Hermes Trismegistus: Hermetic Excerpts and Fragments - Part 3

III

p. 272

p. 273

I.

(Zosimus flourished somewhere at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century A.D. He was a member of what Reitzenstein (p. 9) calls the Poimandres-Gemeinde, and, in writing to a certain Theosebeia, a fellow-believer in the Wisdom-tradition, though not as yet initiated into its spiritual mysteries, he urges her to hasten to Poimandres and baptize herself in the Cup. 1 The following quotation is of first importance for the understanding of the Anthrōpos-Doctrine or Myth of Man in the Mysteries.

In one of the Books of his great work distinguished by the letter Omega, and dedicated to Oceanus as the “Genesis and Seed of all the Gods,”—speaking of the uninitiated, those still beneath the sway of the Heimarmenē or Fate, who cannot understand his revelations,—he writes 2:)

1. Such men [our] Hermes, in his “Concerning Nature,” hath called mind-less,—naught but “processions” 3 of

p. 274

[paragraph continues] Fate,—in that they have no notion 1 of aught of things incorporal, or even of Fate herself who justly leads them, but they blaspheme her corporal schoolings, and have no notion of aught else but of her favours.

2. But Hermes and Zoroaster have said the Race of Wisdom-lovers is superior to Fate, by their neither rejoicing in her favours,—for they have mastered pleasures,—not by their being struck down by her ills,—for ever living at the “Inner Door,” 2 and not receiving 3 from her her fair gift, in that they look unto the termination of [her] ills. 4

3. On which account, too, Hesiod doth introduce Prometheus counselling Epimetheus, and doth tell him 5 not to take the Gift 6 from Zeus who rules Olympus, but send it back again,—[thus] teaching his own brother through philosophy 7 to return the Gifts of Zeus,—that is, of Fate.

4. But Zoroaster, boasting in knowledge of all things Above, and in the magic of embodied speech, 8

p. 275

professes that all ills of Fate,—both special [ills] and general [ones],—are [thus] averted.

5. Hermes, however, in his “About the Inner Door,” doth deprecate [this] magic even, declaring that:

The spiritual man, [the man] who knows himself, 1 should not accomplish any thing by means of magic, e’en though he think it a good thing, nor should he force Necessity, but suffer [her to take her course], according to her nature and decree 2; [he should] progress by seeking only, through the knowledge of himself and God, to gain the Trinity 3 that none can name, and let Fate do whate’er she will to her own clay—that is, the body.

  6. And being so minded (he says), and so ordering his life, he shall behold the Son of God becoming all things for holy souls, that he may draw her 4 forth from out the region of the Fate into the Incorporeal [Man].

  7. For having power in all, He becometh all things, whatsoever He will, 5 and, in obedience to the Father[’s nod], through the whole Body doth He penetrate, and, pouring forth His Light into the mind of every [soul], He starts it 6

p. 276

  back unto the Blessed Region, 1 where it was before it had become corporal,—following after Him, yearning and led by Him unto the Light.

8. And [there] shall it see the Picture 2 that both Bitos hath described, and thrice-great Plato, and ten-thousand-times-great Hermes, for Thōythos translated 3 it into the first sacred 4 tongue,—Thōth the First Man, the Interpreter of all things which exist, and the Name-maker 5 for all embodied things. 6

p. 277

9. The Chaldæans and Parthians and Medes and Hebrews call Him 1 Adam, which is by interpretation virgin Earth, and blood-red 2 Earth, and fiery 3 Earth, and fleshly Earth.

10. And these indications were found in the book-collections 4 of the Ptolemies, which they stored away in every temple, and especially in the Serapeum, when they invited Asenas, the chief priest of Jerusalem, to send a “Hermes,” 5 who translated the whole of the Hebrew into Greek and Egyptian. 6

11. So the First Man is called by us Thōyth and by them Adam,—not giving His [true] name in the Language of the Angels, but naming Him symbolically according to His Body by the four elements [or letters] out of His whole Sphere, 7 whereas his Inner Man, the

p. 278

spiritual, has [also] both an authentic name and one for common use. 1

12. His authentic [name], however, I know not, owing to the so long [lapse of time 2]; for Nikotheos 3 who-is-not-to-be-found alone doth know these things.

p. 279

But that for common use is Man (Phōs), 1 from which it follows that men are called phōtas.

13. 2 “When Light-Man (Phōs) was in Paradise, exspiring 3 under the [presence of] Fate, they 4 persuaded Him to clothe himself in the Adam they had made, the [Adam] of Fate, him of the four elements,—as though [they said] being free from [her 5] ills and free from their 6 activities.

“And He, on account of this ‘freedom from ills’ did

p. 280

not refuse; but they boasted as though He had been brought into servitude [to them].” 1

14. For Hesiod said that the outer man was the “bond” 2 by which Zeus bound Prometheus.

Subsequently, in addition to this bond, he sends him another, Pandōra, 3 whom the Hebrews call Eve.

For Prometheus and Epimetheus 4 are one Man, according to the system of allegory,—that is, Soul and Body.

And at one time He 5 bears the likeness of soul, at another of mind, at another of flesh, owing to the imperfect attention which Epimetheus paid to the counsel of Prometheus, his own mind. 6

15. For our Mind 7 saith:

  For that the Son of God having power in all things, becoming all things that he willeth, appeareth as he willeth to each. 8

p. 281

16. Yea, unto the consummation of the cosmos will He come secretly,—nay, openly associating with His own,—counselling them secretly, yea through their minds, to settle their account with their Adam, the blind accuser, 1 in rivalry with the spiritual man of light. 2

17. And these things come to pass until the Counterfeit Daimon 3 come, in rivalry with themselves, and wishing to lead them into error, declaring that he is Son of God, being formless in both soul and body.

But they, becoming wiser from contemplation of

p. 282

[paragraph continues] Him who is truly Son of God, give unto him 1 his own Adam for death, 2 rescuing their own light spirits for [return to] their own regions where they were even before the cosmos [existed]. 3 . . .

