{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th241.htm","path":"gno/th2/th241.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th241.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n1. [V. M.] But, O Asclepius, I see that thou with swift desire of mind art in a hurry to be told how man can have a love and worship of the Heaven, or of the things that are therein. Hear, then, Asclepius!\nThe love of God and Heaven, together with all them that are therein, is one perpetual act of worship. 1\nNo other thing ensouled, of Gods or animals, can do this thing, save man alone. 2 \u2019Tis in the admiration, adoration, [and] the praise of men, and [in their] acts of worship, that Heaven and Heaven\u2019s hosts find their delight.\n2. Nor is it without cause the Muses\u2019 choir hath been sent down by Highest Deity unto the host of men; in order that, forsooth, the terrene world should not seem too uncultured, had it lacked the charm of measures, but rather that with songs and praise of men accompanied with\nmusic, 1 He might be lauded,\u2014He who alone is all, or is the Sire of all; and so not even on the earths, 2 should there have been an absence of the sweetness of the harmony of heavenly praise.\n3. Some, then, though they be very few, endowed with the Pure Mind, 3 have been entrusted with the sacred charge of contemplating Heaven.\nWhereas those men who, from the two-fold blending of their nature, have not as yet withdrawn their inner reason from their body\u2019s mass, 4 these are appointed for the study of the elements, and [all] that is below them.\n4. Thus man\u2019s an animal; yet not indeed less potent in that he\u2019s partly mortal, but rather doth he seem to be all the more fit and efficacious for reaching Certain Reason, since he has had mortality bestowed on him as well.\nFor it is plain he could not have sustained the strain of both, unless he had been formed out of both natures, 5 so that he could possess the powers of cultivating Earthly things and loving Heaven.\n1. The Reason of a thesis such as this, O [my] Asclepius, I would that thou should\u2019st grasp, not only with the keen attention of thy soul, but also with its living power 1 [as well].\nFor \u2019tis a Reason that most men cannot believe; the Perfect and the True are to be grasped by the more holy minds. 2 Hence, then, will I begin.\n323:1 Una est obsequiorum frequentatio. Cf. Ex. i. 3.\n323:2 Cf. C. H., xvi. 11: \u201cThe duty of mankind is to give worship.\u201d\n324:1 Musicatis; or perhaps \u201cMuse-inspired\u201d; a word which, like so many others, occurs only in the Latin of this treatise.\n324:2 In terris, pl.\n324:3 Cf. vii. 1 and 2 above.\n324:4 The reading is \u201cinteriorem intelligentiam mole corporis resederunt,\u201d of which I can make nothing; resederunt is evidently an error.\n324:5 There is here a \u201cdouble\u201d in the text, which the editor has not removed.\n325:1 Vivacitate. Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 17; and xix. 1 below.\n325:2 Cf. C. H., ix. (x.) 10.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: II. The Perfect Sermon; or the Asclepius: Part V","type":"page"}