{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th2/th242.htm","path":"gno/th2/th242.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/th242.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n2. [VI. M.] The Lord of the Eternity 3 is the first God; the second\u2019s Cosmos; man is the third. 4\nGod is the Maker of the Cosmos and of all the things therein; at the same time He ruleth 5 all, with man himself, [who is] the ruler of the compound thing 6; the whole of which man taking on himself, doth make of it the proper care of his own love, in order that the two of them, himself and Cosmos, may be an ornament each unto other; so that from this divine compost of man, \u201cWorld\u201d seems most fitly called \u201cCosmos\u201d 7 in Greek.\n3. He knows himself; he knows the World as\nwell. 1 So that he recollects, indeed, what is convenient to his own parts. He calls to mind what he must use, that they may be of service to himself; giving the greatest praise and thanks to God, His Image 2 reverencing,\u2014not ignorant that he is, too, God\u2019s image the second [one]; for that there are two images of God\u2014Cosmos and man. 3\n4. So that it comes to pass that, since man\u2019s is a single structure,\u2014in that part [of him] which doth consist of Soul, and Sense, of Spirit, and of Reason, he\u2019s divine; so that he seems to have the power to mount from as it were the higher elements into the Heaven.\nBut in his cosmic part, which is composed of fire, and water, and of air, he stayeth mortal on the Earth,\u2014lest he should leave all things committed to his care forsaken and bereft.\nThus human kind is made in one part deathless, and in the other part subject to death while in a body.\n1. Now of that dual nature,\u2014that is to say of man,\u2014there is a chief capacity. [And that is] piety, which goodness follows after.\n[And] this [capacity] then, and then only, seems to be perfected, if it be fortified with virtue of despising all desires for alien things.\nFor alien from every part of kinship with the Gods 1 are all things on the Earth, whatever are possessed from bodily desires,\u2014to which we rightly give the name \u201cpossessions,\u201d in that they are not born with us, but later on begin to be possessed by us; wherefore we call them by the name possessions. 2\n2. All such things, then, are alien from man,\u2014even his body. So that we can despise not only what we long for, but also that from which the vice of longing comes to us.\nFor just as far as the increase of reason leads our 3 soul, so far one should be man; in order that by contemplating the divine, one should look down upon, and disregard the mortal part, which hath been joined to him, through the necessity of helping on the lower 4 world.\n3. For that, in order that a man should be complete in either part, observe that he hath\nbeen composed of elements of either part in sets of four;\u2014with hands, and feet, both of them pairs, and with the other 1 members of his body, by means of which he may do service to the lower (that is to say the terrene) world.\nAnd to these parts [are added other] four;\u2014of sense, and soul, of memory, and foresight, by means of which he may become acquainted with the rest of things divine, and judge of them.\nHence it is brought about that man investigates the differences and qualities, effects and quantities of things, with critical research; yet, as he is held back with the too heavy weight of body\u2019s imperfection, he cannot properly descry the causes of the nature of [all] things which [really] are the true ones.\n4. Man, then, being thus created and composed, and to such ministry and service set by Highest God,\u2014man, by his keeping suitably the world in proper order, [and] by his piously adoring God, in both becomingly and suitably obeying God\u2019s Good Will,\u2014[man being] such as this, with what reward think\u2019st thou he should be recompensed?\nIf that, indeed,\u2014since Cosmos is God\u2019s work,\u2014he who preserves and adds on to its beauty\nby his love, joins his own work unto God\u2019s Will; when he with toil and care doth fashion out the species 1 (which He hath made [already] with His Divine Intent), with help of his own body;\u2014with what reward think\u2019st thou he should be recompensed, unless it be with that with which our forebears 2 have been blest?\n5. That this may be the pleasure of God\u2019s Love, such is our prayer for you, devoted ones.\nIn other words, may He, when ye have served your time, and have put off the world\u2019s restraint, and freed yourselves from deathly bonds, restore you pure and holy to the nature of your higher self, 3 that is of the Divine!\n1. Asc. Rightly and truly, O Thrice-greatest one, thou speakest. This is the prize for those who piously subordinate their lives to God and live to help the world.\nTris. [To those], however, who have lived in other fashion impiously,\u2014[to them] both is return to Heaven denied, and there\u2019s appointed them migration into other bodies 4 unworthy of a holy soul and base; so that, as this discourse\nof ours will show, 1 souls in their life on earth run risk of losing hope of future immortality.