The Ineffable Bythos.“
(Hymn III)
The ineffability of divine names was an old idea in Egypt, especially in the Osirian religion, where it forms the base of the story of Ra and Isis. So the name of Osiris himself was said to be ineffable. See Eug. Lefébure in Sphinx, Stockholm, vol. I. pp. 99-102. The name of Marduk of Babylon is in the same way declared ineffable in an inscription of Neriglissar, Trans. Roy. Soc. Litt. 2nd series, vol. VIII. p. 276. The name of Yahweh became ineffable directly after Alexander. See Halévy, Revue des Études juives, t. ix. (1884), p. 172. In every case, the magical idea that the god might be compelled by utterance of his secret name seems to be at the root of the practice. Cf. Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, Eng. ed. p. 354.
[133]. The whole account of Ophite doctrine as to the origin of things is here taken from Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 28, pp. 226 sqq., Harvey.
[134]. Genesis i. 8.
[135]. Philo explains that there is a vast difference between man as now made and the first man who was made according to the image of God, De opificio mundi, c. 46. This idea of an archetypal man was widely spread over Eastern Europe and Asia, and Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, Göttingen, 1907, Kap. IV., “Der Urmensch,” has collected all or nearly all the references to it in the literature of the period that could be produced up to that date. As to its origin, the issue is still very doubtful. While we should naturally expect to find it in the Babylonian legends, the Tablets of Creation contain no certain allusion to it, while it is certainly to be traced in the Zend Avesta and its related books. Until we are able to compare the dates of these two sources it seems idle to speculate as to which is the original one and which the derived. But see Introduction (pp. lxi-lxiii and note on last page quoted) supra.
[136]. This is a less primitive and therefore probably later way of accounting for the birth of one spiritual or superhuman being from another, than that of Simon Magus who made his Supreme Being androgyne.
[137]. Theocritus, Idyll, II. l. 34. For the identity of Hades and Dionysos see Chapter II. vol. I. supra.
[138]. Pausanias, Descpt. Graec. Bk VIII. cc. 17, 20; Arnobius, adv. Gentes, Bk V. cc. 5, 7. Cf. Decharme in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dict. des Antiq. s.v. Cybele.
[139]. See Chapter II. vol. I. supra.