C. For from water alone — ^that is, spirit — is begotten the

qyiritaal [manl not the fleshly; the lower [man] is fleshly. That ia (H. he says) what is written : " That which is bom of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is ipiritw"*
H. This is their * spiritual birth.
J. This (H. he says) is the Great Jordan, which, flowing downwards and preventing the sons of Israel
> Cf. n^ xiv. 201, 246 ; Hymn, Orph., Ixxxiii. 2. « Pb. Ixxxii. 6.
* Cf, Gal. iv. 27 : " But Jerusalem Above is free, which is our Mother." (W. and H. text.)
* The final quotation within the quotation is also from Ps IxxxiL 6. Here, then, we have a quotation from a scripture (" what ii written "), glossed by J. with his special exegesis, but already being an exegesis of an Old Testament logos. It is not only a kalaehay to use a term of Talmudic Rabbinism^ but it is an authoritatiye apocalypse of the Jewish Qnosia
^ John iii. 6.
* 8e. the Naassenea, according to H.
164 THRICS-GREATBST HSRMS8
from going forth out of Egypt, or from the interconrBe
below —
H. — for Egypt ifl the body, aooording to them —
J. — waa turned back by Jeeus * and made to flow
upwards.
H. Following after theae and such like [foUiee], these mort wonderful ** Qnostics,*' diseovererB of a new grammatical art, imagine that their prophet Homer showed forth these things arcanely ; and, introducing those who are not initiated into the Sacred Scriptures into such notions, they make a mock of them.
And they say that he who says that all things are from One, is in error, [but] he who says they are from Three is rig^it, and will furnish proof of the first principles [of things].*
J. For one (H. he says) is the Blessed Nature of the Blessed Man Above, Adamas; and one is the [Nature] Below, which is subject to Death ; and one is the Race without a king' which is born Above — where (H. he says) is Mariam the sought-for, and Jothor the great sage, and Sepphora the seeing, and Moses whose b^etting is not in Egypt — for sons were born to him in Madiam.^
S. And this (H. he says) also did not escape the notice of the poets:
^ I am persuaded that this stood originally in J., and not in C. — being LXX. for Joshua.
* This paragraph summarises S. See next S.
3 iifivikwTot — that is, presumably, those who have learned to rule themselves, the " self-taught " race, etc., of Philo.
* Eusebius (Prop. Evang.^ IX. xxviil and xxix. 5 fil ; ed. Dind. i. &05 ft and 508 ff.), quoting from Alexander Cornelius (Poly- historX who flourished about 100 aa, has preserved to us a nimiber of verses from a tragedy (called TKe Leading Forth) on the subject of Moses and the Ebcodus story, by a certain Ezechiel, a (9 Alexandrian) Hebrew poet writing in Qreek. In these fragments of Elzechiel's tragedy, Mariam, Sepphora, and Jothor are all dramatit penoruB. These spellings and that of Madiam are, of course, all LXX. (that Ls, Oreek Targum) forma of our A.V. Miriam, Jethro, Zipporah, and Midian.
THE MYTH OP MAN IN THE MYSTERIES 165
" All things were threefold divided, and each received his share of honour." ^
G. For the Qreatneflses (H. he says) needs must be spoken, but so spoken by all everywhere ** that hearing they may not hear, and seeing they may not see." *
J, For unless (H. he says) the Greatnesses' were spoken, the cosmos would not be able to hold together. These are the Three More-than-mighty Words (Logoi) : Eaulakau, Saulasau, Zeesar; — Eaulahau, the [Logos] Above, Adamas ; Saulasau, the [Logos] Below ; Zeesar, the Jordan flpwing upwarda*
(17 0 S. He (H. he says) is the male-female Man
1 n., XV. 189.
* Cf. Luke viii. 10. Luke seems to preserve the reading of the source more correctly than Matt xiii. 13 or Mark iv. 12. The Saying looks back to Is. vi. d.
» (y. § 30 J.
* These three names are based on the Hebrew text of Is. xxviii. 13, AV. : •* But the Wori of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon Une ; here a little, there a little." LXX. : " Koi ^
/iLcfoir." That is : '* And the logion [oracle, the Urim-and- Thummim, or instrument of the Logos, according to Philo] of Gkxl shall be to them tribulation on tribulation, hope on hope, still little still little.'' See Epiphanius, Hcer., xxv. 4. *^SaAd(uaMk aa«i2ciiatf"ss^ tribulation on tribulation, tribulation on tribula- tion;" *^katUakau A»uZa^tt"="hope on hope, hope on hope;" ** wti9ar [zeetar] " « '' still little still little "—that is, the '' Height of Hope," the " Depth of Tribulation," and the « As yet Very Little "— evidently referring to the as yet small number of the Regenerate. Qf. Pidii Sophia, 354 : '* One out of a thousand, and two out of ten thousand." See Salmon's article, '* Caulacau," in Smith and Waoe's D, of Ch. Biog., i. 424 f. It is also to be noticed that Epiphanius ascribes the origin of these names to the NicoMtans. In Hebrew the corresponding name would be Balaamites; and Balaam or Bileam (Nico-laus) was one of the Rabbinical by-names for Jeschu (Jeeus). See D. J, L., p. 188. ^ This and the following paragraph seem to have been mis-
166 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
in all, whom the ignorant call three-bodied Geryonee — Earth-flow-er, as though flowing from the earth; ^ while the Greek [tJieologi] generally call Him the '' Heavenly Horn of Men,"' because He has mixed and mingled' all things with alL