\n2. But [all of this] doth seem to some beyond belief; a tale to others; to others [yet again], perchance, a subject for their mirth. 2\nFor in this life in body, it is a pleasant thing\u2014the pleasure that one gets from one\u2019s possessions. 3 \u2019Tis for this cause that spite, in envy of its [hope of] immortality, doth clap the soul in prison, 4 as they say, and keep it down, so that it stays in that part of itself in which it\u2019s mortal, nor suffers it to know the part of its divinity.\n3. For I will tell thee, as though it were prophetic-ly, 5 that no one after us 6 shall have the Single Love, the Love of wisdom-loving, 7 which consists in Gnosis of Divinity alone,\u2014[the practice of] perpetual contemplation and of holy piety. For that the many do confound philosophy with multifarious reasoning. 8\nAsc. Why is it, then, the many make philosophy so hard to grasp; or wherefore is it they confound this thing with multifarious reasoning?\n1. Tris. \u2019Tis in this way, Asclepius;\u2014by mixing it, by means of subtle expositions, with divers sciences not easy to be grasped,\u2014such as arithmetic, and music, and geometry.\nBut Pure Philosophy, which doth depend on godly piety alone, should only so far occupy itself with other arts, that it may [know how to] appreciate the working out in numbers of the fore-appointed stations of the stars when they return, and of the course of their procession.\nLet her, moreover, know how to appreciate the Earth\u2019s dimensions, its qualities and quantities, the Water\u2019s depths, the strength of Fire, and the effects and nature of all these. [And so] let her give worship and give praise unto the Art and Mind of God.\n2. As for [true] Music,\u2014to know this is naught else than to have knowledge of the order of all things, and whatsoe\u2019er God\u2019s Reason hath decreed.\nFor that the order of each several thing when set together in one [key] for all, by means of skilful reason, will make, as \u2019twere,\nthe sweetest and the truest harmony with God\u2019s [own] Song. 1\n1. Asc. Who, therefore, will the men be after us 2?\nTris. They will be led astray by sophists\u2019 cleverness, and turned from True Philosophy,\u2014the Pure and Holy [Love].\nFor that to worship God with single mind and soul, and reverence the things that He hath made, and to give thanks unto His Will, which is the only thing quite full of Good,\u2014this is Philosophy unsullied by the soul\u2019s rough curiousness.\nBut of this subject let what has been said so far suffice.\n325:3 That is, the \u00c6on. Cf. xxx. 1 below.\n325:4 Cf. Ex. i. 8.\n325:5 Reading gubernat for gubernando.\n325:6 That is, the compost, or \u201ccosmic\u201d part of himself, apparently, of v. 2.\n325:7 The original Greek \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 is here retained in the Latin; it means \u201corder, adornment, ornament,\u201d as well as \u201cworld.\u201d\n326:1 The idea is that man is a microcosm; he is, as to his bodies, \u201ccosmic\u201d (\u201cmundanus homo\u201d), for his vehicles are made of the elements; he is thus in these an image or seed (microcosm) of the universe, the macrocosm.\n326:2 Sc. Cosmos. Cf. xxxi. 1 below.\n326:3 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 25, last sentence.\n327:1 Ab omnibus divin\u00e6 cognationis partibus.\n327:2 This seems somewhat tautological. The first clause runs: \u201cqu\u00e6cunque terrena corporali cupiditate possidentur; qu\u00e6 merito possessionem nomine nuncupantur.\u201d This Latin word-play seems almost to suggest that we are dealing with an embellishment of the translator; it may, however, have stood in the original. Cf. xii. 2 below.\n327:3 Lit. my.\n327:4 Reading inferioris for interioris, as immediately below in \u00a7 3. Cf. vi. 3, last sentence.\n328:1 This seems very loose indeed; the text or the Latin translation is probably at fault, unless the \u201cother members\u201d are supposed to be grouped in sets of double pairs.\n329:1 Singular\u2014that is, the species in the Cosmos, according to the type in the Divine Mind.\n329:2 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 5; Lact., D. I., i. 11; and xxxvii. 3 below.\n329:3 Lit. part.\n329:4 In corporalia . . . migratio.\n330:1 The Latin here does not construe.\n330:2 Cf. C. H., i. 29; also xxv. 3 below.\n330:3 Cf. xi. 1 above.\n330:4 Obtorto . . . collo.\n330:5 Ego enim tibi quasi pr\u00e6divinans dixero. Notice the dixero,\u2014the \u201cprophetic\u201d tense, if we may be permitted to coin a term to characterize this use, which reminds us so strongly of the \u201cSibylline\u201d literature and the allied prophetic centonism of the time.\n330:6 Cf. Ex. ix. 8, and xiv. 1 below.\n330:7 Lit. philosophy. Cf. in Philo, D. V. C., the \u201cHeavenly Love\u201d with which the Therapeuts were \u201cafire with God.\u201d Cf. xiv. 1, and Ex. i. 3.\n330:8 Cf. C. H., xvi. 2.\n332:1 Cf. \u201cHeaven\u2019s harmonious song\u201d in xxviii. 11 below.\n332:2 Cf. xii. 3 above, and notes.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 2: II. The Perfect Sermon; or the Asclepius: Part VI","type":"page"}