{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th252.htm","path":"gno/th2/th252.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th252.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\nThe titles in the Latin MSS. vary. The heading preferred by Hildebrand is \u201cAsclepius, or a Dialogue of Thrice-greatest Hermes\u201d; while in the Bipontine edition, the title stands: \u201cThrice-greatest Hermes Concerning the Nature of the Gods; A Sermon addressed to Asclepius.\u201d M\u00e9nard, the French translator, prefers: \u201cA Sermon of Initiation, or Asclepius.\u201d\nThe treatise begins with a transparent gloss, in all probability originally the marginal note of some scribe,\nor student, which has improperly crept into the text. It runs: \u201cThis Asclepius is my Sun-god\u201d; that is to say, apparently: \u201cThis Sermon \u2018Asclepius\u2019 has illumined me\u201d; from which it is evident that the title lying before the scribe was \u201cAsclepius\u201d simply, as may be seen from \u00a7 2: \u201cIt is, however, with thy name I will inscribe this treatise.\u201d Stob\u00e6us, moreover, in quoting from the original Greek (of xxvii. 4), heads his extract simply, \u201cOf Hermes from the [Sermons] to Asclepius.\u201d\nOn the other hand, the Church Father Lactantius, writing at the beginning of the fourth century, and quoting from the Greek original, says twice, categorically (D. I., iv. 6 and vii. 8): \u201cHermes in illo libro qui \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 inscribitur\u201d; that is, \u201cHermes in the Book entitled \u2018The Perfect Sermon,\u2019 or \u2018The Sermon of Initiation\u2019\u201d; while Johannes Laurentius Lydus on three occasions quotes from this \u201cPerfect Sermon\u201d of Hermes, and on each occasion so names it.\nI have accordingly preferred this as the main title, and added \u201cThe Asclepius\u201d as an alternative.\nOf the Greek original we have quotations or references by Lactantius (see viii. 1 and 3; xxv. 4: xxvi. 1; xli. 2), Johannes Laurentius Lydus (see xix. 3; xxviii. 1; xxxix. 1, 2), and Stob\u00e6us (see xxvii. 4).\nIf we compare these Greek quotations with our Latin translation, we shall find, not only that the Latin is an exceedingly free rendering of the Greek, showing many expansions and contractions, and often missing the sense of the original, but also that even in Greek there were probably several recensions of the same text. 1\nIndeed, the free rendering of our translation is of such a nature that it is impossible to base upon it any certain conclusions as to the date of the original or its precise worth in the history of religion. 1\nThat, however, our Latin translation is an ancient one is proved by Augustine\u2019s verbal quotations from it (see xxiii. 1; xxiii. 3-xxiv. 2; xxiv. 3; xxvii. 1-4). It was thus in existence about 400 A.D. at least. 2\nTradition, however, has assigned to it a far higher antiquity, attributing it to no less distinguished a writer than Appuleius, and so referring it to the first half of the second century.\nThis attribution has, of course, for long been questioned by modern criticism, and Reitzenstein, though he does not discuss the subject, accepts the adverse verdict and refers us to a \u201cPseudo-Appuleius.\u201d\nHildebrand, whose minute acquaintance with Appuleius\u2019 peculiar style and neologisms is a guarantee of his competence, has thoroughly gone into the matter; and though he sums up against tradition, it is in a half-hearted way. The translation, if not by Appuleius, is at any rate in old African Latin, and there is nothing in the style which absolutely forbids the possibility of its being by the author of The Golden Ass and the initiate of Isis. The strongest point, other than philological, against tradition is that Augustine does not say the translation was by Appuleius; but this seems to me to be unworthy of serious consideration.\nIt is, of course, difficult to turn possibilities into probabilities, but I see no reason why the Greek original of our Sermon should not be assigned to the\nearlier Hermes-Asclepian dialogues as well as to any others. That it was one of the most famous is evident by its wide quotation, and by the fact that several recensions of the Greek text were in circulation.\nThe Latin translator retains a number of the original Greek technical terms, and if we could only rely on his translation giving us the substance of the original in all cases, we should be presented in several passages with phenomena which would persuade us that the writer of the original intended his readers to think he was an Egyptian, and that his native nomenclature was other than Greek, as is also the case in C. H. (xvi.).