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The origin of the symbol to be sought in Orphic tradition
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THE ORIGIN OF THE SYMBOL TO BE SOUGHT IN ORPHIC TRADITION
With the above data before us, I think we may be persuaded without difficulty that the idea of the Cup, or Mixing-Bowl, did not owe its origin to any invention of Plato’s, but that the greatest of philosophers, when he makes use of the symbol, does but employ a familiar image well known to his audience—as, indeed, is very apparent in the summary fashion in which he introduces the figure. In other words, the symbol or image was a commonplace of the Orphic tradition, and doubtless, therefore, familiar to every Pythagorean.
Now, in our treatise it is noticeable that this Cup-symbol is equated with the Monad 1 or Oneness—a technical Pythagorean term.
Footnotes
451: 1 π ε λ ώ ρ ι ο ν χ ά σ μ α (Simplicius, Ausc., iv. 123); magna vorago (Syrianus, Metaph., ii. 33a). Cf. Prolegg. ch. xi., “The Orphic Tradition of the Genesis of the World-Egg. ”
451: 2 Comment. in Tim., ii. 117. See my Orpheus, p. 154.
451: 3 Gnosticè, “the superfluity of naughtiness. ”
452: 1 Comment, in Som. Scip., XI. ii. 66.
452: 2 Comment. in Tim., v. 316 (Taylor’s trans. ).
452: 3 Taylor (T. ), Theology of Plato, V. xxxi.
453: 1 De Sera Numinis Vindicta, xxii. (ed. Bernardakis, iii. 454-466).
453: 2 Were the Bacchic Mysteries then celebrated in caves?
453: 3 This is clearly in correspondence with the “Astral Crater of Father Liber” of Macrobius.
454: 1 His “mother, ” from the under-world; referring to the mysteries of generation and the indestructibility of life. Semele in giving birth to Dionysus the Son of Zeus (the Creative Power), is said to have been killed by the Power of her Lord, but she was subsequently restored to life among the Gods by the Power of her Son. In reincarnating, it is said that part of the soul in giving birth to itself in this state “dies. ” The “child” then born may, in his turn, in the case of one perfect, become the saviour of his “mother, ” now become his spouse, and raise her, who is also himself, to a higher state.
454: 2 Compare Pistis Sophia (336, 337), which tells us how certain kā rmic agencies “give unto the old soul [prior to reincarnation] a Draught of Oblivion composed of the Seed of Iniquity, filled with all manner of desire and all forgetfulness. And the moment that that soul drinketh of that Draught, it forgetteth all the spaces [or regions] through which it hath travelled, and all the chastisements through which it hath passed; and that deadly Draught of Oblivion becometh a body external to the soul, like unto the soul in every way, and its perfect resemblance, and hence they call it the ‘counterfeit spirit. ’”
But in the case of the purified soul it is different; for a higher power “bringeth a Cup full of intuition and wisdom, and also prudence, and giveth it to the soul, and casteth the soul into a body which will not be able to fall asleep or forget, because of the Cup of Prudence which hath been given unto it, but will be ever pure in heart and seeking after the Mysteries of Light, until it hath found them, by order of the Virgin of Light, in order that [that soul] may inherit the Light for ever. ” (Ibid., 392, “Books of the Saviour. ”)
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454: 3 Compare the “Moist Essence” of C. H., i. 4, and iii. (iv. ) 1.
455: 1 κ ρ α τ ή ρ —bowl or basin.
456: 1 It is of interest to notice that one of the apocryphal Books of Moses was called The Monad, and another The Key; this argues an early date and wide renown for our two treatises so entitled. See R. 182, n. 3.
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XVI
THE DISCIPLES OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
PTAḤ, SEKHET AND I-EM-Ḥ ETEP (ASCLEPIUS)
Budge, in his Gods of the Egyptians (vol. i. ch. xvi. ), tells us that the Great Triad of Memphis consisted of Ptaḥ, Sekhet, and I-em-ḥ etep.
Ptaḥ, as we have seen, was the “Sculptor or Engraver, ” the Demiurge par excellence. He is called the “Very Great God who came into being in the earliest time”; “Father of fathers, Power of powers”; “Father of beginnings and Creator of the Egg[s] of the Sun and Moon”; “Lord of Maā t [Truth], King of the Two Lands, the God of the Beautiful Face. . . who created His own Image, who fashioned His own Body, who hath established Maā t throughout the Two Lands”; “Ptaḥ the Disk of Heaven, Illuminer of the Two Lands with the Fire of His Two Eyes. ” The “Workshop of Ptaḥ ” was the World Invisible.
It was Ptaḥ who carried out the commands concerning the creation of the universe issued by Thoth.
The Syzygy or female counterpart of Ptaḥ was Sekhet, “who was at once his sister and wife, and the mother of his son Nefer-Tem, and a sister-form of the Goddess Bast” (op. cit., i. 514). She is called: “Greatly Beloved One of Ptaḥ, Lady of Heaven, Mistress of the Two Lands”; and one of her commonest names is “Nesert, ” that is “Flame. ”
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It was Thoth (Ṭ ekh) who, with his Seven Wise Ones, planned the world (ib., 516). But if Ptaḥ is the executive power of Thoth and his Seven Wise Ones, so is Thoth the personification of the Intelligence of Ptaḥ. It is in this way that Sekhet becomes identified with Maā t, the inseparable spouse of Thoth.
NEFER-TEM
The third member of the Memphite Triad is Nefer-Tem, or the “Young Tem. ” In the Ritual (Ch. lxxxi., version B) we read the “apology”: “Hail, thou Lotus, thou type of the God Nefer-Tem! I am he who knoweth you, and I know your name among the Gods, the Lords of the Underworld, and I am one of you. ” Again, in Ch. clxxiv. 19, Nefer-Tem is compared with “the Lotus at the nostrils of Rā ”; also, in Ch. clxxviii. 36, Nefer-Tem has the same title.
In the later texts Nefer-Tem is identified with many Gods, all of them forms of Horus or Thoth (ib., 522).
Here we are in contact with the Ptaḥ -tradition of Memphis which, we have seen, played an important part in the heredity of the cosmogenesis of our “Pœ mandres” tractate. In it the simultaneous identification and distinction of Thoth and Ptaḥ and of Maā t and Sekhet are naturally explained, and the Son of these Powers is the Young Tem, identified with the Young Horus or Young Thoth who is to succeed his Father. Are we here on the track of the ancestry of our Tat?
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At Heliopolis (Ȧ nnu) the Ancient God Tem was equated with Rā. Tem was the Father-God, Lord of Heaven, and Begetter of the Gods (op. cit., i. 92, 93). Usertsen I. rebuilt the sanctuary of Heliopolis about
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[paragraph continues] 2433 B. C., and dedicated it to Rā in the two forms of Horus and Temu (ib., 330).
“Tem was the first living Man-God known to the Egyptians, just as Osiris was the first dead Man-God, and as such was always represented in human form and with a human head. . . .
“Tem was, in fact, to the Egyptians a manifestation of God in human form. . . . It is useless to attempt to assign a date to the period when the Egyptians began to worship God in human form, for we have no material for so doing; the worship of Tem must, however, be of very great antiquity, and the fact that the priests of Rā in the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties united him to their God under the name of Rā -Tem, proves that his worship was wide-spread, and that the God was thought to possess attributes similar to those of Rā ” (ib., 349, 350).
In the Trismegistic tradition in which Thoth holds the chief place, the Young Tem would thus represent the Young Thoth who succeeded to his Father when that Father ascended to the Gods.
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