{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th234.htm","path":"gno/th2/th234.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th234.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\nThe loss of the end of the previous sermon, and also the loss of almost the whole of (xvii.), is to be accounted for by the falling out of one or more quires from the original MS. of our Corpus, 4 a phenomenon similar to that already remarked in the case of C. H., ii. (iii).\nAnd that this is the fact is brought out interestingly by the note of Reitzenstein (p. 193, 1)\u2014namely, that one of the correctors of one of the copies (Paris MS.) of this faulty original has precisely in these two places changed the name Asclepius into Tat. He was puzzled, and thought that his \u201ccorrection\u201d would set matters right; as a matter of fact, however, it only adds to the confusion.\nWhat the main subject of our treatise may have been we can hardly conjecture; part of it, however, must have been devoted to an explanation of the rationale of image-adoration,\u2014\u201cWherefore pay worship to the images, O King,\u201d\u2014of which we hear so much in P. S. A.\nThese symbolic images of the Gods are said to have their \u201cforms\u201d (\u1f30\u03b4\u03ad\u03b1\u03c2) in sympathetic relation with the Intelligible World. These are mutual \u201creflections,\u201d the one of the other.\nNow as the Ka of the God was thought to have immediate relation with the image-symbol of the God, and the Gods were of the Intelligible World,\u2014the statues of the Gods were thought to be images of the Image in some special way; they were regarded as providing a straight path or line of connection between Earth and Heaven, just as a man who made himself like to the Man after the Likeness became in himself a Way Up.\n286:4 R. 198.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: I. Corpus Hermeticum: Commentary","type":"page"}