{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th3/th304.htm","path":"gno/th3/th304.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th3/th304.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n(Title from Patrizzi (p. 46b), preceded by: \u201cOf Thrice-greatest Hermes to Tat.\u201d\nText: Stob., Flor., xi. 23, under heading: \u201cOf Hermes from the [Sermons] to Tat\u201d; G, i. 307-311; M. i. 248-251; H. iii. 436-441.\nM\u00e9nard, Livre IV., No. ix. of \u201cFragments from the Books of Hermes to his Son Tat,\u201d pp. 251-255.)\n1. [Her.] Concerning Truth, O Tat, it is not possible that man should dare to speak, for man\u2019s an animal imperfect, composed out of imperfect members, his tabernacle 1 patched together from many bodies strange [to him].\nBut what is possible and right, this do I say,\u2014that Truth is [to be found] in the eternal bodies only, [those things] of which the bodies in themselves are true, 2\u2014fire very fire and nothing else, earth very earth and nothing else, air very air and nothing else, and water very water and naught else.\nOur frames, however, are a compound of all these. For they have [in them] fire, and they have also earth, they\u2019ve water, too, and air; but they are neither fire, nor earth, nor water, nor air, 1 nor any [element that\u2019s] true.\nAnd if our composition has not had Truth for its beginning, how can it either see or speak the Truth?\nNay, it can only have a notion of it,\u2014[and that too] if God will.\n2. All things, accordingly, that are on earth, O Tat, are not the Truth; they\u2019re copies [only] of the True.\nAnd these are not all things, but few [of them]; the rest consist of falsity and error, Tat, and shows of seeming like unto images.\nWhenever the appearance doth receive the influx from above, it turns into a copy of the Truth; without its 2 energizing from above, it is left false.\nJust as the portrait also indicates the body in the picture, but in itself is not a body, in spite of the appearance of the thing that\u2019s seen.\n\u2019Tis seen as having eyes; but it sees naught, hears naught at all.\nThe picture, too, has all the other things, but they are false, tricking the sight of the beholders,\n[paragraph continues] \u2014these thinking that they see what\u2019s true, while what they see is really false.\nAll, then, who do not see what\u2019s false see truth.\nIf, then, we thus do comprehend, or see, each one of these 1 just as it really is, we really comprehend and see.\nBut if [we comprehend, or see, things] contrary to that which is, we shall not comprehend, nor shall we know aught true.\n3. [Tat.] There is, then, father, Truth e\u2019en on the earth?\n[Her.] Not inconsiderably, O son, art thou at fault.\nTruth is in no wise, Tat, upon the earth, nor can it be.\nBut some men can, [I say,] have an idea of it,\u2014should God grant them the power of godly vision. 2\nThus there is nothing true on earth,\u2014[so much] I know and say. All are appearances and shows,\u2014I know and speak true [things]. We ought not, surely, though, to call the knowing and the speaking of true things the Truth?\n4. [Tat.] Why, how on earth ought we to know and speak of things being true,\u2014yet nothing\u2019s true on earth?\n[Her.] This [much] is true,\u2014that we do not know aught that\u2019s true down here. 1 How could it be, O son?\nFor Truth is the most perfect virtue, the very highest Good, by matter undisturbed, uncircumscribed by body,\u2014naked, [and] evident, changeless, august, unalterable Good.\nBut things down here, O son, thou seest what they are,\u2014not able to receive this Good, corruptible, [and] passible, dissolvable, changeful, and ever altering, being born from one another.\nThings, then, that are not true even to their own selves, how can they [possibly] be true?\nFor all that alters is untrue; it does not stay in what it is, but shows itself to us by changing into one another its appearances.\n5. [Tat.] And even man,\u2014is he not true, O father?\n[Her.] As man,\u2014he is not true, O son. For that the True is that which has its composition from itself alone, and in itself stays as it is.\nBut man has been composed of many things, and does not stay in his own self.\nHe changes and he alters, from age to age, from form to form, and that too, even while he\u2019s still in [one and] the [same] tent. 2\nNay, many fail to recognize their children,\nwhen a brief space of time comes in between; and so again of children with their parents.