Hermes, Gnosis 002

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HfSE A/S/> f'OLl.OH^ THY DR.EAMLIBRARY OFKATHARINE LEE BATESBEQUEATHED TOWELLESLEY COLLEGE /^4?


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JL.c.l?. L


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THE HYMNSOF ... .HERMES. .


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WORKS BY THE SAME


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ECHOES BYFROM G. R. S.THE MEADGNOSIS VOL. n.

THEHYMNSOFHERMES

THE LONDONTHEOSOPHICAL ^ ANDPUBLISHING BENARESSOCIETY 1907


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^c


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PRINTED BY PERCY LUND, HUMPHRIES & CO., LTD.THE COUNTRY PRESS, BRADFORD;8, AMEN CORNER, LONDON. E.C. ;

AND 97. BRIDGE STREET, MANCHESTER.


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ECHOES FROM THEGNOSIS.Under this general title it is proposed to publish

a series of small volumes, drawn from, or basedupon, the mystic, theosophic and gnostic writingsof the ancients, so as to make more easily audiblefor the ever-widening circle of those who love suchthings, some echoes of the mystic experiences andinitiatory lore of their spiritual ancestry. Thereare many who love the life of the spirit, and wholong for the light of gnostic illumination, but whoare not sufficiently equipped to study the writingsof the ancients at first hand, or to follow thelabours of scholars unaided. These little volumesare therefore intended to serve as introductionto the study of the more difficult literature of thesubject, and it is hoped that at the same timethey may become for some, who have, as yet, noteven heard of the Gnosis, stepping-stones tohigher things.

G. R. S. M.


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HYMNS OF HERMESCONTENTS

PAGEThe Service of Song 9A Tripiê Trisagion 30A Hymn to Ali^-Father God 44The Secret Hymnody 57A Hymn of Grace for Gnosis 71A Song of Praise to the ôn . . . . 78

The references in this volume are to the recently-published workThrice Greatest Hermes : Studiesin Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis. Being aTranslation of the Extant Sermons and Fragmentsof the Trismegistic Literature, with Prolegomena,Commentaries and Notes, 3 vols. (Iôndon, 1906).


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ECHOES FROM THEGNOSISVol.. I. THE GNOSIS OP THEMIND.Vol.. II. THE HYMNS OP HERMES.

SOME PROPOSED SUBJECTSFORFORTHCOMING VOLUMESTHE VISION OP ARID^US.THE HYMN OP JESUS.THE CHALDEAN ORACIyES.A MITHRIAC LITURGY.THE HYMN OP THE PRODIGAI,.SOME ORPHIC PRAGMENTS.


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THE HYMNS OF HERMES.THE SERVICE OF SONG.Clement of Alexandria tells us that

the whole of the religious philosophythat is, the wisdom, discipline and multi-farious arts and sciencesof the Egyptianpriesthood was contained in the Books ofHermes, that is of Thoth. These Books,he informs us further, were classifiedunder forty-two heads and divided intoa number of groups according to thevarious septs or divisions of the priests.In describing a certain sacred cere-moniala procession of priests in theirvarious ordersClement tells us that itwas headed by a representative of theorder of Singers, who were distinguishedby appropriate symbols of music, someof which apparently were carried in the


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hands and others embroidered on therobes.These Singers had to make themselvesmasters of, that is, learn by heart, two

of the divisions of the Books of Hermes,namely, those which contained collec-tions of Hymns in Honour of the Gods orof God, and Encomia or Hjnnns inPraise of the Kings (iii., 222).Many specimens of similar hymns inpraise of the Gods are preserved to us inEgyptian inscriptions and papyri, andsome of them are most noble out-pouringsof the soul in praise of the majesty andtranscendency of the Supreme, in termsthat may be not unfavourably comparedwith similar praise-giving in other greatscriptures. But, alas ! the hymn-booksof Thoth, to which Clement refers, arelost to us. He may, of course, havebeen mistaken in so definitely designatingthem, just a*s he was indubitably mistakenin thinking that they were collectionsof hymns composed by a single individual,Hermes. 10


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The grandiose conception of Thoth "^^^as the inspirer of all sacred writings and qfthe teacher of all religion and philo- HERMES,sophy was Egyptian and not Greek ;and it was but a sorry equivalent thatthe Greeks could find in their ownpantheon when, in the change of God-names, they were forced to " translate ""Thoth" by "Hermes."

Thoth, as the inspirer of all sacredwritings and the president of all priestlydiscipline, was, as Jamblichus tells us,a name which was held by the Egyptiansto be " common to all priests "thatis to say, every priest as priest was aThoth, because he showed forth in hissacred office some characteristic or otherof the Great Priest or Master Hierophantamong the Gods whose earthly namewas ThothTehuti.Thoth was thus the Oversoul of all

priests ; and when some of the Greekscame to know better what^ the innerdiscipline of the true priestly mysteriesconnoted, they so felt the inadequacyII


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^^ plain Hermes as a suitable equivalentfor the Egyptian name which designatedthis great ideal, that they qualified" Egyptian Hermes " with the honorificepithet " Thrice-greatest."

It is of the Hymns of this Thrice-greatest Hermes that I shall treat inthe present small volumehymns thaty were inspired b}^ the still living traditionof what was best in the wisdom of ancientEgypt, as "philosophised" through mindstrained in Greek thought, and set forthin the fair speech of golden-tonguedHellas.But here again, unfortunately, we haveno collection of such hymns preserved tous ; and all we can do is to gather up the

fragments that remain, scattered throughthe pages of the Trismegistic literaturewhich have escaped the jealousy of anexclusive bibliolatry.The main Gospel of the TrismegisticGnosis is contained in a sacred sermonwhich bears in Greek the title " Poeman-dres." This may perhaps have been12


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originally the Greek transliteration ofan Egyptian name (ii., 50) ; but fromthe treatise itself it is manifest that itwas understood by the Greek followersof this Gnosis to mean " The Shepherdof Men," or " Man-shepherd." This Shep-herd was no man, but Divine Humanityor the Great Man or Mind, the inspirerof all wisdom and hierophant of allspiritual initiations.This majestic Reality or Essence ofCertitude was conceived of as a limitlessPresence, or Person, of Light and Lifeand Goodness, which enwrapped thecontemplative mind of the pious wor-shipper of God or the Good, of the single-hearted lover of the Beautiful, and of theunwearied striver for the knowledgeof the True.And so, in His instruction to one whowas striving to reach the grade of atrue self-conscious Hermes, Poemandres

declares :

THEHYMNSOFHERMES.

a I, Mind, Myself am present with13


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holy men and good, the pure and merci-r T 1, V 1ful, men who hve piously." To such My Presence doth becomean aid, and straightway they gain Gnosisof all things, and win the Father's loveby their pure lives, and give Him thanks,invoking on Him blessings, and chantinghymns, intent on Him with ardent love "(ii., 14).

And the same instruction is practicallyrepeated in the sermon called " TheKey," where we read :

" But on the pious soul the Mind dothmount and guide it to the Gnosis' Light.And such a soul doth never tire in songsof praise to God and pouring blessing onall men, and doing good in word anddeed to all, in imitation of its Sire "(ii., 155).The sole conditions for reaching this

consummation, so devoutly to be wished,are here laid down :14


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The good alone can know the Good ;even as one of the invocations to Hermesas the Good Mind, preserved in theGreek Magic Papyri, phrases it :

THEHYMNSOFHERMES.

