“For earth, say the Greeks, was the first to give forth man, thus bearing a goodly gift. For she wished to be the mother not of plants without feeling and wild beasts without sense, but of a gentle and God-loving animal. But hard it is, he says, to discover whether Alalcomeneus of the Boeotians came forth upon the p. 143. Cephisian shore as the first of men, or whether (the first men) were the Idæan Curetes, a divine race, or the Phrygian Corybantes whom the Sun saw first shooting up like trees, or whether Arcadia brought forth Pelasgus earlier than the Moon, or Eleusis Diaulus dweller in the Rarian field, or Lemnos gave birth to Cabirus, fair child of ineffable orgies, or Pallene to Alcyon, eldest of the Giants. But the Libyans say Iarbas the first-born crept forth from the parched field to pluck Zeus’ sweet acorn. So also, he says that the Nile of the Egyptians, making fat the mud which unto this day begets life, gave forth living bodies made flesh with moist heat.”[17]
But the Assyrians say that fish-eating[18] Oannes (the first man) was born among them and the Chaldæans (say the same thing about) Adam; and they assert that he was the man whom the earth brought forth alone, and that he lay breathless, motionless (and) unmoved like unto a statue being the image of him on high who is praised in song as the man Adamas; but that he was produced by many p. 144. powers about whom in turn there is much talk.[19]
In order then that the Great Man[20] on high, from whom, as they say, “every fatherhood[21] named on earth and in the heavens” is framed, might be completely held fast, there was given to him also a soul, so that through the soul he might suffer, and that the enslaved “image of the great and most beautiful and Perfect Man”—for thus they call him—might be punished.[22] Wherefore again they ask what is the soul and of what kind is its nature that coming to the man and moving[23] him it should enslave and punish the image of the Perfect Man. But they ask this, not from the Scriptures, but from the mystic rites. And they say that the soul is very hard to find and to comprehend, since it does not stay in the same shape or form, nor is it always in one and the same state, so that one might describe it by a type or comprehend it in substance.[24] But these various changes of the soul they hold to be set down in the Gospel inscribed to the Egyptians.
They doubt then, as do all other men of the nations, whether the soul is from the pre-existent, or from the self-begotten, p. 145. or from the poured-forth Chaos.[25] And first they betake themselves to the mysteries of the Assyrians[26] to understand the triple division of the Man; for the Assyrians were the first to think the soul tripartite and yet one. For every nature, they say, longs for the soul, but each in a different way. For soul is the cause of all things that are, and all things which are nourished and increase, he says, require soul. For nothing like nurture or increase, he says, can occur unless soul be present. And even the stones, he says, are animated,[27] for they have the power of increase, and no increase can come without nourishment. For by addition increase the things which increase and the addition is the nourishment of that which is nourished.[28] Therefore every nature he says, of things in heaven, and on earth, and below the earth, longs for a soul. But the Assyrians call such a thing[29] Adonis or Endymion or (Attis); and when it is invoked as Adonis Aphrodite loves and longs after the soul of such name. And Aphrodite is generation[30] according to them. But when Persephone or Core loves Adonis[31] there is a certain mortal soul separated from Aphrodite p. 146. (that is from generation).[32] And if Selene should come to desire of Endymion[33] and to love of his beauty, the nature of the sublime ones, he says, also requires soul. But if, he says, the Mother of the Gods castrate Attis,[34] and she holds this loved one, the blessed nature of the hypercosmic and eternal ones on high recalls to her, he says, the masculine power of the soul.[35] For, says he, the Man is masculo-feminine. According to this argument of theirs, then, the so-called[36] intercourse of woman with man is by (the teaching of) their school shown to be an utterly wicked and defiling thing. For Attis is castrated, he says, that is, he has changed over from the earthly parts of the lower creation to the eternal substance on high, where, he says, there is neither male nor female,[37] but a new creature,[38] a new Man, who is masculo-feminine. What they mean by “on high” I will show in its appropriate place when I come to it. But they say it bears witness to what they say that Rhea is not simply one (goddess) but, so to speak, the p. 147. whole creature.[39] And this they say is made quite clear by the saying:—“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made by Him, in truth, His eternal power and godhead, so that they are without excuse. Since when they knew Him as God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but foolishness deceived their hearts. For thinking themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likenesses of an image of corruptible man and of birds and of fourfooted and creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to passions of dishonour. For even their women changed their natural use to that which is against nature.”[40] And what the natural use is according to them, we shall see later. “Likewise, also the males leaving the natural use of the female burned in their lust one toward another males among males working unseemliness.”[41] But unseemliness is according to them the first and blessed and unformed substance which is the cause of all the forms of p. 148. things which are formed. “And receiving in themselves the recompense of their error which is meet.”[42] For in these words, which Paul has spoken, they say is comprised their whole secret and the ineffable mystery of the blessed pleasure. For the promise of baptism[43] is not anything else according to them than the leading to unfading pleasure him who is baptized according to them in living water and anointed with silent[44] ointment.