\nThat, then, which changes so that it\u2019s no longer recognized,\u2014can that be true, O Tat?\nIs it not, rather, false, coming and going, 1 in the [all] varied shows of its [continual] changes?\nBut do thou have it in thy mind that a true thing is that which stays and lasts for aye.\nBut \u201cman\u201d is not for ever; wherefore it 2 is not true. \u201cMan\u2019s\u201d an appearance. And appearance is extreme untruth.\n6. [Tat.] But these external bodies, 3 father, too, in that they change, are they not true?\n[Her.] All that is subject unto genesis and change, is verily not true; but in as much as they are brought to being by the Forefather 4 [of them all], they have their matter true.\nBut even they have something false in that they change; for naught that doth not stay with its own self is true.\n[Tat.] True, father [mine]! Is one to say, then, that the Sun alone,\u2014in that in greater measure than the rest of them he doth not change but stayeth with himself,\u2014is Truth?\n[Her.] [Nay, rather, but] because he, and\nhe only, hath entrusted unto him the making of all things in cosmos, 1 ruling all and making all;\u2014to whom I reverence give, and worship pay unto his Truth, and recognise him as the Demiurge after the One and First.\n[Tat.] What then, O father, should\u2019st thou say is the first Truth?\n[Her.] The One and Only, Tat,\u2014He who is not of matter, or in body, the colourless, the figureless, the changeless [One], He who doth alter not, who ever is.\nBut the untrue, O son, doth perish. All things, however, on the earth that perish,\u2014the Forethought of the True hath comprehended [them], and doth and will encompass [them].\nFor birth without corruption 2 cannot be; corruption followeth on every birth, in order that it may be born again.\nFor that things that are born, must of necessity be born from things that are destroyed 3; and things that have been born, must of necessity be [once again] destroyed, in order that the genesis of things existent may not stop.\nFirst, [then], see that thou recognize him 4 as the Demiurge for birth-and-death 5 of [all] existent things.\n8. Things that are born out of destruction, then, must of necessity be false,\u2014in that they are becoming now these things, now those. For \u2019tis impossible they should become the same.\nBut that which is not \u201csame,\u201d\u2014how can it possibly be true?\nSuch things we should, then, call appearances, [my] son; for instance, if we give the man his proper designation, [we ought to designate him] a man\u2019s 1 appearance;\u2014[and so] the child a child\u2019s appearance, the youth a youth\u2019s appearance, the man a man\u2019s appearance, the old man an appearance of the same.\nFor man is not a man, nor child a child, nor youth a youth, nor grown up man a grown up man, nor aged man a [single] aged man.\nBut as they change they are untrue,\u2014both pre-existent things and things existent.\nBut thus think of them, son,\u2014as even these untruths being energies dependent from above from Truth itself.\nAnd this being so, I say untruth is Truth\u2019s in-working. 2\nThe excerpt seems complete in itself, but whether it lay before Stob\u00e6us as a single sermon or as a part of a sermon it is impossible to say.\n17:1 \u03c3\u03ba\u1fc6\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2. Cf. Ex. vii. 3 note, and also \u00a7 5 below.\n17:2 Or real.\n18:1 Compare Lact., D. I., ii. 12.\n18:2 That is, Truth\u2019s.\n19:1 This presumably refers to the simple elements of things in themselves.\n19:2 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1f74\u03bd . . . \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9\u03bd.\n20:1 Taking \u1f10\u03bd\u03b8\u03ac\u03b4\u03b5 with the preceding clause.\n20:2 Cf. \u00a7 1 above.\n21:1 Lit. becoming.\n21:2 Neuter, that is, the series of temporary appearances of the true man.\n21:3 The heavenly bodies presumably.\n21:4 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2; cf. Ex. i. 3.\n22:1 Cf. Ex. vii. 2, and \u00a7 7 below.\n22:2 Or perishing.\n22:3 Or are corrupted, or perish.\n22:4 That is, the Sun; cf. \u00a7 6 above.\n22:5 Lit. genesis.\n23:1 Lit. manhood\u2019s.\n23:2 Or operation; \u1f10\u03bd\u03ad\u03c1\u03b3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3: I. Excerpts by Stob\u00e6us: Excerpt III. Of Truth","type":"page"}