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INITIATION IN THE HERMETICA
clean anyone but defiles people, and makes them like a child for the devil.
As can be seen, we find the motif of regeneration in Cyprian’s text too; while
to his mind, the baptism of the heretics means a rebirth in a contrary sense:
Although there cannot be another baptism than the one, they think that they
baptize; although the fountain of life has been deserted, they promise the grace
of the life-giving and saving water. There men are not washed but rather are
made foul, nor are their sins purged but on the contrary piled high. That nativity
generates sons not for God but for the devil. Being born through a lie they do not
obtain the promises of truth; begotten of perfidy they lose the grace of faith. They
cannot arrive at the reward of peace who have broken the peace of the Lord by
the madness of discord.*°
We can rely on Rudolph’s thesis here, who asserts that the water rite has two
aspects: first, it has a cleansing character, but second, it expresses the idea
of an initiation into the mysteries of Gnostic wisdom. This interpretation
supports the straight connection between the conception of living water and
baptism in the mind as it stands in the Hermetic text. Hence, we can conclude
that the writer of CH IV spiritually reinterprets an originally empirical
initiation ritual. We have to emphasize that in the case of this Hermetic
text, the interpretation of baptism is parallel with that of the Gnostics, who
interpreted it as a spiritual act leading to rebirth or to immortalization, not
only as a psychic cleansing ritual. This means that the aim of baptism was not
only to wash away sins but to guide towards a new, immortal life.
In light of these considerations, it seems legitimate to assert that in
CH IV, there is a clear reference not only to baptism but also to the spiritual
interpretation of a water rite. The essence of the ritual is the same as in
the case of the spiritual immersion in the nous: by means of both kinds of
immersion, one gains immortality. The souls immersing in the cratér filled
with nous will be immortal in the same way, so it is evident that living water
is replaced by nous in the Hermetic text.
30 De ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate, 11: Quando aliud baptisma praeter unum esse non possit,
baptizare se opinantur: vitae fonte deserto vitalis et salutaris aquae gratiam pollicentur.
Non abluuntur illic homines sed potius sordidantur, nec purgantur delicta sed immo
cumulantur. Non Deo nativitas illa sed diabolo filos generat. Per mendacium nati veritatis
promissa non capiunt: de perfidia procreati fidei gratiam perdunt. (English translation by
Roy J. Deferrari, in Saint Cyprian, Treatises, New York, Fathers of the Church, 1958). Cf.
Theodor Damian, The Theology of St. Cyprian of Carthage: The Unity of the Church and
the Role of the Bishop, in Fevronia K. Soumakis (ed.), Power and Authority in the Eastern
Christian Experience: Papers of the Sophia Institute Academic Conference, New York,
Theotokos Press, 2010, 90-102; Rex Butler, Sacramentum: Baptismal Practice & Theology
Of Tertullian & Cyprian, The Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry, 6/1 (2009), 8-24.
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