''Thee I invoke! Come unto me, OGood, Thou altogether good, come to thegood!" (i., 86).The pure alone can know the Pure ;and by " Pure " I think Hermes some-times meant far more than is generallyconnoted by the term. " Pure " is thatwhich remains in itself, and is neither

too much nor too little ; it is the equili-brium, the balanced state, the mysterioussomething that reconciles all opposites,and is their simultaneous source andendingthe Divine Justice.The merciful alone can know theMerciful, the source of the infinite varietyof the Divine Love.To such the Divine Presence becomesan aid ; it is in the field of ^this " GoodLand " alone, in the self-cultivated soil

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^^ ^^^ spiritual naturethe good and pureand merciful natureof man, that theDivine Presence can sow the seJf-con-scious seeds of the heavenly Gnosis, sothat from this Virgin Womb of Virtuemay come to birth the true Man, thechild of Freedom, or Right Will, orGood Will.To others, to those who are still inignorance of spiritual things, the DivinePresence is also an aid, but unknowingly ;for being manifested for them in itsreversed mode, by means of the con-straints of Fate, the many consider it ahindrance, as indeed it isa hindranceto their falling into greater ignorance andlimitation. The soil must be clearedof tares and ploughed, before it canbe sown.But when man of his own freewill

reverses his mode of life, and revolveswith the motion of the heavenly spheresinstead of spinning against them, theconscious contact with the Divine Pre-sence which is thus effected, stirs the

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whole nature to respond ; sunlight pours "^^^into the true heart of the man from all qfsides, and his heart answers ; it wakes HERMES,from the dead and begins to speak truewords. The Great God gives speech tothe heart in the Invisible, even as Hedoes to the dead Osirified ; and thatunspoken speech is a continual praise-giving of right deeds. There is also aspoken speech, becoming articulate inhuman words in hymns of praise andthanks to Godthe liturgy of a pietythat answers to the Divine and is thusresponsible.Indeed this is the basis of all liturgyand cult, even in their crudest formsor reflectionsin the dreams of men'ssleeping hearts. But the Trismegisticwritings are dealing with the self-con-scious realization of true Gnostic Passion,where feeling has to be consciouslytransmuted into knowledge.The singing of hymns on earth is thereflection of a heavenly mystery. Beforethe man can really sing in proper tune

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THE he must have harmonized his lowerHYMNS j^g^^^j-g and transformed it into cosmosHERMES, or fit order. Hitherto he has been sing-ing out of tune, chaoticallyhowling,shrieking, crying, cursing, rather thansinging articulately, and so offering " rea-sonable oblations " to God.The articulation of the " members "of his true " body " or " heart " has not

yet been completed or perfected ; they-~ are still, to use the language of theancient Egyptian myth, scattered abroad,as it were, by his Typhonic passions ;the limbs of his body of life are scatteredin his body of death. The Isis of hisspiritual nature is still weeping andmourning, gathering them together, await-ing the day of the New Dawn, when thelast member, the organ of Gnosis, shallcomplete the taxis, or order, or band ofhis members, and the New Man shallarise from the dead.

It is only when these " limbs " of hisare harmonized and properly articulatedthat he has an instrument for cosmic

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music. It matters not whether the oldmyth tells us of the fourteen " limbs " ofthe dead Osiris, or the later instructionspeaks of the seven spheres of the creativeHarmony that fashion forth the " limbs "of every man, and views them as eachenergizing in two modes, according asthe individual will of man goes withthem or against themit all refers tothe same mystery. Man in limitationis two-fold, even as are his physicallimbs ; man in freedom as cosmiclyconfigured is two in one in all things.And therefore when this " changeof gnostic tendency " is wrought, there

is a marvellous transmutation of thewhole nature. He abandons his Typhonicpassions, the energizings of the naturethat has battled with God, in order thatwhat the anonymous WTiter of that mysticmasterpiece The Dream of Rdvan, sofinely calls the " Divine Catastrophe "may be precipitated, and the Titan inhim may be the more rapidly destroyed,or rather transmuted into the God.

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^VMMS "^^^ though these passions now seemQP

to us to be of the " Devil," and thoughHERMES, we look upon them as born of powersthat fight against God, they are not reallyevil ; they are the experiences in ournature of the natural energies of theDivine Harmonythat mysterious En-gine of Fate, which is the seven-foldmeans of manifestation, according to ourTrismegistic tradition. For the DivineHarmony is the creative instrument of theDivine Energy, that perpetually producesforms in substance for consciousness,and so gradually perfects a form that shallbe capable of imaging forth the PerfectMan.The natural energies that have beenhitherto working through him uncon-

sciously, in order that through formself-consciousness may come to birth,are, however, regarded by the neophyte,in the first stages of his gnostic birth, asinimical ; they have woven for himgarments that have brought experience,but which now seem rags that he would

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strip off, in order that he may put THEnew robes of power and majesty, and qfexchange the sackcloth of the slave HERMES.the raiment of the King. Though thegarments are from the same yarnwoven by the energies of the samethe weaver is now labouring to

the texture and design ; he isjoyfully learning gnosticly to followplan of the Great Weaver, and sounravels the rags of his past

to reweave them into " fine" fit for King Osiris.This gnostic change is in our treatiseby the Great Mind teaching the

mind, as following on the strippingof the vices of the soul, which are saidarise from the downward mode of the

of the seven spheres of theof Fate. The subsequent beati-

is set forth in the followingdeclaration :(( And then, with all the energizingthe Harmony stript from him, he

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THE Cometh to that nature which belongsO^^ unto the Eighth, and there with thoseHERMES, that are hymneth the Father." They who are there welcome his

coming there with joy ; and he, madelike to them that sojourn there, dothfurther hear the Powers who are abovethe nature that belongs unto the Eighth,singing their songs of praise to God inlanguage of their own." And then they, in a band, go to theFather home ; of their own selves theymake surrender of themselves to Powers,and thus becoming Powers they are inGod. This the good end for those whohave gained Gnosisto be made onewith God " (ii., i6).

This is the change of gnostic tendencythat is wrought in the nature of one whopasses from the stage of ordinary man,which Hermes characterizes as a " pro-cession of Fate," to that true manhoodwhich leads finally to Godship.The ancient Egyptians divided man

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into at least nine forms of manifestation, THEor modes of existence, or spheres of qfbeing, or by whatever phrase we choose HERMES,to name these categories of his natures.The words " clothed in his properPower " refer, I believe, to one of thesenatures of man. Now the sekhem isgenerally translated " power," but wehave no description of it whereby we maysatisfactorily check the translation ; andso I would suggest that the khaihit,though generally translated " shadow "(i., 89), is perhaps the mystery to whichour text refers, for " in the teaching ofEgypt, around the radiant being [perhapsthe Yen or name], which in its regeneratelife could assimilate itself to the gloryof the Godhead, was formed the khaihit,or luminous atmosphere, consisting ofa series of ethereal envelopes, at onceshading and diffusing its flaming lustre,as the earth's atmosphere shades anddiffuses the solar rays " (i., 76)^This was typified by the linen swathingsof the mummy, for " Thoth, the Divine

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THE Wisdom, wraps the spirit of the JustifiedOF a milHon times in a garment of fineHERMES. Hnen," even as Jesus in a certain sacred

act girt himself with a " Hnen cloth "which Tertullian characterizes as the"proper garment of Osiris" (i., 71).And Plutarch tells us that linen was wornby the priests " on account of the colourwhich the flax in flower sends forth,resembling the ethereal radiance that sur-rounds the cosmos " (i., 265).The same mystery is shown forth inthe marvellous passage which describesthe transfiguration of Jesus in the Gnosticgospel known as the Pistis Sophia, whichis of almost pure Egyptian tradition.It is the mystic description of a wonderfulmetamorphosis or transformation thatis wrought in the inner nature of theMaster, who has ascended to clothehimself with the Robe of Glory, and whoreturns to the consciousness of his lowerpowers, or disciples, clad in his Robe ofPower.

