{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th229.htm","path":"gno/th2/th229.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th229.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n(Text: P. 128-134; Pat. 49, 50.)\n1. Since in thy absence my son Tat desired to learn the nature of the things that are, and would not let me hold it over, as [natural to] a younger son fresh come to gnosis of the [teachings] on each single point,\u2014I was compelled to tell [him] more, in order that the contemplation 2 [of them] might be the easier for him to follow.\nI would, then, choosing out the chiefest heads of what was said, write them in brief to thee, explaining them more mystic-ly, 1 as unto one of greater age and one well versed in Nature.\n2. If all things manifest have been and are being made, and made things are not made by their own selves but by another; [if] made things are the many,\u2014nay more, are all things manifest and all things different and not alike; and things that are being made are being made by other [than themselves];\u2014there is some one who makes these things; and He cannot be made, but is more ancient than the things that can.\nFor things that can be made, I say, are made by other [than themselves]; but of the things that owe their being to their being made, it is impossible that anything should be more ancient than them all, save only That which is not able to be made.\n3. So He is both Supreme, and One, and Only, the truly wise in all, as having naught more ancient [than Himself].\nFor He doth rule o\u2019er both the number, size and difference of things that are being made, and o\u2019er the continuity of their making [too].\nAgain, things makeable are seeable; but He cannot be seen.\nFor for this cause He maketh,\u2014that He may not be able to be seen.\nHe, therefore, ever maketh 1; and therefore can He ne\u2019er be seen.\nTo comprehend Him thus is meet; and comprehending, [it is meet] to marvel; and marvelling, to count oneself as blessed, as having learnt to know one\u2019s Sire.\n4. For what is sweeter than one\u2019s own true Sire? Who, then, is He; and how shall we learn how to know Him?\nIs it not right to dedicate to Him alone the name of God, or that of Maker, or of Father, or rather [all] the three;\u2014God for His Power, and Maker for His Energy, and Father for His Good?\nNow Power doth differ from the things which are being made; while Energy consisteth in all things being made.\nWherefore we ought to put away verbosity and foolish talk, and understand these two\u2014the made and Maker. For that of them there is no middle [term]; there is no third.\n5. Wherefore in all that thou conceivest, in all thou nearest, these two recall to mind; and think all things are they, reckoning as doubtful naught, nor of the things above, nor of the things below, neither of things divine, nor things\nthat suffer change or things that are in obscuration. 1\nFor all things are [these] twain, Maker and made, and \u2019tis impossible that one should be without the other; for neither is it possible that \u201cMaker\u201d should exist without the \u201cmade,\u201d for each of them is one and the same thing.\nWherefore \u2019tis no more possible for one from other to be parted, than self from self.\n6. Now if the Maker is naught else but That which makes, Alone, Simple, Uncompound, it needs must do this [making] to Itself,\u2014to Which its Maker\u2019s making is \u201cits being made.\u201d 2\nAnd as to all that\u2019s being made,\u2014it cannot be\n[paragraph continues] [so made] by being made by its own self; but it must needs be made by being made by other. Without the \u201cMaker\u201d \u201cmade\u201d is neither made nor is; for that the one without the other doth lose its proper nature by deprivation of that other.\nIf, 1 then, all things have been admitted to be two,\u2014the \u201cthat which is being made\u201d and \u201cthat which makes,\u201d\u2014[all then] are one in union of these,\u2014the \u201cthat which leadeth\u201d and the \u201cthat which followeth.\u201d\nThe making God is \u201cthat which leadeth\u201d; the \u201cthat which is being made,\u201d whatever it be, the \u201cthat which followeth.\u201d\n7. And do not thou be chary of things made because of their variety, from fear of attribution of a low estate and lack of glory unto God.\nFor that His Glory\u2019s one,\u2014to make all things; and this is as it were God\u2019s Body, the making [of them]. 2\nBut by the Maker\u2019s self naught is there thought or bad or base.\nThese things are passions which accompany the making process, as rust doth brass and filth doth body; but neither doth the brass-smith\nmake the rust, nor the begetters of the body filth, nor God [make] evil.