18. And [it is] the Hebrews alone and the Sacred Books of Hermes [which tell us] these things about the man of light and his Guide the Son of God, and about the earthy Adam and his Guide, the Counterfeit, who doth blasphemously call himself Son of God, for leading men astray. 4

19. But the Greeks call the earthy Adam Epimetheus, who is counselled by his own mind, that is, his brother, not to receive the gifts of Zeus. Nevertheless being both deceived 5 and repenting, 6 and seeking the Blessed Land. . . . 7

But Prometheus, that is the mind, interprets all things and gives good counsel in all things to them who have understanding and hearing. But they who have only fleshly hearing are “processions of Fate.”

p. 283

To the foregoing we may append a version of Zosimus’ advice 1 to the lady Theosebeia, to which we have already referred, as offering an instructive counterpart to C. H., xiii. (xiv.). After a sally against the “false prophets,” through whom the daimones energize, not only requiring their offerings but also ruining their souls, Zosimus continues:

“But be not thou, O lady, [thus] distracted, as, too, I bade thee in the actualizing [rites], and do not turn thyself about this way and that in seeking after God; but in thy house be still, and God shall come to thee, He who is everywhere and not in some wee spot as are daimonian things.

“And having stilled thyself in body, still thou thyself in passions too—desire, [and] pleasure, rage [and] grief, and the twelve fates 2 of Death.

“And thus set straight and upright, call thou unto thyself Divinity; and truly shall He come, He who is everywhere and [yet] nowhere.

“And [then], without invoking them, perform the sacred rites unto the daimones,—not such as offer things to them and soothe and nourish them, but such as turn them from thee and destroy their power, which Mambres 3 taught to Solomon, King of Jerusalem, and all that Solomon himself wrote down from his own wisdom.

“And if thou shalt effectively perform these rites,

p. 284

thou shalt obtain the physical conditions of pure birth. And so continue till thou perfect thy soul completely.

“And when thou knowest surely that thou art perfected in thyself, then spurn . . . from thee 1 the natural things of matter, and make for harbour in Pœmandres’ 2 arms, and having dowsed thyself within His Cup, 3 return again unto thy own [true] race.” 4

This was how Zosimus understood the teaching of the Trismegistic tradition, for he had experienced it.

Footnotes

273:1 Op. sub. cit., p. 245.

273:2 Berthelot, Les Alchimistes grecs, pp. 229 ff. For a revised text, see R. pp. 102-106.

273:3 πομπάς,—processions, shows, or pageants. Cf. C. H., iv. (v.) 7: “Just as processions pass by in the middle of the way without being able to do anything but take the road from others, so do such men move in procession through the world led by their bodies’ pleasures.”

274:1 Or “in that they display naught”—φανταζομένους.

274:2 Codd. ἐναυλία. R. reads ἐν ἐναυλίᾳ, which is supported by the title of the Trismegistic treatise mentioned in the next paragraph but one. I feel almost tempted to propose to read ἐν ἀϋλίᾳ—(fr. ἄϋλος—“immaterial,” the being in a state free from ὕλη or “matter”), and so to translate it “for ever living in the immaterial.”

274:3 Codd. καταδεχόμενοι. R. reads καταδέχεσθαι. I suggest καταδεχομένους.

274:4 Codd. κακῶν, which I prefer to R.’s κακόν.

274:5 Op. et. Dies, 86.

274:6 Sc. Pandōra; cf. §§ 14 and 19 below.

274:7 Or wisdom-loving.

274:8 Presumably what the Vaidic theurgist would call mantravidyā.

275:1 Cf. C. H., i. 21.

275:2 Or decision or judgment.

275:3 τριάδα.

275:4 Sc. the soul.

275:5 Cf. § 15 below. Zosimus is apparently condensing from the original.

275:6 Sc. the soul or mind.

276:1 Cf. S., § 9 in the Naassene Document.

276:2 πίνακα—or tablet.

276:3 Lit. translates.

276:4 Priestly or hieratic. With this compare Syncellus’ (Chron., xl.) quotation, from Manetho’s Sothis, which declares that the first monuments recording the wisdom-mystery of most ancient Egypt “were engraved in the sacred language by Thōth, the first Hermes; after the Flood they were translated from the sacred language into the common tongue.” Cf. vol. i., ch. v., on “Hermes according to Manetho.”

276:5 ὀνοματοποιός,—referring specially to the making of names or words corresponding to natural cries and sounds. Compare the Adam of Genesis.

276:6 Cf. Plato, Philebus, 18 B: “Some god, or rather some godlike man, who in Egypt their tradition says was Theuth, observing that sound was infinite, first distinguished in this infinity a certain number of pure sounds [or vowels], and then other letters [or sound elements] which have sound, but are not pure sounds [the semi-vowels]; these two exist [each] in a definite number; and lastly he distinguished a third class of letters, which we now call mutes; and divided these, and likewise the two other classes of vowels and semi-vowels, into their individual elements, and told the number of them, and gave to each and all of them the names of letters.” (Cf. Jowett’s Trans., 3rd ed., iv. 583, 584.)

According to the number-system of the Gnostic Marcus, there are: seven vowels, eight semi-vowels, and nine mutes (F. F. F., p. 368). It is also of interest to notice that these elements of sound are applied to what Marcus calls the “Configuration of the Element”—? Sound—(τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ στοιχείου); they constitute the Glyph (or Character, or Impression, or Expression) of the Figure (or Diagram) of the Man of Truth. In the phrase “Glyph of the Figure” (ὁ χαρακτὴρ τοῦ γράμματος), the word γράμμα means either (i) a letter of the alphabet, or (ii) a note of music, or (iii) a mathematical figure or diagram (ibid., p. 367). Is there then any connection between the Pinax of Bitos and the Diagram of the Ophites referred to by Celsus?

277:1 Sc. the First Man.

277:2 Or of the nature of blood.

277:3 Codd. πυρὰ—? πυρία.

277:4 Or libraries.

277:5 That is, a learned priest or scribe.

277:6 Much translation of this kind was done at that period. Compare the Arabic translation of a “Book of Ostanes” (Berthelot, La Chimie au Moyen Age, iii. 121), in which an old inscription on an Egyptian stēlē is quoted: “Have you not heard the story that a certain philosopher [i.e. Egyptian priest] wrote to the Magi in Persia, saying: ‘I have found a copy of a book of the ancient sages; but as the book is written in Persian, I cannot read it. Send me then one of your wise men who can read for me the book I have found’?” R. 363.

