The Corpus Hermeticum Read online

  He in turn beholding the form like to himself, existing in her, in her Water, loved it and willed to live in it; and with the will came act, and [so] he vivified the form devoid of reason.

  And Nature took the object of her love and wound herself completely around him, and they were intermingled, for they were lovers.

  15. And this is why beyond all creatures on the earth man is twofold; mortal because of body, but because of the essential man immortal.

  Though deathless and possessed of sway o’er all, yet doth he suffer as a mortal doth, subject to Fate.

  Thus though above the Harmony, within the Harmony he hath become a slave. Though male-female, as from a Father male-female, and though he’s sleepless from a sleepless [Sire], yet is he overcome [by sleep].

  16. Thereon [I say: Teach on], O Mind of me, for I myself as well am amorous of the Word (Logos).

  The Shepherd said: This is the mystery kept hid until this day.

  Nature embraced by Man brought forth a wonder, oh so wonderful. For as he had the nature of the Concord of the Seven, who, as I said to thee, [were made] of Fire and Spirit - Nature delayed not, but immediately brought forth seven “men”, in correspondence with the natures of the Seven, male-female and moving in the air.

  Thereon [I said]: O Shepherd, ..., for now I’m filled with great desire and long to hear; do not run off.

  The Shepherd said: Keep silence, for not as yet have I unrolled for thee the first discourse (logoi).

  Lo! I am still, I said.

  17. In such wise than, as I have said, the generation of these seven came to pass. Earth was as woman, her Water filled with longing; ripeness she took from Fire, spirit from Aether. Nature thus brought forth frames to suit the form of Man.

  And Man from Light and Life changed into soul and mind - from Life to soul, from Light to mind.

  And thus continued all the sense-world’s parts until the period of their end and new beginnings.

  18. Now listen to the rest of the discourse (Logos) which thou dost long to hear.

  The period being ended, the bond that bound them all was loosened by God’s Will. For all the animals being male-female, at the same time with Man were loosed apart; some became partly male, some in like fashion [partly] female. And straightway God spake by His Holy Word (Logos):

  “Increase ye in increasing, and multiply in multitude, ye creatures and creations all; and man that hath Mind in him, let him learn to know that he himself is deathless, and that the cause of death is love, though Love is all.”

  19. When He said this, His Forethought did by means of Fate and Harmony effect their couplings and their generations founded. And so all things were multiplied according to their kind.

  And he who thus hath learned to know himself, hath reached that Good which doth transcend abundance; but he who through a love that leads astray, expends his love upon his body - he stays in Darkness wandering, and suffering through his senses things of Death.

  20. What is the so great fault, said I, the ignorant commit, that they should be deprived of deathlessness?

  Thou seem’st, He said, O thou, not to have given heed to what thou heardest. Did I not bid thee think?

  Yea do I think, and I remember, and therefore give Thee thanks.

  If thou didst think [thereon], [said He], tell me: Why do they merit death who are in Death?

  It is because the gloomy Darkness is the root and base of the material frame; from it came the Moist Nature; from this the body in the sense-world was composed; and from this [body] Death doth the Water drain.

  21. Right was thy thought, O thou! But how doth “he who knows himself, go unto Him”, as God’s Word (Logos) hath declared?

  And I reply: the Father of the universals doth consist of Light and Life, from Him Man was born.

  Thou sayest well, [thus] speaking. Light and Life is Father-God, and from Him Man was born.

  If then thou learnest that thou art thyself of Life and Light, and that thou [happen’st] to be out of them, thou shalt return again to Life. Thus did Man-Shepherd speak.

  But tell me further, Mind of me, I cried, how shall I come to Life again...for God doth say: “The man who hath Mind in him, let him learn to know that he himself [is deathless].”

  22. Have not all men then Mind?

  Thou sayest well, O thou, thus speaking. I, Mind, myself am present with holy men and good, the pure and merciful, men who live piously.

  [To such] my presence doth become an aid, and straightway they gain gnosis of all things, and win the Father’s love by their pure lives, and give Him thanks, invoking on Him blessings, and chanting hymns, intent on Him with ardent love.

  And ere they give up the body unto its proper death, they turn them with disgust from its sensations, from knowledge of what things they operate. Nay, it is I, the Mind, that will not let the operations which befall the body, work to their [natural] end. For being door-keeper I’ll close up [all] the entrances, and cut the mental actions off which base and evil energies induce.

  23. But to the Mind-less ones, the wicked and depraved, the envious and covetous, and those who mured do and love impiety, I am far off, yielding my place to the Avenging Daimon, who sharpening the fire, tormenteth him and addeth fire to fire upon him, and rusheth upon him through his senses, thus rendering him readier for transgressions of the law, so that he meets with greater torment; nor doth he ever cease to have desire for appetites inordinate, insatiately striving in the dark.

