{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th205.htm","path":"gno/th2/th205.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th205.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n(Text: P. 19-30; Pat. 18b-20.)\n* * * * *\n1. Hermes. 1 All that is moved, Asclepius, is it not moved in something and by something?\nAsclepius. Assuredly.\nHer. And must not that in which it\u2019s moved be greater than the moved?\nAsc. It must.\nHer. Mover, again, has greater power than moved?\nAsc. It has, of course.\nHer. The nature, furthermore, of that in which it\u2019s moved must be quite other from the nature of the moved?\nAsc. It must completely.\n2. Her. Is not, again, this cosmos vast, [so vast] that than it there exists no body greater?\nAsc. Assuredly.\nHer. And massive too, for it is crammed with multitudes of other mighty frames, nay rather all the other bodies that there are?\nAsc. It is.\nHer. And yet the cosmos is a body?\nAsc. It is a body.\nHer. And one that\u2019s moved?\n3. Asc. Assuredly.\nHer. Of what size, then, must be the space in which it\u2019s moved; and of what kind [must be] the nature [of that space]? Must it not be far vaster [than the cosmos], in order that it may be able to find room for its continued course, so that the moved may not be cramped for want of room and lose its motion?\nAsc. Something, Thrice-greatest one, it needs must be, immensely vast.\n4. Her. And of what nature? Must it not be, Asclepius, of just the contrary? And is not contrary to body bodiless?\nAsc. Agreed.\nHer. Space, then, is bodiless. But bodiless must either be some godlike thing or God [Himself]. And by \u201csome godlike thing\u201d I mean no more the generable but the ingenerable. 1\n5. If, then, space be some godlike thing, it is substantial 1; but if \u2019tis God [Himself], it transcends substance. But it is to be thought of otherwise [than God], and in this way.\nGod is first \u201cthinkable\u201d 2 for us, not for Himself, for that the thing that\u2019s thought doth fall beneath the thinker\u2019s sense. God then can not be \u201cthinkable\u201d unto Himself, in that He\u2019s thought of by Himself as being nothing else than what He thinks. But He is \u201csomething else\u201d for us, and so He\u2019s thought of by us.\n6. If space is, therefore, to be thought, [it should] not, [then, be thought as] God, but space. If God is also to be thought, [He should] not [be conceived] as space, but energy that can contain [all space].\nFurther, 3 all that is moved is moved not in the moved but in the stable. And that which moves [another] is of course stationary, for \u2019tis impossible that it should move with it.\nAsc. How is it, then, that things down here, Thrice-greatest one, are moved with those that are [already] moved? For thou hast said 4 the errant spheres were moved by the inerrant one.\nHer. This is not, O Asclepius, a moving with, but one against; they are not moved with\none another, but one against the other. It is this contrariety which turneth the resistance of their motion into rest. For that resistance is the rest of motion.\n7. Hence, too, the errant spheres, being moved contrarily to the inerrant one, are moved by one another by mutual contrariety, [and also] by the stable one through contrariety itself. And this can otherwise not be.\nThe Bears 1 up there, which neither set nor rise, think\u2019st thou they rest or move?\nAsc. They move, Thrice-greatest one.\nHer. And what their motion, my Asclepius?\nAsc. Motion that turns for ever round the same.\nHer. But revolution\u2014motion round same\u2014is fixed by rest. For \u201cround-the-same\u201d doth stop \u201cbeyond-same.\u201d \u201cBeyond-same\u201d then, being stopped, if it be steadied in \u201cround-same\u201d\u2014the contrary stands firm, being rendered ever stable by its contrariety.\n8. Of this I\u2019ll give thee here on earth an instance, which the eye can see. Regard the animals down here,\u2014a man, for instance, swimming! The water moves, yet the resistance of his hands and feet give him stability, so that he is not borne along with it, nor sunk thereby.\nAsc. Thou hast, Thrice-greatest one, adduced a most clear instance.\nHer. All motion, then, is caused in station and by station.\nThe motion, therefore, of the cosmos (and of every other hylic animal 1) will not be caused by things exterior to the cosmos, but by things interior [outward] to the exterior\u2014such [things] as soul, or spirit, or some such other thing incorporal.\n\u2019Tis not its body that doth move the living thing in it; nay, not even the whole [body of the universe a lesser] body e\u2019en though there be no life in it. 2\n9. Asc. What meanest thou by this, Thrice-greatest one? Is it not bodies, then, that move the stock and stone and all the other things inanimate?\nHer. By no means, O Asclepius. The something-in-the-body, the that-which-moves the thing inanimate, this surely\u2019s not a body, for that it moves the two of them\u2014both body of the lifter and the lifted? So that a thing that\u2019s lifeless will not move a lifeless thing. That which doth move [another thing] is animate, in that it is the mover.\nThou seest, then, how heavy laden is the soul,\nfor it alone doth lift two bodies. That things, moreover, moved are moved in something as well as moved by something is clear.\n10. Asc. Yea, 1 O Thrice-greatest one, things moved must needs be moved in something void. 2\nHer. Thou sayest well, O [my] Asclepius! 3 For naught of things that are is void. Alone the \u201cis-not\u201d \u2019s void [and] stranger to subsistence. For that which is subsistent can never change to void. 4\nAsc. Are there, then, O Thrice-greatest one, no such things as an empty cask, for instance, and an empty jar, a cup and vat, and other things like unto them?\nHer. Alack, Asclepius, for thy far-wandering from the truth! Think\u2019st thou that things most full and most replete are void?\n11. Asc. How meanest thou, Thrice-greatest one?\nHer. Is not air body?\nHer. And doth this body not pervade all things, and so, pervading, fill them? And \u201cbody\u201d; doth body not consist from blending of the \u201cfour\u201d? Full, then, of air are all thou callest void; and if of air, then of the \u201cfour.