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" They saw Jesus descending shiningexceedingly ; there was no measure tothe hght which surrounded him, for heshone more brightly than when he hadascended into the heavens, so that it isimpossible for any in this world to de-scribe the light in which he was. Heshot forth rays shining exceedingly ;his rays were without measure, nor werehis rays of light equal together, but theywere of every figure and every type,some being more admirable than theothers in infinite manner. And theywere all pure light in every part at thesame time." It was of three degrees, one surpas-sing the other in infinite manner. Thesecond, which was in the midst, excelledthe first which was below it, and thethird, the most admirable of all, sur-passed the two below it. The first glorywas placed below all, like to the lightwhich came upon Jesus before he ascendedinto the heavens, and was very regularas to its own light " (pp. 7, 8).

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THE This triple glory, I believe, was theHYMNS ,,^^^y ^^ ^.gj^^

^f ^j^g nature of theHERMES, eighth, ninth and tenth spheres of gloryin the scale of the perfect ten. In ourtext the " clothed in his proper Power "must, I think, be referred to the powersof the seven spheres unified into one,the eighth, which was the vehicle of thepure mind, according to Platonic tradi-tion, based originally, in all probability,

' on Egyptian tradition. This " vehicle "was " atomic " and not " molecular,"to use the terms of present-day science,simple and not compound, same and notother " very regular as to its ownlight."IJ: And so when this gnostic change iswrought in the man's inner nature thereis an accompanying change effected inthe substance of his very

"body," andhe begins to sing in harmony with the

spheres ; " with those that are hehymneth the Father."He now knows the language of nature,and therewith sings praise continually26


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in full consciousness of the joy of life. SJEj^gHe sings the song of joy, and so singing qfhears the joyous songs of the Sons of HERMES.God who form the first of the choirsinvisible. They sing back to him andgive him welcome ; and what they singthe lover of such things may read in thesame Pistis Sophia (p. 17), in theHymn of the Powers " Come unto Us "when they welcome the returning exileon the Great Day of that name.But this is not all ; for higher stilland higher, beyond and yet beyond, areother choirs of Powers of even greatertranscendency who sing. As yet, how-ever, the newly born cannot understandor bear, their song, for they sing in alanguage of their own, there being manytongues of angels and archangels, ofdaimones and gods in their many grades.But already the man has begun torealize the freedom of the cosmos ; he hasbegun to feel himself a true cosmopolitanor world-citizen, and to thrill in harmonywith the Powers. He experiences an

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ineffable union that removes all fear,and longs for the consummation ofthe final Sacred Marriage when he willperform the great sacrifice, and of him-self make joyful surrender of all thathe has been in separation, to become,by union with Those alone who trulyare, all that has ever been and is andwill beand so one with God, the Alland One.

It is thus evident that our Hjrninsof Hermes are in direct contact with atradition which regarded the spirituallife as a perpetual service of song ; andthis is quite in keeping with the beliefof the Egyptians that man was createdfor the sole purpose of worshippingthe Gods and rendering them piousservice. The whole duty of man was

^thus conceived of as an utterance of" true words " or a continual singing of asong of harmony of thought and wordand deed, whereby man grew like untothe Gods, and so at last becoming a Godwas with the Great God in the " Boat of

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the millions of Years," or " Barque of ^ymnsthe iEons," in other words, was safe for ofeternity. HERMES.And now we will turn to the four .hymns preserved to us in Greek fromthe hymn-book of this truly sacredliturgy.The first is appended to the " Poem-andres " treatise, and was evidentlyintended to give some idea in hrmianterms of the nature of the Praise-givingof the Powers to which reference has justbeen made. For, as we shall see lateron, the less instructed of the communityfervently desired to have revealed tothem the words of this Song, thinkingin their ignorance that it was somehymn resembling those of earth, and notyet understanding that it was the heavenlytype of all earth-praising, whether ex-pressed by man or animal, by tree orstone.The first part of our hymn consistsof nine hues, divided by their subjects

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into three groups, every sentence begin-ning with " Holy art Thou ! " It isthus in the form of a three-fold " Holy,Holy, Holy ! "and we may thus, forwant of a proper title, call it " A TripleTrisagion."

A TRIPLE TRISAGION,Holy art Thou, God, the Universals^

Father.Holy art Thou, God, Whose Will per-

fects itself hy means of its own Powers.Holy art Thou, God, Who wiliest to heknown and art known hy Thine own.Holy art Thou, Who didst hy Word make

to consist the things that are.Holy art Thou, of Whom All-nature hath

been made an Image.30


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Holy art Thou, Whose Form Nature hathnever made.

Holy art Thou, more powerful than allpower.Holy art Thou, transcending all pre-eminence.Holy art Thou, Thou better than all

praise.Accept my reason's offerings pure, from

soul and heart for aye stretched up to Thee,Thou unutterable, unspeakable. WhoseName naught but the Silence can express !Give ear to me who pray that I may

ne''er of Gnosis failGnosis which is our,common being's natureand fill mewith Thy Power, and with this Grace ofThine, that I may give the Light to thosein ignorance of the Race, my Brethrenand Thy Sons !For this cause I believe, and I bearwitness. I go to Life and Light. Blessedart Thou, Father. Thy Man wouldholy be as Thou art holy, e'en as Thougavest him Thy full authority to be.

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" ^o^y ^^t Thou, O God, the Universals*p^^j^^j.,,

HERMES. God is first praised as the Father ofthe Universals, that is of the Greatnessesof all things, the ^onic Immensities, orSupreme Mysteries that are plural yetonethe Subsistencies of the DivineBeing in the state of pure Divinity." Holy art Thou, O God, Whose Willperfects itself bymeans of its own Powers."God is next praised as the Power orPotency of all things ; for Will is regardedby our Gnostics as the means by whichthe Deity reveals Himself unto Himselfby the Great Act of perpetual Self-creation of Himself in Himself. " FromThee " are all thingswhen God isthought of as Divine Fatherhood ; and" Through Thee " are all thingswhenGod is regarded as Divine Motherhood.For this Will is the Divine Love which isthe means of Self-perfection, the sourceof all consummation and satisfaction, ofcertitude and bliss. The Deity for everinitiates Himself into His own Mysteries.

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(( Holy art Thou, O God, Who willeth theHYMNSto be known and art known by Thine qfown." HERMES.The Will of God is Gnostic ; He willsto be known. The Divine Purpose isconsummated in Self-knowledge. Godis knowable, but only by " His own,"that is by the Divine Sonship, as Basil-ides, the Christian Gnostic, calls it, orby the Race of the Sons of God, as Philoand our Gnostics and others of the sameperiod phrase it.The Sonship is a Race, and not anindividual, because they of the Sonshiphave ceased from separation and havemade " surrender of themselves to Powers,and thus becoming Powers they are inGod." They are one with another, nolonger separated one from another andusing divided senses and organs ; forthey constitute the Intelligible Wordor Reason (Logos) which is also theIntelligible World (Kosmos) or. Order ofall things.The next three praise-givings celebrate

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the same trinity of what, for lack ofappropriate terms, we may call Being,Bliss and Intelligence, but now in anothermodethe mode of manifestation orenformation in space and time and sub-stance of the Sensible Universe, or Cosmosof forms and species.The three hypostases or hyparxes orsubsistences of this mode of the Divine

self-manifestation are suggested by theterms Word, All-nature and Form. Wordis the Vice-regent of Being, because it isthis Word or Reason that establishedthe being of all things, the that in themwhich causes them to be what they are,the essential reason of their being ; All-nature is the ground or substance oftheir being, the All-receiver or Nurse, asPlato calls her, who nourishes them, theGiver of Bliss, the Ever-becoming whichis the Image of Eternity ; while Formis the impression of the Divine Intel-ligence, the source of all transformationand metamorphosis.The final trisagion sings the praise of

