethical realization of what might be taken by a superficial student of Gnostic \u00e6onology as an empty schematology of purely metaphysical abstractions. 2 These things, however, meant everything to the Gnostic; they were fullnesses\u2014no abstractions, but transcendent realities.\nSo also in the Shepherd of Hermas (Vis. iii. 8, 7), just as in our treatise, we are presented with the Vision of a Band of seven Women, each the mother of the next, seven Virtues, called: Faith, Continence, Simplicity, Freedom-from-malice, Seriousness, Gnosis (\u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7), Love.\nAnd not only do we have the Seven, but also the\n[paragraph continues] Twelve, twelve Maidens (Sim. xv. 1-3): Faith, Continence, Power, Long-suffering, Simplicity, Freedom-from-malice, Chastity, Joyfulness, Truth, Understanding, Concord, Love.\nTo these are opposed twelve Women in dark robes: Infidelity, Incontinence, Disobedience, Error, Grief, Depravity, Wantonness, Quickness-to-wrath, Falsehood, Folly, Slander, Hate.\nZosimus also speaks of the Twelve Fates (\u039c\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9) of Death, and associates them with the Passions. 1\nBut, indeed, the subject is infinite, for it is the consummation of all right endeavour and all true progress in humanity. We must, then, leave it for the present, to avoid running to too great length in these comments. Sufficient for the moment to point to the fact that the Ten is not only the Wedding Garment of Purity, but also the Robe of Power or Glory. In its consummation also it is the Garment of the Christ, the One Robe without seam throughout, for the Ten contains the One, and the One contains the Ten.\n13. The result of this Potent Invocation of the Powers,\u2014that is to say, the realization of the full meaning of the sacred rite which consummates itself in the consciousness of Hermes, and so communicates itself in some measure to Tat, 2\u2014is that Tat begins to \u201csee\u201d; \u201cI see the All, I see myself in Mind.\u201d\n\u201cIn heaven am I, in earth, in water, air; I am in animals, in plants; I\u2019m in the womb, before the womb, after the womb,\u2014I\u2019m everywhere\u201d (\u00a7 11).\nCompare this with C. H., xi. (xii.) 22, where Hermes is himself being taught by Mind:\n\u201cCollect into thyself all senses of all creatures,\u2014of\nfire, and water, dry and moist. Think that thou art at the same time in every place, in earth, in sea, in sky; not yet begotten, in the womb, young, old and dead, in after-death conditions.\u201d\nThis is, as we have seen, a pure Egyptian formula, and connotes the opening of the \u201ccosmic consciousness.\u201d\nThis consciousness, whatever else it may be, is a transcending of our three-dimensional limitation of consciousness,\u2014that of the \u201cbody\u2019s view-point,\u2014a thing three ways in space extended.\u201d\nThe mystery of this New Birth in consciousness is to be kept secret; therefore Hermes has not commented on it, presumably in the Expository Sermons; moreover, it must even now be kept secret (\u00a7 22), and therefore is the treatise a Secret Sermon. The reason for this is given both here and in \u00a7 22: \u201cThat we may not be thought to be calumniators\u201d (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9), by the Many or Unknowing. What may be the precise meaning of this phrase I do not know, and can only speculate.\nThose who had reached the full grade of Hermes are to keep silence on their \u201cvirtue\u201d or power (\u00a7 22); they were never to boast of their Gnosis. If they did, it would only bring the Gnosis into contempt; for they would still appear as ordinary men, would probably often say and do things, when they were not in the higher state of consciousness, which fell below the standard of their high ideals, and so they would be slanderers or calumniators of the Gnosis before the world.