{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th221.htm","path":"gno/th2/th221.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th221.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n(Text: P. 67-84; Pat. 9b-12.)\n1. Hermes. My yesterday\u2019s discourse (logos) I did devote to thee, Asclepius, and so \u2019tis [only] right I should devote to-day\u2019s to Tat; and this the more because \u2019tis the abridgment of the General Sermons (Logoi) which he has had addressed to him.\n\u201cGod, Father and the Good,\u201d then, Tat, hath 1 the same nature, or more exactly, energy.\nFor nature is a predicate of growth, and used of things that change, both mobile and immobile, that is to say, both human and divine, each one of which He willeth into being.\nBut energy consists in something else, as we have shown in treating of the rest, both things divine and human things 1; which thing we ought to have in mind when treating of the Good. 2\n2. God\u2019s energy is then His Will; further His essence is to will the being of all things. For what is \u201cGod and Father and the Good\u201d but the to be of all that are not yet? Nay, subsistence 3 self of everything that is;\u2014this, then, is God, this Father, this the Good; to Him is added naught of all the rest.\nAnd though the Cosmos, that is to say the Sun, is also sire himself to them that share in him; yet so far is he not the cause of good unto the lives, he is not even of their living.\nSo that e\u2019en if he be a sire, he is entirely so by the compulsion of the Good\u2019s Good-will, apart from which nor being nor becoming could e\u2019er be.\n3. Again, the parent is the children\u2019s cause, both on the father\u2019s and the mother\u2019s side, 4 only by sharing in 5 the Good\u2019s desire [that doth pour] through the Sun. It is the Good which doeth the creating.\nAnd such a power can be possessed by no one\nelse than Him alone who taketh naught, 1 but wills all things to be; I will not, Tat, say makes.\nFor that the maker is defective for long periods (in which he sometimes makes, and sometimes doth not make) both in the quality and in the quantity [of what he makes]; in that he sometimes maketh them so many and such like, and sometimes the reverse.\nBut \u201cGod and Father and the Good\u201d is [cause] for all to be. So are at least these things for who can see.\n4. For It doth will to be, and It is both Itself and most of all by reason of 2 Itself. Indeed all other things beside are just because of It; for the distinctive feature of the Good is \u201cthat it should be known.\u201d Such is the Good, O Tat.\nTat. Thou hast, O father, filled us so full 3 of this so good and fairest Sight, that thereby my mind\u2019s eye hath now become for me almost a thing to worship.\nFor that the Vision of the Good doth not, like the sun\u2019s beam, fire-like blaze on the eyes and make them close; nay, on the contrary, it shineth forth and maketh to increase the seeing 4 of the eye, as far as e\u2019er a man hath the capacity\nto hold the inflow of the radiance that the mind alone can see.\nNot only does it come more swiftly down to us, but it does us no harm, and is instinct with all immortal life.\n5. They who are able to drink in a somewhat more than others of this Sight, ofttimes from out the body fall asleep into this fairest Spectacle, as was the case with Uranus and Cronus, our forebears. 1 May this be our lot too, O father mine!\nHer. Yea, may it be, my son! But as it is, we are not yet strung to the Vision, and not as yet have we the power our mind\u2019s eye to unfold and gaze upon the Beauty of the Good\u2014Beauty that naught can e\u2019er corrupt or any comprehend.\nFor [only] then wilt thou upon It gaze when thou canst say no word concerning It. For Gnosis of the Good is holy silence and a giving holiday to every sense.\n6. For neither can he who perceiveth It, perceive aught else; nor he who gazeth on It, gaze on aught else; nor hear aught else, nor stir his body any way. Staying his body\u2019s every sense and every motion he stayeth still.\nAnd shining then all round his mind, It shines\nthrough his whole soul, and draws it out of body, transforming all of him to essence.\nFor it is possible, my son, that a man\u2019s soul should be made like to God, e\u2019en while it still is in a body, if it doth contemplate the Beauty of the Good.\n7. Tat. Made like to God! What dost thou, father, mean?\nHer. Of every soul apart are transformations, son.\nTat. What meanest thou? Apart!\nHer. 1 Didst thou not, in the General Sermons, hear that from One Soul\u2014the All-soul\u2014come all these souls which are made to revolve in all the cosmos, as though divided off?\nOf these souls, then, it is that there are many changes, some to a happier lot and some to [just] the contrary of this.