\nIt is continuance in the state of being made 1 that makes them lose, as though it were, their bloom; and \u2019tis because of this God hath made change, as though it were the making clean of genesis.\n8. Is it, then, possible for one and the same painter man to make both heaven, and gods, and earth, and sea, and men, and all the animals, and lifeless things, and trees, and yet impossible for God to make all things?\nWhat monstraus lack of understanding; what want of knowledge as to God! 1\nFor such the strangest lot of all do suffer; for though they say they worship piously and sing the praise of God, yet by their not ascribing unto Him the making of all things, they know not God; and, added unto this not-knowing, they\u2019re guilty even of the worst impiety to Him\u2014passions to Him attributing, or arrogance, or impotency.\nFor if He doth not make all things, from arrogance He doth not make, or not being able,\u2014which is impiety [to think].\n9. One Passion hath God only\u2014Good; and He who\u2019s Good, is neither arrogant nor impotent.\nFor this is God\u2014the Good, which hath all power of making all.\nAnd all that can be made is made by God,\u2014that is, by [Him who is] the Good and who can make all things. 1\nBut would\u2019st thou learn how He doth make, and how things made are made, thou may\u2019st do so.\n10. Behold a very fair and most resemblant image\u2014a husbandman casting the seed into the ground; here wheat, there barley, and there [again] some other of the seeds!\nBehold one and the same man planting the vine, the apple, and [all] other trees!\nIn just the selfsame way doth God sow Immortality in Heaven, and Change on Earth, and Life and Motion in the universe.\nThese are not many, but few and easy to be numbered; for four in all are they,\u2014and God Himself and Genesis, in whom are all that are.\n257:1 \u03b5\u1f56 \u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd. I do not know the exact meaning of this expression. Everard translates \u201cto be truly wise\u201d; Parthey, \u201crecte sapere\u201d following Patrizzi; M\u00e9nard, \u201csagesse\u201d; Chambers, \u201cto be rightly wise.\u201d I would suggest that \u03b5\u1f56 \u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd was the form used among these disciples of the Inner Way for the usual \u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd. Instead of wishing one another happiness, they wished each other wisdom, good thought, right thinking, good health of soul.\n257:2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b1.\n258:1 That is to say, more fully and profoundly, as to one more advanced in the mystic science.\n259:1 Cf. C. H., xvi. 18.\n260:1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd \u03bc\u03c5\u03c7\u1ff7. I do not know what is the exact meaning of this expression. Everard translates \u201cthings that are in darkness or secret\u201d; Parthey, \u201cqu\u00e6 sunt in abdito\u201d; M\u00e9nard, \u201cdans les profondeurs\u201d; Chambers, \u201cthose in secrecy.\u201d I suggest that the technical term \u03bc\u03c5\u03c7\u03cc\u03c2, signifying generally a shut-in or locked-up place (conclave, as Damascius translates it), is to be referred, along the line of Platonic and Pythagorean tradition, to Pherecydes. Porphyry (De Antro Nymph., C. 31) tells us that the synonyms \u201c\u03bc\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03af (chambers?), recesses (or pits), caverns, doors, gates\u201d were used by Pherecydes as symbolical expressions to signify \u201cthe geneses and apogeneses of souls,\u201d whatever these terms may mean exactly. The \u201cbirth\u201d and \u201cdecease\u201d of a soul, in this connection, presumably mean its coming into the world of genesis out of the womb of the World-soul, and its reception back again into the bosom of the great Mother. If this be so, our text would seem to indicate that things are in two states,\u2014in a state of change (that is, in the active condition), and again in a passive condition, in the state which Indian philosophers call laya or pralaya. See for the \u03bc\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03af of Pherecydes Sturz\u2019s Pherecydis Fragmenta, pp. 43 ff. (Leipzig, 1824).\n260:2 Or genesis.\n261:1 From here to the end of the sermon, with the exception of the final sentences of \u00a7 7 and \u00a7 10, and the third sentence of \u00a7 9, and with a few very slight verbal variants, is quoted by Cyril, Contra Julianum, ii. 64 (Migne, col. 598 D).\n261:2 Cf. C. H., xvi. 18.\n262:1 Or genesis.\n263:1 This sentence, which appears to be very tautological, is omitted by Cyril.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: I. Corpus Hermeticum: XIV. (XV.) A Letter to Asclepius","type":"page"}