\n14. The New Birth is further characterized as the Essential Birth (\u1f21 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03b9\u03ce\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2); it was the birth of\nthe Essential Man, the God, Son of the One, to which other treatises refer. 1\n15. Tat now desires to hear the Praise-giving of the Powers, which only those can sing who have reached the stage called Eighth, or the Ogdoad; this is the state above the Harmony or the Hebdomad of Fate (C. H., i. 26). The man is now free and no longer a slave. It is the power of prophetic hymnody, for the man now hears the True Harmony of things and is above the Concatenation of Difference; it is the state \u201cthat keeps the soul in tune.\u201d He who has reached this height can ever sing in tune; it is the state of the Hearer of the Eternal Praise-giving, and those who reach it can express it infinitely, each in his own fashion.\nThe idea of the Ogdoad is represented in many a Christian Gnostic system, especially in the Valentinian tradition, which has many Egyptian elements in it.\nSo we read in the Excerpts from Theodotus appended to the writings of Clement of Alexandria:\n\u201cHim whom the Mother 2 brings to birth, she leadeth unto Death and to the world; but him whom Christ brings to rebirth, He changeth into Life, unto the Ogdoad.\u201d 3\nMany were the names given to the Ogdoad by the Christian Gnostics,\u2014such as the Jerusalem Above, Wisdom, the Land flowing with milk and honey, the Holy Spirit, the Land of the Lord, the Mesotes.\nThese terms were, however, with the exception of the last, Jewish synonyms; the term Ogdoad itself\nwas in all probability Egyptian. Thus in one of the Magic Papyri we read:\n\u201cHaving known the power of the book, thou shalt hide it, my son. For in it there is stored the Authentic Name, which is the Name Ogdoad,\u2014He who doth order and doth regulate all things.\u201d 1\n16. The Hymn that follows is to be kept secret\u2014that is to say, it is to be taken by Tat as an example of the form of prayer he is now to use in his private devotions, and is therefore probably intended to replace some other form of prayer which he had hitherto been using, as was the custom in such communities.\nThe instruction to use it at sunset and sunrise, in the open air, reminds us of the appended passages to \u201cThe Shepherd\u201d treatise, where we read (\u00a7 29):\n\u201cAnd when even was come and all sun\u2019s beams began to set, I bade them all give thanks to God.\u201d 2\nCompare also what Philo tells us of the Therapeuts:\n\u201cTwice a day, at dawn and even, they are accustomed to offer up prayers; as the sun rises praying for the sunshine, the real Sunshine, that their minds may be filled with Heavenly Light, and as it sets praying that their soul, completely lightened of the lust of the senses and sensations, may withdraw to its own Congregation and Council-chamber, there to track out Truth.\u201d 3\nSo also Apollonius of Tyana is said to have prayed and meditated three times a day: at daybreak (Phil., V. A., vi. 10, 18; vii. 31), at mid-day (vii. 10), and at\nsundown (viii. 13); and with regard to \u201ckeeping silence on their virtue,\u201d we are told of the Later Pythagoreans, of whom he was so conspicuous an example:\n\u201cIn particular they kept the rule of silence regarding the Divine Service [that is, the Gnosis]. For they heard within them many Divine and unspeakable things on which it would have been difficult for them to keep silence, had they not first learned that it was just this Silence which spoke to them\u201d (i. 1). 1\nAnd so the Hymn has to be heard in silence; all earthly sounds must be stilled for the Heavenly Harmony to be heard.\n17. It is to be noticed that in four out of the five MSS. the title \u201cSecret Hymnody\u201d is followed by the indication \u201cLogos IV.\u201d\nReitzenstein (p. 345, n. 21) thinks that the three prior \u201cLogoi\u201d were:\nI. \u201cHoly art Thou, O God\u201d\u2014C. H., i. 31, 32.\nII. \u201cThe Glory of all things is God\u201d\u2014C. H., iii. (iv.).\nIII. \u201cWhither stumble ye, sots?\u201d\u2014C. H., vii. (viii.).