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God's transcendency, declaring the power- THElessness of human speech adequately to qf^sing the praise of God. HERMES.Therefore is it said that the sole fitliturgy, or service of God, is to be foundin the offerings of reason alone, thereason or logos which is the Divine prin-ciple in man, the image of the Image,or Divine Man, the Logos. It is thecontinual raising of the tension of thewhole nature whereby the man is drawnever closer and closer to God, in therapt silence of ecstatic contemplationwhen alone he goes to the Alone, asPlotinus says. The Name of God canbe expressed by Silence alone, for, as weknown from the remains of the Christian-ized Gnosis, this Silence, or Sige, is theSpouse of God, and it is the DivineSpouse alone who can give full expressionto the Divine Son, the Name or Logosof God.The prayer is for Gnosis, for the

realization of the state of Sonship, orthe self-consciousness of the common35


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THE beiner which the Son has with the Father.OF This is to be consummated by the fulfil-HERMES. ment of the man's whole nature, by the

completion of his insufficiency or im-perfection (hystercma), whereby he be-comes the Fullness or Wholeness (Pleroma)the lEon or Eternity. This is to beachieved by the descent of the Great

: Power upon him, by the Blessing ofGod's Goodwill, that Charis or Grace orLove, which has been all along his DivineMother, but which now becomes hisDivine Spouse or Complement or Syzygy.The prayer is not for self but for others,that so the man may become the means

of illumination for those still in dark-ness, who as yet do not know of the GladTidings of the Divine Sonship, who areignorant of the Race of Wisdom, butwho nevertheless are, as are all men,brethren of the Christ and sons of God.And so in this ecstasy of praise, thetraveller, as he sings upon the Path ofthe Divine, feels within him the certitudethat he is indeed on the Way of Return,

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his face set forward to the True Goal ;he IS going to Light and Life, the eternalfatherhood and motherhood that are everunited in the Good, the One Desirable,or Divine Father-Mother, two in one andthree in one.

Finally as God has been praisedthroughout in His nature of holiness, thatis as most worshipful, meet to be adored,praiseworthy and the object of all wonder,so that which has proceeded from Him,His Man, or the Divine in man, nowlongs consciously to become of like naturewith Him, according to the Purpose andCommandment of the Father Who hasdestined him for this very end, andbestowed on him power over all things.

It is indeed a fair psalmthis Hymnof Hermes, that is, the praise-giving ofsome lover of this Gnosis who had, ashe expresses it, " reached the Plain ofTruth " (i., 19), or come into consciouscontact with the reality of his ownDivine nature, and so been made a Hermesindeed, capable of interpreting the inner

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HE meaning of religion, and of leading soulsQP back from Death to Lifea true psych-HERMES. agogue. It matters little who wrote it ;

his body may have been Egyptian orGreek or Syrian, it may have borne thisname or that, it may have lived preciselyfrom this year to that, or from someother to some other year, all this is oflittle consequence except for historiansof the bodies of men. What concerns ushere more nearly is the outpouring of asoul ; we have here a man manifestlypouring forth from the fulness of hisheart the profoundest experiences of hisinmost hfe. He is telling us how it ispossible for a man to learn to know Godby first learning to know himself, and sounfold the flower of his spiritual natureand unwrap the swathings of the im-memorial heart of him, that has beenmummified and laid in the tomb so manyages of lives that have been living deaths.And now we may pass to our next

hymn. It is found in a beautiful little38


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treatise which bears as title the enuncia- X^,f,^tion of its subject, " Though Unmanifest ofGod is most Manifest," and is a discourse hermes.of "father" Hermes to "son" Tat.The subject of this sermon is that mys-terious manifestation of the Divine Energywhich is now so well known by the Sans-krit term Maya, so erroneously trans-lated into Enghsh as " Illusion "unlesswe venture to take this illusion in itsroot-meaning of Sport and Play ; forin its highest sense Maya is the Sport ofthe Creative Will, the World-Drama orGod in activity.The Greek equivalent of mdyd isphantasia, which, for lack of a singleterm in English to represent it rightly, Ihave translated by " thinking-manifest."The Phantasy of God is thus the Powei(Shakti in Sanskrit) of perpetual self-manifestation or self-imagining, and isthe means whereby all " This " comesinto existence from the ^ unmanifest" That "; or as our treatise phrases it :

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" He is Himself, both things that areand things that are not. The things thatare He hath made manifest, He keepeththings that are not in Himself." He is the God beyond all nameHe the unmanifest. He the most mani-fest ; He whom the mind alone cancontemplate. He visible unto the eyesas well. He is the one of no body, theone of many bodies, nay, rather, He ofevery body."" Naught is there which He is not, forall are He, and He is all " (ii., 104).He is both things that are " here " inour present consciousness, and all that

are not in our consciousness, or rathermemory" there " in our eternal nature.He is both the Manifest and Hiddenhidden in the manifest and manifest inthe hidden, manifest in all we have beenand hidden in all we shall be.From the things that are not Hemaketh things that are ; and so He maybe said to create out of nothingas far

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as we are concerned ; indeed He creates "^^^out of nothing but Himself. OFHe is both that which the mind alone HERMES,can contemplatethat is the IntelligibleUniverse, or that constituted in HisDivine Being which the divided sensescannot perceiveand also all that whichthe senses, both physical and super-physical, can perceivethe whole Sensi-sible Universe.He is to be conceived simultaneouslyfrom a monotheistic, polytheistic andpantheistic point of view, and from manyothersas many points of view indeed,as the mind of man can conceive, not tospeak of an infinitude that he cannotever imagine. He is corporeality andincorporeality in perpetual union. Heis in no body, for no body can containHim, and yet is He in every body andevery body is in Him. " Naught is therewhich He is not, for He is all."

It is indeed difficult to ^ understandwhy so many in the West so greatlydread the very thought of allowing41


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pantheistic ideas to enter into their con-ception of God. This fear is in reahtyover-daring or rash presumption, for theyhave the hardihood to dare to hmit theDivine according to their own pettynotions of what they would Hke God tobe, and so they bitterly resent the dis-turbance of their self-complacency whenit is pointed out that He will not fit themiserably narrow cross on which theywould fain crucify Him.What right have we, who in ourignorance are but puny creatures of aday, to exclude God from any one orany thing ? But they will reply : Itis not God who is excluded ; it is wewho exclude ourselves from God.

Indeed ; try as we may, we cannot doso. This is the impossible, for we cannotexclude ourselves from ourselves. Andwho are we apart from God ? Did wecreate ourselves ? And if we did, thenwe are God, for self-creation is theprerogative of the Divine alone.But the pious soul will still object

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that God is good alone. Agreed, if you '^^^^will ; but what is Good ? Is Good our qfgood only, or the Good of all creatures ? HERMES.And if God is the Good of all creatures,then equally so must He be the Evil ofall creatures ; for the good of one creatureis the evil of another, and the evil of onethe good of anotherand so the Balanceis kept even. It is a limited view tosay that God is good alone, and then todefine this as meaning some specialform of good that we imagine for our-selves, and not that which is really goodfor all ; for it is good that there shouldbe such apparent evil in the universeas pantheism, and that man's notionsof apparent good should so far fall short ofthe reality. The wise man, or ratherthe man who is striving after Gnosis,is he who can see in the Good and Evilas conceived by man good in every evil,and evil or insufficiency in every good.But if we say with Hermes that " Allare He and He is all," we do not assertthat we know what this really means,

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THEHYMNSOFHERMES.we only assert that we are in this declara-tion face to face with the ultimatemystery of all things before which wecan only bow the head in reverent silence,for all words here fail.And so the mystic who wrote thesesentences continues his meditation witha magnificent hymn, expressive of theinability of the learner's mind rightly tosing God's praises, which, for lack of abetter title, we may call " A H5niinto All-Father God.'?5

A HYMN TO ALL'FATHER GOD,Who, then, may sing Thee praise of

Thee, or praise to Thee ?Whither, again, am I to turn my eyesto sing Thy praise ; above, below, within,without ?

There is no way, no place is there aboutThee, nor any other thing of things that are.

