{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th251.htm","path":"gno/th2/th251.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th251.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n4. [XV. M.] And now it hath been told you on each several point,\u2014as man hath power [to tell], and God hath willed it and permitted it.\nThis, then, alone remains that we should do,\u2014bless God and give Him praise; and so return to taking thought for body [\u2019s comfort].\nFor now sufficiently have we been filled with feast of mind by our discourse on sacred things. 5\n1. Now when they came forth from the holy place, 1 they turned their faces towards the south 2 when they began their prayers to God.\nFor when the sun is setting, should anyone desire to pray to God, he ought to turn him thitherwards 3; so also at the rising of the same, unto that spot which lies beneath the sun. 4\nAs they were just beginning to recite the prayer, Asclepius did whisper:\n[Asc.] Let us suggest to father, Tat,\u2014what he did bid us do, 5\u2014that we should say our prayer to God with added incense and with unguents.\nWhom when Thrice-greatest heard, he grew distressed and said:\n2. [Tris.] Nay, nay, Asclepius; speak more propitious words! For this is like to profanation of [our] sacred rites,\u2014when thou dost pray to God, to offer incense and the rest.\nFor naught is there of which He stands in need, in that He is all things, or all are in Him.\nBut let us worship, pouring forth our thanks. For this is the best incense in God\u2019s sight,\u2014when thanks are given to Him by men. 1\n3. [We give] Thee grace, Thou highest [and] most excellent! For by Thy Grace we have received the so great Light of Thy own Gnosis.\nO holy Name, fit [Name] to be adored, O Name unique, by which the Only God 2 is to be blest through worship of [our] Sire,\u2014[of Thee] who deignest to afford to all a Father\u2019s piety, and care, and love, and whatsoever virtue is more sweet [than these], endowing [us] with sense, [and] reason, [and] intelligence;\u2014with sense that we may feel Thee; with reason that we may track Thee out from the appearances of things 3; with means of recognition that we may joy in knowing Thee.\n4. Saved by Thy Power divine, let us rejoice that Thou hast shown Thyself to us in all Thy Fullness. Let us rejoice that Thou hast deigned to consecrate us, [still] entombed in bodies, to Eternity.\nFor this is the sole festival of praise worthy of man,\u2014to know Thy Majesty.\nWe have known Thee; yea, by the Single Sense of our intelligence, we have perceived\n[paragraph continues] Thy Light supreme,\u2014O Thou true Life of life, O Fecund Womb that giveth birth to every nature!\n5. We have known Thee, O Thou completely filled with the Conception from Thyself of Universal Nature!\nWe have known Thee, O Thou Eternal Constancy!\nFor in the whole of this our prayer in worship of Thy Good, this favour only of Thy Goodness do we crave;\u2014that Thou wilt keep us constant in our Love of knowing Thee, 1 and let us ne\u2019er be cut off from this kind of Life.\nWith this desire we [now] betake us to [our] pure and fleshless meal. 2\n387:5 Cf. the conclusion of C. H., xvii.\n388:1 De adyto; \u201cdown from,\u201d literally.\n388:2 This is apparently an error for south-west or west.\n388:3 That is, to the setting sun or the west. Cf. C. H., xiii. (xiv.) 16, Comment.\n388:4 Subsolanus, lying beneath the sun; that is to say, eastern.\n388:5 Cf. xxxviii. 1 above.\n389:1 For the three preceding paragraphs, see Lact., D. I., vi. 25.\n389:2 The Cosmos, presumably, as the One God.\n389:3 Suspicionibus; hints, perhaps, and so phenomena.\n390:1 Or of Thy Gnosis.\n390:2 C\u00e6nam.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: II. The Perfect Sermon; o...","type":"page"}