277:7 Presumably referring to the whole Body of the Heavenly Man, to whose Limbs all the letters were assigned by Marcus.

278:1 προσηγορικόν,—this signifies generally the prœnomen as opposed to the nomen proper.

278:2 διὰ τὸ τέως,—lit. “because of the so long”; otherwise I cannot translate the phrase. This would, then, presumably refer to the length of time since the physical tradition of the ancient Thōyth initiates had disappeared; or the length of time the soul of Zosimus had been revolving in Genesis.

278:3 Lit. God-victor,—symbolizing the victory of the Inner God, or of a man who had raised himself to the status of a god. For Nikotheos, see the Gnostic “Untitled Apocalypse” of the Codex Brucianus (C. Schmidt, Gnos. Schrift. in kop. Sprach. aus d. C. B., p. 285), p. 12a: “Nikotheos hath spoken of Him [namely, the Alone-begotten,—see ibid., p. 601], and seen Him; for he is one [sc. of those who have seen Him face to face]. He [N.] said: ‘The Father exists exalted above all the perfect.’ He [N.] hath revealed the Invisible and the perfect Triple-power.”

In the Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry (c. xiv.), among the list of “Gnostics” against whose views on Matter the great coryphæus of Later Platonism wrote one of the books of his Enneads (II. ix.), there is mention of Nikotheos in close connection with Zoroaster and others (S. 603 ff.). If we now turn to Schmidt’s Plotins Stellung zum Gnosticismus und kirchlichen Christentum (Leipzig, 1900), in which he has examined at length the matter of the treatise of Plotinus and the passage of Porphyry, we find him returning to the consideration of Nikotheos (pp. 58 ff.). Schmidt (p. 61) takes the “hidden Nikotheos” for a “heavenly being,” indeed as identical with the Alone-begotten, and as, therefore, the revealer of Himself. This Alone-begotten is the “Light-Darkness” of p. 13a of the “Untitled Apocalypse” of C. B. In other words, Nikotheos seems to be a synonym of the Triumphant Christos. See R. Liechtenhan, Die Offenbarung in Gnosticismus (Gottingen, 1901), p. 31. So far for the inner meaning; but is there possibly an outer one? As there was an apocalypse, for the words of Nikotheos are quoted, there was a seer, a prophet, a Christos, who had seen and handed on. It is somewhat remarkable that one of the by-names given to Jesus (Jeschu) by Rabbinical theological controversy was Balaam (Bileam), meaning “Destroyer of the people.” Is there, then, any connection between Niko-theos on the one hand and Niko-laos (the Greek equivalent of Balaam) on the other? There are, at any rate, many other parallels in the Talmud Jeschu-Stories of names of dishonour on the Rabbinical side equating with names of exalted honour on the Gnostic and Christian side. If so—dare we ask the question?—have we in the logos of Nikotheos a fragment from an “Apocalypse of Jesus”?

Nay, may not Balaam-Niko-laos,—to take a lesson from the mystic word-play of the time,—“allegorically” have symbolized on the one hand the “victory of the many” (λαός), and on the other the “Victor of the many,” for “people” in Philo signifies the “many” as opposed to the “one’’ “race” (γένος) which sums up all His “limbs” in the Christ?

279:1 φὼς,—according to the accenting of R., but φῶς would mean “Light.”

279:2 This is evidently a quotation.

279:3 Reading διαπνεόμενος with the Codd., and not διαπνεομένῳ with R. This means “exhaling his light.” In the Egypto-Gnostic tradition underlying the Pistis Sophia, it is the function of the Rulers of the Fate to “squeeze out” the light from the souls and to devour it, or absorb it into themselves.

279:4 The Rulers of the Fate.

279:5 Sc. Fate’s.

279:6 Sc. the Seven Rulers or Energies of the Fate-sphere,—ἀνενέργητον.

280:1 This is evidently a quotation from a Greek translation of one of the Books of the Chaldæans (§§ 9, 10) in the Serapeum. It seems to me to be a “source” on which both the Hebrew and non-Hebrew Hellenists commentated in Alexandria. Thus both the commentator in S. and J. in the Naassene Document and the Pœmandrists of the period would use it in common.

280:2 Theog., 614.

280:3 Cf. §§ 3 and 19.

280:4 That is, Fore-thought and After-thought.

280:5 Sc. Man.

280:6 I am almost persuaded that § 14 is also a quotation or summary and not the simple exegesis of Zosimus; the original being from the pen of some non-Hebrew Hellenistic allegorizer.

280:7 That is, Pœmandrēs, the Shepherd of men.

280:8 Cf. § 7 above; evidently a quotation from the “Inner Door.” Compare also the logos quoted by S. (§ 8) in the Naassene Document from some Hellenistic scripture: “I become what I will, and am what I am.” Do Hermes and S. then both depend on the same scripture, in the form of an apocalypse; that is, does Hermes in his “expository sermon” depend on the direct teaching of the Mind to himself, which would be instruction in the first person?

281:1 τυφληγοροῦντος. The lexicons do not contain the word. It is probably a play on κατηγοροῦντος. Cf. note on “blind from birth” of C. in the Conclusion of Hippolytus in “Myth of Man” (vol. i. p. 189).

281:2 That is, presumably, though in one aspect only, the soul that sees in the Light as opposed to the blind body. This passage reflects the same thought-atmosphere as that which surrounds the saying underlying Matt. v. 25 (= Lk. xii. 57-59): “Agree with thine adversary quickly whiles thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Amen, I say unto thee, thou shalt not come forth thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.” The third Evangelist, instead of the vague “agree,” preserves the technical terms ἀπηλλάχθαι, used of the discharge of a debt (cf. the technical καταλλαγὴν ἔχειν of our text), and πράκτωρ, an officer charged with the collection of taxes and debts. This Saying was interpreted by the Gnostics as having reference to the reincarnation of the soul into another body in order to discharge its kārmic debts.

281:3 ὁ ἀντίμιμος δαίμων. The term “counterfeit spirit” (ἀντίμιμον πνεῦμα) occurs frequently in the Pistis Sophia.