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All are in Thee ; all are from Thee ;Thou Who givest all and takest naught,

for Thou hast all and naught is thereThou hast not.^w^ WHEN, Father, shall I hymnThee ? For none can seize Thy hour ortime.For what, again, shall I sing hymn ?For things that Thou hast made, or thingsThou hast not ? For things Thou hastmade manifest, or things Thou hast

concealed ?How, further, shall I hymn Thee ? As

being of myself? As having somethingof mine own ? As being other ?For that Thou art whatever I may be ;Thou art whatever I may do ; Thou artwhatever I may speak.For Thou art all, and there is nothingelse which Thou art not.Thou art all that which doth exist, andThou art what doth not exist,Mind whenThou thinkest, and Father when Thoumakest, and God when Thou dost energize^and Good and Maker of all things (ii., 105).

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Who is capable of singing God's praises,when it requires the whole universe ofBeing, and the countless universes of allthe beings that are, to sing the praisesof God in any truly adequate manner ?Who, then, what man, has the under-standing wherewith to praise God fitly,when though in his separated conscious-ness he knows he knows not who he is,he yet begins to realize that the " who hereally is " must inevitably be God andno other ? In what manner can theDivine sing praises of itself as of someother than itself, when " I " and " Thou "must essentially be one, and the utter-ance of praise as of some other one seemsto be a departure from the blessed stateof that Divine intuition.

Is God again to be limited by spaceand spatial considerations ? Is therea " whither " in respect to God ? Cer-tainly there cannot be any special placewhere the Divine may be said to be, forHe is in all places, and all places andspaces are in Him. He cannot be said

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be in the heart more than in any other uymn;or hmb of the body, for He is in all qfand all things are in Him. Equally HERMES,is there no special direction in whicheyes of the mind can turn, for He isbe seen in every direction of thoughtwhich the mind can proceed ; and ifsay there are evil turnings of the

evil thoughts, he who has ex-this " change of gnostic ten-" will reply that the only evil heknows is not to be conscious that

is in all things, and that with theof this true self-consciousness

right side of every thought presentswith the wrong side in the joy ofthinking.The idea of the next praise-giving

perhaps somewhat difficult to follow,it appears to be a contradiction inBut in these sublime heights of

thought all is seeming contra-and paradox, because it is theof reconciliation of all opposites.

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HYMNS^ who gives all things, equally so must HeOF be He who receives all things ; but theHERMES, antithesis can be equally well declaredby the thought of all and nothing as bythe idea of giving and receiving, for Godmanifestly takes nothing, in that Hehas no need of anything, seeing thatHe already has all things.And if God cannot be limited by space,equally so is it impossible that He canbe conditioned by time. Therefore thetrue Gnostic Te Deum cannot be sungat any one time only, but must be sungeternally ; the man must transform him-self into a perpetual song of praise inevery thought and word and deed.Nor can the Deity be hymned for onething, rather than for another, for allthings are equally from God, and hewho would make himself like unto Godshould have no preferences, but shouldview all things with equal eye, andembrace them all with equal love.On account of what, again, as regardshimself in distinction from the world,

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shall the Gnostic praise God ? Shall '^^^he hymn the Divine for the fact of his qfown self-existence, or because of the HERMES,powers and faculties and possessions thatare his, or because he is other than, pre-sumably, the many who are not in Gnosis ?The uselessness of all such distinctionsbecomes apparent in the doubt thatthe very asking of such questions awakens,and the devotee of Wisdom brushesthem all aside in splendid outburst :" For that Thou art whatever I may be ;Thou art whatever I may do ; Thou artwhatever I may speak ." There is noseparation in the reality of things. What-ever the man is in this ecstatic state,it is the Being of God in him ; whateverthe man does, it is the Working of Godin him ; whatever the man speaks, it isthe Word of God in him.Nay, more than this ; to such a con-sciousness God is in very truth all thingsboth manifest and hidden. God js Mindwhen we think of Him as thinking,devising and planning ; God is Father

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THE when we conceive Him as williner andHYIVINSOF creating and bringing all things intoHERMES, existence ; and God is Good when weregard Him as energizing or inworkingor breathing in all things to give themLight and Life. He is the Good or Endof all things, even as He is the Beginningor Maker of all.

Our next hymn is found in the marvel-lous initiation ritual which now bearsthe title " The Secret Sermon on theMountain," with the sub-heading " Con-cerning Rebirth and the Promise ofSilence," but which might very well becalled

" The Initiation of Tat."This Rebirth or Regeneration was, andis, the mystery of the Spiritual Birth orBirth from Above, the object of thegreater mysteries, even as in the lessermysteries, the subject of the instructions

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was concerning the Birth from Below, THEthe secret of genesis, or how a man comes qfinto physical birth. The one was the HERMES,birth or genesis into matter, the otherthe essential birth or palingenesis, themeans of re-becoming a pure spiritualbeing.

It is the mystic rite of the"laying onof hands," the rite of invocation by

Hermes, the hierophant or father onearth, whereby the Hands of Blessingof the Great Initiator, the Good Mind,are laid upon the head of Tat, the con-didate, his son. These Hands of Blessingare no physical hands, but Powers, Rays of the spiritual Sun, even as theyare symbolized in the well-known Egyp-tian frescoes of the Atem-cult. EachRay is a Gnostic Power, the light andvirtue of which drive out the darkness ofthe soul's vices and prepare the way fortransforming the fleshly body into thetrue ray-like or star-like body of a Godthe augoeides or astroeides, to which wereferred under its Egyptian equivalent

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'^m


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for hastening to " strike his tent " now ^^^that he has been made pure. That is qfto say, the final rite of purification has HERMES.now been operated in Tat, the powers ofthe cathartic or purifying virtues havedescended upon him, so that he now hasthe power to " strike his tent," or freehimself from the trammels of the bodyof vice, and so rise from the tomb whichhas hitherto imprisoned his " daimonicsoul," as the Pythian Oracle says ofPlotinus.

But, adds Hermes, it is not quite asTat supposes. There is no one Song ofthe Powers written in human speechand kept secret ; no MS., no oral tradition,of some physically uttered hymn.

" The Shepherd, Mind of all master-hood, hath not passed on to me morethan hath been writ down, for full welldid He know that I should of myself beable to learn all, and see all things." He left to me the making" of fairthings. Wherefore the Powers within me,

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THE e'en as they are in all, break into song."HYMNS

-^ OFHERMES. The Song can be sung in many modesand many tongues, according to the

inspiration of the illumined singer. Theman who is reborn becomes a psalmistand a poet, for now is he tuned in har-mony with the Great Harmony, andcannot do otherwise than sing God'spraises. He becomes a maker of hymnsand is no longer a repeater of the hymnsof others.But Tat persists ; his soul is filled

with longing to hear some echo of theGreat Song. " Father, I wish to hear ;I long to know these things ! "And so Hermes is at last persuaded,and proceeds to give him a model of suchpraise-giving which he now can use insubstitution for the prayers he has pre-viously employed, and which were moresuited to one in the state of faith.Hermes bids Tat calm himself and

so await in reverent silence the hearingof the potent theurgic outpouring of the

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THEwhole nature of the man in praise of God, hymnswhich shall open a path throughout all qfNature straight to the Divine. This HERMES,is no ordinary hymn of praise but atheurgic operation or gnostic act. There-fore, Hermes commands :

" Be still, my son ! Hear the praise-giving that keeps the soul in tune. Hymnof Rebirtha hymn I would not havethought iit so readily to tell, had'st thounot reached the end of all."

Not, of course, the end of all Gnosis,but the end of the probationary path ofpurification and faith, which is thebeginning of the Gnosis. Such hymnswere taught only to those who had beenmade pure ; not to those who wereslaves of the world or even to them whowere still struggling with their lowervices, but only to those who had gotthemselves ready and " made the thoughtin them a stranger to the worid-illusion "(ii., 220).