\nThe latter two, however, are not hymns; the only other hymn in our Corpus being:\n\u201cWho then may sing Thee praise of Thee?\u201d\u2014C. H., v. (vi.) 10, 11.\nOur Hymn is a Hymn to the Sun, it is true, but to the Spiritual Sun, not the physical orb of day. It is to the Eye of Mind that these orisons are addressed\u2014to the All-seeing Light.\nNor is this Eulogy a formal Te Deum, but a potent theurgic Praise-giving. All nature is to thrill with the joy of this thankfulness.\nMost beautiful is this Song of Praise, all of it, but we would specially call attention to the words:\n\u201cThy Reason sings through me Thy praises. Take back through me the All into Thy Reason\u2014my reasonable oblation 1! From Thee Thy Will; to Thee the All!\u201d\nThe Outbreathing of the Universe through the Reason or Logos 2 is the manifestation or realisation of the Will of God. The Logos is Son, Will is Mother and God Father.\nThe Inbreathing of the Universe is through Man (\u201cThy Man thus cries to Thee,\u201d \u00a7 20): \u201cTake back through Me the All.\u201d This is accomplished in the first instance by the sacrifice of the reason, of man\u2019s small limited reason, to the Great Reason of things.\nAnd yet the All, the Universe itself, is not something other than God; it is all God.\n\u201cFrom Thee Thy Will\u201d; Thou art the Source of all. \u201cTo Thee the All\u201d; Thou art the End of all, the Desirable One, The Good.\nCompare with this the Hymn in the Jewish deposit of the Naassene Document:\n\u201cFrom Thee is Father, and Through Thee Mother,\u2014the two Immortal Names, Parents of \u00c6ons, O Thou who hast the Heaven for thy City, O Man of Mighty Names!\u201d\nAlso notice: \u201cThe All that is in us, O Life, preserve; O Light, illumine it; O God, in-spirit it!\u201d And compare it with \u00a7 12, where we are told: \u201cWhile Life and Light are unified there, where the One hath being from the Spirit.\u201d\nThe Prayer is for the Baptism of Light\u2014Illumination by the Gnosis 1; this was the Dowsing in the Mind of \u201cThe Cup\u201d treatise, even as true Baptism in primitive Christianity was called Illumination or \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2.\n21. Tat now feels himself impelled to utter praises himself. He says what he feels. His master has given him the impulse, has made the conditions for him whereby he is conceived as a Child of God, a Prophet. But as yet he is not grown into the stature of a true Seer. His higher nature has received the germ, but this must have time to develop, and only gradually will its power descend into his lower mind.\nAt present his thankfulness is poured forth to his master, who has performed the theurgic rite of initiation (\u201cAll things have been perfected\u201d) for him.\nBut Hermes restrains him; it is not to the master that his thanks are due, but to God. And if he cannot as yet give thanks direct to God, then let him send those thanks\u2014\u201cacceptable oblations\u201d\u2014to God \u201cThrough the Word.\u201d\nAnd that this was and is the practice of universal Christendom requires no pointing out;\u2014the most striking parallel to the wording of our treatise being 1 Pet. ii. 5: \u201cSpiritual oblations acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.\u201d\nTat has now passed from the rank of Hearer to that of Knower; he is now a true Gnostic: \u201cThou hast become a Knower of thyself, and of our Sire.\u201d\nCompare logos 2 of the latest found Sayings at Oxyrhynchus:\n\u201c(Strive therefore?) to know yourselves, and ye shall know ye are Sons of the (almighty?) Father; (and?) ye shall know that ye are in (the City of God? 1), and ye are (the City? 2).\u201d\n235:1 Grotius, ap. Jablonski, ii. 397; Lobeck, Aglaoph., p. 714.\n235:2 Euseb., Chron., 99 A.\n235:3 De Div., i. 44.\n236:1 Herod., v. 90.\n236:2 Or. c. Demos., 91, 20.\n236:3 Or., IV. 60: \u201c\u03c3\u03c4\u1fd6\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03b1\u03c2, \u03bf\u1f50 \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03b5 \u1f10\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u1ff3 \u03ba\u03c5\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03ad\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5.