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Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Volume I: Prolegomena

G. R. S. Mead · tr. G. R. S. Mead · 1906 · 110,541 words

Mead’s introduction to the Hermetic tradition: Thoth the Master of Wisdom, the Greek magic papyri, the Naassene Document and the myth of Man, Philo, Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris in full, the Aeon-doctrine, the seven zones and the disciples of Hermes.

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Opening

I. The Remains of the Trismegistic Literature

Writer and Reader

Little did I think when, years ago, I began to translate some of the Trismegistic tractates, that the undertaking would finally grow into these volumes. My sole object then was to render the more important of these beautiful theosophic treatises into an English that might, perhaps, be thought in some small way worthy of the Greek originals. I was then more attracted by the sermons themselves than by the manifold problems to which they gave rise; I found greater pleasure in the spiritual atmosphere they created, than in the critical considerations which insistently imposed themselves upon my mind, as I strove to realise their importance for the history of the development of religious ideas in the Western world.

And now, too, when I take pen in hand to grapple with the difficulties of “introduction” for those who will be good enough to follow my all-insufficient labours, it is to the tractates themselves that I turn again and again for refreshment in the task; and every time I turn to them I am persuaded that the best of them are worthy of all the labour a man can bestow upon them.

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Contents

  1. Preface
  2. I. The Remains of the Trismegistic Literature
  3. II. The History of the Evolution of Opinion
  4. III. Thoth the Master of Wisdom
  5. IV. The Popular Theurgic Hermes-Cult in the Greek Magic Papyri
  6. V. The Main Source of the Trismegistic Literature According to Manetho, High Priest of Egypt
  7. VI. An Egyptian Prototype of the Main Features of the Pœmandres’ Cosmogony
  8. VII. The Gnostic Tradition
  9. VII. The “Philosophumena” of Hippolytus
  10. VII. The Naassenes
  11. VII. Analysis of Hippolytus’ Account of the Naassene Document
  12. VII. Hippolytus’ Introduction
  13. VII. The Material for the Recovery of the Original Hellenistic Document
  14. VII. Hippolytus’ Conclusion
  15. VII. Conclusion of Analysis
  16. VII. The Hellenist Commentator
  17. VII. The Jewish and Christian Overwriters
  18. VII. Zosimus and the Anthropos-Doctrine
  19. VII. Philo of Alexandria on the Man-Doctrine
  20. VIII. Concerning Philo and his Method
  21. VIII. The Great Importance of his Writings
  22. VIII. Concerning the Mysteries
  23. VIII. Concerning the Sacred Marriage
  24. VIII. Concerning the Logos
  25. VIII. The Son of God
  26. VIII. The True High Priest
  27. VIII. The Elder and Younger Sons of God
  28. VIII. Yet God Is One
  29. VIII. The Logos Is Life and Light
  30. VIII. The Divine Vision
  31. VIII. The Sons of God on Earth
  32. VIII. The City of God
  33. VIII. God’s Shadow
  34. VIII. The True Shepherd
  35. VIII. The Apostles of God
  36. VIII. The Ladder of the “Words”
  37. VIII. The Logos the Spiritual Sun
  38. VIII. The Disciples of the Logos
  39. VIII. The River of the Divine Reason
  40. VIII. Jerusalem Above
  41. VIII. The Logos Is as Manna and Coriander Seed
  42. VIII. The Logos Is the Pupil of God’s Eye
  43. VIII. “Man Shall Not Live by Bread Alone”
  44. VIII. The Logos-Mediator
  45. VIII. The Yoga of Plotinus
  46. VIII. The Race of God
  47. IX. Foreword
  48. IX. Address to Klea concerning Gnosis and the Search for Truth
  49. IX. The Art of Knowing and of Divinising
  50. IX. The True Initiates of Isis
  51. IX. Why the Priests Are Shaven and Wear Linen
  52. IX. Of the Refraining from Flesh and Salt and Superfluities
  53. IX. On the Drinking of Wine
  54. IX. On Fish Taboos
  55. IX. The Onion and Pig Taboos
  56. IX. The Kings, the Riddles of the Priests, and the Meaning of Amoun
  57. IX. Of the Greek Disciples of Egyptians and of Pythagoras and his Symbols
  58. IX. Advice to Klea concerning the Hidden Meaning of the Myths
  59. IX. The Mystery-Myth
  60. IX. The Under-Meaning a Reflexion of a Certain Reason
  61. IX. Concerning the Tombs of Osiris
  62. IX. Concerning the Theory of Evemerus
  63. IX. The Theory of the Daimones
  64. IX. Concerning Sarapis
  65. IX. Concerning Typhon
  66. IX. The Theory of the Physicists
  67. IX. Concerning Osiris and Dionysus
  68. IX. The Theory of the Physicists Resumed
  69. IX. The Theory of the Mathematici
  70. IX. The Theory of the Dualists
  71. IX. The Proper Reason According to Plutarch
  72. IX. The Symbolism of the Sistrum
  73. IX. The True “Logos,” Again, According to Plutarch
  74. IX. Against the Weather and Vegetation God Theories
  75. IX. Concerning the Worship of Animals, and Totemism
  76. IX. Concerning the Sacred Robes
  77. IX. Concerning Incense
  78. IX. Afterword
  79. X. “Hermas” and “Hermes”
  80. XI. Concerning the Æon-Doctrine
  81. XII. The Seven Zones and their Characteristics
  82. XIII. Plato: concerning Metempsychosis
  83. XIV. The Vision of Er
  84. XV. Concerning the Crater or Cup
  85. XVI. The Disciples of Thrice-Greatest Hermes

About this edition

Source: Internet Sacred Text Archive · archive.org

Public domain: Public domain: published 1906; Mead died 1933.

What’s included: The whole of volume I: preface and all sixteen chapters of the Prolegomena, including Mead’s complete translation of Plutarch’s Concerning the Mysteries of Isis and Osiris. Footnotes are not included. Mead’s translations of the Corpus Hermeticum (volume II) are already in the Library as a separate book.

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