282:1 The Counterfeit Daimon.

282:2 Or execution.

282:3 The two last paragraphs are apparently also quoted or summarized from a Hellenistic commentary on a Book of the Hebrews, translated into Greek, and found in the libraries of the Ptolemies. It is remarkable that the contents of this book are precisely similar not only to the contents of the Books from which J. quotes in the Naassene Document, but also to the ideas about the Chaldæans which the commentator of S. sets forth.

282:4 If we can rely on this statement of Zosimus, this proves that there was a developed Anthrōpos-doctrine also in the Trismegistic Books, as apart from the Chaldæan Books,—that is, that the Pœmandrists did not take it from the Chaldæan Books, but had it from their own immediate line of tradition, namely, the Egyptian.

282:5 Cf. 13 above.

282:6 Lit. changing his mind.

282:7 A lacuna occurs in the text. We could almost persuade ourselves that Zosimus had the text of S. and even the source of J. before him. For “Blessed Land,” cf. § 7 above.

283:1 Berth., p. 244; for a revised text see R. 214, n. 1.

283:2 The twelve tormenting or avenging daimones of C. H., xiii. (xiv.).

283:3 The famous Egyptian Theurgist and Magician who is fabled to have contended with Moses; while others say he was the instructor of Moses.

284:1 The soul having now found itself wings and become the winged globe.

284:2 ἐπὶ τὸν Ποιμένανδρα (sic).

284:3 Cf. C. H., iv. (v.) 4.

284:4 Cf. C. H., i. 26, 29.

II.

The evidence of Jamblichus 1 is of prime importance seeing that it was he who put the Later Platonic School, previously led by the purely philosophical Ammonius, Plotinus and Porphyry, into conscious touch with those centres of Gnosis into which he had been initiated, and instructed it especially in the Wisdom of Egypt in his remarkable treatise generally known by the title On the Mysteries. The authorship of this treatise is usually disputed; but as Proclus, who was in the direct tradition, attributes it to Jamblichus, the probabilities are in favour of its authenticity.

Jamblichus writes with the authority of an accredited exponent of the Egyptian Wisdom as taught in these mysteries, and under the name of “Abammon, the Teacher,” proceeds to resolve the doubts and difficulties of the School with regard to the principles of the

p. 286

sacred science as formulated by Porphyry. Jamblichus begins his task with these significant words 1:

“Hermes, the God who is our guide in [sacred] sermons, was rightly held of old as common to all priests. And seeing that it is he who has in charge the real science about the Gods, he is the same in all [our sacred sermons]. 2 And so it was to him that our ancestors attributed all the discoveries of their wisdom, attaching the name of Hermes to all the writings which had to do with such subjects. 3 And if we also enjoy that share of this God which has fallen to our lot, according to our ability [to receive him], thou dost well in submitting certain questions on theology to us priests, as thy friends, for their solution. And as I may fairly suppose that the letter sent to my disciple Anebo was written to myself, I will send thee the true answers to the questions thou hast asked. For it would not be proper that Pythagoras and Plato, and Democritus and Eudoxus, and many others of the ancient Greeks, 4 should have obtained fitting instruction

p. 287

from the recorders of the sacred science of their times, and that thou, our contemporary, who art of a like mind with these ancients, should lack guidance from the now living bearers of the title ‘Common Teachers.’” 1

From the above important passage we learn that among the Egyptians the books which dealt technically with the science of sacred things, and especially with the science of the Gods, that is to say, with the nature of the hierarchy from man upwards to the Supreme Ruler of our system, were regarded as “inspired.” The Ray of the Spiritual Sun which illumined the sacred science was distinguished as a Person, and this Person, because of a partial similarity of attributes, the Greeks had long identified with their God Hermes. He was “common” to the priests of the sacred science, that is to say, it was this special Ray of the Spiritual Sun which illumined their studies. Not, however, that all were equally illumined, for there were many grades in the mysteries, many steps up the holy ascent to union

p. 288

with Deity. Now the Rays of the Spiritual Sun are really One Light, “polarised” variously by the “spheres” of which we have heard so much in the Trismegistic treatises. These Rays come forth from the Logos, and each illuminates a certain division of the whole hierarchy of beings from the Logos to man, and characterises further the lower kingdoms, animals and plants, and minerals. Hence, for instance, among animals, we get the ibis, the ape and the dog as being especially sacred to Thoth or Hermes.

Among men generally, also, there are certain whose characteristics are of a “Hermaïc” 1 nature; the more evolved of these are adapted to certain lines of study and research, while again among those few of these who are beginning to be really conscious of the science of sacred things, that is to say, among the initiated students or priests, the direct influence of this Ray or Person begins to be consciously felt, by each, as Jamblichus says, according to his ability, for there are still many grades.

Now the peculiar unanimity that prevailed in these strictly hierarchical schools of initiation, and the grand doctrine of identification that ran throughout the whole economy—whereby the pupil became identified with the master when he received his next grade of initiation, and whereby his master was to him the living symbol of all that was above that master, that is to say, was Hermes for him, in that he was the messenger to him of the Word, and was the channel whereby the divine inspiration came to him—rendered the ascription to

p. 289

[paragraph continues] Hermes of all the sacred scriptures, such as the sermons of initiation, a very natural proceeding. It was not the case of a modern novel-writer taking out a copyright for his own precious productions, but simply of the recorder, scribe or copyist of the sacred science handing on the tradition. As long as this was confined to the disciplined schools of the sacred science it was without danger, but when irresponsible people began to copy a method, to whose discipline they refused to submit, for purposes of edification, and so appended the names of great teachers to their own lucubrations, they paved the way for that chaos of confusion in which we are at present stumbling.

Towards the end of his treatise Jamblichus, in treating of the question of the innumerable hierarchies of being and their sub-hierarchies, says that these are so multiplex that they had to be treated by the ancient priests from various aspects, and even among those who were “wise in great things” in his own time the teaching was not one and the same.

