Corpus Hermeticum

And now, 0 Tat, God's Image l hath been sketched for thee, as far as it can be 2 ; and if thou wilt attentively dwell on it and observe it with thy heart's eyes, believe me, son, thou'lt find the Path that leads above ; nay, that Image shall become thy Guide 3 itself, because the Sight [Divine] hath this peculiar [charm], it holdeth fast and draweth unto it those who succeed in opening their eyes, just as, they say, the magnet [draweth] iron.4 1 The Universal Cosmos or Monad. 2 The above sentences, beginning with " The Oneness," second paragraph of § 10, are quoted by Stobseus, Phys., I. x. 15 ; G. pp. 116, 117; W. 127, 6 ff . ; under the heading, "Of Hermes." 3 Cf. G. #., vii. (viii.) 2 ; ix. (x.) 10 ; x. (xi.) 21 ; R. 23, n. 5. 4 This simile is also used in the Naassene Document, and in Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, where I have noticed it. This beautiful little treatise, in which the great principles of the Gnosis are set forth so clearly and lucidly by the philosopher-mystic who penned it so many centuries ago, bears a double, or rather a triple, title: "Of Hermes to Tat: The Cup or Monad [or Oneness]." l The double title, however, is but a choice of names, for The Cup is The Oneness, — The One Element,2 the " Body " of God, which is the Cause of all bodies and yet itself is bodiless ; in other words, the Monad is the Intelligible Cosmos itself, God's Image, elsewhere called His Alone-begotten Son.

That this idea of a Cup or Mixing-bowl (Crater), in the symbolic sense of an all -containing receptacle, in which all the elements were blended together, and in the metaphysical sense of a transcendent Unity, the source of all things measurable and numberable, was one of the main doctrines of the Trismegistic tradition, is plain from the Pcemandrist Zosimus, who refers especially to this Cup as the symbol of Spiritual Baptism — that is, the plunging of the whole nature into the Great Ocean of Spirit or Mind, so that the man becomes irradiate with Life and illumined with Light. For a consideration of this Crater or Cup symbolism I must refer the reader to the chapter so entitled in the "Prolegomena"; it there being shown that in all probability it was transmitted along the Orphic line 1 See R. 193. Unfortunately, though lie twice quotes from our treatise, Stobaeus adds nothing to our knowledge of the title, since he prefixes his extracts with the simple heading, "Of Hermes." 2 Which is to be equated, I believe, " nieta-physically " with the Quintessence or ^Ether. of tradition, though doubtless the Egyptian had some similar ideas. Our treatise should be read in the closest connection with C. H., xi. (xii.), "The Mind to Hermes," which is its " esoteric " counterpart. What is here set forth for Tat by Hermes is there imparted to Hermes by the Mind; what is here set forth for the probationer or " hearer " is there set forth for the advanced disciple or " seer " ; or, to use Mystery terms, what is here told to the Mystes is there revealed to the Epopt. Thus, then, the Tat-instruction begins.

1. All things are made by Eeason, the Formative Energy of the Mind. The Ideal Cosmos, or WorldOrder, is the Divine Body. 2. Earth is the sensible Cosmos ; on Earth man, the image of the Image, or Eeason, of God rules. The purpose of man is thus to become the con tempi ator (OeaTw) of the works of God ; it is by the " wonder " aroused in him by the sight of these marvels that he will rise eventually into a knowledge of God Himself. This "wonder" is, then, the beginning of the True Philosophy or God-knowledge (*} TOV Oeov Karavorja-ts). 3. All men have in them "reason" (the ray of the Eeason or Logos), but as yet few have " Mind." This " mind " is the true Son of Mind, it is the real man, the perfect man, self-conscious of his Self. This true Self-consciousness is the prize set up for souls to win : the crown of humanity, the Christ-state (or, at any rate, the super-man or true man state). The Christ-Baptism is the plunging of the whole nature into the Mind-filled Cup, — the Pleroma of the Divine Being whose Body and Mind are one, — for is

not the Cup the Body of God, " consecrated unto Himself alone" (§ 1), the Universal Body of all things ? It would be fascinating to speculate on what connection this Cup of Initiation may have had with the Mystic Eucharist, and the Original of the later Grailtradition, which a great master of music and song has in our days made to live again in undying melody, and so restored it to its more universal significance. How Wagner sensed the marvel of the wondrous Vision with a poet's intuition may be seen from his own words : " To the enraptured gaze of one longing for celestial love, the clear blue atmosphere of heaven seems at first to condense itself into a wonderful, scarcely perceptible, but dazzlingly beautiful Vision. Then with gradually increasing precision the wonder-working angelic host is delineated in infinitely delicate outlines, as, conveying the holy vessel in its midst, it insensibly descends from the blazing heights of heaven. As the vision grows more and more distinct, . . . the heart throbs with the pain of ecstasy ; . . . and when at last the Grail shows itself in the marvel of undraped reality, . . . the beholder's brain reels — he falls down in a state of adoring annihilation. . . . With chaste rejoicing the angelic host then returns to the heavenly height, fading away into the nothingness whence it first emanated."

But for the Seers of the Gnosis there was a more intimate realization, for they were bidden to cast aside all hesitation and fearlessly to plunge themselves into the very Cup Itself, the Ocean of Divine Love and Wisdom. This was the Proclamation or Preaching or Good Tidings, of the Herald of God to men, to those who had the Living Faith they could "ascend to Him who had sent down the Cup," God's Greatest Gift. By such a Baptism as this, not by a symbolic sprinkling with water, is it that man is to be redeemed. This is the consummation of man's earthly pilgrimage, the realization of the " Gnosis of the Mind, Vision of things Divine ; God- knowledge is it ; for the Cup is God's." 6. In § 6 we have given us a discipline of the mystic way, the " hating of the body," which is by no means to be taken literally. A misunderstanding of this discipline led many of the mystics of the time (and, for a matter of that, has led most of the mystics of all time) to the false belief that the body (or matter generally) was the source of evil. Hence we have all the mortifications and chastisements of the flesh which the monkish spirit introduced into Christendom, and which persist in some quarters even to our own day. Against this the Common Sense of Christianity as a general religion, basing itself on the general utterances of the Christ, has ever protested.

Our mystic philosopher, in urging his disciples to hate the body, apparently does so because they are in the first stages of awakening, and so far have not got the " Mi ad " active in them. In taking the first steps there must be developed a consciousness of the strong antithesis of good and evil, of love and hate, in order that the will of the disciple may be strengthened towards the good and weakened towards the bad. When, however, his will is balanced between the two, when he as easily wills good as evil, then, and not till then, is he prepared to learn the further great lesson: that real wisdom consists in balance, in the Middle Way ; that nothing is evil in itself — the Body is as honourable in its own sphere, as absolutely necessary and indispensable, as is the Mind in its. He learns the great secret that to have one's thoughts always in heaven is as erroneous as to have them always on earth ; that there is a higher mode of existence, when the things of heaven and earth are within each other, and not apart. As the Introduction to The Book of the Great Logos according to the Mystery has it:

" Jesus saith : Blessed is the man who knoweth this Word (Logos), and hath brought down the Heaven and borne up the Earth and raised it Heavenwards." 1 Heaven and Earth must kiss each other for this consummation, this truly Sacred Marriage. And yet in the third Synoptic (xvi. 25, 26) we read : " Jesus saith : If any man come unto Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own soul also, he cannot be My disciple. " Here we have precisely the same word " hate " (fjna-el) as in our text. That, however, this " dark saying " was interpreted in a mystical sense by Gnostic tradition, as by no means referring to physical parents but to the past causes of our imperfections,2 I have already pointed out on several occasions 3 ; we may therefore 1 Codex Brucianus ; see F. F. F., p. 520. 2 Cf. the Pistis Sophia, 341-343, where the text is given as : " He who shall not leave father and mother to follow after Me is not worthy of Me," and explained by the Saviour to mean : " Ye shall leave your Parents the Rulers, that ye may be Children of the First Everlasting Mystery."

3 See, for instance, Extracts from the" Vdhan" (London, 1904), pp. 374-376. conclude that in a gnostic teaching, such as is our treatise, the terms " hate " and " body " are not to be literally interpreted. 8. And that this is so may be seen from the declaration in § 8 : " For 'tis not God, 'tis we who are the cause of evil things, preferring them to good " ; — where the cause of evil is not assigned to the body but to man's own choice. And finally, to clinch our contention, we would refer the reader to the Sermon to Asclepius, 0. H., vi. (vii.) 6 : " Such are the things that men call good and beautiful, Asclepius — things which we cannot flee or hate." 9. In § 9 we have to notice the phrase : " Therefore to It Gnosis is no beginning ; rather is it that Gnosis doth afford to us the first beginning of Its being known"; and compare it with the logos quoted by the Jewish commentator in the Naassene Document (§ 25) : " The Beginning of Perfection is Gnosis of Man, but Gnosis of God is Perfect Perfection."