\nThus some that were once creeping things change into things that in the water dwell, the souls of water things change to earth-dwellers, those that live on the earth change into things with wings, and souls that live in air change into men, while human souls reach the first step of deathlessness changed into daimones.\nAnd so they circle to the choir of the Inerrant Gods; for of the Gods there are two choirs, the\none Inerrant, and the other Errant. And this is the most perfect glory of the soul.\n8. But if a soul on entering in the body of a man persisteth in its vice, 1 it neither tasteth deathlessness nor shareth in the Good; but speeding back again it turns into the path that leads to creeping things. This is the sentence of the vicious soul.\nAnd the soul\u2019s vice is ignorance. 2 For that the soul who hath no knowledge of the things that are, or knowledge of their nature, or of Good, is blinded by the body\u2019s passions and tossed about.\nThis wretched soul, not knowing what she is, becomes the slave of bodies of strange form in sorry plight, bearing the body as a load; not as the ruler, but the ruled. This [ignorance] is the soul\u2019s vice.\n9. But on the other hand the virtue of the soul is Gnosis. For he who knows, he good and pious is, and still while on the earth 3 divine.\nTat. But who is such an one, O father mine?\nHer. He who doth not say much or lend his ear to much. For he who spendeth time in arguing and hearing arguments, doth shadow\nfight. For \u201cGod, the Father and the Good,\u201d is not to be obtained by speech or hearing.\nAnd yet though this is so, there are in all the beings senses, in that they cannot without senses be.\nBut Gnosis is far different from sense. For sense is brought about by that which hath the mastery o\u2019er us, while Gnosis is the end of science, 1 and science is God\u2019s gift.\n10. All science is incorporal, the instrument it uses being the mind, just as the mind employs the body.\nBoth then come into bodies, [I mean] both things that are cognizable by mind alone and things material. 2 For all things must consist out of antithesis and contrariety; and this can otherwise not be.\nTat. Who then is this material God of whom thou speakest?\nHer. Cosmos is beautiful, but is not good 3\u2014for that it is material and freely passible 4; and though it is the first of all things passible, yet is it in the second rank of being and wanting in itself.\nAnd though it never hath itself its birth in time, but ever is, yet is its being in becoming,\nbecoming for all time the genesis of qualities and quantities; for it is mobile and all material motion\u2019s genesis. 1\n11. It is intelligible 2 rest that moves material motion in this way, 3 since Cosmos is a sphere\u2014that is to say, a head. And naught of head above\u2019s material, as naught of feet below\u2019s intelligible, 4 but all material.\nAnd head itself moved in a sphere-like way\u2014that is to say, as head should move, 5 is mind.\nAll then that are united to the \u201ctissue\u201d of this \u201chead\u201d (in which 6 is soul) are in their nature free from death,\u2014just as when body hath been made in soul, are things that have more soul than body.\nWhereas those things which are at greater distance from this \u201ctissue\u201d\u2014there, where are things which have a greater share of body than of soul\u2014are by their nature subject unto death.\nThe whole, however, is a life; so that the universe consists of both the hylic and of the intelligible. 7\n12. Again, the Cosmos is the first of living\nthings, while man is second after it, though first of things subject to death.\nMan hath the same ensouling power in him as all the rest of living things 1; yet is he not only not good, but even evil, 2 for that he\u2019s subject unto death. 3\nFor though the Cosmos also is not good in that it suffers motion, it is not evil, in that it is not subject unto death. But man, in that he\u2019s subject both to motion and to death, is evil. 4\n13. Now then the principles 5 of man are this-wise vehicled: mind in the reason (logos), the reason in the soul, soul in the spirit, 6 [and] spirit in the body.\nSpirit pervading [body] 7 by means of veins and arteries and blood, bestows upon the living creature motion, and as it were doth bear it in a way.\nFor this cause some do think the soul is blood, in that they do mistake its nature, not knowing that [at death] it is the spirit that must first\nwithdraw into the soul, whereon the blood congeals and veins and arteries are emptied, and then the living creature is withdrawn; and this is body\u2019s death.\n14. Now from One Source 1 all things depend; while Source [dependeth] from the One and Only [One]. Source is, moreover, moved to become Source again; whereas the One standeth perpetually and is not moved.