C. This [Point] (H. he says) is the Kingdom of the Heavens,

the '^ grain of mustard seed," ' the partless point, the first existing for the body ; which qo one (H. he says) knows save the spiritual [men] alone.
J. This (H. he says) is what is said : "They are neither words nor languages whereby their * sounds are heard." *
H. These things, [then,] which are said and done by all men, they thus interpret off-hand to their peculiar theory (vow)^ pre- tending that they are all done with a spiritual meaning.
For which cause also they^ say that the performers in the theatres — they, too, neither say nor do anything without Design.*
S. For example (H. he says), when the people assemble in the theatres, and a man comes on the stage, clad in a robe different from all others, with lute ^ in hand on which he plays, and thus chants the Great Mysteries, not knowing what he says : ^
" Whether blest Child of Kronos, or of Zeus, or of Great Bhea, — Hail, Attis, thou mournful song* of Shea I
» cy.§l6J.
s Cf. Matt. xiii. 31»Mark iv. 30-Luke xiii. 18. ' Sc the Heavens of the Psalm, that is, the iEons and tJie rest above.
* Ps. xviii. 3.
* The Naassenes, in H.'s view.
* hrporoitrmt,
7 KiBdpatf — the ancient cithara was triangular in shape and had seven strings.
* The text of the following Ode has been reconstructed by Wilamowitz in Hermes, xxxviL 328 ; our translation is from his reconstruction.
* jUoufr/*a — a hearing, an instruction, leison, discourse, sermon, applied to the public lectures of Pythagoras (Jamb., V, P., 174). It means also a song or even a ''singer,'' a ''burd." ''Their gingers {iucoltrfiara) are thus called ' bards'" (Posid. ap. Athen., vL 49). The Hearers (ol LcoufffiarucoC) were the Probationers in the
186 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
Assyrians call thee thrice-longed-for Adonis ; all Egypt [calls thee] Osiris ; the Wisdom of Hellas [names thee] Men's Heavenly Horn ; the Samothracians [call thee] august Adama; the Hsemonians, Eorybas; the Phrygians [name thee] Papa sometimes, at times again Dead, or Grod,^ or Unfruitful, or Aipolos, or Green Seaped^ Wheat-ear, or the Fruitful that Amygdalos brought forth, Man, Piper . . . Attis!"
H. He [S.] says that thifl is the AttU of many fonnB of whom they [NN., in BJb opinion] sing as follows :
S. " Of Attis will I sing, of Ehea's [BelovM] ;— not with the boomings * of bells, nor with the deep-toned ^ pipe of Idsean Euretes ; but I will blend my song with Phoebus' music of the lyre. Evoi! Evan! — for [thou art] Pan, [thou] Bacchus [art], and Shepherd of bright stars!"
HippoLYTUS* Conclusion
H. For these and suchlike reasons these [Naassenes] frequent what are called the Mysteries of the Qreat Mother, believing that they obtain the clearest view of the Universal Mystery from the thJTigH done in them.
For they have nothing beyond the [mysteries] therein enacted except that they are not emasculated. Their sole ''accomplish- ment^" [however,] is the business of the Eunuch, for they most severely and vigilantly enjoin to abstain, as though emasculated, from intercourse with women. And the rest of their business, as we have stated at length, they carry out just like the Eunuchs.
School of Pythagoras (see s.w, in Sophocles' Lex,). Schneidewin and Cruice adopt Hermann's " emendation," iKpur/ia (mutilation^ but I prefer the reading of the God ex, as referring to the '' mournful piper,'' or Logos, in the flowing " discord " of Rhea or Chaos, and therefore the " song " that Rhea is beginning to sing as she changes from Chaos to Cosmos.
1 Perhaps Quick, for 0*6s is from Bd-up, ''to run," to imitate the word-play of our mystics.
« Or cut » fi6fi»9i$. * Lit, " bellower."
THE MYTH OF MAN IN THE MYSTERIES 187
And they honour nothing else bat '^Naas,"* being called Naaaseni. And Naas is the Serpent—
J.> — from whom (H. he says) are all tibose [things] called naovs^ under heaven, from naas.
To that Naas alone every shrine and every rite of initiation and every mystery (H. he says) is dedicated ; and» in general, no initiation can be found under heaven in which a naos does not play a part, and [also] the Naas in it, from which it has got the name of naos.
(H. Moreover, they say that) the Serpent is the Moist Essence —
H. — juflt as [did] also Thales the Milesian * —
J. — and (H. that) naught at all of existing things, immortal or mortal, animate or inanimate, can hold together without Him.
[And they say] (H. that) all things are subject to Him, and (H. that) He is Good, and has all things in Him as in " the horn of the one-horned bull " ; ^ so that He distributes beauty and bloom to all that exist according to each one's nature and peculiarity, as though permeating all, just as [the Biver] *' proceeding forth out of Eden and dividing itself into four sources."®
H. And they say that Eden is His Brain, as though it were bound and constricted in its surrounding vestures like heavens ; while Paradise they consider to be the Man as far as His Head only.
This Eiver, then, coming forth out of Eden (H. that is, from His Brain), is divided into four streams.
1 The Hebrew Nahash^ as we have already seen.
' There being more of J. than of H. in this, I have printed it aa J. though it is a defaced J. I am also persuaded that in what follows we have a quotation from a '* Simonian " document by J. rather than J. himself.
' That is, temples.
* Who derived all things symbolically from " Water."
» qf. Deut. xxxiii. 17. • Cf.Qen.iL 10 (LXX.).
188 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
And the name of the first river is called Pheiaon. " Thifi is that which encircles all the land of Evilat, there where is the gold» and the gold of that land is fair ; there too is the ruby and the green stone." ^
This (H. he says) is His Eye — by its dignity and colours bearing witness to what is said.
The name of the second river is Gredn. *' This is that which encircles all the land of i£thiopia." >
This (H. he says) is [His organ of] Hearing ; for it is labyrinth-like.
And the name of the third is Tigris. '' This is that which flows the opposite way to the Assyrians." *
This (H. he says) is [His organ of] Smell, for the current of it is very rapid ; and it " flows the opposite way to the Assyrians," because after the breath is breathed out, on breathing in again, the breath that is drawn in from without, from the air, comes in more rapidly, and with greater force. For this (H. he says) is the nature of respiration.
** And the fourth river [is] Euphrates." *
This (H. they say) [is] the mouth, through which by the utterance of prayer and entrance of food, the (? C. — spiritual, perfect) man is rejoiced, and nourished and expressed.^
This [Eiver] (H. he says) is the Water above the Firmament^