\u201d\n238:1 De Sac. Ab. et C., i. 186, 33.\n238:2 See the praise-giving of Tat, \u00a7 21.\n238:3 \u201cThe Mountain of Light,\u201d the traditional scene of the Transfiguration.\n239:1 Precisely as did Tat.\n239:2 Cf. precisely the same formula in our treatise, \u00a7 21.\n239:3 That is, of God as \u00c6on and God as Life, which is the union of God as Mind and Logos.\n240:1 The antiquity of the ideas connected with this spiritual mystery may be seen from what Reitzenstein (pp. 227 ff.) has to say concerning mystic \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1 or congress; of it, as perhaps of nothing so much in the world, may it be said corruptio optimi pessima.\n241:1 Compare the Song of the Powers in Pistis Sophia (pp. 16, 17), where the \u201cWe\u201d alternates with the \u201cI.\u201d\n242:1 D. V. C., M. 473, 10; P. 891.\n242:2 See D. J. L., pp. 374, 375.\n242:3 Cf. R. 52. But compare especially \u00a7 6, and C. H., iv. (v.) 1.\n243:1 That is, when the Presence is withdrawn,\u2014by contrast.\n243:2 Texts and Studies, V. i. 14.\n244:1 The term \u201cGreatness,\u201d however, is probably of Egyptian derivation. In the Papyrus Insinger, written somewhere during the last half of the first century B.C. and first half of the first century A.D., according to Spiegelberg, God\u2019s Wisdom and Providence are praised (coll. xxxv., xxxvi.). The superscription of this section runs: \u201cThe Four-and-Twentieth Teaching: The Instruction: Learn the Greatness of God, that thou mayest let it come into thine heart\u201d (xxxv. 17); and later on: \u201cHe knoweth the Blasphemer who thinketh wickedness, He knoweth the Pious with the Greatness of God in his heart. The tongue, before even it is questioned\u2014its words God knoweth\u201d (xxxvi. 3-5). This is further explained by the sentence: \u201cThoth is heart and tongue of the Pious; lo! his house is God!\u201d (xxxv. 19). R. 237.\n248:1 Cf. P. S. A., xxix. 2.\n248:2 The usual way, indeed, in which it is taken.\n249:1 Berthelot, 244; R. 214.\n249:2 Cf. C. H., i. 7; xi. (ixi.) 6.\n251:1 Cf. P. S. A., vii. 2.\n251:2 Sc. the Lower Mother, Nature.\n251:3 Exx. ex Theodot., \u00a7 80 (ed. Dindorf, iii. 453).\n252:1 Leyden Papyrus W. S., 139, 45 (Leemans); cf. also ibid., 141, 5; R. 54. For further comments on the Ogdoad, see Commentary on C. H., i. 26.\n252:2 Cf. also P. S. A., xli. 1.\n252:3 D. V. C., M. ii. 475; P. 893.\n253:1 See my Apollonius of Tyana, pp. 123 and 120.\n254:1 Cf. 1 Pet. ii. 5: \u201cYe also as living stones are built up, a spiritual house for holy service, to offer up spiritual oblations acceptable to God through Jesus Christ,\u201d And also Rom. xii. 1: \u201cI beseech you, therefore, brethren, to present your bodies as a living oblation, holy, well-pleasing unto God,\u2014your reasonable service.\u201d\n254:2 Hesychius in his Lexicon defines Logos as the \u201cCause of Activity,\u201d or that which underlies action,\u2014\u1f21 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b4\u03c1\u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c0\u03cc\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2.\n255:1 Compare \u03b3\u03bd\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f01\u03b3\u03af\u03b1, \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u1f76\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c3\u03bf\u1fe6 (\u00a7 18); \u03c6\u1ff6\u03c4\u03b9\u03b6\u03b5 \u03c6\u03ce\u03c2 (\u00a7 19); \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c6\u03ce\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03af \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f41 \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 (\u00a7 21).\n256:1 Sc. the Ogdoad.\n256:2 Cf. 1. Pet. ii. 5: \u201cYe are built up as living stones, a spiritual house for service.\u201d","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: I. Corpus Hermeticum: Commentary","type":"page"}