  24. Well hast thou taught me all, as I desired, O Mind. And now, pray, tell me further of the nature of the Way Above as now it is [for me].

  To this Man-Shepherd said: When the material body is to be dissolved, first thou surrenderest the body by itself unto the work of change, and thus the form thou hadst doth vanish, and thou surrenderest thy way of life, void of its energy, unto the Daimon. The body’s senses next pass back into their sources, becoming separate, and resurrect as energies; and passion and desire withdraw unto that nature which is void of reason.

  25. And thus it is that man doth speed his way thereafter upwards through the Harmony.

  To the first zone he gives the Energy of Growth and Waning; unto the second [zone], Device of Evils [now] de-energized; unto the third, the Guile of the Desires de-energized; unto the fourth, his Domineering Arrogance, [also] de-energized; unto the fifth, unholy Daring and the Rashness of Audacity, de-energized; unto the sixth, Striving for Wealth by evil means, deprived of its aggrandizement; and to the seventh zone, Ensnaring Falsehood, de-energized.

  26. And then, with all the energisings of the harmony stript from him, clothed in his proper Power, he cometh to that Nature which belongs unto the Eighth, and there with those-that-are hymneth the Father.

  They who are there welcome his coming there with joy; and he, made like to them that sojourn there, doth further hear the Powers who are above the Nature that belongs unto the Eighth, singing their songs of praise to God in language of their own.

  And then they, in a band, go to the Father home; of their own selves they make surrender of themselves to Powers, and [thus] becoming Powers they are in God. This the good end for those who have gained Gnosis - to be made one with God.

  Why shouldst thou then delay? Must it not be, since thou hast all received, that thou shouldst to the worthy point the way, in order that through thee the race of mortal kind may by [thy] God be saved?

  27. This when He’d said, Man-Shepherd mingled with the Powers.

  But I, with thanks and belssings unto the Father of the universal [Powers], was freed, full of the power he had poured into me, and full of what He’d taught me of the nature of the All and of the loftiest Vision.

  And I began to preach unto men the Beauty of Devotion and of Gnosis:

  O ye people, earth-born folk, ye who have given yourselves to drunkenness and sleep a
nd ignorance of God, be sober now, cease from your surfeit, cease to be glamoured by irrational sleep!

  28. And when they heard, they came with one accord. Whereon I say:

  Ye earth-born folk, why have ye given yourselves up to Death, while yet ye have the power of sharing Deathlessness? Repent, O ye, who walk with Error arm in arm and make of Ignorance the sharer of your board; get ye out from the light of Darkness, and take your part in Deathlessness, forsake Destruction!

  29. And some of them with jests upon their lips departed [from me], abandoning themselves unto the Way of Death; others entreated to be taught, casting themselves before my feet.

  But I made them arise, and I became a leader of the Race towards home, teaching the words (logoi), how and in what way they shall be saved. I sowed in them the words (logoi) of wisdom; of Deathless Water were they given to drink.

  And when even was come and all sun’s beams began to set, I bade them all give thanks to God. And when they had brought to an end the giving of their thanks, each man returned to his own resting place.

  30. But I recorded in my heart Man-Shepherd’s benefaction, and with my every hope fulfilled more than rejoiced. For body’s sleep became the soul’s awakening, and closing of the eyes - true vision, pregnant with Good my silence, and the utterance of my word (logos) begetting of good things.

  All this befell me from my Mind, that is Man-Shepherd, Word (Logos) of all masterhood, by whom being God-inspired I came unto the Plain of Truth. Wherefore with all my soul and strength thanksgiving give I unto Father-God.

  31. Holy art Thou, O God, the universals’ Father.

  Holy art Thou, O God, whose Will perfects itself by means of its own Powers.

  Holy art Thou, O God, who willeth to be known and art known by Thine own.

  Holy art Thou,who didst by Word (Logos) make to consist the things that are.

  Holy art Thou, of whom All-nature hath been made an image.

  Holy art Thou, whose Form Nature hath never made.

  Holy art Thou, more powerful than all power.

  Holy art Thou, transcending all pre-eminence.

  Holy Thou art, Thou better than all praise.

  Accept my reason’s offerings pure, from soul and heart for aye stretched up to Thee, O Thou unutterable, unspeakable, Whose Name naught but the Silence can express.

  32. Give ear to me who pray that I may ne’er of Gnosis fail, [Gnosis] which is our common being’s nature; and fill me with Thy Power, and with this Grace [of Thine], that I may give the Light to those in ignorance of the Race, my Brethren, and Thy Sons.

  For this cause I believe, and I bear witness; I go to Life and Light. Blessed art Thou, O Father. Thy Man would holy be as Thou art holy, e’en as Thou gave him Thy full authority [to be].