“The main states of being were completely set forth by Hermes (in the twenty thousand books, as Seleucus 1 writes, or in the thirty-six thousand five hundred and twenty-five as Manetho relates), while the sub-states are interpreted in many other writings by the ancients, some of them sub-dividing 2 some of the sub-states and others others.” 3

At first sight it would seem that we are not to suppose

p. 290

that it took 20,000 volumes to set forth the main outlines of the cosmic system. Jamblichus would seem to mean that in the library or libraries of the books treating of the sacred science, the general scheme of the cosmos was set forth, and that the details were filled in very variously by many writers, each according to the small portion of the whole he had studied or speculated on. As to the number of books again we should not be dismayed, when we reflect that a book did not mean a large roll or volume but a division or chapter of such a roll. Thus we read of a single man composing no less than 6000 “books”!

But on further reflection this view does not seem satisfactory. The ghost of the very precise number 36,525, which Jamblichus substitutes from Manetho for the vague total 20,000 of Seleucus, refuses to be laid by such a weak-kneed process.

We see at once that 365⋅25 days is a very close approximation to the length of the solar year. We know further that 36,525 years was the sum of 25 Sothiac cycles (1461 × 25 = 36,525), 1 that most sacred time-period of the Egyptian secret astronomy, which was assigned to the revolution of the zodiac or the Great Year. Now supposing after all that Jamblichus does mean that Hermes actually did write the scheme of the cosmos in 36,525 “books” or “chapters”; and supposing further that these “chapters” were not written on papyrus, but in the heavens; and supposing still further that these “chapters” were simply so many great aspects of the real sun, just as the 365⋅25 days were but aspects of the physical sun—in such case the above favourite passage, which every previous writer has referred to actual books superscribed with the

p. 291

name of Hermes, and has dragged into every treatise on the Hermetic writings, will in future have to be removed from the list, and one of the functions of the real Hermes, the Initiator and Recorder, will become apparent to those who are “wise in greater things.”

In the next chapter, after first speaking of the God over all, Jamblichus refers to the Logos, the God of our system, whom he calls “God of gods, the Monad from the One, prior to being and the source of being.” And then continues:

“For from Him cometh the essence of being and being; wherefore is He called Father of being. For He is prior to being, the source of spiritual existences; wherefore also is He called Source of spiritual things. These latter are the most ancient sources of all things, and Hermes places them before the æthereal and empyrean and celestial gods, bequeathing to us a hundred books on the history of the empyrean, and a like number on that of the æthereal, but a thousand of them concerning the celestial.” 1

I am inclined to think that there is a mistake in the numbers of these books, and that we should have 10 assigned to the first class, 100 to the second, and 1000 to the third. In any case we see that all are multiples of the perfect number 10; and that thus my theory is still supported by the further information that Jamblichus gives us.

We next come to a passage which deals directly with our Trismegistic literature. Jamblichus tells Porphyry that with the explanations he has already

p. 292

given him, he will be able to find his way in the Hermetic writings which have come into his hands.

“For the books in circulation bearing the name of Hermes contain Hermaïc doctrines, although they often use the language of the philosophers, seeing that they were translated from the Egyptian by men well skilled in philosophy.” 1

The information given by Jamblichus is precise; they were translations, but instead of a literal rendering, the translators used the usual phraseology of the Greek philosophical writers.

Jamblichus then goes on to say that physical astronomy and physical research generally were but a very small part of the Hermaïc science, by no means the most important.

For “the Egyptians deny that physics are everything; on the contrary they distinguish both the life of the soul and the life of the mind from nature, 2 not only in the case of the cosmos but also in man. They first posit Mind and Reason (Logos) as having a being peculiar to themselves, and then they tell us that the world of becoming [or generation] is created. As Forefather of all beings in generation they place the Creator, and are acquainted with the Life-giving Power which is prior to the celestial spaces and permeates them. Above the universe they place Pure Mind; this for the universe as a whole is one and undivided, but it is variously manifested in the several spheres. 3 And they do not speculate about these things with the unassisted reason, but they announce that by the divine art of their priestly science 4 they reach higher and more

p. 293

universal states [of consciousness] above the [Seven Spheres of] Destiny, ascending to God the Creator, 1 and that too without using any material means, or any other [material] assistance than the observation of a suitable opportunity.

“It was Hermes who first taught this Path. 2 And Bitys, the prophet, translated [his teachings concerning it] for King Ammon, 3 discovering them in the inner temple 4 in an inscription in the sacred characters at Saïs in Egypt. [From these writings it was that Bitys] handed on the tradition of the Name of God, as ‘That which pervadeth the whole universe.’” 5

“As to the Good Itself [the Egyptians] regard It in Its relation to the Divine as the God that transcends all thought, and in Its relation to man as the at-onement with Him—a doctrine which Bitys translated from the Hermaïc Books.” 6

From these two passages we learn that the ancient doctrine of Hermes concerning the Path, which is the keynote of our Trismegistic tracts, was to be found either in inscriptions in the sacred script in the secret chambers of the temples, into which no uninitiated person was ever permitted to enter, or in “books,” also in the sacred script; that these had never been translated until the reign of King Ammon. 7 But what are we to understand by translated? Into Greek? Not necessarily, but more probably interpreted from the

p. 294

hieroglyphic symbols into the Egyptian vernacular and written in the demotic character. The term used (διερμηνεύειν) clearly bears this sense; whereas if translation from Egyptian into Greek had been intended, we should presumably have had the same word (μεταγράφειν) employed which Jamblichus uses when speaking of the Hermetic books that had been read by Porphyry. Reitzenstein (p. 108), however, has apparently no doubt that the writings of Bitys were in Greek, and that these writings lay before Jamblichus and were the only source of his information. But I cannot be certain that this is the meaning of the Greek.

We have rather, according to my view, probably two strata of “translation”—from hieroglyphic into demotic, from demotic into Greek. As to Bitys, we know nothing more definite than Jamblichus tells us. Perhaps he was the first to translate from the sacred hieroglyphs into the vulgar tongue and script; and by that we mean the first to break the ancient rule and write down in the vulgar characters those holy sermons and treatises which previously had never before been inscribed in any but the most sacred characters. We are not, however, to suppose that Bitys was the only one to do this.

Now in our Trismegistic literature we have a deposit addressed to a King Ammon. Is it then possible that this King, whoever he was, was the initiator of a change of policy in the immemorial practice of the priests? It may be so, but at present we have not sufficient data to decide the point.

