{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th3/th315.htm","path":"gno/th3/th315.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th3/th315.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n(Title from Patrizzi (p. 40); preceded by \u201cOf Thrice-greatest Hermes,\u201d and followed by \u201cTo the Same Ammon.\u201d\nText: Stob., Phys., xxxv. 9, under heading: \u201cOf Hermes from the [Sermons] to Ammon\u201d; G. pp. 282, 283; M. i. 196, 197; W. 281, 282.\nM\u00e9nard, Livre IV., No. iii. of \u201cFragments of the Books of Hermes to Ammon,\u201d pp. 259, 260.)\n1. The Soul is further [in itself] incorporal essence, and even when in body it by no means doth depart from the essentiality peculiar to itself.\nIts nature is, according to its essence to be for ever moving, according to its thought [to be] self-motive [purely], not moved in something, nor towards something, nor [yet] because of something.\nFor it is prior [to them] in power, and prior stands not in any need of consequents.\n\u201cIn something,\u201d furthermore,\u2014means space, and time, and nature; \u201ctowards something,\u201d\u2014[this] means harmony, and form, and figure; \u201cbecause of something,\u201d\u2014[this] means body, for \u2019tis because of body that there is time, and space, and nature.\nNow all these things are in connection with each other by means of a congenital relationship.\n2. For instance, now, the body must have space, for it would be past all contriving that a body should exist without a space.\nIt changes, too, in nature, and \u2019tis impossible for change to be apart from time, and from the movement nature makes; nor is it further possible for there to be composing of a body apart from harmony.\nIt is because of body, then, that space exists; for that by its reception of the changes of the body, it does not let a thing that\u2019s changing pass away.\nBut, changing, it doth alternate from one thing to another, and is deprived of being in a permanent condition, but not of being body.\nFor body, qu\u00e2 body, remains body; but any special moment of its state does not remain.\nThe body, then, keeps changing in its states.\n3. And so, space is incorporal, and time, and natural motion; but each of these has naturally its own peculiar property.\nThe property of space is receptivity; of time [\u2019tis] interval and number; of nature [it is] motion; of harmony [\u2019tis] love; of body, change.\nThe special nature of the Soul, however, is essential thought. 1\n64:1 Or thinking according to essence,\u2014\u1f21 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u2019 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03bd\u03cc\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3: I. Excerpts by Stob\u00e6us: Excerpt XIV. Of Soul, I.","type":"page"}