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HYMNrq" ^^^I'sfoi'^'" says Hermes, " this is

OF not taught, but is kept hid in silence."HERMES. It is a hymn that must be used cere-monially at sunrise and sunset.

" Thus then, my son, stand in a placeuncovered to the sky^ facing the west,about the sinking of the setting sun, andmake thy worship ; so in like manner,too, when he doth rise, with face untothe east."And for those who cannot perfect

the rite on all planes, let them standnaked, with all the garments of falseopinion stripped from them, naked inthe midst of High Heaven's clear sphere,facing straight with the Spiritual Sun,or the Eye of Mind that illuminates theGreat Sphere of our spiritual nature inthe stillness of the purified intelligence.And so Hermes, before he sings whatis called " The Secret Hymnody," oncemore utters the solemn injunction :" Now, son, be still ! "

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THE SECRET HYMNODY.Let every nature of the world receive the

utterance of my hymn !Ofen, thou Earth ! Let every holt of the

Abyss he drawn for me ! Stir not, ye Trees !I am ahout to hymn creation's Lord,both All and One.Ye Heavens open, and ye Winds stay

still ; and let God's Deathless Sphere re-ceive my word !For I will sing the praise of Him whofounded all ; who fixed the Earth, and hungup Heaven, and gave command that Oceanshould afford sweet water to the Earth, toboth those parts that are inhabited, andthose that are not, for the support and useof every man ; who made the Fire to shinefor gods and men for every act.Let us together all give praise to Him,sublime above the Heavens, of every natureLord !

'Tis He who is the Eye of Mind ; mayHe accept the praise of these my Powers !Ye Powers that are within ^ me, hymnthe One and All ; sing with my Will,

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Powers all that are within me !^ blessed Gnosis, by thee illumined,hymning through thee the Light that mindalone can see, I joy in Joy of Mind.

Sing with me praises, all ye Powers !Sing praise, my Self-control ; sing thou

through me, my Righteousness, the praisesof the Righteous ; sing thou, my Sharing-all, the praises of the All ; through mesing. Truth, Truth^s praises !

Sing thou, Good, the Good I Lifeand Light, from us to you our praisesHow IFather, I give Thee thanks, to Thee Thou

Energy of all my Powers ; I give Theethanks, God, Thou Power of all myEnergies.fAThy Reason sings through me Thypraises. Take back through me the Allinto Thy Reasonmy reasonable oblation !Thus cry the Powers in me. They singThy praise, Thou All ; they do Thy Will.From Thee, Thy Will ; To Thee, theAll. Receive from all their reasonableoblation. The All that is in us, Life,

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preserve ; Light, illumine it ; God, J^-inspirit it ! OFIt is Thy Mind that plays the Shepherd HERMES.to Thy Word, Thou Creator, Bestowerof the Spirit upon all.For Thou art God ; Thy Man thuscries to Thee, through Fire, through Air,through Earth, through Water, and throughSpirit, through Thy creatures.

'Tis from Thy Mon I have found Praise-giving ; and in Thy Will, the object of mysearch, have I found Rest (ii., 230-232).

We can see at once that this is noordinary hymn, no hymn conceived inthe mode of the psahns to which we havebeen used, but the gnostic outpouringof a man who has begun to realize thenature of his own spiritual dignity andproper place in the universe, based onthe tradition of what is best in Egyptiantheurgy, or that Divine energizing which

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^^^^^ ^^'^^^ words of command that allnature willingly obeys.He is about to utter words " that aretrue," words that from the true go untothe True, without let or hindrance.Every nature will therefore receive suchwords and hand them on. All elementswill hasten to serve the man who isserving God with the lawful liturgy ofhis whole nature.The Earth in the midst, the Heavenabove, the Abyss beneath, will open allthe gates of their secret ways to let thetrue words of him who is " true of word "pass onwards to the Deathless Sphereof the True Godthat is, to the JEonitself wherein the True God dwells, notto some space of Heaven or of Earth orof the Abyss, but to that which transcendsthem, and is the source, preserver andend of all of them.Not only the trees of the earth, but

also the Trees of Paradise, the DivineBeings that dwell in iEonic Bliss, will restin reverent silence as the potent praise of

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proper reverence passes to the end of all X?^,^, , HYMNSadorations. OFThe winds of earth will still themselves, HERMES,and also the Winds of Heaven, the Intel-

ligent Breaths in the inmost chambersof man's Greater Mind.For the praise-giving is not poured

forth to this or that daimon or god, butunto the Lord of All ; and they, theObedient Ones, whose life consists inpraising God, cannot but rejoice that theDisobedient One should at last of hisown freewill join in the unweariedliturgy of nature.The hymn is in praise of the One andAll, of the One Lord of all creation, whois both the One who creates and the Allthat is created. It is a hymn sung inharmony with the liturgy, or service ofpraise, of the four great primal natures,the Cosmic Elements of Earth and Airand Water and FireFather Heavenand Mother Earth, Father Fire andMother Ocean. The man sings withthem the glory of their common Lord,

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^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^* ^^' ^^^ Mind, theTrue Spiritual Sun, whose eyes are thecountless suns in space. This True Sunis the True Light, the Light that mindalone can see ; the little mind of man,now illumined by the Light of Gnosis,becomes of the nature of the Great Mind,and so a prismatic trinity of Good andLight and Life, through which the All-Brilliancy of the One and All shines forthin a septenary of Powers or Virtues,These Powers are, with one exception,given in our hymnody in the exactclassification in which they stand in thetext of the mystic rite, namely : Gnosis,Joy, Self-control, Continence, Righteous-ness, Sharing-with-all, and Truthwhichseverally drive out Not-knowing, Sorrow,Intemperance, Desire, Unrighteousness,Avarice and Error. And with the comingof Truth the measure of the Good isfilled full, for unto Truth is joined Goodand Life and Light.The nature of the persons of the lattertrinity is still further revealed and the

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transmutability of these hypostases, by X^vfcpraising God as the Energy of all Powers qfand the Power of all Energies, that is, HERMES,as Light and Life again, Light the mascu-line energizer, and Life the femininenourisher, the father-motherhood of God,the Good, the Logos or Reason of allthings.And so the gnostic psalmist at lastresolves his praise-giving into the offer-ing of a reasonable oblationwhich,in final analysis, is the Song of the Logos ;the Reason, the Son of God, the Alone-begotten, singing through the wholenature of the man and refunding thecosmos which is himself into the sourceof his Being. It is the consummationof the Great Return ; the Will of God isnow the sole will of the man." From Thee Thy Will ; To Thee theAll."That is, from Thee proceeds Thy Will ;Thou art the Source of Thy Will, Thy

Desire, Thy Love ; and Thy Will is ThySpouse, through whom are all things,

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the whole universe, Thy Alone-begotten,whose end also as well as beginning isThyself, for He is Thyself eternally.For as another mystic hymn of theperiod phrases it (i., 146) : " From Theeis Father and Through Thee is Mother "to which we may add " and To Theeis Son."And so the hymn-singer continues withhis " reasonable oblation," the offeringof his true self, the logos within him, of hisangel " that perpetually beholds the Faceof the Father,"praying that his wholecosmos, the whole that there is of him,may be preserved or saved by Life theMother, illumined or irradiated by Lightthe Father, and inspirited or inspiredor spiritualized by the Great Breathof God that eternally and simultaneouslyoutbreathes and inbreathes.For the man is now no longer a single" Letter " or a " Procession of Fate,"but a true " Name," a free Man, a Wordof God, a proper Cosmos, ordered in dueand lawful harmony by the conversion of-