A further scrap of information concerning Bitys, however, may be gleaned from Zosimus (§ 8), when, speaking of the Logos, the Son of God, pouring His Light

p. 295

into the soul and starting it on its Return Above, to the Blessed Region where it was before it had become corporeal (as described in the Trismegistic tractate, entitled “Concerning the Inner Door”)—he writes:

“And there shall it see the Picture (πίναξ) that both Bitos hath described, and thrice-greatest Plato, and ten-thousand-times-great Hermes,—for Thōythos translated it into the first sacred tongue,—Thōth the First Man.” 1

The identity of Bitys and Bitos is thus unquestionable. 2 Reitzenstein, however, asserts that neither of these name-forms is Egyptian, and therefore approves of the identification of our Bitys with “Pitys the Thessalian” of the Papyri, 3 as Dieterich has suggested. The headings of the fragments of the writings of Pitys in the Papyri run: “The Way [or Method] of Pitys”; “Pitys to King Ostanes Greeting”; “The Way of Pitys the King”; “Of Pitys the Thessalian.”

From this Reitzenstein (n. 2) concludes that already in the second and third centuries (? A.D.) Pitys is included among the prophetical theologi and Magians. What the precise date of these Papyri may be it is not easy to determine, but, whether or not they belong to the second and third centuries, it is evident that Pitys was regarded as ancient and a contemporary of the Magian Sage Ostanes.

King, 4 referring to a passage of the Elder Pliny (Nat. Hist., xxx. 4), which remarks on the similarity of the

p. 296

[paragraph continues] Magian Gnosis with the Druidical Gnosis of Gaul and Britain, says: “Pliny by his ‘Magica’ understands the rites instituted by Zoroaster, and first promulgated by Osthanes to the outer world, this Osthanes having been ‘military chaplain’ to Xerxes during his expedition to Greece.”

This date, if we can rely upon it, would take us back to the Persian Conquest of Egypt, but what has a Thessalian Pitys to do with that?

Curiously enough also Pliny in his xxviiith Book makes use of the writings of a certain Bithus of Dyrrachium, a city on the coast of Illyricum in the Ionic Gulf, known in Grecian history as Epidamnus.

All of this is puzzling enough; but whatever conclusions may be drawn from the evidence, the clearest indication is that Bitys was ancient, and therefore that whatever translating or rather “interpreting” there may have been, it was probably from hieroglyphic into demotic, and the latter was subsequently further “interpreted” into Greek.

But is Ostanes the Magian Sage of tradition, or may we adopt the brilliant conclusion of Maspero, and equate Ostanes with Asclepius, and so place him in the same circle with Bitys, or rather see in Bitys an “Asclepius”?

At any rate the following interesting paragraph of Granger 1 deserves our closest attention in this connection, when he writes:

“Maspero, following Goodwin, has shown that Ostanes is the name of a deity who belongs to the cycle of

p. 297

[paragraph continues] Thoth. 1 His name, Ysdnw, was derived by the Egyptians themselves from a verb meaning ‘to distinguish’ and he was a patron of intellectual perception. As time went on, he gained in importance. Under the Ptolemies he was often represented upon the Temple walls (l.c.). In Pliny he appears as an early writer upon medicine. 2 Some of the prescriptions quoted as from him are quite in the Egyptian style. 3 Philo Byblius, on whom, to be sure, not much reliance can be placed, 4 mentions a book of Ostanes—the Octateuch. 5 It is tempting to identify this with some such collection as the six medical books which occupy the last place in Clement’s list. 6 Now Pliny, as appears from his list of authorities, does not quote Ostanes directly. If we note that Democritus is mentioned by Pliny in the same context, and that Ostanes is the legendary teacher of Democritus upon his journey to Egypt, we shall consider it at least probable that Pliny depends upon Democritus for his mention of Ostanes. The Philosopher, whose visit to Egypt may be regarded as a historical fact, would in that case be dealing with a medical collection which passes under the name of Ostanes. Asclepius, who appears in the Pœmander, will be the Greek equivalent of Ostanes. Thus the collocation of Hermes and Asclepius is analogous to the kinship of the Egyptian deities, Thoth and Ysdnw.”

That these Bitys-books contained the same doctrines as our Trismegistic writings is evident from the whole

p. 298

treatise of Jamblichus. Jamblichus throughout bases himself upon the doctrines of Hermes, 1 and clearly suggests that he does not owe his information to translations only, as was the case with Porphyry, but to records in Egyptian; but whether to the demotic treatises of the Bitys-school or to the heiroglyphic records themselves he does not say. That these doctrines were identical with the teachings in our Trismegistic literature requires no proof to any one who has read our treatises and the exposition of Jamblichus; for the benefit, however, of those who have not read Jamblichus, 2 we append a passage to show the striking similarity of ideas. Treating of the question of freewill and necessity raised by Porphyry, and replying to the objection that the Egyptians taught an astrological fatalism, Jamblichus writes:

“We must explain to you how the question stands by some further conceptions drawn from the Hermaïc writings. Man has two souls, as these writings say. The one is from the First Mind, and partakes also of the Power of the Creator, 3 while the other, the soul under constraint, comes from the revolution of the celestial [Spheres] 4; into the latter the former, the soul that is the Seer of God, insinuates itself at a later period. This then being so, the soul that descends into us from the worlds 5 keeps time with the circuits of these worlds, while the soul from the Mind, existing in us in a spiritual fashion, is free from the whirl of

p. 299

[paragraph continues] Generation; by this the bonds of Destiny are burst asunder; by this the Path up to the spiritual Gods is brought to birth; by such a life as this is that Great Art Divine, which leads us up to That beyond the Spheres of Genesis, 1 brought to its consummation.” 2

With regard to the nature of these Spheres, Jamblichus shows very clearly that they are not the physical planets, as may be seen from the following passages of his De Mysteriis:

“With regard to partial existences, then, I mean in the case of the soul in partial manifestation, 3 we must admit something of the kind we have above. For just such a life as the [human] soul emanated before it entered into a human body, and just such a type as it made ready for itself, just such a body, to use as an instrument, does it have attached to it, and just such a corresponding nature accompanies [this body] and receives the more perfect life the soul pours into it. But with regard to superior existences and those that surround the Source of All as perfect existences, the inferior are set within the superior, bodies in bodiless existences, things made in their makers; and the former are kept in position by the latter enclosing them in a sphere.