\nThree then are they: \u201cGod, the Father and the Good,\u201d Cosmos and man.\nGod doth contain Cosmos; Cosmos [containeth] man. Cosmos is e\u2019er God\u2019s Son, man as it were Cosmos\u2019s child.\n15. Not that, however, God ignoreth man; nay, right well doth He know him, and willeth to be known.\nThis is the sole salvation for a man\u2014God\u2019s Gnosis. This is the Way Up to the Mount. 2\nBy Him alone the soul becometh good, not whiles is good, whiles evil, but [good] out of necessity.\nTat. What dost thou mean, Thrice-greatest one?\nHer. Behold an infant\u2019s soul, my son, that is not yet cut off, 3 because its body is still small and not as yet come unto its full bulk. 4\nTat. How?\nHer. A thing of beauty altogether is [such a soul] to see, not yet befouled by body\u2019s passions, still all but hanging from the Cosmic Soul!\nBut when the body grows in bulk and draweth down the soul into its mass, then doth the soul cut off itself and bring upon itself forgetfulness, and no more shareth in the Beautiful and Good. And this forgetfulness becometh vice.\n16. It is the same for them who go out from the body.\nFor when the soul withdraws into itself, the spirit doth contract itself within the blood, and soul within the spirit. 1 And then the mind, stript of its wrappings, and naturally divine, taking unto itself a fiery body, doth traverse every space, after abandoning the soul unto its judgment and whatever chastisement it hath deserved.\nTat. 2 What dost thou, father, mean by this? The mind is parted from the soul and soul from\nspirit? Whereas thou said\u2019st the soul was the mind\u2019s vesture, and the soul\u2019s the spirit.\n17. Her. The hearer, son, should think with him who speaks and breathe with him 1; nay, he should have a hearing subtler than the voice of him who speaks.\nIt is, son, in a body made of earth that this arrangement of the vestures comes to pass. For in a body made of earth it is impossible the mind should take its seat itself by its own self in nakedness.\nFor neither is it possible on the one hand the earthy body should contain such immortality, nor on the other that so great a virtue should endure a body passible in such close contact with it. It taketh, then, the soul for as it were an envelope.\nAnd soul itself, being too a thing divine, doth use the spirit as its envelope, while spirit doth pervade the living creature.\n18. When then the mind doth free itself from the earth-body, it straightway putteth on its proper robe of fire, with which it could not dwell in an earth-body.\nFor earth doth not bear fire; for it is all set in a blaze even by a small spark. And for this cause is water poured round earth, to be a guard and wall, to keep the blazing of the fire away.\nBut mind, the swiftest thing of all divine out-\nthinkings, and swifter than all elements, hath for its body fire.\nFor mind being builder 1 doth use the fire as tool for the construction of all things\u2014the Mind of all [for the construction] of all things, but that of man only for things on earth.\nStript of its fire the mind on earth cannot make things divine, for it is human in its dispensation. 2\n19. The soul in man, however,\u2014not every soul, but one that pious is\u2014is a daimonic something and divine.\nAnd such a soul when from the body freed, if it have fought the fight of piety\u2014the fight of piety is to know God and to do wrong to no man\u2014such soul becomes entirely mind.\nWhereas the impious soul remains in its own essence, chastised by its own self, and seeking for an earthy body where to enter, if only it be human.\nFor that no other body can contain a human soul; nor is it right that any human soul should fall into the body of a thing that doth possess no reason. For that the law of God is this: to guard the human soul from such tremendous outrage. 3\n20. Tat. How father, then, is a man\u2019s soul chastised?\nHer. What greater chastisement of any human soul can there be, son, than lack of piety? What fire has so fierce flame as lack of piety? What ravenous beast so mauls the body as lack of piety the very soul?\nDost thou not see what hosts of ills the impious soul doth bear?\nIt shrieks and screams: I burn; I am ablaze; I know not what to cry or do; ah, wretched me, I am devoured by all the ills that compass me about; alack, poor me, I neither see nor hear!\nSuch are the cries wrung from a soul chastised; not, as the many think, and thou, son, dost suppose, that a [man\u2019s] soul, passing from body, is changed into a beast.\nSuch is a very grave mistake, for that the way a soul doth suffer chastisement is this:\n21. When mind becomes a daimon, the law requires that it should take a fiery body to execute the services of God; and entering in the soul most impious it scourgeth it with whips made of its sins.