  02. To Asclepius

  This dialogue sets forth the difference between the physical and metaphysical worlds in the context of Greek natural philosophy. Some of the language is fairly technical: the “errant spheres” of sections 6 and 7 are the celestial spheres carrying the planets, while the “inerrant sphere” is that of the fixed stars. It’s useful to keep in mind, also, that “air” and “spirit” are interchangeable concepts in Greek thought, and that the concept of the Good has a range of implications which don’t come across in the English word: one is that the good of any being, in Greek thought, was also that being’s necessary goal.

  The criticism of childlessness in section 17 should probably be read as a response to the Christian ideal of celibacy, which horrified many people in the ancient world. - JMG

  1. Hermes: All that is moved, Asclepius, is it not moved in something and by something?

  Asclepius: Assuredly.

  H: And must not that in which it’s moved be greater than the moved?

  A: It must.

  H: Mover, again, has greater power than moved?

  A: It has, of course.

  H: The nature, furthermore, of that in which it’s moved must be quite other from the nature of the moved?

  A: It must completely.

  2. H: Is not, again, this cosmos vast, [so vast] that than it there exists no body greater?

  A: Assuredly.

  H: And massive, too, for it is crammed with multitudes of other mighty frames, nay, rather all the other bodies that there are?

  A: It is.

  H: And yet the cosmos is a body?

  A: It is a body.

  H: And one that’s moved?

  3. A: Assuredly.

  H: Of what size, then, must be the space in which it’s moved, and of what kind [must be] the nature [of that space]? Must it not be far vaster [than the cosmos], in order that it may be able to find room for its continued course, so that the moved may not be cramped for want of room and lose its motion?

  A: Something, Thrice-greatest one, it needs must be, immensely vast.

  4. H: And of what nature? Must it not be, Asclepius, of just the contrary? And is not contrary to body bodiless?

  A: Agreed.

  H: Space, then, is bodiless. But bodiless must either be some godlike thing or God [Himself]. And by “some godlike thing” I mean no more the generable [i.e., that which is generated] but the ingenerable.

  5. If, then, space be some godlike thing, it is substantial; but if ‘tis God [Himself], it transcends substance. But it is to be thought of otherwise [than God], and in this way.

  God is first “thinkable” or “intelligible” for us, not for Himself, for that the thing that’s thought doth fall beneath the thinker’s sense. God then cannot be “thinkable” unto Himself, in that He’s thought of by Himself as being nothing else but what He thinks. But he is “something else” for us, and so He’s thought of by us.

  6. If space is, therefore, to be thought, [it should] not, [then, be thought as] God, but space. If God is also to be thought, [He should] not [be conceived] as space, but as energy that can contain [all space].

  Further, all that is moved is moved not in the moved but in the stable. And that which moves [another] is of course stationary, for ‘tis impossible that it should move with it.

  A: How is it, then, that things down here, Thrice-greatest one, are moved with those that are [already] moved? For thou hast said the errant spheres were moved by the inerrant one.

  H: This is not, O Asclepius, a moving with, but one against; they are not moved with one another, but one against the other. It is this contrariety which turneth the resistance of their motion into rest. For that resistance is the rest of motion.

  7. Hence, too, the errant spheres, being moved contrarily to the inerrant one, are moved by one another by mutual contrariety, [and also] by the spable one through contrariety itself. And this can otherwise not be.

  The Bears up there i.e., Ursa Major and Minor, which neither set nor rise, think’st thou they rest or move?

  A: They move, Thrice-greatest one.

  H: And what their motion, my Asclepius?

  A: Motion that turns for ever round the same.

  H: But revolution - motion around same - is fixed by rest. For “round-the-same” doth stop “beyond-same”. “Beyond-same” then, being stopped, if it be steadied in “round-same” - the contrary stands firm, being rendered ever stable by its contrariety.

  8. Of this I’ll give thee here on earth an instance, which the eye can see. Regard the animals down here - a man, for instance, swimming! The water moves, yet the resistance of his hands and feet give him stability, so that he is not borne along with it, nor sunk thereby.

  A: Thou hast, Thrice-greatest one, adduced a most clear instance.

  H: All motion, then, is caused in station and by station.

  The motion, therefore, of the cosmos (and of every other hylic i.e., material animal) will not be caused by things exterior to the cosmos, but by things interior [outw
ard] to the exterior - such [things] as soul, or spirit, or some such other thing incorporeal.

  ‘Tis not the body that doth move the living thing in it; nay, not even the whole [body of the universe a lesser] body e’en though there be no life in it.

  9. A: What meanest thou by this, Thrice-greatest one? Is it not bodies, then, that move the stock and stone and all the other things inanimate?

  H: By no means, O Asclepius. The something-in-the-body, the that-which-moves the thing inanimate, this surely’s not a body, for that it moves the two of them - both body of the lifter and the lifted? So that a thing that’s lifeless will not move a lifeless thing. That which doth move [another thing] is animate, in that it is the mover.