And they say that not only do the mysteries of the Assyrians bear witness to their saying, but also those of the Phrygians concerning the blessed nature, hitherto hidden and yet at the same time displayed, of those who were and are and shall be, which, he says, is the kingdom of the heavens sought for within man.[45] Concerning which nature they have explicitly made tradition in the Gospel inscribed according to Thomas,[46] saying thus: “Whoso seeks me shall find me in children from seven years (upwards). For there in the fourteenth year I who am hidden p. 149. am made manifest.” This, however, is the saying not of Christ but of Hippocrates, who says: “At seven years old, a boy is half a father.” Whence they who place the primordial nature of the universals in the primordial seed having heard the Hippocratian (adage) that a boy of seven years old is half a father, say that in fourteen years according to Thomas it will be manifest. This is their ineffable and mystical saying.[47]
They say then that the Egyptians, who are admitted to be the most ancient of all men after the Phrygians and the first at once to impart to all men the initiations and secret rites[48] of the gods, and to have proclaimed forms and activities, have the holy and august and for those who are not initiated unutterable mysteries of Isis. And these are nothing else than the pudendum of Osiris which was snatched away and sought for by her of the seven stoles and black p. 150. garments.[49] But they say Osiris is water. And the seven-stoled nature which has about it and is equipped with seven ethereal stoles—for thus they allegorically call the wandering stars—is like mutable generation[50] and shows that the creation is transformed by the Ineffable and Unportrayable[51] and Incomprehensible and Formless One. And this is what is said in the Scripture: “The just shall fall seven times and rise again.”[52] For these falls, he says, are the turnings about of the stars when moved by him who moves all things. They say, then, about the substance of the seed which is the cause of all things that are, that it belongs to none of these but begets and creates all things that are, speaking thus: “I become what I wish, and I am what I am; wherefore I say that it is the immoveable that moves all things. For it remains what it is, creating all things and nothing comes into being from begotten things.”[53] He says that this alone is good and that it is of this that the Saviour spoke when he said: “Why callest thou me good? There is one good, my Father who is in the heavens, Who makes the sun to rise upon the just and the unjust, and p. 151. rains upon the holy and the sinners.”[54] And who are the holy upon whom He rains and who the sinful we shall see with other things later on. And this is the great secret and the unknowable mystery concealed and revealed by the Egyptians. For Osiris, he says, is in the temple in front of Isis, whose pudendum stands exposed looking upwards from below, and wearing as a crown all its fruits of begotten things.[55] And they say not only does such a thing stand in the most holy temples, but is made known to all like a light not set under a bushel but placed on a candlestick making p. 152. its announcement on the housetops in all the streets and highways and near all dwellings being set before them as some limit and term.[56] For they call this the bringer of luck, not knowing what they say.
And this mystery the Greeks who have taken it over from the Egyptians keep unto this day. For we see, he says, the (images) of Hermes in such a form honoured among them. And they say that they especially honour Cyllenius the Eloquent. For Hermes is the Word who, being the interpreter and fashioner[57] of what has been, is, and will be, stands honoured among them carved into some such form which is the pudendum of a man straining from the things below to those on high. And that this—that is, such a Hermes—is, he says, a leader of souls and a sender forth of them, and a cause of souls, did not escape the poets of the nations who speak thus:—
“Cyllenian Hermes called forth the souls
Of the suitors.”—