{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th3/th319.htm","path":"gno/th3/th319.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th3/th319.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n(Patrizzi (p. 41) runs this on to the last without a break.\nText: Stob., Phys., xli. 5, under heading: \u201cOf the Same\u201d\u2014that is, \u201cOf Hermes\u201d; G. pp. 325-327; M. i. 229, 230; W. i. 322-324.\nM\u00e9nard, Livre IV., No. vii. of \u201cFragments of the Books of Hermes to Ammon,\u201d pp. 267, 268.)\n1. [Now], every Soul is free from death and in perpetual motion.\nFor in the General Sermons 1 we have said some motions are by means of the activities, 2 others are owing to the bodies.\nWe say, moreover, that the Soul\u2019s produced out of a certain essence,\u2014not a matter,\u2014incorporal itself, just as its essence is.\nNow every thing that\u2019s born, must of necessity be born from something.\nAll things, moreover, in which destruction followeth on birth, must of necessity have two kinds of motion with them:\u2014the [motion] of\nthe Soul, by which they\u2019re moved; and body\u2019s [motion], by which they wax and wane.\nMoreover, also, on the former\u2019s dissolution, the latter 1 is dissolved.\nThis I define, [then,] as the motion of bodies corruptible.\n2. The Soul, however, is in perpetual motion,\u2014in that perpetually it moves itself, and makes [its] motion active [too] in other things.\nAnd so, according to this reason, every Soul is free from death, having for motion the making active of itself.\nThe kinds of Souls are three:\u2014divine, [and] human, [and] irrational.\nNow the divine [is that] of its divine body, in which there is the making active of itself. For it is moved in it, and moves itself.\nFor when it is set free from mortal lives, it separates itself from the irrational portions of itself, departs unto the godlike body, and as \u2019tis in perpetual motion, is moved in its own self, with the same motion as the universe.\n3. The human [kind] has also something of the godlike [body], but it has joined to it as well the [parts] irrational,\u2014the appetite and heart. 2\nThese latter also are immortal, in that they\nhappen also in themselves to be activities; but [they are] the activities of mortal bodies.\nWherefore, they are removed far from the godlike portion of the Soul, when it is in its godlike body; but when this 1 enters in a mortal frame, they 2 also cling to it, and by the presence [of these elements] it keeps on being a human Soul.\nBut that of the irrationals consists of heart and appetite. And for this cause these lives are also called irrational, through deprivation of the reason of the Soul.\n4. You may consider, too, as a fourth [kind] that of the soulless, which from without 3 the bodies operates in them, and sets them moving.\nBut this should [really] be the moving of itself within its godlike body, and the moving of these [other] things as it were by the way.\nThe mention of the General Sermons (\u00a7 1) raises the question as to whether or no our extract may not be from one of the Sermons to Tat, for in all other cases these General Sermons are referred to in the Tat-literature. The contents, however, are so similar to the extracts from the Sermons to Ammon that we keep this excerpt with them.\n77:1 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 1 and 7; xiii. (xiv.) 1; and Ex. ix. 1.\n77:2 Or energies.\n78:1 The former is here the body; the latter, the motion of waxing and waning.\n78:2 Cf. Ex. xvii.\n79:1 Sc. the divine part.\n79:2 The irrational parts.\n79:3 The other kinds presumably operating in bodies from within.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3: I. Excerpts by Stob\u00e6us: Excerpt XVIII. Of Soul, V.","type":"page"}