The claim for the Gnosis is therefore a modest one. The Gnosis is not an end in itself ; it is but the beginning of the True Knowledge of God. They who receive the Baptism of the Mind are made " perfect men," not Perfect ; not until they have received this touch of the Christ-consciousness have they reached true manhood. Those who have received this Baptism know why they have come into being, — the purpose of life. They become consciously immortal; they know they are deathless, they do not only believe it ; their immortality is no longer a belief, it is a fact of knowledge. They have won their freedom from Death and Fate, and know the real constitution of the cosmos up to the Threshold of the Good, the Plain of Truth— that is to say, presumably in Buddhist terms, as far as the Nirvanic state of consciousness. Not yet, however, have they entered Nirvana — that is to say, become one with the Logos. They have seen the Sight or Vision of Nirvana, but not entered into the Promised Land, that " Blessed Space," which, as Basilides tells us, " can neither be conceived of nor characterized by any word." l The Vision is an earnest of what they may be. They have become Gods, it is true, already, or, in other words, enjoy the same freedom and consciousness as the Gods or Angels, but there is a still more transcendent state, when they will be at-oned with Deity Himself.

Hard as it is to leave the "things we have grown used to," the things habitual, it must be done if we are to enter into the Way of the Gnosis. But no new Path is this, no going forth into new lands (though it may have all the appearance of being so). The entrance on the Path of the Gnosis is a Going-Home, it is a Eeturn — a Turning-Back (a True Kepentance). " We must turn ourselves back unto the Old Old Way " (TO. TraXaia KOI apyala). And for the followers of the Doctrine of Thricegreatest Hermes, this Old Old Path could have meant nothing but the Archaic Wisdom of Ancient Egypt. The Wisdom of Egypt was thus the Gnosis. 1 See F. F. F.y p. 261. (Text: P. 41-48; Pat. 12b-13b.) 1. I WILL recount for thee this sermon (logos) too, 0 Tat, that thou may'st cease to be without the mysteries of the God beyond all name.1 And mark thou well how That which to the many seems unmanifest, will grow most manifest for thee. Now were It manifest, It would not be. For all that is made manifest is subject to becoming, for it hath been made manifest. But the Unmanifest for ever is, for It doth not desire to be made manifest. It ever is, and maketh manifest all other things.

Being Himself unmanifest, as ever being and ever making - manifest, Himself is not made 1 Cf. § 8 end, and § 9 beginning. 99 manifest. God is not made Himself; by thinking-manifest,1 He thinketh all things manifest. Now " thinking-manifest " deals with things made alone, for thinking-manifest is nothing else than making. 2. He, then, alone who is not made, 'tis clear, is both beyond all power of thinking-manifest, and is un manifest. And as He thinketh all things manifest, He manifests through all things and in all, and most of all in whatsoever things He wills to manifest. Do thou, then, Tat, my son, pray first unto our Lord and Father, the One-and-Only One, from whom the One2 doth come, to show His mercy unto thee, in order that thou mayest have the power to catch a thought of this so mighty God, one single beam of Him to shine into thy thinking. For thought alone "sees" the Unmanifest, in that it is itself unmanifest. If, then, thou hast the power, He will, Tat, manifest to thy mind's eyes. The Lord begrudgeth not Himself to anything, but manifests Himself through the whole world. Thou hast the power of taking thought, of seeing it and grasping it in thy own " hands," and gazing face to face upon God's Image.3 But

1 iv <t>a.vTo.(ria. — that is to say, by thinking into manifestation. 2 Presumably the Manifested God ; the One-and-Only One being the Unmanifested, the God beyond all name. 3 The Intelligible Cosmos. if what is within thee even is unmanifest to thee, how, then, shall He Himself who is within thy self be manifest for thee by means of [outer] eyes ? 3. But if thou wouldst "see" Him, bethink thee of the sun, bethink thee of moon's course, bethink thee of the order of the stars. Who is the One who watcheth o'er that order ? For every order hath its boundaries marked out by place and number. The sun's the greatest god of gods in heaven ; to whom all of the heavenly gods give place as unto king and master. And he, this so-great one, he greater than the earth and sea, endures to have above him circling smaller stars than him. Out of respect to Whom, or out of fear of Whom, my son, [doth he do this] ? Nor like nor equal is the course each of these stars describes in heaven. Who [then] is He who marketh out the manner of their course and its extent ?

4. The Bear up there that turneth round itself, and carries round the whole cosmos with it — Who is the owner of this instrument ? Who He who hath set round the sea its bounds ? Who He who hath set on its seat the earth ? For, Tat, there is someone who is the Maker and the Lord of all these things. It could not be that number, place and measure could be kept without someone to make them. No order whatsoever could be made by that which lacketh place and lacketh measure ; nay, even this l is not without a lord, my son. For if the orderless lacks something, in that it is not lord of order's path, it also is beneath a lord — the one who hath not yet ordained it order. 5. Would it were possible for thee to get thee wings, and soar into the air, and, poised midway 'tween earth and heaven, behold the earth's solidity, the sea's fluidity (the flowings of its streams), the spaciousness of air, fire's swiftness, [and] the coursing of the stars, the swiftness of heaven's circuit round them [all] ! Most blessed sight were it, my son, to see all these beneath one sway — the motionless in motion, and the unmanifest made manifest ; whereby is made this order of the cosmos and the cosmos which we see of order.

6. If thou would'st see Him too through things that suffer death,2 both on the earth and in the deep,3 think of a man's being fashioned in the womb, my son, and strictly scrutinize the art of Him who fashions him, and learn who fashioneth this fair and godly image of the Man.4 1 Namely, that which lacketh place, number, and order ; that is, disorder, chaos. 2 As opposed to the immortal world-order. 3 Cf. § 9 below, where it almost seems to mean " water." 4 The Heavenly Man of " The Shepherd " treatise ; man is the image of The Man, the Logos or Image of God. This and the following passage is referred to by Lactantius, D. Institt., ii. 10. Who [then] is He who traceth out the circles of the eyes ; who He who boreth out the nostrils and the ears ; who He who openeth [the portal of] the mouth ; who He who doth stretch out and tie the nerves ; who He who channels out the veins ; who He who hardeneth the bones ; who He who covereth the flesh with skin ; who He who separates the fingers and the joints ; who He who widens out a treading for the feet ; who He who diggeth out the ducts; who He who spreadeth out the spleen ; who He who shapeth heart like to a pyramid ; who He who setteth ribs together ; who He who wideneth the liver out ; who He who maketh lungs like to a sponge ; who He who maketh belly stretch so much ; who He who doth make prominent the parts most honourable, so that they may be seen, while hiding out of sight those of least honour ?

7. Behold how many arts [employed] on one material, how many labours on one single sketch ; and all exceeding fair, and all in perfect measure, yet all diversified ! Who made them all ? What mother, or what sire, save God alone, unmanifest, who hath made all things by His Will ? 8. And no one saith a statue or a picture comes to be without a sculptor or [without] a painter ; doth [then] such workmanship as this exist without a Worker ? What depth of blindness, what deep impiety, what depth of ignorance ! See, [then] thou ne'er, son Tat, deprivest works of Worker ! Nay, rather is He greater than all names, so great is He, the Father of them all.1 For verily He is the Only One ; and this His work, to be a father. 9. So, if thou forcest me somewhat too bold, to speak, His being is conceiving of all things and making [them].2 And as without its maker it is impossible that anything should be, so ever is He not unless He ever makes all things, in heaven, in air, in earth, in deep, in all of cosmos, in every part that is and that is not of everything. For there is naught in all the world that is not He.

He is Himself, both things that are and things that are not. The things that are He hath made manifest, He keepeth things that are not in Himself. 10. He is the God beyond all name ; He the unmanifest, He the most manifest; He whom the mind [alone] can contemplate, He visible unto the eyes [as well] ; He is the one of no body, the one of many bodies, nay, rather He of every body. Naught is there which He is not. For all are 1 The translation of this sentence is conjectural ; for the text is not only corrupt, but there appears to be a lacuna in it. 2 The male and female energies of the Divine Parent. He and He is all.1 And for this cause hath He all names, in that they are one Father's. And for this cause hath He Himself no name, in that He's Father of [them] all.2 Who, then, may sing Thee praise of Thee, or [praise] to Thee ? Whither, again, am I to turn my eyes to sing Thy praise ; above, below, within, without ? There is no way, no place [is there] about Thee, nor any other thing of things that are.

