{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th238.htm","path":"gno/th2/th238.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th238.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n2. [II. M.] Heaven, then, God Sensible, is the\ndirector of all bodies; bodies\u2019 increasings and decreasings are ruled by Sun and Moon.\nBut He who is the Ruler of the Heaven, and of its Soul as well, and of all things within the Cosmos,\u2014He is God, who is the Maker of all things.\nFor from all those that have been said above, 1 o\u2019er which the same God rules, there floweth forth a flood of all things streaming through the Cosmos and the Soul, of every class and kind, throughout the Nature of [all] things.\nThe Cosmos hath, moreover, been prepared by God as the receptacle of forms of every kind. 2\nForth-thinking Nature by these kinds of things, He hath extended Cosmos unto Heaven by means of the Four Elements,\u2014all to give pleasure to the eye of God.\n1. And all dependent from Above 3 are subdivided into species in the fashion 4 which I am to tell.\nThe genera of all things company with their own species; so that the genus is a class in its entirety, the species is part of a genus.\nThe genus of the Gods will, therefore, make the species of the Gods out of itself.\nIn like way, too, the genus of the daimons, and of men, likewise of birds, and of all [animals] the Cosmos doth contain within itself, brings into being species like itself.\nThere is besides a genus other than the animal,\u2014a genus, or indeed a soul, in that it\u2019s not without sensation,\u2014in consequence of which it both finds happiness in suitable conditions, and pines and spoils in adverse ones;\u2014I mean [the class] of all things on the earth which owe their life to the sound state of roots and shoots, of which the various kinds are scattered through the length and breadth of Earth.\n2. The Heaven itself is full of God. The genera we have just mentioned, therefore, occupy up to the spaces of all things whose species are immortal.\nFor that a species is part of a genus,\u2014as man, for instance, of mankind,\u2014and that a part must follow its own class\u2019s quality.\nFrom which it comes to pass that though all genera are deathless, all species are not so.\nThe genus of Divinity is in itself and in its species 1 [also] deathless.\nAs for the genera of other things,\u2014as to their genus, they [too] are everlasting; [for] though [the genus] perish in its species, yet it persists through its fecundity in being born. And for this cause its species are beneath the sway of death; so that man mortal is, mankind immortal.\n1. And yet the species of all genera are interblended with all genera; some 1 which have previously been made, some which are made from these.\nThe latter, then, which are being made,\u2014either by Gods, or daimons, or by men,\u2014are species all most closely like to their own several genera.\nFor that it is impossible that bodies should be formed without the will of God; or species be configured without the help of daimons; or animals be taught and trained without the help of men. 2\n2. Whoever of the daimons, then, transcending their own genus, are, by chance, united with a species, 3 by reason of the neighbourhood of any species of the Godlike class,\u2014these are considered like to Gods. 4\nWhereas those species of the daimons which continue in the quality of their own class,\u2014these love men\u2019s rational nature [and occupy themselves with men], and are called daimons proper.\nLikewise is it the case with men, or more so even. Diverse and multiform, the species of mankind. And coming in itself from the association spoken of above, it of necessity doth bring about a multitude of combinations of all other species and almost of all things.\n3. Wherefore doth man draw nigh unto the Gods, if he have joined himself unto the Gods with Godlike piety by reason of his mind, whereby he is joined to the Gods; and [nigh] unto the daimons, in that he is joined unto them [as well].\nWhereas those men who are contented with the mediocrity of their own class, and the remaining species of mankind, will be like those unto the species of whose class they\u2019ve joined themselves. 1\n312:1 This seems to refer to the Elements.\n312:2 Omniformium specierum.\n312:3 Omnia autem desuper pendentia. Compare with this the famous Psalm of Valentius, \u201cAll things depending from Spirit I see\u201d\u2014\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b5\u03bc\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b2\u03bb\u03ad\u03c0\u03c9\u2014Hippolytus, Philos., vi. 37. For revised text see Hilgenfeld\u2019s (A.) Ketzergeschichte, p. 304 (Leipzig, 1884), and for a translation, my Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, p. 307 (London; 1900). See also end of xix. 4 below, and C. H., xvi. 17.\n312:4 Genere.\n313:1 That is, the Gods.\n314:1 Sc. species.\n314:2 Cf. C. H., xvi. 18, for the hierarchy of Gods and daimones; and for the \u201cintercourse of souls,\u201d C. H., x. (xi.) 22.\n314:3 That is, one of the immortal species, or a God.\n314:4 That is, they become Gods.\n315:1 A suggestion of man\u2019s attraction to the various species of the animal nature.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: II. The Perfect Sermon; or the Asclepius: Part II","type":"page"}