\nFor instance, in vii. 2, \u201cthe man \u2018essential,\u2019 1 as say the Greeks,\u201d\u2014but this may be a gloss of the Latin translator.\nAgain, in x. 2: \u201cSo that . . . \u2018World\u2019 seems most fitly called \u2018Cosmos\u2019 in Greek,\u201d\u2014which seems to be the original.\nYet again, the \u201cmultifarious reasoning\u201d of xii. 3 reminds us strongly of \u201cthe philosophizing of the Greeks\u2014the noise of words,\u201d in C. H., xvi. 2.\nOn the other hand, the phrase, \u201cwhich we in Greek (gr\u00e6ce) believe to be the Cosmos,\u201d would seem to make the original author forget his Egyptian r\u00f4le.\nWhile \u201cits bottom . . . is called in Greek A-eid\u0113s,\u201d coupled with \u201cin Greek they are called Hades . . . in Latin Inferi\u201d (xvii. 3), may be assigned to a gloss of the translator.\nIn xxiv. 1, however, the sentence, \u201cDost thou not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is the image of the Heaven? . . . This land of ours is shrine of the whole world\u201d\u2014coupled with the rest of the chapter, and Ch. xxv.\n[paragraph continues] \u2014could hardly have been written by a Greek. In xxviii. 1, moreover, the \u201cweighing of the merit\u201d of the soul is strongly Egyptian, and so with the image and animal-cult.\nAs to the persons of the dialogue, I would suggest that originally the sermon was addressed to Asclepius alone, and that the slight narrative indications were added later to adapt it to wider circles.\nThe chief disciple is evidently Asclepius; he it is who is already \u201cwell versed in Nature,\u201d according to C. H., xiv. (xv.) 1; that is to say, he has progressed beyond the stage of Hearer, for he questions Hermes, whereas Tat does not ask questions, but listens only, he is \u201cthe one who is to hear\u201d (i. 1). To them is added Ammon on the proposal of Asclepius; and Ammon is admitted on the ground that he had already had much written to him, but apparently had not yet been admitted to oral teaching.\nThe teaching is delivered in solemn surroundings in the holy place or shrine (i. 2), and teacher and pupils constitute the \u201csacred four.\u201d Hermes teaches in a state of exaltation; the place is filled with \u201cGod\u2019s goodly presence,\u201d and \u201cLove Divine\u201d instructs them, through Hermes\u2019 lips, in answer to the Pure and Single Love of Philosophy in their hearts (cf. xii. 3; xiv. 1).\nThe same hand that wrote the warning against revealing the sermon to others in i. 2 also probably wrote: \u201cAnd ye, O Tat, Asclepius and Ammon, in silence hide the mysteries divine within the secret places of your hearts, and breathe no word of their concealment!\u201d (xxxii. 4); he also, presumably, glossed \u201cAsclepius\u201d (xxxiv. 2) with \u201cand ye who are with him,\u201d and added the na\u00efve whisper of Asclepius to Tat (xli. 1).\nThis redactor (if our analysis is correct), moreover,\nwas a member of a select 1 ascetic community, judging at any rate by his last sentence (xli. 5); in which case Ammon can hardly be equated with any King Ammon, but must be taken as standing for some grade of the community. I would suggest that this grade was similar to that of the Exoterici of the Pythagoreans or the outer circles of the Essenes, of which the members still lived in the world, but received instruction. In this case, however, the \u201cwe\u201d of the last sentence would have to be taken as referring to Asclepius and Tat, and not to Ammon.\nAs to the dependence of our sermon on the rest of the literature, I find more points of contact between it and C. H., x. (xi.), \u201cThe Key\u201d sermon addressed to Tat; none of the references, however, which I have given in the notes, show any literal dependence.\nIn the general doctrine the stress laid on the concept of the Will of God 2 is to be specially noticed. This Will seems to be almost personified, and is, of course, a fundamental doctrine of the Trismegistic religio-philosophy. 3\nIn xxvi. 1 it is identified with the Goodness 4 of God, and the Nature of God. 5 But what it seems to correspond to most nearly is the \u00c6on or Eternity-idea which is set forth very clearly in xxx.-xxxii.\u2014in fact, more clearly than anywhere else in the Trismegistic\nliterature. God and \u00c6on are the sources of all things; and \u00c6on is \u201cthe Eternity of God, in Truth itself subsisting, the Fullness of all things\u201d (xxxii. 