All [are] in Thee ; all [are] from Thee, 0 Thou who givest all and takest naught, for Thou hast all and naught is there Thou hast not. 11. And when, 0 Father, shall I hymn Thee? For none can seize Thy hour or time. For what, again, shall I sing hymn? For things that Thou hast made, or things Thou hast not? For things Thou hast made manifest, or things Thou hast concealed ? How,5 further, shall I hymn Thee ? As being of myself ? As having something of mine own ? As being other ? For that Thou art whatever I may be ; Thou art whatever I may do ; Thou art whatever I may speak. For Thou art all, and there is nothing else For emended reading, see R. 244. That is, of all names. For the following, cf. P. S. A., xxxi. 3 Text from here on given in R. 68, n. 4. which Thou art not. Thou art all that which doth exist, and Thou art what doth not exist, — Mind when Thou thinkest, and Father when Thou makest, and God when Thou dost energize, and Good and Maker of all things.

(For that the subtler part of matter is the air, of air the soul, of soul the mind, and of mind God.) The redactor of our Corpus must have taken this sermon from some collection of " Those to Tat," for it begins " KOI rovSe <TOL TOV Xo'yoi/." One other sermon at least, then, must have preceded it ; but whether it was our G. H.y iv. (v.), " The Cup," or the lost 0. H. (ii.), " The General Sermon," it is impossible to say. The sermon bears no title proper, and the enunciation of the subject, which stands in its place, is derived from the second sentence of the treatise itself, and has plainly been superscribed by some later Byzantine editor. The opening paragraphs of this fine tractate are very difficult to render into English in any way that can preserve the subtle shades of meaning of the Greek. As this subtle word-play has been entirely missed by all previous translators, I have made a rough attempt to preserve it by using the somewhat clumsy term "manifest." The word-play in Greek may be seen from the following list of the original terms taken in the order of their occurrence : a0ai/e?, tfiaveparraTov, efjL<f>av€$, (paivojuievov, €(pdvr}, agaves, (fiavrjvai, <f>avepd, a^ai/jj?, 0aj/e/oeoy, <f>avepovTai, 0cu/Ta<r/a, <j>avTa<Tiwv, (fiavTGKria, a0ai/ra<r/ac7TO9 KOI a^aw}?, (fiavTaa-icov, <f>aivercu, (^avrfvai. These all occur in § 1 and the first two lines of § 2.

I have translated ^avraoria by "thinking-manifest," seeing that it is the power by which an object is made apparent or manifest. The doctrine is the same as that of the Vedanta philosophy, the Maya of the Vedantavadins. Maya is generally translated "illusion," but this is not a good equivalent, for it comes from the root ma, to make or measure. The Logos is called in the Vedanta, Mayin (masc.), the Maker, Measurer, or Creator, and His Power, or Shakti, is Maya (fern.). It is the Power of the Divine Thought, and so far from being illusion in any ordinary sense of the word, is very real for us, and is only non-real as compared to the Logos Himself, the One Reality in the highest philosophical sense of the term. The idea is magnificently summed up for us in a logos of Phosilampes,1 quoted by the redactor of the Untitled Apocalypse of the Codex Brucianus, which runs as follows : "Through Him is that-which-really-is and thatwhich-really-is-not, through which the Hidden-whichreally-is and the Manifest-which-really-is-not exists." Also compare Hippolytus' summary of the " Simonian" Gnosis : " Of this Twofold Nature he calls the one side the Hidden and the other the Manifest, saying that the concealed [parts] of the Fire are hidden in the manifest, and the manifest produced by the concealed. . . . 1 Perhaps a by-name of Basilides ; see F. F. F.y p. 554.

" And the manifest side of the Fire has all things in itself which a man can perceive of things visible, or which he unconsciously fails to perceive. Whereas the hidden side is everything that we can conceive as intelligible, ... or which a man fails to conceive." l 2. " The Lord begrudge th not Himself to any thing." Compare this with G. #"., iv. (v.) 3: "Not that He grudgeth any, for grudging cometh not from Him " ; and compare both with the saying of Plato in the Timceus (29 E) : " He was Good, and to the Good there can never at any time be any grudging of aught." 10. With the soul-satisfying pantheism of § 10 we may with interest compare the address to the Logos in The Martyrdom of Peter, which still retains many Gnostic elements. " Thou thai art to be understood by spirit alone ! Thou art my father, Thou my mother, Thou my brother, Thou my friend, Thou my servant, Thou my master. Thou art the all, and all is in Thee. Yea, all that is, is Thou; and there is nothing else that is but Thee alone!"2 The treatise ends with one of the most magnificent Hymns to God ever written in any language — a hymn which some foolish copyist has spoilt by tagging on to it the gloss of a reader noted on the margin of the MS. from which our scribe copied.

1 Hipp., Philos., vi. 9 ; see my Simon Magus (London, 1892), p. 13. 2 Lipsius (R. A.) and Bonnet (M.), Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (Leipzig, 1891), i. 98. With the sentence: "All are in Thee, all are from Thee," compare the Naassene Hymn (quoted in Hippoly tus' Introduction, in " The Myth of Man ") : "'From Thee' is Father, and 'Through Thee,' Mother, — the two Immortal Names, Parents of ^Eons, 0 Thou who hast the Heaven for Thy City, 0 Man of Mighty Names ! " (Text: P. 48-53; Pat. 14a-15a.) 1. GOOD, 0 Asclepius, is in none else save God alone ; nay, rather, Good is God Himself eternally. If it be so, [Good] must be essence, from every kind of motion and becoming free (though naught is free from It), possessed of stable energy around Itself, never too little, nor too much, an ever-full supply. [Though] one, yet [is It] source of all ; for what supplieth all is Good. When I, moreover, say [supplieth] altogether [all], it is for ever Good. But this belongs to no one else save God alone. For He stands not in need of any thing, so that desiring it He should be bad ; nor can a single thing of things that are be lost to Him, on losing which He should be pained ; for pain

is part of bad. Nor is there aught superior to Him, that He should be subdued by it ; nor any peer to Him to do Him wrong, or [so that] He should fall in love on its account ; nor aught that gives no ear to Him, whereat He should grow angry ; nor wiser aught, for Him to envy. 2. Now as all these are non-existent in His being, what is there left but Good alone \ For just as naught of bad is to be found in such transcendent Being, so too in no one of the rest will Good be found. For in them all are all the other things1 — both in the little and the great, both in each severally and in this living one2 that's greater than them all and mightiest [of them]. For things subject to birth3 abound in passions, birth in itself being passible. But where there's passion, nowhere is there Good ; and where is Good, nowhere a single passion. For where is day, nowhere is night ; and where is night, day is nowhere. Wherefore in genesis the Good can never be, but only be in the ingenerate. But seeing that the sharing in all things hath been bestowed on matter, so doth it share in Good.

1 That is, things not Good. 2 Or animal ; that is, cosmos as a single life or living creature. In this way is the Cosmos good ; that, in so far as it doth make all things, as far as making goes it's Good, but in all other things it is not Good. For it's both passible and subject unto motion, and maker of things passible. 3. Whereas in man by greater or by less of bad is good determined. For what is not too bad down here, is good ; and good down here is the least part of bad. It cannot, therefore, be that good down here should be quite clean of bad, for down here good is fouled with bad; and being fouled, it stays no longer good, and staying not it changes into bad. In God alone, is, therefore, Good, or rather Good is God Himself. So then, Asclepius, the name alone of Good is found in men, the thing itself nowhere [in them], for this can never be. For no material body doth contain It, — a thing1 bound on all sides by bad, by labours, pains, desires and passions, by error and by foolish thoughts.

And greatest ill of all, Asclepius, is that each of these things that have been said above, is thought down here to be the greatest good. And what is still an even greater ill, is bellylust, the error that doth lead the band of all 1 Sc. the body. the other ills — the thing that makes us turn down here from Good. 4. And I, for my own part, give thanks to God, that He hath cast it in my mind about the Gnosis of the Good, that it can never be It1 should be in the world.2 For that the world is "fullness"3 of the bad, but God of Good, and Good of God. The excellencies of the Beautiful are round the very essence [of the Good] ; nay, they do seem too pure, too unalloyed ; perchance 'tis they that are themselves Its essences. For one may dare to say, Asclepius, — if essence, sooth, He have — God's essence is the Beautiful ; the Beautiful is further also Good. There is no Good that can be got from objects in the world. For all the things that fall beneath the eye are image-things and pictures as it were ; while those that do not meet [the eye are the realities4], especially the [essence] of the Beautiful and Good.

