A document of paramount historical importance, not only in terms of Christianity but also with respect to the development of Western religion. It chronicles the teachings of Jesus, who explains life's mysteries to his disciples and Mary Magdalene. Their discussions take place after Christ's resurrection and include accounts of his ascension into heaven.

These marvelous narratives may seem vastly fantastic to the modern mind, but to every shade of Christianity in those days, they were entirely credible.-from The Hymn of JesusLost words of Jesus? One of the greatest thinkers on the origins of Christianity and a renowned expert on Gnostic and Hermetic literature presents, in this snug volume first published in 1907, the lost teachings of Jesus. Not found in the canonical Gospels and, indeed, frequently dismissed as blasphemous or heretical or "reworked" by later editors to comply with perceived tradition, this beautiful hymn is not just of interest to Christian mystics but to anyone who values wise words well spoken.Also available from Cosimo Classics: Mead's The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition and Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?British scholar and philosopher GEORGE ROBERT STOW MEAD (1863-1933) was educated at Cambridge University. He served as editor of The Theosophical Society's Theosophical Review, and later formed The Quest Society and edited its journal, The Quest Review. He is also the author of Notes on Nirvana (1893) and an 1896 translation of The Upanishads.

Volume one of a three volume set. (This description is for all volumes.) Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis Being a Transaction of the Extant Sermons and Fragments of the Trismegistic Literature with Prolegomena, Commentaries, and Notes; All three volumes are combined into one book. "These volumes might be described as the preparation of materials to serve for the historic, mythic, and mystic consideration of the Origins of Christianity. The serious consideration of the matter contained in these pages will, enable the attentive reader to outline in his mind, however vaguely, some small portion of the environment of infant Christianity, and allow him to move a few steps round the cradle of Christendom." Partial Contents: Vol. 1: Remains of the Trismegistic Literature; History of the Evolution of Opinion; Thoth the Master of Wisdom; Popular Theurgic Hermes-Cult; Main Source of the Trismegistic Literature; An Egyptian Prototype of the Main Features of the Poemandres'' Cosmogony; Myth of Man in the Mysteries; Philo of Alexandria; Plutarch: Concerning the Mysteries of Isis and Osiris; "Hermas" and "Hermes"; Concerning the Fon-Doctrine; Seven Zones and their Characteristics; Plato: Concerning Metempsychosis; Disciples of Thrice-Greatest Hermes. Vol. 2: Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men; General Sermon; Sacred Sermon; Cup or Monad; In God Alone is Good; Greatest Ill Among Men is Ignorance of God; But Men in Error Speak of Their Changes as Destructions and as Deaths; On Thought and Sense; The Key; Mind Unto Hermes; About the Common Mind; Secret Sermon on the Mountain. Vol. 3: Excerpts by Stobfus; Of Piety and True Philosophy; Ineffability of God; Of Truth; God, Nature and the Gods; OfMatter and Time; Energy and Feeling; Justice; Providence and Fate; Of Soul; Power of Choice; Of Isis to Horus; From "Aphrodite"; References and Fragments in the Fathers; Justin Martyr; Clement of Alexandria; Tertullian; Cyprian; Augustine; Cyril of Alexandria; References and Fr