\nAnd then the impious soul, scourged with its sins, is plunged in murders, outrage, blasphemy, in violence of all kinds, and all the other things whereby mankind is wronged. 1\nBut on the pious soul the mind doth mount and guide it 1 to the Gnosis\u2019 Light. And such a soul doth never tire in songs of praise [to God] and pouring blessing on all men, and doing good in word and deed to all, in imitation of its Sire. 2\n22. Wherefore, my son, thou shouldst give praise to God and pray that thou mayst have thy mind Good [Mind]. It is, then, to a better state the soul doth pass; it cannot to a worse.\nFurther 3 there is an intercourse 4 of souls; those of the gods have intercourse with those of men, and those of men with souls of creatures which possess no reason.\nThe higher, further, have in charge the lower; the gods look after men, men after animals irrational, 5 while God hath charge of all; for He is higher than them all and all are less than He.\nCosmos is subject, then, to God, man to the Cosmos, and irrationals to man. But God is o\u2019er them all, and God contains them all.\nGod\u2019s rays, to use a figure, are His energies; the Cosmos\u2019s are natures; the arts and sciences are man\u2019s. 6\nThe energies act through the Cosmos, thence through the nature-rays of Cosmos upon man; the nature-rays [act] through the elements; man [acteth] through the sciences and arts.\n23. This is the dispensation 1 of the universe, depending from the nature of the One, pervading [all things] through the Mind, than which 2 is naught diviner or of greater energy; and naught a greater means for the at-oning men to gods and gods to men.\nHe, [Mind,] is the Good Daimon. Blessed the soul that is most filled with Him, and wretched 3 is the soul that\u2019s empty of the Mind.\nTat. Father, what dost thou mean, again?\nHer. 4 Dost think then, son, that every soul hath the Good [Mind]? For \u2019tis of Him we speak, not of the mind in service 5 of which we just were speaking, the mind sent down for [the soul\u2019s] chastisement.\n24. For soul without the mind \u201ccan neither speak nor act.\u201d 6 For oftentimes the mind doth leave the soul, and at that time the soul nor sees\nnor understands, but is just like a thing that hath no reason. Such is the power of mind.\nYet doth it not endure a sluggish 1 soul, but leaveth such a soul tied to the body and bound tight down by it. Such soul, my son, doth not have Mind; and therefore such an one should not be called a man. 2 For that man is a thing-of-life 3 divine; man is not measured with the rest of lives of things upon the earth, but with the lives above in heaven, who are called gods.\nNay more, if we must boldly speak the truth, the true \u201cman\u201d is e\u2019en higher than the gods, or at the [very] least the gods and men are every whit in power each with the other equal.\n25. For no one of the gods in heaven shall come down on the earth, o\u2019er-stepping heaven\u2019s limit; whereas man doth mount up to heaven and measure it; he knows what things of it are high, what things are low, and learns precisely all things else besides. And greater thing than all; without e\u2019en quitting earth, he doth ascend above. So vast a sweep doth he possess of ecstasy. 4\nFor this cause can a man dare say that man on earth is god subject to death, while god in heaven is man from death immune.\nWherefore the dispensation of all things is brought about by means of 1 these, the twain\u2014Cosmos and Man 2\u2014but by 3 the One.\n141:1 The three are only different names for one idea; the verb is in the singular in the Greek. Cf. C. H., ii. (iii.) 16 and 17: \u201cGood then is God and God is Good\u201d; and \u201cThe other name of God is Father.\u201d\n142:1 That is to say, presumably, in the General Sermons.\n142:2 Lit. of this.\n142:3 \u1f55\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03be\u03b9\u03c2. Cf. C. H., xvi. 4.\n142:4 Lit. both with regard to seed and nourishment.\n142:5 Lit. taking.\n143:1 Cf. C. H., ii. (iii.) 16: \u201cThe Good is He who gives all things and naught receives.\u201d\n143:2 Lit. for.\n143:3 \u1f10\u03c0\u03bb\u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2,\u2014reminding us of \u03c0\u03bb\u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1.\n143:4 Lit. light.\n144:1 See Lact, D. Institt., i. 11; P. S. A., xi. 4, xxxvii. 3; and Ex. i. 4.\n145:1 From here to end of \u00a7 8 is quoted by Stob\u00e6us, Phys., I. xli. 48 (G. i. 429, 430; W. 416, 18 ff.).\n146:1 \u1f10\u1f70\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u1f74 \u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u1fc3.\n146:2 Cf. C. H., xii. (xiii.) 3: \u201cThe great ill of the soul is Godlessness\u201d; also below \u00a7 20: \u201cWhat greater chastisement of any human soul can there be, son, than lack of piety?