Just as the eye cannot see God, so can it not behold the Beautiful and Good. For that they are integral parts of God, wedded to Him alone, inseparate familiars, most beloved, with whom God is Himself in love, or they with God. 1 Sc. the Good. 2 Cosmos. 3 Or pleroma. The "world" is the pleroma of evil, but •'God" the pleroma of good. 4 A lacuna unfortunately occurs here in the text. VOL. II. 8 5. If thou canst God conceive, thou shalt conceive the Beautiful and Good, transcending Light, made lighter than the Light by God. That Beauty is beyond compare, inimitate that Good, e'en as God is Himself. As, then, thou dost conceive of God, conceive the Beautiful and Good. For they cannot be joined with aught of other things that live, since they can never be divorced from God. Seek'st thou for God, thou seekest for the Beautiful. One is the Path that leadeth unto It — Devotion joined with Gnosis. 6. And thus it is that they who do not know and do not tread Devotion's Path, do dare to call man beautiful and good, though he have ne'er e'en in his visions seen a whit that's Good, but is enwrapped with every kind of bad, and thinks the bad is good, and thus doth make unceasing use of it, and even feareth that it should be ta'en from him, so straining every nerve not only to preserve but even to increase it.

Such are the things that men call good and beautiful, Asclepius, — things which we cannot flee or hate ; for hardest thing of all is that we've need of them and cannot live without them. This sermon, which bears no proper title, but has been headed by some editor with the enunciation of the subject taken from the opening sentence of the treatise itself, belongs to the Asclepius-group. Reitzenstein (p. 194) thinks that this tractate and the previous Asclepius-Dialogue — G. H., ii. (iii.) — may very well have formed part of the same collection of Asclepiana. The teaching of our sermon is apparently dualistic ; but is it not only formally so, and as an exercise to raise the thought of the pupil away from the " things he has grown used to " ? For at the end Hermes declares : " Such are the things that men call good and beautiful, Asclepius — things which we cannot flee or hate ; for hardest thing of all is that we've need of them and cannot live without them." This is a clear advance on the formal Tat-teaching as to " hating " the body given in 0. H.} iv. (v.) 6, and points clearly to an instruction in which the cosmos was not regarded as the pleroma of bad, in spite of the formal and emphatic statement in § 4 :

" o yap KoV/xo? 7r\^pcDfji.d CCTTL TJ;? /ca/aa?." Moreover, if we turn to 0. H., ix. (x.), 4 — another treatise of Hermes to Asclepius, and curiously enough having as superscription almost the same proposition as heads our present treatise — we read : " ^wpiov yap avr^ [/ccm'a?] Y\ yJ}, oux o Kocruost ft>? CVlOl 7TOT6 epOVO-l /3\a(T(j)*)fJLOVVT€$." " Bad's place is earth, and not the world, as some will sometimes say with impious tongue." Here we have a formal denial in an Asclepiustractate of the formal proposition in our Asclepiussermon. The cosmos is not evil ; it is the beautiful worldorder. Evil is a thing connected with the earth; there is no such thing as a 7r\jjpco/uLa of evil ; evil has at best only a ^>piov. They who say such things blaspheme. This is strong language, and there seems no other conclusion to be drawn from it but that there were various schools within the Trismegistic tradition, and that they wrangled theologically together. Is it, however, possible that the Hermes of our treatise is only speaking metaphorically, so that he may intensify the ideal of the Good, and that he was subsequently taken as speaking literally ? For he must have known that the Cosmos was regarded as the Son of God, par excellence, the fairest and best-beloved of all, God's Very Image.

On the other hand, we know that in the Trismegistic doctrine the "cosmic man" was opposed to the " essential man," that, in fact, the term " cosmic " was used in the nomenclature of the time in a theological as well as in a philosophical sense. This was especially the case in Christianity. Many instances could be cited from the New Testament documents ; and we have also a striking example of the use of " cosmos " in this sense in the second logion of the First Oxyrhynchus Fragment: "Jesus saith: Except ye fast to the world (rov /coV/xoi/), ye shall in no wise find the Kingdom of God." As, moreover, we nowhere else find mention of a " pleroma of evil, " we may permissibly conclude that it is here not intended to be taken literally, but only as a metaphorical expression. "God is the Pleroma of Good, and Good is the Pleroma of God." And so, speaking of the Triumphant Christ as the Cosmic Logos, Paul writes : "And Him hath He (God) given as Head over all things unto the Church,1 which is His Body — the Fullness (Pleroma) of Him who doth fulfil all things in all."2

The thought-atmosphere in which the idea of the " Church " as the Pleroma arose may be sampled from Philo, De Proem, d Pan., § xi. (M. ii. 418, p. 920; Ki. v. 232): " And thus the soul, becoming a Pleroma of virtues by means of the three best [blessings] — nature, instruction (mathesis) and practice (asklsis), — leaving no vacant spot in her for entrance of aught else, brings unto birth a perfect number, — her two hexads of sons, a miniature and copy of the circle of the types of life,3 for the improvement of the things down here. " This is the House 4 that naught can harm, the perfect and continual in the public scriptures, and also in the secret meanings of the mystic ones, — the House that won the prize, as I have said, of lordship o'er the tribes of its [own] race." " It was thus from this House in course of time, as it increased and became populous, that well-regulated cities were established, yea, disciplines of wisdom and of righteousness and holiness, in which the transmuta- 1 rrj tKK\Tj<rict, that is, the Spiritual Body of the " Elect." 2 Eph. i. 23. Of. Col. ii. 19 : " In Him dwelleth the whole Fullness of the Godhead as in a body."

3 8c. the Zodiac. * Sc. of God. tion duLeTaTroitia-is) of the rest of virtue was sought out in manner worthy of so high a work. " In the Trismegistic tradition, however, the idea is simpler, as we learn from " The Definitions of Asclepius," C. H. (xvi.) 3 : " For that the Fullness of all things is One and is in One, — this latter One not coming as a second One, but both being One. . . . "For should one try to separate what seems to be both All and One and Same from One, — he will be found to take his epithet of 'All' from the idea of multitude and not from that of fullness (pleroma), — which is impossible ; for if he put All for the One, he will destroy the All." Nevertheless, the Pleroma 1 of Life is more specially the Cosmos as the Son of God — that is, as the Logos. Thus in C. H., xii. (xiii.) 15, we read : "Matter is one; and the World-order (Cosmos), as a whole, — the Mighty God and Image of the Mightier One, both with Him unified, and the Conserver of the Will and Order of the Father, — is Life's Fullness (Pleroma). . . .

"How then, 0 son, could there be in the God, — the Image of the Father, the Plenitude (Pleroma) of Life,2— dead things?" And again in C. H.y ix. (x.) 7 : "For [Cosmos] being a most wise Breath, bestows their qualities on bodies together with the one Pleroma —that of Life." 5. This Pleroma of God is the Good and Beautiful. The Path to this True Good is one of balance, — for it 1 Cf. John i. 16 : " Of His Fullness we have all received, and grace on grace." 2 Cf. John i. 4 : " In Him was Life and the Life was the Light of men." is the Way of Devotion united unto Gnosis — in Sanskrit terms, the Bhakti-Marga and Jnana-Marga combined.1 6. Finally we learn, though inferentially, that things are not bad in themselves; the evil is that men are content with the little goods they have and cling desperately to these, in ignorance of the greater blessings to which they could attain, did they but open their spiritual eyes for the True Vision of the Good. For even the psychic visions of the soul, in spite of their beauty, give man no hint of that Most Blessed Sight of All.

1 Compare C. H.y i. 27 : " And I began to preach to men the beauty of Devotion and of Gnosis." THE GREATEST ILL AMONG MEN IS IGNORANCE OF GOD (Text: P. 54, 55; Pat. 18a.) 1. WHITHER stumble ye, sots, who have sopped up the wine of ignorance unmixed, and can so far not carry it that ye already even spew it forth ? Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the [true] eyes of the heart ! And if ye cannot all, yet ye at least who can ! For that the ill' of ignorance doth pour o'er all the earth and overwhelm the soul that's battened down within the body, preventing it from fetching port within Salvation's harbours. 2. Be then not carried off by the fierce flood, but using the shore-current,1 ye who can, make for Salvation's port, and, harbouring there, seek ye for one to take you by the hand and lead you 2 unto Gnosis' gates. 1 Lit. back or up-current. 2 Cf. G. H., iv. (v.) 11 ; ix. (x.; 10 ; x (xi.) 2 ; R. 23, n. 5. Where shines clear Light, of every darkness clean ; where not a single soul is drunk, but sober all they gaze with their hearts1 eyes on Him who willeth to be seen.