1). The Will of God is thus the \u00c6on or Pl\u0113r\u014dma, the Wisdom, the Energy, the Spouse of the Supreme.\nThis Will rules Cosmos with Law and Holy Reason (xl.); Cosmos being the Order of things involved in Fate and Necessity the instruments of the Divine Will. 1\nOur sermon is also characterized by the frequent use it makes of the terms Spirit and Sense.\nThe Spirit is evidently Cosmic Life (vi. 4; xxvii. 1) and individual life (x. 4). 2 The exposition of it begins with xiv. 2; Spirit and Matter, or the Nature of the Cosmos (xiv. 3), are practically regarded as the Positive and Negative, or Masculine and Feminine Energies of the Divine.\nSpirit is the Ruler (xvii. 1) of all things in Cosmos or Nature; it is the immediate Instrument of the Will of God (xvi. 3); and is, indeed, loosely identified with that Will (xix. 4); while in still looser fashion Spirit seems to be symbolized by \u201cHeaven\u201d and the Sensible Cosmos by \u201cEarth\u201d (xix. 2).\nIt is very probable that this doctrine of Spirit as Divine Breath is fundamentally Egyptian, and owes nothing to immediate Semitic influence. However this may be, the use of the term Sense, as apparently in some way superior to Reason (vi. 4; x. 4), is very striking, and, as in some cases opposed to the exaltation of the Reason found elsewhere in our tractates, under the influence of this leading idea of Greek philosophy, discloses an Egyptian point of view.\nWe have already noticed this use of the term in some of our tractates, but in our present sermon it is brought into great prominence. This Sense is not the differentiated senses, but a Unit or Cosmic Sense.\nIt is \u201cthe Divine Sense of intelligence,\u201d and is found only in God and in man\u2019s reason (vii. 1; xxxii. 2).\nIt is the \u201cHigher Sense (with which Celestial Gift mankind alone is blest)\u201d\u2014characterized as the \u201cfeeder of the mind\u201d (xviii. 1); yet on the other hand this \u201cHigher Sense\u201d is that \u201cwhich by good chance a man perceives by mind, when out of all his senses.\u201d\nThis Sense is in some fashion closely connected with Nature and Cosmos (xxi. 1); through it man \u201cdisciplines his soul,\u201d and \u201ccures his intellect,\u201d thus gaining \u201cintelligence of God-like Reason\u201d (xxii. 1), and finally \u201cmingling himself with the All-sense of the Divine Intelligence\u201d (xxix. 2).\nThis All-sense is the same as the \u201cWhole Sense of Divinity,\u201d and is the Likeness of God; it is \u201cin its own self immoveable,\u201d and yet \u201cdoth set itself in motion within its own stability\u201d (xxxii. 1). Man must make himself like unto this Likeness.\nThis Likeness is evidently the \u00c6on or Intelligible Cosmos; for the \u201cCosmic Sense is the Container of all sensibles\u201d (xxxii. 2).\nIn man its chief normal characteristic is the retentiveness of memory, \u201cthrough which man is made ruler of the Earth\u201d (xxxii. 2). This Sense is then man\u2019s continuum, the germ of everlastingness in him, the root-ground of consciousness (xxxii. 3), the Single Sense of the intelligence (xli. 4), which is fully brought to birth only when a man \u201cis wholly plunged in consciousness of life (in sensu vit\u00e6)\u201d (xxxvii. 3),\u2014the \u201cspiritual life\u201d of the Christian Gnostics.\nThe fact that we have only a translation to deal with\nprevents us laying too much stress on details, but the general idea is clear enough; so too with the rest of this, the longest of our sermons, we must be content to refer only to general points, the chief of which are the \u201cprophetic\u201d utterances.\nThese present us with problems of very great difficulty, and, so far, I have neither seen any solution nor has any occurred to me.\nSo much work has been done on contemporary prophetic utterances of this nature, especially on the Sibylline Literature, that it may be said that the scholastic mind has reached certain general criteria with regard to such pronouncements\u2014the chief of which is that the hypothesis of genuine prophecy is not to be entertained.\nIn the Sibylline literature, indeed, this is clearly established; for much of it consists of traditional history written in the prophetical tense, so to say; when the history comes to an end the date of the \u201cprophetical\u201d writer is at once detected, for all that follows has no longer any relation to historical events.\nIn the case of our \u201cprophecies,\u201d however, we have nothing of this nature to guide us. All we can say is that they seem to have been written, most probably, at a time when the Trismegistic communities were being persecuted.