“The revolutions of the heavenly Bodies, 4 therefore, being from the first set in the celestial revolutions of the æthereal Soul, 5 for ever continue in this relationship; while the Souls of the [invisible] Worlds, 6 extending to their [common] Mind, are completely

p. 300

surrounded by it, and from the beginning have their birth in it. And Mind in like manner, both partially and as a whole, is also contained in superior states of existence.” 1

And again in another passage Jamblichus writes:

“We say that [the Spiritual Sun and Moon, and the rest] are so far from being contained within their Bodies, that on the contrary, it is they who contain these Bodies of theirs within the Spheres of their own vitality and energy. And so far are they from tending towards their Bodies, that the tendency of these very Bodies is towards their Divine Cause. Moreover, their Bodies do not impede the perfection of their Spiritual and Incorporeal Nature or disturb it by being situated in it.” 2

To this we may add what Proclus writes in his Commentary on the Timæus of Plato:

“Each of the [Seven] Planetary Spheres is a complete World containing a number of divine offspring, which are invisible to us, and over all of these Spheres the Star 3 we see is the Ruler. Now Fixed Stars differ from those 4 in the Planetary Spheres in that the former have but one Monad, namely, their system as a whole 5; while the latter, namely the invisible globes in each of the Planetary Spheres, which globes have an orbit of their own determined by the revolution of their respective Spheres, have a double Monad—namely, their system as a whole, 6 and that dominant characteristic which has been evolved by selection in the several spheres of the system. For since globes are secondary to Fixed Stars they require a double order of government,

p. 301

first subordination to their system as a whole, and then subordination to their respective spheres. 1 And that in each of these spheres there is a host 2 on the same level 3 with each, you may infer from the extremes. 4 For if the Fixed Sphere 5 has a host on the same level as itself, and Earth has a host of earthy animals, 6 just as the former a host of heavenly animals, 7 it is necessary that every whole 8 should have a number of animals on the same level with itself; indeed it is because of the latter fact that they are called wholes. The intermediate levels, however, are outside the range of our senses, the extremes only being visible, the one through the transcendent brilliance of its nature, the other through its kinship with ourselves.” 9

It is evident that we are here dealing with what are known to Theosophical students as the “planetary chains” of our system, and that therefore these Spheres are not the physical planets; the visible planets are

p. 302

but a very small portion of the globes of these chains, of some of which there are no globes at all visible. The ascription therefore of the “influence” of these Spheres to the sun, moon, and five of the visible planets is at best a makeshift, a “correspondence,” or a “symbolism.” Footnotes

285:1 The exact date of Jamblichus is very conjectural. In my sketches of the “Lives of the Later Platonists” I have suggested about A.D. 255-330. See The Theosophical Review (Aug. 1896), xviii. 462, 463.

286:1 I translate from the text of Parthey (Berlin, 1857).

286:2 The term λόγος is, of course, used technically, as a sacred or inspired sermon or course of instruction.

286:3 πάντα τὰ οἰκεῖα συγγράμματα.

286:4 Parthey here adds the following interesting note: “The Egyptian teachers of Pythagoras were Œnuphis of On (Plut., De Is. et Os., 10) and Sonchis (Clem. Al., Strom., i. 15, 69); Plato was the pupil of Sechnuphis of On (Clem. l.c.) and of Chonuphis (Plut., De Gen. Socr., 578); Democritus was taught by Pammenes of Memphis (Georg. Sync., i. 471 Dind.); Eudoxus by Chonuphis of Memphis (Plut. and Clem. ll. cc.).” To this Parthey appends a list of some of the many other famous Greeks who owed their knowledge to Egyptian teachers, viz., Alcæus, Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ, Appuleius, Archimedes, Bias, Chrysippus of Cnidus, Cleobulus, Dædalus, Decæneus, Diodorus Siculus, Ellopion, Euripides, Hecatæus of Abdera, Hecatæus of Miletus, Hellanicus, Herodotus, Homerus, Lycurgus, Melampus, Musæus, Œnopides of Chios, Orpheus, Pausanias, Pherecydes, Polybius, Simmias, Solon, Sphærus, Strabo, Telecles, Thales, Theodorus, Xenophanes of Colophon, Zamolxis. I have quoted this note on purpose to show the overpowering weight of evidence which some modern theorists have to face, in order to maintain their thesis that the philosophy of Greece was solely a native product. The universal testimony of the Greeks themselves is that all their greatest philosophers, geometricians, mathematicians, historians, geographers, and especially their theosophists, were pupils of the Egyptian Wisdom; the modern theory of the unaided evolution of philosophy on the soil of Greece, which is so universally accepted, is, to my mind, entirely erroneous. The “form” or “manner” of “philosophizing” was of course solely due to Greek genius, but the “matter” of it was of hoary antiquity. Cf. Plutarch, De Is. et Os., x.

287:1 That is to say, presumably, teachers of all without distinction of race. Op. cit., i. 1.

288:1 It is from this region of ideas that the terms “mercurial temperament,” and so forth, have reached modern times over the bridge of astrological tradition.

289:1 Porphyry (De Abs., ii. c. 55) mentions a Seleucus whom he calls a “theologist”; Suidas says that Seleucus of Alexandria wrote a treatise On the Gods, in 100 books or chapters.

289:2 Reading διαλαβόντες instead of διαβάλλοντες.

289:3 Ibid., viii. 1.

290:1 See Georgius Syncellus, Chron., i. 97, ed. Dindorf. Also Eusebius, Chron., vi.

291:1 Op. cit., viii. 2.

292:1 Ibid., viii. 4.

292:2 That is, the life of the body.

292:3 Lit. distributed to all the spheres as different.

292:4 διὰ τῆς ἱερατικῆς θεουργίας,—lit. by the theurgy known to the priests.

293:1 The Mind in its creative aspect.

293:2 Sc. This Way up to God.