No ear can hear Him, nor can eye see Him, nor tongue speak of Him, but [only] mind and heart. But first thou must tear off from thee the cloak which thou dost wear, — the web of ignorance, the ground of bad, corruption's chain, the carapace of darkness, the living death, sensation's corpse, the tomb thou carriest with thee, the robber in thy house, who through the things he loveth, hateth thee, and through the things he hateth, bears thee malice. 3. Such is the hateful cloak thou wearest,— that throttles thee [and holds thee] down to it, in order that thou may'st not gaze above, and, having seen the Beauty of the Truth, and Good that dwells therein, detest the bad of it ; having found out the plot that it hath schemed against thee, by making void of sense those seeming things which men think senses. For that it hath with mass of matter blocked them up and crammed them full of loathsome lust, so that thou may'st not hear about the things that thou should'st hear, nor see the things that thou should'st see. THERE is little to be said about this powerful appeal to cease from the drunkenness of physical sensations and to awaken to the Light.

Reitzenstein (p. 194) calls it a " Prophetenpredigt" and says that nowhere in the MSS. is it ascribed to Hermes ; by which he can only mean that it bears no other superscription than the descriptive sentence which heads it. The style and spirit remind us not so much of C. H., iii. (iv.), as Reitzenstein (p. 206, 1) suggests, as of the interpolated or superadded passages in the " Pcemandres" treatise (§ 27): "O ye people, earthborn folk, ye who have given yourselves to drunkenness, and sleep, and ignorance, be sober now, cease from your surfeit, cease to be glamoured by irrational sleep!" Did this sentence give rise to our little sermon ; or is the sentence a summary of the preaching? Or do both sentence and sermon come from a common stock ? The last hypothesis seems to be the most satisfactory choice ; and we may compare what would appear to be a familiar figure of speech among such communities with logion 3 of the First Oxyrhynchus Fragment : " Jesus saith : I stood in the midst of the world (rov /coV/xoi/), and in the flesh did I appear unto them ; and I found all men drunken, and none found I athirst among them ; and my soul grieveth over the souls of

men, because they are blind in their heart and see not ..." Can we fill up the missing word from our sermon ? " But sober all they gaze with their hearts' eyes on Him who willeth to be seen." The missing word seems, therefore, to be " God." The Gospel that is preached is the Beauty of the Gnosis, — " the Beauty of the Truth and Good that dwells therein " ; just as in 0. H., i. 27 : "And I began to preach to men the Beauty of Devotion and of the Gnosis." The tempest-tossed on the Sea of Ignorance are to make for the Harbour of Salvation — evidently some great organization devoted to the holy life ; therein they must seek for one who knows, who can take them by the hand and lead them unto the Gates of the Gnosis. This suggests that the organization consisted of a general body, within which were grades of instruction ; the many were striving for illumination, some few had reached it. THAT NO ONE OF EXISTING THINGS DOTH PERISH, BUT MEN IN ERROR SPEAK OF THEIR CHANGES AS DESTRUCTIONS AND AS DEATHS (Text: P. 56-59; Pat. 48a, 48b.)

1. \Hermes.~] Concerning Soul and Body, son, we now must speak ; in what way Soul is deathless, and whence comes the activity1 in composing and dissolving Body. For there's no death for aught of things [that are] ; the thought [this] word conveys, is either void of fact, or [simply] by the knocking off a syllable what is called " death," doth stand for "deathless."2 2 The text is obscure, and the translations without exception make nonsense of it. Some words seem to be missing. For death is of destruction, and nothing in the Cosmos is destroyed. For if Cosmos is second God, a life * that cannot die, it cannot be that any part of this immortal life should die. All things in Cosmos are parts of Cosmos, and most of all is man, the rational animal. 2. For truly first of all, eternal and transcending birth, is God the universals' Maker. Second is he " after His image," Cosmos, brought into being by Him, sustained and fed by Him, made deathless, as by his own Sire, living for aye, as ever free from death. Now that which ever-liveth, differs from the Eternal ; for He 2 hath not been brought to being by another, and even if He have been brought to being, He hath not been brought into being by Himself, but ever is brought into being.

For the Eternal, in that It is eternal, is the all. The Father is Himself eternal of Himself, but Cosmos hath become eternal and immortal by the Father. 3. And of the matter stored beneath it,8 the Father made of it a universal body, and packing it together made it spherical — wrapping it round the life 4 — [a sphere] which is immortal in itself, and that doth make materiality eternal. 1 Living thing, " animal." 2 Sc. the Eternal. 3 Sc. beneath the cosmos, world-order or universe. 4 The text here seems to me to be very faulty ; for voi6v, void, I read £$ovt £$a. In such unintelligible phrases as aur<p But He, the Father, full-filled with His ideas, did sow the lives l into the sphere, and shut them in as in a cave, willing to order forth 2 the life with every kind of living. So He with deathlessness enclosed the universal body, that matter might not wish to separate itself from body's composition, and so dissolve into its own [original] unorder. For matter, son, when it was yet incorporate, was in unorder. And it doth still retain down here this [nature of unorder] enveloping the rest of the small lives3 — that increase-and-decrease which men call death.

4. It is round earthly lives that this unorder doth exist. For that the bodies of the heavenly ones preserve one order allotted to them from the Father as their rule * ; and it is by the restoration5 of each one [of them] this order is preserved indissolute.6 The " restoration " then of bodies on the earth and rb jter* avrov "xodv, the writer is evidently dealing with the Cosmos as the one life, the avrtfoov, from which all other lives are derived ; and if he did not write avrtfyov, he assuredly wrote £$ov. He wrote sense and not the nonsense of the present text. 1 Sc. the great lives or so-called heavenly " bodies." 3 As distinguished from the great lives or animals, the so-called heavenly " bodies." 4 TV fy>xV, — or source or principle. 5 airoKaTdffTaffis, a term used of the cyclic return of stars to their original positions. 6 If we may be permitted to coin a neologism. is [thus their] composition, whereas their dissolution restores them to those bodies which can never be dissolved, that is to say, which know no death. Privation, thus, of sense is brought about, not loss of bodies.

5. Now the third life — Man, after the image of the Cosmos made, [and] having mind, after the Father's will, beyond all earthly lives — not only doth have feeling with the second God, but also hath conception of the first ; for of the one 'tis sensible as of a body, while of the other it conceives as bodiless and the Good Mind. Tat. Doth then this life not perish ? Her. Hush, son ! and understand what God, what Cosmos [is], what is a life that cannot die, and what a life subject to dissolution. Yea, understand the Cosmos is by God and in God ; but Man by Cosmos and in Cosmos. The source and limit and the constitution of all things is God. The superscription enunciates the nature of the treatise. It is evidently taken from the Dialogues to Tat, and originally formed part of some General Dissertation or of a collection of Dissertations. It formed part of an instruction in which the Cosmos was treated of as " Second God," as we find it also in Philo 1 ; but just as Philo guards against any idea of duality, so does our treatise when it ends with the words (§ 5) :

" The source and limit and the constitution of all things is God." The Great Body of the Cosmos, the Sphere or Perfect Form, the root of all forms, seems to be bounded by the idea of the Mon or Eternity, or Deathlessness. It is, as it were, the Cave or Womb of all things in genesis, centred in the Pleroma of ideas, the Intelligible Cosmos, which is full-filled with the ideas of God (§ 3). The eternal order and life of Cosmos is preserved by the law of apoJcatastasis or restoration (§ 4), the law of ever-becoming, and cyclic renewal, the making-newagain (avaveaxris) of C. H., iii. (iv.) 1. There is no question of loss of body, — this is an illusion ; there is a privation of sense, a going into latency of some particular phase of consciousness. There are then Great Lives — God, Cosmos, Man. Cosmos is made in the image of God, Man in the image of Cosmos. Therefore has Man sense and mind ; by the former he is "in sympathy with" the Cosmos, as Body by the latter he is conscious of God as Mind, — that is the Bodiless. Or as we might phrase it, by sense Man knows the Sensible Cosmos, by mind the Intelligible Cosmos, the Good Mind ; for God is Source and Limit and the Constitution of all things — the Cosmos, both Intelligible and Sensible, included.