\nThat this was in the course of the fourth century, however, as Reitzenstein (p. 213) supposes, seems to me to be, so far, destitute of any sure objective confirmation; it not only compels us to suppose that the prophecies are later interpolations (which they may possibly be), but that these interpolations are later than Lactantius; whereas there is every probability that\nthe Church Father had the text of them before him, 1 and his date is the beginning of the fourth century.\nOn the other hand, Zosimus, writing somewhere about the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century, breathes no word of persecution, and leads us to suppose that the community was still flourishing. We are thus still in the gravest uncertainty.\nThe first of our \u201cprophecies\u201d is in xii. 3: \u201cFor I will tell thee as though it were propheticly\u201d\u2014addressed to Asclepius, and, therefore, probably not due to the redactor who we have supposed added the narrative sentences.\nThe lament of the writer is that \u201cthe Single Love, the Love of Pure Philosophy,\u201d is fast disappearing from the world; he can hardly have had Christianity in mind when writing these words, for he contrasts the \u201cPure Philosophy\u201d with \u201cmultifarious reasoning\u201d and \u201cdivers sciences,\u201d and the latter can hardly be said to be characteristic of General Christianity.\nIf, however, his words may be said to include also Gnostic Christianity, then he was clearly not in sympathy with it; but this can hardly be the case, seeing that the resemblances between the Trismegistic and Christian Gnosis are of a very intimate nature.\nTurning next to xxiv. 2, we meet with the clear statement that the worship of the Gods will be legally proscribed by the \u201cbarbarian\u201d masters of Egypt (also xxv. 3).\nSuch a general proscription in this emphatic sense took place in Egypt only with the destruction of the Serapeum by the Christians themselves in 389 A.D.\n[paragraph continues] Of persecutions of the Christians by the Roman authorities in Egypt prior to this we get clear indications in the writings of the Christian Gnostic Basilides, who flourished at Alexandria at the beginning of the second century, and wrote specially of martyrdom. But this will little help us for the proscription of a cult that favoured the worship of the Gods and of their images.\nCan it, then, be possible that these prophetic utterances were written at a time when many of the same nature were being penned by Jew and Christian? For our author, as for Jewish and Christian writers, the \u201cEnd of the World\u201d was at hand; his expectation is in this precisely the same as that of the writers of the New Testament documents.\nThe cause of this dire event is that Egypt, the \u201cshrine of the whole world,\u201d the \u201cHoly Land\u201d 1 par excellence, will be polluted with all iniquity and violence. The Cult of the Gods will cease, and the Gods will leave the Earth and mount to Heaven. The man\u2019s whole heart is bleeding for Egypt, even as the heart of a Jew for Jerusalem.\nIf there is any immediate historical references in these heartfelt utterances, we must seek them in such phrases as: \u201cThis holiest land, seat of our shrines and temples, shall be choked with tombs and corpses\u201d (xxiv. 3); \u201cthe tale of tombs shall far exceed the number of the quick\u201d (ibid., \u00a7 4) 2; and \u201cEgypt shall be made the home of Scyth or Indian, or someone like to them\u2014that is, a foreign neighbour.\u201d\nIt is true that the Christians were ever reproached\nwith worshipping the dead, and building churches over the bones of the dead\u2014an act of utter pollution according to all Pagan notions; but the words of our author, even allowing for all hyperbole, can hardly be construed in this sense.\nPeople like Scyths or Indians, again, if we are to suppose any historical reference, can hardly be imagined to refer to the Romans; while the Goths under Alaric, who ravaged Greece in 395, 396 A.D., are too late even for Reitzenstein. Moreover, we have already in our notes pointed to the strange conjunction of Scyth and Barbarian in our text as being also found in Colossians.\nOn the other hand, nothing but the entire State suppression of the Pagan Religion in all its forms can satisfy xxv. 3, and this just suits the end of the fourth century.\nIf, however, we cannot entertain so late a date, and I do not think we can, there seems nothing for it but to give the writer some credit for his prognostication of the future; for eventually things certainly turned out for him and all he held most dear very much as he imagined or feared they would.