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self-will into a willing union with God's ^ymnsWill ; and of that Word, or God, or ofAngel, the Shepherd, or FeederHe hermes.who gives the Divine nectar, or spiritualfood, by which that Word is nourishedis the Great Mind, or Light, or Illu-minator, the twin of the Great Soul, orSaving Life, the Inspirer and Preserver,both of which are bestowed upon us byGod the Creator.The man has now become a Man, a

Word, a true Being of Reason, whoseenergy is expressed in living ideas thatcan be impressed upon the souls andminds of men, and lived out in a life ofexample ; from an imperfect man he hasbecome a perfect Cosmos or Order, orHarmony, and thus he can make his ownpurified natures sing together with thegreat elements and the quintessenceof all of them, which is the Spirit orBreath of God, the Atman of Indiantheosophy.For having attained unto this true

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HYMNS^^^^ of breathingbreathing and think-

OF ing with the Great Life and Great MindHERMES, of thingsthe man is no longer a man buta Man, an iEon, an Eternity, and sorebecoming his own true Self he expresseshis natural joy in songs of praise, andfinds his rest in the Great Peace, theMotherhood of God. He is born anew,a child Christ ; and, as he grows instature, towards full manhood, so willshe, who has hitherto been his mother,refreshed with the eternal youth of theGods, change from mother into spouse.The remaining hymn that has been

preserved to us in the extant Trismegisticliterature is found at the end of " ThePerfect Sermon," of which, unfortunately,the Greek original has been lost. Weare dependent solely on an Old Latinversion, which is frequently unsatisfactory.This sermon is by far the longest ofour extant Trismegistic logoi. The intro-duction informs us that Hermes andAsclepius and Tat andAmmon are gathered

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together in the adytum or holy place. u^


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TONS ^^ ^^^ mind ; for mystically all three areOF in each of us, and the true illuminationof our three-fold nature depends upontheir proper balance and harmony, uponthe brotherly love of the three disciplesJames, John and Peterwho musteach complete each other, and sub-ordinate themselves to one another, andvie with one another in love of theirteacher, the purified mind, or Hermes,through whom alone the instruction ofthe Great Mind, the Shepherd, can asyet come to them.And so we find the conditions of rightcontemplation dramatically set forth inthe last sentence of the introduction of

the sermon in the words :*' When Ammon, too, had come within

the holy place, and when the sacred groupof four was now complete with pietyand with God's goodly Presenceto them,sunk in fit silence reverently, their soulsand minds pendent on Hermes' lips, thusLove Divine began to speak (ii., 300).68


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This Love Divine is that same Presence, thethe Highest Mind, or Shepherd of men, q^^which illumines Hermes, or the higher HERMES,mind within us, directly ; but theseimmediate living words of power haveto be passed on in human words to thethree natures of our lower mind, theAsclepius and Tat and Ammon in us, whoare the learners and hearers.

After the instruction is ended and theyhave come forth from the holy place,the narrative tells us that they turnedtheir faces towards the setting sun, beforeuttering their hymn of praise.That is to say mystically, the mindceasing from contemplation, in which theoutward energies have been caught up tothe heights, or turned within, and stilledby the higher in the intercourse of Lovethat has been blessed with the Presenceof the Divine, these energies, beforebetaking themselves to their appointedseparate tasks, all unite in a hymn ofpraise, with their eyes still turned to thenow apparently departing glory of the

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HYMNS ^^**^^S spiritual Sun.OF Hereupon the knower of forms in us,HERMES, the Asclepius who is wise in the sciencesand arts, and ceremonies, proposes to

Tat, in whispered words, that they sug-gest to their father Hermes, that theyshould say their prayer to God " withadded incense and with unguents." Thisis the suggestion of the mind that stillclings to outward forms, the ritualist.But Hermes recalls them to the gnosticnature of their spiritual cult.

" Whom when Thine greatest heard,he grew distressed and said :" ' Nay, nay, Asclepius ; speak morepropitious words ! For this is like toprofanation of our sacred riteswhenthou dost pray to God, to offer incenseand the rest." ' For naught is there of which Hestands in need, in that He is all things,and all are in Him.^^' ' But let us worship, pouring forthourlthanks. For this is the best incense

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in God s sightwhen thanks are given to 7,?,?,TT- u n / oo\ HYMNSHim by men (n., 388). OFAnd so they begin their praise-giving,which for lack of a better title we may

call " A Hymn of Grace for Gnosis."

A HYMN OF GRACE FOR GNOSIS.V/e give Thee grace, Thou highest andmost excellent ! For by Thy Grace we

have received, the so great Light of Thyown Gnosis.holy Name, fit Name to he adored,Name unique, by which God only must

be blest through worship of our Sire,ofThee who deignest to afford to all a Father'spiety, and care, and love, and whatsoevervirtue is more sweet than these, endowingus with sense, and reason, and intelligence ;with sense that we may feel Thee ; withreason that we may track Thee out fromthe appearances of things ; with means of

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uv^Mc y^cognition that we may joy in knowingOF Thee.HERMES. Saved by Thy Power divine, let usrejoice that Thou hast shown Thyself tous in all Thy Fullness. Let us rejoice thatThou hast deigned to consecrate us, stillentombed in bodies, to Eternity.For this is the sole festival of praiseworthy of manto know Thy Majesty.We know Thee ; yea, by the SingleSense of our intelligence, we have perceivedThy Light supreme, Thou True Lifeof life, Fecund Womb that giveth birthto every nature IWe have known Thee, Thou completelyfilled with the Conception from Thyself ofUniversal Nature !We have known Thee, Thou EternalConstancy !For in the whole of this our prayer inworship of Thy Good, this favour only ofThy Goodness do we crave : that Thouwilt keep us constant in our Love-of-knowing-Thee, and let us ne'er be cut offfrom this kind of Life (ii., 389, 390).

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We give Thee thanks, grace for Grace, thegoodwill for Thy Goodwill. The Good- q^^will of God is, as we have already learned, hermes.that " He willeth to be known," and thegoodwill of man is his " love of knowingGod."The Latin of the next sentence isvery obscure, but judging by otherpassages and by the context, the uniqueeffable Name of God is " Father." Theworship of God as Father is true religion,piety and love, since these are the naturalexpressions of thanks to God, in thatit is He who pours out on us the treasuresof His piety and care [religio in Latin) and.love, though indeed all of these wordsreally fall short of expressing this Divineefficacia, or power of giving utter satis-faction, of God ; for He alone giveswithout stint, in that He bestows HisFullness upon us.He endows us with sense and reasonand intelligence, the three means ofknowing Him : with sense to feel God inall things ; with reason to track out the

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manifestation of the Divinelin all pheno-"^mena ; and with inteUigence, or spiritualintuition, which is the means of face toface recognition, when objective andsubjective, and when object and subjectblend and there is the complete joy andsatisfaction of Self-knowledge.The Power of God is the Will of God,the Goodwill, whereby He willeth to beknown, that is to say, the Purpose ofwhich is Gnosis ; and this brings joyand rejoicing, for it is the manifestation

of God to man in all His Fullness, that isto say, the manifestation of the Pleroma,the Intelligible Cosmos, or God in thenature of His Alone-begotten Son.The " holy four " sing with joy in thatthey have been made holy, hallowed aspriests of the Most High, while still in thetomb of the body ; and so their verybodies have been consecrated as fittemples of the Son of God, the ^Eon orEternity.Therefore the sole festival of praiseworthy of man in his divine nature, that

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is, in his true manhood or union with X?,?,^riYlVlNSGreat Mindis to know God's Majesty qfor Greatness, that is, again, the iEon. hermes.This Knowing, or Gnosis, is achievedby the Single Sense of the intelligence ; notby sense alone, nor by mind alone, butby a means superior to both, in whichthe twain blend in Gnosis, and so becomeconscious with a new consciousness, orself-knowledge, of the Light of God, or theOver-mind of all things, and of the Lifeof God, or the Over-Soul of all things,which latter is graphically described asthe " Fecund Womb that giveth birthto every nature."This is the Gnosis of the Divine as thePleroma, or Fullness, which is repletewith the Conception of universal naturefrom God Himself.