i Leg. Alleg., § 21 j M. i. 82 ; P. 1103 (Ri. i. 113) ; Quasi. Sol, i. (quoted by Euseb., Prcep. Evang., vii. 13). See in the " Prolegomena," " Philo Concerning the Logos.53 THAT THE BEAUTIFUL AND GOOD is IN GOD ONLY AND ELSEWHERE NOWHERE (Text: P. 60-67; Pat. 14, 15.) 1. I GAVE the Perfect Sermon (Logos) yesterday, Asclepius ; to-day I think it right, as sequel thereunto, to go through point by point the Sermon about Sense. Now sense and thought do seem to differ, in that the former has to do with matter, the latter has to do with substance. But unto me both seem to be at-one and not to differ — in men I mean. In other lives 1 sense is at-oned with nature, but in men thought. Now mind doth differ just as much from thought as God doth from divinity. For that divinity by God doth come to be, and by mind thought, the sister of the word (logos)2 and 2 There is here the usual play on the meanings, reason, word, sermon or sacred discourse. instruments of one another. For neither doth the word (logos) find utterance without thought, nor is thought manifested without word.

2. So sense and thought both flow together into man, as though they were entwined with one another. For neither without sensing can one think, nor without thinking sense. But it is possible [they say] to think a thing apart from sense, as those who fancy sights in dreams. But unto me it seems that both of these activities occur in dream-sight, and sense doth pass out of the sleeping to the waking state. For man is separated into soul and body, and only when the two sides of his sense agree together, does utterance of its thought conceived by mind take place. 3. For it is mind that doth conceive all thoughts — good thoughts when it receives the seeds from God, their contraries when [it receive th them] from one of the daimonials ; no part of Cosmos being free of daimon, who stealthily doth creep into the daimon who's illumined by God's Light,1 and sow in him the seed of its own energy. And mind conceives the seed thus sown, 1 That is to say man, or rather the ego in man. The translators seem to make nonsense of this passage through rejecting the original reading. adultery, murder, parricide, [and] sacrilege, impiety, [and] strangling, casting down precipices, and all such other deeds as are the work of evil daimones.

4. The seeds of God, 'tis true, are few, but vast and fair, and good — virtue and self-control, devotion. Devotion is G-od-gnosis ; and he who knoweth God, being filled with all good things, thinks godly thoughts and not thoughts like the many [think]. For this cause they who Gnostic are,1 please not the many, nor the many them. They are thought mad and laughed at 2 ; they're hated and despised, and sometimes even put to death. For we did say3 that bad must needs dwell here on earth, where 'tis in its own place. Its place is earth, and not Cosmos, as some will sometimes say with impious tongue. But he who is a devotee of God, will bear with all — once he has sensed the Gnosis. For such an one all things, e'en though they be for others bad, are for him good ; deliberately he doth refer them all unto the Gnosis. And, thing most marvellous, 'tis he alone who maketh bad things good. 5. But I return once more to the Discourse 1 ol eV yvtaffei oi/res, lit. they who are in Gnosis. 2 Of. Plat., Phcedr., 249 D : The wisdom-lover " is admonished, by the many as thoughr»he were beside himself."

3 Sc. in some other sermon. (Logos) on Sense. That sense doth share with thought in man, doth constitute him man. But 'tis not [every] man, as I have said, who benefits by thought ; for this man is material, that other one substantial. For the material man, as I have said, [consorting] with the bad, doth have his seed of thought from daimons ; while the substantial men [consorting] with the Good, are saved by God. Now God is Maker of all things, and in His making, He maketh all [at last] like to Himself; but they, while they're becoming1 good by exercise of their activity, are unproductive things. It is the working of the Cosmic Course 2 that maketh their becomings what they are, befouling some of them with bad and others of them making clean with good. For Cosmos, too, Asclepius, possesseth senseand-thought peculiar to itself, not like to that of 1 Or being made. 2 It is difficult to bring out the full delicacy of wording of the original in translation. First God's ultimate intention is stated to be the making all things like (Voia) Himself ; this is the great sameness of union with Him. But meantime while this making, creating or becoming, is going on, these imperfections cannot produce — that is, become creators in their turn ; they are unproductive (&0opo). That which is the instrument of God's making is the cosmic course (<£op<£). We are finally (§7) told that it is bodies which are the cause of difference or diversity (eV

the opposite pole, so to speak, to the likeness (fyxom) with God. man ; 'tis not so manifold, but as it were a better and a simpler one. 6. The single sense-and-thought of Cosmos is to make all things, and make them back into itself again, as Organ of the Will of God, so organised that it, receiving all the seeds into itself from God, and keeping them within itself, may make all manifest, and [then] dissolving them, make them all new again ; and thus, like a Good Gardener of Life, things that have been dissolved, it taketh to itself, and giveth them renewal once again. There is no thing to which it gives not life ; but taking all unto itself it makes them live, and is at the same time the Place of Life and its Creator. 7. Now bodies matter [-made] are in diversity. Some are of earth, of water some, some are of air, and some of fire. But they are all composed ; some are more [composite], and some are simpler. The heavier ones are more [composed], the lighter less so. It is the speed of Cosmos' Course that works the manifoldness of the kinds of births. For being a most swift Breath, it doth bestow their qualities on bodies together with the One Pleroma — that of Life.

8. God, then, is Sire of Cosmos ; Cosmos, of [all] in Cosmos. And Cosmos is God's Son ; but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos. And properly hath it been called Cosmos [Order] ; for that it orders 1 all with their diversity of birth, with its not leaving aught without its life, with the unweariedness of its activity, the speed of its necessity, the composition of its elements, and order of its creatures. The same, then, of necessity and of propriety should have the name of Order. The sense-and-thought, then, of all lives doth come into them from without, inbreathed by what contains [them all] ; whereas Cosmos receives them once for all together with its coming into being, and keeps them as a gift from God. 9. But God is not, as some suppose, beyond the reach of sense-and-thought. It is through superstition men thus impiously speak. For all the things that are, Asclepius, all are in God, are brought by God to be, and do depend on Him — both things that act through bodies, and things that through soul-substance make [other things] to move, and things that make things live by means of spirit, and things that take unto themselves the things that are worn out.

And rightly so ; nay, I would rather say, He doth not have these things; but I speak forth the truth, He is them all Himself. He doth not get them from without, but gives them out [from Him]. This is God's sense-and-thought, ever to move all things. And never time shall be when e'en a whit of things that are shall cease ; and when I say " a whit of things that are," I mean a whit of God. For things that are, God hath ; nor aught [is there] without Him, nor [is] He without aught. 1 0. These things should seem to thee, Asclepius, if thou dost understand them, true ; but if thou dost not understand, things not to be believed. To understand is to believe, to not believe is not to understand. My word (logos) doth go before [thee] l to the truth. But mighty is the mind, and when it hath been led by word up to a certain point, it hath the power to come before [thee 2] to the truth. And having thought o'er all these things, and found them consonant with those which have already been translated by the reason, it3 hath [e'en now] believed, and found its rest in that Fair Faith.

To those, then, who by God['s good aid] do understand the things that have been said [by 1 Cf. C. H., iv. (v.) 11 ; vii. (viii.) 2 ; x. (xi.) 21 ; E. 23, n. 5. 2 That is, presumably, before the pupil of the Gnosis is conscious of it in his physical brain. 3 Sc. the mind. us] above, they're credible ; but unto those who understand them not, incredible. Let so much, then, suffice on thought-andsense. This treatise bears a double title: — "On Thought and Sense," and "That the Beautiful and Good is in God only." The former heading is clearly taken from the concluding words: "Let so much then suffice on thought-and-sense " ; whereas the introductory sentence speaks of the Sermon on Sense only. The latter heading seems to be a thoughtless repetition of the title of 0. ff.} vi. (vii.). The opening words : " I gave the Perfect Sermon yesterday, Asclepius," inform us not only that we have to do with an Asclepius Dialogue, but also that our sermon followed directly on the "Perfect Sermon," a Latin version of which has fortunately been preserved to us.1 It is, therefore, of very great interest to find that Lactantius,2 in quoting a sentence from our treatise (§ 4) — " Devotion is God-gnosis " — continues with the words : " Asclepius, his hearer, has also explained the same idea at greater length in the Perfect Sermon."