\u201d 1\nFurther, of this the converse follows, that all thou callest full are void\u2014of air; for that they have their space filled out with other bodies, and, therefore, are not able to receive the air therein. These, then, which thou dost say are void, they should be hollow named, not void; for they not only are, but they are full of air and spirit.\n12. Asc. Thy argument (logos), Thrice-greatest one, is not to be gainsaid; air is a body. Further, it is this body which doth pervade all things, and so, pervading, fill them. What are we, then, to call that space in which the all doth move?\nHer. The Bodiless, Asclepius.\nAsc. What, then, is Bodiless?\nHer. \u2019Tis Mind and Reason (Logos), whole out of whole, all self-embracing, free from all body, from all error free, unsensible to body and untouchable, self stayed in self, containing all, preserving those that are, whose rays, to use a\nlikeness, are Good, Truth, Light beyond light, the Archetype of soul.\nAsc. What, then, is God?\n13. Her. Not any one of these is He; for He it is that causeth them to be, both all and each and every thing of all that are. Nor hath He left a thing beside that is-not; but they are all from things-that-are and not from things-that-are-not. For that the things-that-are-not have naturally no power of being anything, but rather have the nature of the inability-to-be. And, conversely, the things-that-are have not the nature of some time not-being.\n14. Asc. What say\u2019st thou ever, then, God is?\nHer. God, therefore, is not Mind, but Cause that the Mind is; God is not Spirit, but Cause that Spirit is; God is not Light, but Cause that the Light is. Hence should one honour God with these two names [the Good and Father]\u2014names which pertain to Him alone and no one else.\nFor no one of the other so-called gods, no one of men, or daimones, can be in any measure Good, but God alone; and He is Good alone and nothing else. The rest of things are separable all from the Good\u2019s nature; for [all the rest] are soul and body, which have no space that can contain 1 the Good.\n15. For that as mighty is the Greatness of the Good as is the Being of all things that are\u2014both bodies and things bodiless, things sensible and intelligible things. Call not thou, therefore, aught else Good, for thou would\u2019st impious be; nor anything at all at any time call God but Good alone, for so thou would\u2019st again be impious.\n16. Though, then, the Good is spoken of by all, it is not understood by all, what thing it is. Not only, then, is God not understood by all, but both unto the gods and some of men they out of ignorance do give the name of Good, though they can never either be or become Good. For they are very different from God, while Good can never be distinguished from Him, for that God is the same as Good.\nThe rest of the immortal ones are natheless honoured with the name of God, and spoken of as gods; but God is Good not out of courtesy but out of nature. For that God\u2019s nature and the Good is one; one is the kind of both, from which all other kinds [proceed].\nThe Good is He who gives all things and naught receives. 1 God, then, doth give all things and receive naught. God, then, is Good, and Good is God.\n17. The other name of God is Father, again\nbecause He is the that-which-maketh all. The part of father is to make.\nWherefore child-making is a very great and a most pious thing in life for them who think aright, and to leave life on earth without a child a very great misfortune and impiety; and he who hath no child is punished by the daimons after death.\nAnd this the punishment: that that man\u2019s soul who hath no child, shall be condemned unto a body with neither man\u2019s nor woman\u2019s nature, a thing accurst beneath the sun.\nWherefore, Asclepius, let not your sympathies be with the man who hath no child, but rather pity his mishap, knowing what punishment abides for him.\nLet all that has been said, then, be to thee, Asclepius, an introduction to the gnosis of the nature of all things.\n59:1 From here till the end of \u00a7 4 is quoted by Stob\u00e6us, Phys., xviii. 2; G. pp. 147-149; W. 157, 6 ff.\n60:1 That is, beyond genesis, the universe of becoming, or the sensible universe.\n61:1 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03b9\u03c9\u03b4\u03ad\u03c2.\n61:2 Or intelligible.\n61:3 From here till the end of \u00a7 9 (exclusive of the last sentence) is quoted by Stob\u00e6us, Phys., xix. 2; G. pp. 154-157; W. 163, 14 ff.\n61:4 Sc. in some previous sermon.\n62:1 Sc. Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.\n63:1 That is, living material organism.\n63:2 That is, in the lesser body.\n64:1 For a criticism of Parthey\u2019s text of the following three paragraphs, see R., pp. 209, 300. Parthey had uncritically conflated the text of our Corpus and the readings of Stob\u00e6us, in ignorance that he had before him two different recensions of the same text. I follow Reitzenstein.\n64:2 Cf. P. S. A., xxxiii. 1.\n64:3 From here to the end of \u00a7 12 is quoted by Stob\u00e6us, Phys., xviii. 3; G. pp. 149-150; W. 158, 13 ff.\n64:4 The variant in Stob\u00e6us reads: \u201cNo single thing of things that are is void by reason of the [very nature of] subsistence. The \u2018is\u2019 could not be \u2018is\u2019 were it not full of subsistence [itself].\u201d The rest of the variants need not be noted in translation.\n65:1 The physical elements\u2014earth, air, water and fire\u2014were supposed to be severally combinations of the Primal Elements, Earth, Air, Water and Fire, one Element dominating in each. Thus our air would consist of a proportion of all four Great Elements, but would have Air predominant in it; and so for the rest.\n66:1 In the original there is a word-play\u2014\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac (separable) and \u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u1fc6\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 (contain)\u2014which is impossible to reproduce in translation.\n67:1 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 3: \u2019Tis \u201cHe alone who taketh naught.\u201d","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: I. Corpus Hermeticum: II. (III.) To Asclepius","type":"page"}