{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th3/th317.htm","path":"gno/th3/th317.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th3/th317.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n(I have added the title, Patrizzi (p. 40b) having only the heading: \u201cTo the Same Ammon.\u201d\nText: Stob., Phys., xli. 3, under the simple heading: \u201cOf Hermes\u201d; G. pp. 323, 324; M. i. 227, 228; W. i. 320, 321.\nM\u00e9nard, Livre IV., No. v. of \u201cFragments of the Books of Hermes to Ammon,\u201d pp. 263, 264.)\n1. The Soul is, then, incorporal essence; for if it should have body, it would no longer have the power of being self-maintained. 1\nFor every body needeth being; it needeth also ordered life 2 as well.\nFor that for every thing that comes to birth, 3 change also must succeed. 4\nFor that which doth become, 5 becomes in size; for in becoming it hath increase.\nAgain, for every thing that doth increase, decrease succeedeth; and on increase destruction.\nFor, sharing in the form of life, 1 it 2 lives; it shares, also, in being through the Soul.\n2. But that which is the cause of being to another, is being first itself.\nAnd by [this] \u201cbeing\u201d I now mean becoming in reason, and taking part in intellectual life.\nIt is the Soul that doth supply this intellectual life.\nIt is called living 3 through the life, and rational through the intellect, and mortal through the body.\nSoul is, accordingly, a thing incorporal, possessing [in itself] the power of freedom from all change.\nFor how would it be possible to talk about an intellectual living thing, 4 if that there were no [living] essence to furnish life?\nNor, any more, would it be possible to say a rational [living] thing, were there no ratiocinative essence to furnish intellectual life.\n3. It is not to all [lives] that intellect extends; [it doth depend] on the relationship of body\u2019s composition to the Harmony.\nFor if the hot in the compost be in excess, he\u2019s light 1 and fervid; but if the cold, he\u2019s heavy and he\u2019s dull.\nFor Nature makes the composition fit the Harmony.\nThere are three forms of the becoming,\u2014the hot, the cold, and medium.\nIt 2 makes it fit according to the ruling Star 3 in the star-mixture.\nAnd Soul receiving it, 4 as Fate decrees, supplies this work of Nature with [the proper kind of] life.\nNature, accordingly, assimilates the body\u2019s harmony unto the mixture of the Stars, and co-unites its complex mixtures with their Harmony, so that they are in mutual sympathy.\nFor that the end of the Stars\u2019 Harmony is to give birth to sympathy according to their Fate.\n72:1 Or of saving itself.\n72:2 \u03b6\u03c9\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u03ac\u03be\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2,\u2014lit. life set, or placed, in order (as distinguished from intellectual life), that is, presumably, sensible or cosmic life.\n72:3 Or has becoming, or genesis.\n72:4 Or follow.\n72:5 Or is born.\n73:1 \u03b5\u1f34\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b6\u03c9\u1fc6\u03c2,\u2014that is, formal life, or life set in order.\n73:2 Sc. body, or that which comes to birth.\n73:3 \u03b6\u1ff6\u03bf\u03bd (subs.) according to Gaisford,\u2014that is, an animal; but I prefer \u03b6\u03c9\u03cc\u03bd (adj.), taking it with the following \u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b9\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd and \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd.\n73:4 Or animal.\n74:1 \u03ba\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2 (mas.),\u2014the subject is, therefore, man, the rational animal.\n74:2 Sc. Nature.\n74:3 Or, presumably, planetary sphere.\n74:4 Sc. the body-compost.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3: I. Excerpts by Stob\u00e6us: Excerpt XVI. Of Soul, III.","type":"page"}