1 For it would, of course, be absurd to suppose that the " Perfect Sermon" could in any way be thought to indicate C. JBT., vi. (vii.), the last Asclepius Dialogue in our Corpus ; especially when our sermon (§ 4) directly combats the teaching of G. H., vi. 2 Div. Institt., ii. 15 (Ed. Fritz., i. 106) ; cf. also v. 14. Lactantius had, therefore, a collection before him in which these two sermons stood in close connection. Eeitzenstein (p. 195) thinks that our sermon must be an extract from a longer one, because he cannot bring himself to believe that so short a treatise could have been found in immediate connection (as the opening words suggest) with so lengthy and detailed a tractate as the " Perfect Sermon." This may be so ; and yet the formal beginning and ending of our sermon would seem to suggest that we are dealing with a complete tractate and not with an extract. The doctrine that in men " sense - and - thought " together constitutes human " sense " throws some light on the meaning of the term " sense " as used elsewhere in the Trismegistic literature, where we should expect to find " mind " employed, and that, too, in the sense of the higher mind.

Normal human " thought," then, is, so to say, sensible, entirely bound up in sense-impressions ; it is the mind alone that can soar beyond the senses, for it alone can be "illumined by God's Light" (§ 3). The mind is, as it were, a womb or woman, that can be impregnated either by the " Seeds of God " or by the " Daimonial Energy " ; she thus conceives and brings forth virtues or vices. All of this is precisely the same doctrine as Philo preaches, as may be seen by the passages we have quoted in the " Prolegomena " on the subject of the " Sacred Marriage." The Seeds of God are Virtue and Self-control and Devotion or Piety; and Devotion in its true sense is God-gnosis, or Knowledge of God. The Gnostics, then, " they who are in Gnosis " — a curious expression — because of their natural divorcement from the " world," " please not the many, nor the many them." "They are thought mad and laughed at; they're hated and despised, and sometimes even put to death." Mark the impersonal note, the calm laying down of the causes of misunderstanding between the " many " and the "few''; and compare this with the more personal note of the saying underlying the following Synoptic accommodations :

" Blessed are ye when men hate you and excommunicate you, and revile and expel your Name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake" (Luke vi. 22). " Blessed are ye when men revile you and persecute you and say all evil against you, lying, for My sake " (Matt. v. 11). It is clear, at least it seems so to me, that " Luke " has kept closer to the original, and that that original was addressed not only to the members of a community, but to those who had been cast forth from some other community " for the sake of the Son of Man " — that is, because of the immediate inspiration of the Logos, which doubtless did not pay sufficient attention to the prejudices of the " many " of that community. " Matthew," on the contrary, seems to have adapted the Saying for general purposes and the necessities of the Cult of Jesus.1 Excellent also is the doctrine that the true " Gnostic," the man who is consciously growing into the stature of 1 R. (p. 213, 1) brings this passage of our sermon into connection with some assumed persecution of the Poemandres communities in the course of the fourth century ; but I cannot myself see the slightest ground for such an assumption.

the Christ, the true " Devotee of God/' " will bear with all," for he is beginning to know the Keason of things. " For such an one all things, e'en though they be for others bad, are for him good ; deliberately he doth refer them all unto the Gnosis." He sees the Good, he sees God, in all things. He is the true Alchemist. For "thing most marvellous, 'tis he alone who maketh bad things good " ; by spiritual alchemy he transmutes the evil of the world to good ; he drains the " cup of bitterness " unto the dregs, and transmutes it into the pure Water of Life. In every Man, then, there are two " men," the material (or hylic) and the substantial (or spiritual, ovcrMrjs). Evil, however, is not a permanent thing; it is but the process of " becoming good," the productive side of things (§5). It is difficult to bring out the delicacy of the wording of the original in translation. First God's ultimate intention is stated to be the making of all things like unto (ovoid) Himself ; the world-process is to be ultimately consummated in the Great Sameness of Union with Him. But meantime while this making, creating or becoming, or transformation, is going on, the imperfections cannot produce, that is, become creators in their turn ; they are unproductive (a'0o/oa). That which is the instrument or organ of God's making is the Cosmic Course (fyopa). We are finally (§ 7) told that the differences of bodies are conditioned by the speed of this Cosmic Course ; therefore the opposite poles, Other and Same, are both ultimately referable to Cosmos, the Likeness of God.

The end to be achieved is to develop the " sense-andthought " of the Cosmos, the One Sense, not manifold, but simple. This is the deliberate working with the Will of God, the Cosmic Will, the perpetual renewing of all things (ai/ai/eoxrt?). The Cosmos, then, as the Logos of God, is the Good Gardener of Life ; it is both the place of Life and its Creator — that is to say, both female and male, both Mother and Father. But the Cosmos is not apart from God, nor even in God ; God does not have Cosmos as a possession, but is Cosmos and all therein (§ 9). Cosmos is Son of God, His Very Self (§ 8). Therefore we can learn to know somewhat of the nature of God by sense and thought, for, " God is not, as some suppose, beyond the reach of sense and thought " (avai(70r]To$ KOI avorjros) ; that is, God does not entirely transcend sense and thought, for God is all things. "As some suppose" doubtless refers again to the " blasphemers " of § 4 — that is, the apparently dualistic doctrine set forth in C. H., vi. (vii.).1 And so, finally, we learn that Faith, in the true sense, is a certitude of the mind, or of true manhood. " To understand is to believe" (§ 10). Gnosis and not belief is the Fair Faith.

Compare with this the " Perfect Sermon," x. 1 : " The reason for a thesis such as this, 0 my Asclepius, I would that thou should'st grasp, not only with the keen attention of thy soul, but also with its living power as well. " For 'tis a reason that most men cannot believe ; the Perfect and the True are to be grasped by the more holy minds. " 1 Reitzenstein (p. 171, 2) compares this doctrine of the insensibility and incognizability of God with the Sabsean Gnosis. (Text : P. 67-84 ; Pat. 9b-12.) 1. Hermes. My yesterday's discourse (logos) I did devote to thee, Asclepius, and so 'tis [only] right I should devote to-day's to Tat ; and this the more because 'tis the abridgment of the General Sermons (Logoi) which he has had addressed to him. " God, Father and the Good," then, Tat, hath l the same nature, or more exactly, energy. For nature is a predicate of growth, and used of things that change, both mobile and immobile, that is to say, both human and divine, each one of which He willeth into being. 1 The three are only different names for one idea ; the verb is in the singular in the Greek. Cf. 0. H., ii. (iii.) 16 and 17 : " Good then is God and God is Good" ; and " The other name of God is Father."

But energy consists in something else, as we have shown in treating of the rest, both things divine and human things 1 ; which thing we ought to have in mind when treating of the Good.2 2. God's energy is then His Will ; further His essence is to will the being of all things. For what is "God and Father and the Good" but the to be of all that are not yet? Nay, subsistence 3 self of everything that is ; — this, then, is God, this Father, this the Good ; to Him is added naught of all the rest. And though the Cosmos, that is to say the Sun, is also sire himself to them that share in him ; yet so far is he not the cause of good unto the lives, he is not even of their living. So that e'en if he be a sire, he is entirely so by the compulsion of the Good's Good-will, apart from which nor being nor becoming could e'er be. 3. Again, the parent is the children's cause, both on the father's and the mother's side,4 only by sharing in5 the Good's desire [that doth pour] through the Sun. It is the Good which doeth the creating.

And such a power can be possessed by no one 1 That is to say, presumably, in the General Sermons. 2 Lit. of this. 3 ftrapfi*. Of. G. H., xvi. 4. 4 Lit. both with regard to seed and nourishment. else than Him alone who taketh naught,1 but wills all things to be ; I will not, Tat, say makes. For that the maker is defective for long periods (in which he sometimes makes, and sometimes doth not make) both in the quality and in the quantity [of what he makes] ; in that he sometimes maketh them so many and such like, and sometimes the reverse. But "God and Father and the Good" is [cause] for all to be. So are at least these things for who can see. 4. For It doth will to be, and It is both Itself and most of all by reason of2 Itself. Indeed all other things beside are just because of It ; for the distinctive feature of the Good is " that it should be known." Such is the Good, 0 Tat. Tat. Thou hast, 0 father, filled us so full3 of this so good and fairest Sight, that thereby my mind's eye hath now become for me almost a thing to worship.