Finally, God is praised for being knownas the Eternal Constancy, Stability, Dura-tion, Unchangeableness, Sameness. _And so this beautiful gnostic thanks-giving or grace ends with the one prayerof those in Gnosis, namely, that He who

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is Eternal Constancy, or God in Hisenergy of ^Eonic Sameness, will everkeep them constant in the Pure andSingle Love, the Love of knowing God.What noble hymns are these four,hymns worthy of all that is best in

man, and all that is worthiest in thetrue worshipper of God ! If only wehad a psalter of such psalms, as doubtlessonce existed in this excellent communityof servants of God and Gnostic liturgists !But alas ! while the indifference of timehas preserved for us so much of theclassical writers that we could not un-frequently well spare, the jealousy ofProvidence has kept from us the majorpart of the most beautiful monumentsof man's gnostic geniusperchance, how-ever, because the world was not readyto appreciate them.There is, therefore, nothing to do but tofollow again the Way of the Hermeses ofthe past, and betake ourselves once moreto " the making of fair things," for what

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man has once achieved he can again uvmn;accompHsh, and, if I am not mistaken ofin my augury, the times are again becom- hermes.ing ripe for such true poesy.We have no more Hymns of Hermeswherewith to make glad the hearts of ourreadersas we would fain hope they havegladdened thembut we will add anotherhymn of so like a nature that it mightvery well have been penned by a Hermesof the Trismegistic faith.

It is " A Song of Praise to the iEon,"which is said to have been inscribed ona " secret tablet," by some unknownBrother of a forgotten Order, perhapsone of the Communities of the lEontheHighest and Supercelestial OnewhichPhilo of Byblos, in the second half of thefirst century of our era, tells us were inexistence in Phoenicia in his day, anddoubtless were also existing in Egypt(i., 403). The text is found in the GreekMagic Papyri.

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A SONG OF PRAISExo THE ^ON.

Hail unto Thee, Thou All-Comos ofcBthereal Spirit !Hail unto Thee, Spirit, who dothextend from Heaven to Earth, and from theEarth that's in the middle of the orb ofCosmos to the ends of the Abyss !Hail unto Thee, Spirit, who dothenter into me, who clingeth unto me orwho doth part Thyself from me accordingto the Will of God in goodness of Hisheart !Hail unto Thee, Thou Beginning andThou End of Nature naught can move !Hail unto Thou, Thou Liturgy un-weariable of Nature's Elements !Hail unto Thee, Thou Illuminationof the Solar Beam that shines to serve theworld !

Hail unto Thee, Thou Disk of the night-shining Moon, that shines unequally !

Hail, Ye Spirits all of the cetherealStatues of the Gods !

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Hail to You all, whom holy Brethren J^^^^,and holy Sisters hail in giving of their qfpraise ! HERMES.

Spirit, Mighty One, most mightycircling and incomprehensible Configura-tion of the Cosmos, hail !celestial, ceihe-real, inter-cethereal, water-like, earth-like,fire-like, air-like, like unto light, to dark-ness like, shining as do the Starsmoist ^hot, cold Spirit !1 praise Thee, God of gods, who everdoth restore the Cosmos, and who dothstore the Depth away upon its Throne ofSettlement no eye can see, who fixestHeaven and Earth apart, and coverest theHeaven with Thy golden everlasting wings,and makest firm the Earth on everlastingThrones I

Thou who hangest up the Mther inthe lofty Height, and scatterest the Air withThy self-moving Blasts, who mak'st theWater eddy round in circles !Thou who raisest up the Fiery Whirl-wind, and makest thunder, lightning, rain,and shakings of the earth, God of Mons !

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THE Mighty art Thou, Lord God, MasterOF of the All ! (i., 408, 409).HERMES.

The Mon is the Invisible IntelUgibleCosmos, the All-Cosmos of ^EtherealSpirit or Quintessence, as distinguishedfrom the Sensible Cosmos of the fourGreat Elements, pure Fire and Air andWater and Earth, and not our mixedelements.The reader has only to compare theopening and closing sentences of " TheSecret Hymnody " with the first para-graph of our hymn to see that we are inprecisely the same circle of ideas.Heaven, Earth and the Abyss, thethree worlds, through which the Spirit,like Vishnu in the Purana's, takes "threestrides."

It is this Spirit, the Great Breath ofLife, that is the out-breath and in-breathof man's manifold existences. When theSpirit breathes out he is born, from deathinto life, and also from life into death ;for the life of the body is the death of

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the soul. And when the Spirit inbreathes ^^^he becomes dead, dead to things of the qfbody, but alive to the things of the soul. HERMES.And all this is " according to the Willof God in goodness of His heart." Forthe Will of God is the Energy, or EffectiveWorking, of God,that which transcendsall our human ideas of Lovedictatedby the goodness of His heart, which everwills the good of all beings, for the Heartof God is the Good Itself, the TEon.The JEon is neither Beginning nor End,but both ; for all the Spheres of Beingwhich it energizes, end where they begin,and begin where they endthey dance ineternal revolution, for their " everlastingrevelling-place " is in the Vortex of theCeaseless Liturgy, or Service, of theElements. The JEon is the Cause of theMagna Vorago, the Mighty Whirlpool ofthe Universe, for it is the Monad orSupreme Atom of all atoms and allcombinations of atoms.The iEon is the Illumination or Source

of Light for all the Lights of Heaven,8i


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HYMNS ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^* ^^OF the " iEthereal Statues of the Gods "HERMES, the countless suns in space.The iEon is Spirit, of Light and Life

consisting, and so Father-Mother of allSpirits, whose true Bodies are the fieryspheres, the sidereal bodiesray-like, star-like.

Therefore, the Brethren and Sistersof this community of gnostic servants ofGod rightly praise all the Gods, for theseGods are the true community of saints orholy ones in Heaven, even as the Brethrenand Sisters are endeavouring to becomesaints on earth, holy as they are holy.The JEon is the Great Paradigm orOne Exemplar of all things, the EternalConfiguration of the Cosmos and allcosmoi, in a septenary of three quint-essential and four essential elements,which are completed by the all-colour,Light, and no-colour, Darkness, into adecad of which Spirit is the beginningand the end, existing in three modes

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reminding us of the Trigunam, or three- X^^Sfold nature of Prakriti or Nature in qfIndian theosophymoist, hot, cold ; black hermes.red, white ; Tamas, Rajas and Sattva.The Great Work of the God of Gods isperpetually to restore the Cosmos, torefresh, to renew it, in its threefoldnature of Height and Midst and Depththe endoderm, mesoderm and ecto-derm, as it were, of the cosmic germ-cellover which the Spirit broods with itsgolden everlasting wings, as the GreatBird who perpetually hatches forth theEgg of the Universe.And from this brooding there evercomes forth into being the perpetualcosmo-genesis of all things ; and, seeingthat all beings come forth from the /Eon,each and all, in their cosmic nature, areiEons as well, so that the i^on is alsoGod of iEons.He is the God of millions of years, ofmillions of months, and millions of dayswhether those time-periods be of theearth or of the universeand so God of

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^HE all existences, even as He is God of theOF Eternity of all beings.HERMES.

And here we must bring our littlehymn-book to a close, in the hope thatsome may be found to sing in responseto the Hymns of Heathen Hermes evenin this twentieth century of Christiangrace ; for perhaps, after all, Hermesand Christ are not in reality such strangersto each other as traditional theologicalprejudice would have us believe.

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mmr:2 CLAPP

3 5002 00102 7999Mead, G. R. S.Echoes from the Gnosis /

BP 565 . M4 E27 1906 2Mead, G. R. S. 1863-1933.Echoes from the Gnosis


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