Page 23 [23]
INITIATION IN THE HERMETICA
The reference to the mixing bowl is a reference to the ritual of baptism.
In the quoted passages of the Hermetic text, the ritual is spiritualized; this
process means that the life-giving divine mind plays the same role as the life¬
giving water in the cultic ritual.
Certain Gnostic texts also offer evidence indicating that “material” cultic
acts were spiritualized or interpreted symbolically. As K. Rudolph points out,
“sometimes it is very difficult to ascertain whether in the utilization of cultic
concepts—like, for instance, ‘living water’—we have to do with a rhetorical
figure for the gift of Gnosis or enlightenment, or with a covert allusion to
a water rite, which the sect practiced.”?! In the Christian tradition, we can
find some clear evidence of the spiritual interpretation of baptism or washing
in water, and there are some features in this interpretation which suggest that
washing was a core element in the teaching of some Christian sects.?? In what
follows, I will present two parallel descriptions of the spiritualization process
of baptism that are very similar to the Hermetic descriptions of the ritual.
I will show that in some early Christian texts, baptism plays a role similar to
the role of the symbolic baptism in the divine mind in Hermetica, and this
parallelism will, I hope, shed light on some aspects of the Hermetic mysteries.
As we shall see, in this context the ritual of baptism means the initiation into
a new life, while the ritual itself has a double character: it cleans the initiated
person, and at the same time, it is the principle of a new, eternal life.”
3.2. The Spiritualization™ of Baptism in Early Christian Texts
According to Hippolytus, the Naasseni held that their teachings went back
to Paul’s doctrines. Hippolytus cites Paul’s Letter to the Romans 1, 20-27
as a starting point for the teaching of the Naasseni about the impurity of
mankind. He then adds:
For in these words which Paul has spoken they say the entire secret of theirs, and
a hidden mystery of blessed pleasure, are comprised. For the promise of washing is
not any other, according to them, than the introduction of him that is washed in,
according to them, life-giving water, and anointed with ineffable ointment (than
his introduction) into unfading bliss.”
?! Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis, Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1987, 220.
2 About the possible connections between the Hermetica and early Christian literature, see
W. C. Grese, Corpus Hermeticum Thirteen and Early Christian literature, Leiden, Brill,
1979, 44-47.
Cf. Giovanni Filoramo: Baptismal Nudity as a Means of Ritual Purification in Ancient
Christianity, in Jan Assmann — Guy G. Strousma (eds.), Transformations of the Inner Self in
Ancient Religions, Leiden, Brill, 1999 393-404; Rudolph, Gnosis, 227.
4 Cf. Rudolph, Gnosis, 220.
35 Philosophumena V, 7, 19.
23
9 2] e
Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 21 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:10