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    The Hymns of Hermes: Echoes from the Gnosis (Premium Ebook)
    The Hymns of Hermes: Echoes from the Gnosis (Premium Ebook)
    The Hymns of Hermes: Echoes from the Gnosis (Premium Ebook)
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    The Hymns of Hermes: Echoes from the Gnosis (Premium Ebook)

    By G.R.S. Mead

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    ** Premium Ebook with beautiful layout **

    Thoth, as the inspirer of all sacred writings and the president of all priestly discipline, was, as Iamblichus tells us, a name which was held by the Egyptians to be "common to all priests"-that is to say, every priest as priest was a Thoth, because he showed forth in his sacred office some characteristic or other of the Great Priest or Master Hierophant among the Gods whose earthy name was Thoth Tehuti.

    Thoth was thus the Oversoul of all priests; and when some of the Greeks came to know better what the inner discipline of the true priestly mysteries connoted, they so felt the inadequacy of plain Hermes as a suitable equivalent for the Egyptian name which designated this great ideal, that they qualified 'Egyptian Hermes' with the honorific epithet 'Thrice-greatest.'

    It is of the Hymns of this Thrice-greatest Hermes that I shall treat in the present small volume hymns that were inspired by the still-living tradition of what was best in the wisdom of ancient Egypt, as 'philosophized' through minds trained in Greek thought, and set forth in the fair speech of golden-tongued Hellas.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFV Éditions
    Release dateFeb 27, 2021
    ISBN9791029911859
    The Hymns of Hermes: Echoes from the Gnosis (Premium Ebook)

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      Book preview

      The Hymns of Hermes - G.R.S. Mead

      The Hymns of Hermes

      The Hymns of Hermes

      Echoes from the Gnosis

      G.R.S Mead

      Contents

      THE SERVICE OF SONG

      A TRIPLE TRISAGION

      A HYMN TO ALL-FATHER GOD

      THE SECRET HYMNODY

      A HYMN OF GRACE FOR GNOSIS

      A SONG OF PRAISE TO THE AEON

      All textual references are to G. R. S. Mead's

      Thrice-Greatest Hermes, 3 vols,

      London, 1906.

      THE SERVICE OF SONG

      Clement of Alexandria tells us that the whole of the religious philosophy-that is, the wisdom, discipline and multifarious arts and sciences-of the Egyptian priesthood was contained in the Books of Hermes, that is of Thoth. These Books, he informs us further, were classified under forty-two heads and divided into a number of groups according to the various septs or divisions of the priests.

      In describing a certain sacred ceremonial-a procession of priests in their various orders-Clement tells us that it was headed by a representative of the order of Singers, who were distinguished by appropriate symbols of music, some of which were apparently carried in the hands and others embroidered on the robes.

      These Singers had to make themselves masters of, that is, learn by heart, two of the divisions of the Books of Hermes, namely, those which contained collections of Hymns in Honour of the Gods or God, and Encomia or Hymns in Praise of the Kings (iii, 222).

      Many specimens of similar hymns in praise of the Gods are preserved to us in Egyptian inscriptions and papyri, and some of them are most noble outpourings of the soul in praise of the majesty and transcendency of the Supreme, in terms that may be not unfavorably compared with similar praise giving in other great scriptures. But, alas! the hymnbooks of Thoth, to which Clement refers, are lost to us. He may, of course, have been mistaken in so definitely designating them, just as he was indubitably mistaken in thinking that they were collections of hymns composed by a single individual, Hermes.

      The grandiose conception of Thoth as the inspirer of all sacred writings and the teacher of all religion and philosophy was Egyptian and not Greek; and it was but a sorry equivalent that the Greeks could find in their own pantheon when, in the change of God-names, they were forced to 'translate' Thoth by Hermes.

      Thoth, as the inspirer of all sacred writings and the president of all priestly discipline, was, as Iamblichus tells us, a name which was held by the Egyptians to be common to all priests-that is to say, every priest as priest was a Thoth, because he showed forth in his sacred office some characteristic or other of the Great Priest or Master Hierophant among the Gods whose earthy name was Thoth Tehuti.

      Thoth was thus the Oversoul of all priests; and when some of the Greeks came to know better what the inner discipline of the true priestly mysteries connoted, they so felt the inadequacy of plain Hermes as a suitable equivalent for the Egyptian name which designated this great ideal, that they qualified 'Egyptian Hermes' with the honorific epithet 'Thrice-greatest.'

      It is of the Hymns of this Thrice-greatest Hermes that I shall treat in the present small volume hymns that were inspired by the still-living tradition of what was best in the wisdom of ancient Egypt, as 'philosophized' through minds trained in Greek thought, and set forth in the fair speech of golden-tongued Hellas.

      But here again, unfortunately, we have no collection of such hymns preserved to us; and all we can do

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