293:3 See Commentary on C. H. (xvi.).

293:4 Or secret shrine.

293:5 Op. cit., viii. 5.

293:6 Ibid., x. 7.

293:7 Identified by some writers with one of the last kings of the Saïtic dynasty (the xxvith), who reigned somewhere about 570 B.C. See Thomas Taylor, Iamblichus on the Mysteries, p. 306 n. (2nd ed., London, 1895). But as there is no objective evidence by which this identification can be controlled, we simply record it.

295:1 See notes appended to the extract from Zosimus.

295:2 As has already been supposed by Hoffmann and Riess in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyklopädie, i. 1347. R. 108.

295:3 Dieterich, Jahr. f. Phil, Suppl., xvi. 753; Wessely, Denkschr. d. K. K. Akad. (1888), pp. 92, 95, 98.

295:4 King (C. W.), The Gnostics and their Remains, 2nd ed. (London, 1887), p. 421, who, however, does not document his statement.

296:1 Granger (F.), “The Poemander of Hermes Trismegistus,” in The Journal of Theological Studies, vol. v., no. 19, ap. 1904 (London), p. 398.

297:1 Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., xx. 142.

297:2 Nat. Hist., xxviii. 6.

297:3 P. S. B. A., ibid., 256, 261.

297:4 He, however, was very well placed to have accurate knowledge on such a point.—[G. R. S. M.]

297:5 Eus., Præp. Ev., I. x. 52.

297:6 Strom., VI. iv. 37.

298:1 Especially in Book VIII., which is entirely devoted to an exposition of Hermaïc doctrine, and ought perhaps to be here translated in full. I have, however, preferred to select the passages definitely characterized by Jamblichus as Hermaïc.

298:2 Who must be read in the original and not in the inelegant and puzzling version of Taylor, the only English translation.

298:3 The Second Mind according to “The Shepherd.”

298:4 The Seven Spheres of the Harmony.

298:5 The Seven Spheres.

299:1 πρὸς τὸ ἀγέννητον.

299:2 Op. cit., viii. 6.

299:3 That is, as an individual soul and not as the world-soul.

299:4 Physical planets.

299:5 Of all of our visible system?

299:6 That is to say, the seven spheres.

300:1 Op. cit., i. 8.

300:2 Ibid., i. 17.

300:3 That is, visible planet.

300:4 That is, perhaps, the invisible globes.

300:5 Lit. their wholeness.

300:6 In our case the whole solar system.

301:1 Or, as one would say in modern Theosophical terms, to their planetary chains.

301:2 Hierarchy.

301:3 σύστοιχον.

301:4 That is to say, we may infer from the fixed stars (or suns) and from the globes which we can see (i.e. the visible planets), the manner of those we cannot see.

301:5 The sphere of fixed stars or suns.

301:6 That is to say, all the visible globes (vulgo planets) of our system as a whole. An “animal” means a “living thing”; so that here “earthy animals” mean the living vehicles of the heavenly beings which we so erroneously call “heavenly bodies.”

301:7 That is to say, suns or solar systems.

301:8 Here whole means plane.

301:9 That is to say, the brilliant light of the suns in space, and the reflected light of the physical globes of the planetary spheres of our system. See Proclus, Commentarius in Platonis Timæum, Bk. iv., p. 279 D, E, p. 676, ed. Schneider (Vratislaviæ, 1847). The passage is very difficult to translate because of its technical nature. Taylor, in his translation (London, 1820, ii. 281, 282), misses nearly every point.

III.

1

Text: ap. Cyril, Contra Julianum, v. 176; Migne, col. 770 A. See also Neumann (C. I.), Juliani Imperatoris Librorum contra Christianos quæ supersunt (Leipzig, 1880), p. 193. 2

That God, however, has not cared for the Hebrews only, [but rather] that in His love for all nations He hath bestowed on them [sc. the Hebrews] nothing worth very serious attention, whereas He has given us far greater and superior gifts, consider from what will follow. The Egyptians, counting up of their own race the names of not a few sages, can also say they have had many who have followed in the steps 3 of Hermes. I mean of the Third Hermes who used to come down 4 [to them] in Egypt. The Chaldæans [also can tell of] the [disciples] of Oannes and of Belus;

p. 304

and the Greeks of tens of thousands [who have the Wisdom] from Cheiron. 1 For it is from him that they derived their initiation into the mysteries of nature, and their knowledge of divine things; so that indeed [in comparison] the Hebrews seem only to give themselves airs about their own [attainments].

Here we learn from Julian that the Third Hermes, the Hermes presumably of our Sermons, was known, by those initiated into the Gnosis, to be no physical historical Teacher, but a Teaching Power or Person, who taught from within spiritually.

Footnotes

303:1 Julian the Emperor reigned 360-363 A.D. It was during the last year of his reign that he wrote Contra Christianos.

303:2 Also Taylor (Thomas), The Arguments of the Emperor Julian against the Christians (London, 1809), p. 36.

303:3 Lit. “from the succession” (διαδοχῆς).

303:4 ἐπιφοιτήσαντος,—“to come habitually to”; ἐπιφοίτησις is used of the “coming upon one,” or inspiration of a God.

304:1 Partially quoted by Reitzenstein (p. 175, n. 1).

IV.

1

An intermediate of the parent copy of our Corpus in every probability lay before Fulgentius. Thus we find him (p. 26, 18 H 2) referring to the first sermon, though barbarously enough, in the phrase: “Hermes in Opinandre libro,” and quoting from the introductory words; he also quotes (p. 88, 3) some words from C. H., xii. (xiii.), stupidly referring them to Plato, adding in Greek:

The human mind is god; if it be good, God [then] doth shower His benefits [upon us].

And twice (p. 85, 21, and p. 74, 11) Fulgentius refers in all probability to the lost ending of “The Definitions of Asclepius,” in the latter passage telling us, “as Hermes Trismegistus says,” that there were three kinds of music,—namely “adomenon, psallomenon, aulumenon,”—that is, singing, harping, and piping.

Footnotes

305:1 The date of this Afro-Latin writer cannot be later than the sixth century.

305:2 Helm (R.), Fabii Planciadis Fulgentii V. C. Opera (Leipzig, 1898).