\nAt any rate the last hope of the Pure Love, the Religion of the Mind, is in the Trismegistic Communities, if indeed it is so permitted to interpret xxvii. 3:\n\u201cYea, they who rule the earth shall be distributed [through all the lands], and finally be gathered in a state,\u2014at top of Egypt\u2019s upper part,\u2014which shall be founded towards the setting sun, and to which all the mortal race shall speed.\u201d\nWe need not insist upon details, for our translator\nmay have gone wide of the original; for instance, the \u201crace\u201d may, instead of being \u201cmortal\u201d in the original, have been the \u201cRace\u201d of which we have already heard so much in Philo and these tractates; but the similarity of the idea cannot fail to remind us of Philo when, in writing of the Redeemed of Spiritual Israel, he says:\n\u201cThose who were but scattered in Hellas and non-Grecian (Barbarian) lands, over islands and over continents, shall rise up with one impulse, and from diverse regions flock together unto the one spot revealed to them.\u201d 1\nAnd with this further compare the famous passage on the Therapeuts:\n\u201cNow this Race of men is to be found in many parts of the inhabited world, both the Grecian and non-Grecian world, sharing in the Perfect Good.\n\u201cIn Egypt there are crowds of them in every province, or nome as they call it, and especially round Alexandria. For they who are in every way (or in every nome) the most highly advanced, come as colonists, 2 as it were, to the Therapeutic fatherland.\u201d 3\nMoreover, just as the Therapeuts in the immediately following lines of Philo are said to have their community on a hill, so too in our text we immediately find mention of the Trismegistic communities as having their chief centre on the Libyan Hill,\u2014a community which is spoken of as \u201cvery large\u201d in numbers, and so is somewhat of a contradiction to the numbers of the Pious given in xxii. 1, where we are told \u201cthey may be counted even in the world,\u201d unless the sentence is to be taken as rhetorical.\nThis Hill is called the Libyan Mount, a vague enough title; nor is this vagueness removed when we find it again referred to (in xxxvii. 3) as the place of burial of the body of the First Asclepius, and obtain the additional information that it is \u201chard by the shore of crocodiles,\u201d for this can hardly refer to Crocodilopolis in the Fayy\u016bm, the most northern of the towns so named, seeing that the Libyan Mount is \u201cat the top of Egypt\u2019s upper part,\u201d and \u201ctowards the setting sun.\u201d\nThis, however, corresponds admirably with the location of Philo\u2019s Therapeut community on the southern shore of Lake Mareotis, just south of Alexandria; but few indeed will be found to entertain the possibility even that Philo and our author may be speaking of the same people from different standpoints and under different names.\nAs far as I can see, there is no certainty in the matter; and, therefore, I leave it as a problem of immense interest that has not as yet found a solution.\n391:1 See R. 195, 2.\n392:1 The so-founded opinions of Bernays and Zeller are characterized by Reitzenstein (p. 195) as of as little value as the opinions which made the whole of our literature dependent on New Platonism.\n392:2 Augustine\u2019s date is 354-430 A.D.\n393:1 Cf. C. H., xiii. (xiv.) 14.\n395:1 Cf. for references to the \u201cfew,\u201d xxii. 1; xxiii. 1; xxxiv. 3; xl. 1.\n395:2 Cf. vii. 3; viii. 2; xi. 4; xiv. 1; xvi. 3; xix. 4; xx. 3; xxii. 4; xxv. 2; xxvi. 1, 2 and 3.\n395:3 Cf. especially C. H., iv. (v.) 1; x. (xi.) i.\n395:4 In the Greek text of Lactantius this is \u201cthe Good.\u201d\n395:5 Cf. vi. 1; xiv. 3.\n396:1 Cf. also C. H., xiii. (xiv.) 19, 20, and R. 39, n. 1.\n396:2 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 13, and Commentary.\n399:1 See xxv. 4, and note.\n400:1 The \u201cimage of the Heaven\u201d; cf. K. K., 46-48.\n400:2 This is very different language from the more moderate tone of C. H., ix. (x.) 4, where we are told about the Gnostics, \u201cthey are thought mad and laughed at; they\u2019re hated and despised, and sometimes even put to death.\u201d\n402:1 De Execrat., \u00a7 9; M. ii. 435, 436; P. 937 (Ri. v. 255).\n402:2 Cf. in our Sermon, xxv. 1: Egypt, \u201cthe sole colony of holiness.\u201d\n402:3 D. V. C., C. 56 ff; M. i. 474; P. 892. Cf. F. F. F., 69.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: II. The Perfect Sermon; or the Asclepius: Commentary","type":"page"}