III

References and Fragments in the Philosophers

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I.

ZOSIMUS

ON THE ANTHROPOS-DOCTRINE

(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 Anthropos-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 Heimarmene or Fate, who cannot understand his revelations,—he writes 2:)

THE PROCESSIONS OF FATE.

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

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[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.

“THE INNER DOOR”

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

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

AGAINST MAGIC

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.

FRAGMENT XXVI.

    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

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    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.

THOTH THE FIRST MAN

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 Thoythos translated 3 it into the first sacred 4 tongue,—Thoth the First Man, the Interpreter of all things which exist, and the Name-maker 5 for all embodied things. 6

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THE LIBRARIES OF THE PTOLEMIES

9. The Chaldćans 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 Thoyth 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

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

NIKOTHEOS

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.

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

FROM THE BOOK OF THE CHALDĆANS

13. 2 “When Light-Man (Phos) 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

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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, Pandora, 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.

MAN THE MIND

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:

FRAGMENT XXVII.

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

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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

THE COUNTERFEIT DAIMON

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

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[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.”

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HIS ADVICE TO THEOSEBEIA

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,

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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 Pśmandres’ 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.