\u201d\n146:3 Lit. already.\n147:1 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7\u03c2.\n147:2 Or hylic.\n147:3 But cf. P. S. A., xxvii. 1.\n147:4 That is capable of suffering, or impressionable by agencies other than itself.\n148:1 Genesis and becoming are both \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 in Greek.\n148:2 No\u00ebtic as opposed to hylic\u2014the antithesis and contrariety mentioned above.\n148:3 Namely the ever-becoming of genesis.\n148:4 Or mental, in the sense of being of the same nature as the mind.\n148:5 \u03ba\u03b5\u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03ba\u1ff6\u03c2.\n148:6 In which \u201ctissue.\u201d\n148:7 \u00a7\u00a7 12, 13 are quoted by Stob\u00e6us, Phys., I. xxxix. 9 (G. i. 307; W. 350, 13 ff.).\n149:1 That is to say, the world-system itself and all the globes in it.\n149:2 Cf. Ex. i. 11 and 15.\n149:3 Whereas the system and its globes are regarded as practically immortal.\n149:4 Reitzenstein (p. 40, 1) gives a revised text of the major part of this utterance of Hermes, from \u201cCosmos is beautiful\u201d onwards, but unfortunately he omits just the most obscure sentences in it.\n149:5 Lit. a man\u2019s soul, where \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1f74 is used in a general sense, and not in the particular sense applied to it in the category which immediately follows.\n149:6 \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9.\n149:7 Cf. P. S. A., vi. 4.\n150:1 \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03ae.\n150:2 Lit. to Olympus.\n150:3 Sc. from the world-soul.\n150:4 Cf. the instructive exposition of Basilides in F. F. F., pp. 274 f.\n151:1 This is generally translated \u201cthe spirit is contracted into the blood, and the soul into the spirit,\u201d but such a translation contradicts \u00a7 13, where we are told that \u201cthe spirit withdraws into the soul\u201d at death. It seems to mean that the spirit passes within, out of the blood, and the soul is then clothed in a spirit-vesture, or borne in a spirit-vehicle.\n151:2 From here to the end of \u00a7 18 is quoted by Stob\u00e6us, Phys., xl. 3 (G. i. 312, 313; W. 310, 25 ff.); only the dialogue is ascribed in error to Asclepius and Tat and not to Hermes and Tat.\n152:1 Cf. P. S. A., x. i.\n153:1 \u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b9\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b3\u03cc\u03c2.\n153:2 \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9, i.e. in its economy.\n153:3 This paragraph is quoted by Stob\u00e6us, Phys., xli. 49 (G. i. 430, 431; W. 417, 15 ff.). For the idea, cf. P. S. A., xxxii. 2.\n154:1 Cf. P. S. A., xxv. 4 and xxviii. 1.\n155:1 Cf. C. H., iv. (v.) 11; vii. (viii.) 11; ix. (x.) 10; R. 23, n. 5.\n155:2 Namely, the Good.\n155:3 From here to the end is quoted by Stob\u00e6us, Phys., I. xxxix. 8 (G. i. 305-307; W. 303, 14 ff.).\n155:4 \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1. Cf. P. S. A., xxiii. 1.\n155:5 Cf. P. S. A., v. 1.\n155:6 Cf. Ex. viii. 1.\n156:1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03af\u03ba\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, compare 19.\n156:2 Sc. the Mind.\n156:3 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd, as opposed to \u1f41 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd. It is impossible to reproduce the original word-play in translation.\n156:4 Stob\u00e6us (Gaisford) here reads \u201cA.\u201d\u2014that is, Asclepius.\n156:5 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f51\u03c0\u03b7\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u1fe6, compare \u00a7 21, \u201cthe services of God\u201d (\u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f51\u03c0\u03b7\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2); that is to say, Hermes speaks of the Universal Mind and not of the mind in man.\n156:6 A quotation from the ancient gnomic poet Theognis (v. 177). Theognis lived c. 570-490 B.C.\n157:1 \u03bd\u03c9\u03c4\u03c1\u1fb6\u03c2,\u2014? \u03bd\u03c9\u03b8\u03c1\u1fb6\u03c2. Everard translates \u201can idle or lazy soul,\u201d in his usual slipshod fashion of inserting doubles; Parthey gives \u201cinertem animam\u201d; M\u00e9nard, \u201cl\u2019\u00e2me vicieuse\u201d; Chambers, \u201cinert.\u201d Several of the old editors omit the entire sentence.\n157:2 Cf. Philo, De Som., \u00a7 20; M. i. 639; P. 584 (Ri. iii. 241): \u201cnot for those who are called men, but for those who are truly so.\u201d\n157:3 Or animal.\n157:4 \u1f10\u03ba\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2, lit. extension, or consciousness.\n158:1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ac.\n158:2 Cf. P. S. A., x. 3.\n158:3 \u1f51\u03c0\u03cc.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: I. Corpus Hermeticum: X. (XI.) The Key","type":"page"}