For that the Vision of the Good doth not, like the sun's beam, fire-like blaze on the eyes and make them close ; nay, on the contrary, it shineth forth and maketh to increase the seeing 4 of the eye, as far as e'er a man hath the capacity 1 Of. G. H., ii. (iii.) 16 : " The Good is He who gives all things and naught receives." 3 eV\TJp&><ras, — reminding us of TTX^PW/AO. 4 Lit. light. to hold the inflow of the radiance that the mind alone can see. Not only does it come more swiftly down to us, but it does us no harm, and is instinct with all immortal life. 5. They who are able to drink in a somewhat more than others of this Sight, ofttimes from out the body fall asleep into this fairest Spectacle, as was the case with Uranus and Cronus, our forebears.1 May this be our lot too, 0 father mine ! Her. Yea, may it be, my son! But as it is, we are not jet strung to the Vision, and not as yet have we the power our mind's eye to unfold and gaze upon the Beauty of the GoodBeauty that naught can e'er corrupt or any comprehend.

For [only] then wilt thou upon It gaze when thou canst say no word concerning It. For Gnosis of the Good is holy silence and a giving holiday to every sense. 6. For neither can he who perceiveth It, perceive aught else ; nor he who gazeth on It, gaze on aught else ; nor hear aught else, nor stir his body any way. Staying his body's every sense and every motion he stayeth still. And shining then all round his mind, It shines 1 See Lact, D. Institt., i. 11 ; P. S. A., xi. 4, xxxvii. 3 ; and Ex. i. 4. through his whole soul, and draws it out of body, transforming all of him to essence. For it is possible, my son, that a man's soul should be made like to God, e'en while it still is in a body, if it doth contemplate the Beauty of the Good. 7. Tat. Made like to God ! What dost thou, father, mean ? Her. Of every soul apart are transformations, son. Tat. What meanest thou ? Apart ! Her.1 Didst thou not, in the General Sermons, hear that from One Soul — the All-soul — come all these souls which are made to revolve in all the cosmos, as though divided off?

Of these souls, then, it is that there are many changes, some to a happier lot and some to [just] the contrary of this. Thus some that were once creeping things change into things that in the water dwell, the souls of water things change to earth- dwellers, those that live on the earth change into things with wings, and souls that live in air change into men, while human souls reach the first step of deathlessness changed into daimones. And so they circle to the choir of the Inerrant Gods ; for of the Gods there are two choirs, the 1 From here to end of § 8 is quoted by Stobaeus, Phys., I. xli. 48 (G. i. 429, 430 ; W. 416, 18 ff.). one Inerrant, and the other Errant. And this is the most perfect glory of the soul. 8. But if a soul on entering in the body of a man persisteth in its vice,1 it neither tasteth deathlessness nor shareth in the Good; but speeding back again it turns into the path that leads to creeping things. This is the sentence of the vicious soul. And the soul's vice is ignorance.2 For that the soul who hath no knowledge of the things that are, or knowledge of their nature, or of Good, is blinded by the body's passions and tossed about.

This wretched soul, not knowing what she is, becomes the slave of bodies of strange form in sorry plight, bearing the body as a load ; not as the ruler, but the ruled. This [ignorance] is the soul's vice. 9. But on the other hand the virtue of the soul is Gnosis. For he who knows, he good and pious is, and still while on the earth 3 divine. Tat. But who is such an one, 0 father mine ? Her. He who doth not say much or lend his ear to much. For he who spendeth time in arguing and hearing arguments, doth shadow- 1 &v KCIK)) fJiflvp. 2 Cf. G. H., xii. (xiii.) 3 : " The great ill of the soul is Godlessness " ; also below § 20 : " What greater chastisement of any human soul can there be, son, than lack of piety 1 " fight. For "God, the Father and the Good," is not to be obtained by speech or hearing. And yet though this is so, there are in all the beings senses, in that they cannot without senses be. But Gnosis is far different from sense. For sense is brought about by that which hath the mastery o'er us, while Gnosis is the end of science,1 and science is God's gift.

10. All science is incorporal, the instrument it uses being the mind, just as the mind employs the body. Both then come into bodies, [I mean] both things that are cognizable by mind alone and things material.2 For all things must consist out of antithesis and contrariety ; and this can otherwise not be. Tat. Who then is this material God of whom thou speakest ? Her. Cosmos is beautiful, but is not good 3— for that it is material and freely passible 4 ; and though it is the first of all things passible, yet is it in the second rank of being and wanting in itself. And though it never hath itself its birth in time, but ever is, yet is its being in becoming, 1 eirurT'fi/j.ns. 2 Or hylic. 3 But cf. P. 8. A., xxvii. 1. 4 That is capable of suffering, or impressionable by agencies other than itself. becoming for all time the genesis of qualities and quantities ; for it is mobile and all material motion's genesis.1 11. It is intelligible2 rest that moves material motion in this way,3 since Cosmos is a sphere — that is to say, a head. And naught of head above's material, as naught of feet below's intelligible,4 but all material.

And head itself moved in a sphere-like way — that is to say, as head should move,5 is mind. All then that are united to the "tissue" of this " head " (in which 6 is soul) are in their nature free from death, — just as when body hath been made in soul, are things that have more soul than body. Whereas those things which are at greater distance from this " tissue " — there, where are things which have a greater share of body than of soul — are by their nature subject unto death. The whole, however, is a life ; so that the universe consists of both the hylic and of the intelligible.7 12. Again, the Cosmos is the first of living 1 Genesis and becoming are both yevevts in Greek. 2 Noetic as opposed to hylic — the antithesis and contrariety mentioned above. 3 Namely the ever-becoming of genesis. 4 Or mental, in the sense of being of the same nature as the mind. 5 K€(pa\iK&s. 6 In which " tissue." 7 §§ 12, 13 are quoted by Stobaeus, Phys., I. xxxix. 9 (G. i. 307 ; W. 350, 13 ff.). things, while man is second after it, though first of things subject to death.

Man hath the same ensouling power in him as all the rest of living things l ; yet is he not only not good, but even evil,2 for that he's subject unto death.3 For though the Cosmos also is not good in that it suffers motion, it is not evil, in that it is not subject unto death. But man, in that he's subject both to motion and to death, is evil.4 13. Now then the principles5 of man are thiswise vehicled : mind in the reason (logos), the reason in the soul, soul in the spirit,6 [and] spirit in the body. Spirit pervading [body]7 by means of veins and arteries and blood, bestows upon the living creature motion, and as it were doth bear it in a way. For this cause some do think the soul is blood, in that they do mistake its nature, not knowing that [at death] it is the spirit that must first 1 That is to say, the world-system itself and all the globes in it. 2 Cf. Ex. i. 11 and 15. 3 Whereas the system and its globes are regarded as practically immortal. 4 Reitzenstein (p. 40, 1) gives a revised text of the major part of this utterance of Hermes, from " Cosmos is beautiful " onwards, but unfortunately he omits just the most obscure sentences in it.

6 Lit. a man's soul, where tyvx'h is used in a general sense, and not in the particular sense applied to it in the category which immediately follows. 6 wtfiari. 7 Of. P. S. A., Vi. 4. withdraw into the soul, whereon the blood congeals and veins and arteries are emptied, and then the living creature is withdrawn ; and this is body's death. 14. Now from One Source1 all things depend ; while Source [dependeth] from the One and Only [One]. Source is, moreover, moved to become Source again ; whereas the One standeth perpetually and is not moved. Three then are they : " God, the Father and the Good," Cosmos and man. God doth contain Cosmos ; Cosmos [containeth] man. Cosmos is e'er God's Son, man as it were Cosmos's child. 15. Not that, however, God ignoreth man; nay, right well doth He know him, and willeth to be known. This is the sole salvation for a man — God's Gnosis. This is the Way Up to the Mount.2 By Him alone the soul becometh good, not whiles is good, whiles evil, but [good] out of necessity. Tat. What dost thou mean, Thrice-greatest one? Her. Behold an infant's soul, my son, that is not yet cut off,3 because its body is still small and not as yet come unto its full bulk.4

1 apx"fi- 2 Lit. to Olympus. 3 Sc. from the world-soul. 4 Of. the instructive exposition of Basilides in F. F. F., pp. 274 f. Her. A thing of beauty altogether is [such a soul] to see, not yet befouled by body's passions, still all but hanging from the Cosmic Soul! But when the body grows in bulk and draweth down the soul into its mass, then doth the soul cut off itself and bring upon itself forgetfulness, and no more shareth in the Beautiful and Good. And this forgetfulness becometh vice. 16. It is the same for them who go out from the body. For when the soul withdraws into itself, the spirit doth contract itself within the blood, and soul within the spirit.1 And then the mind, stript of its wrappings, and naturally divine, taking unto itself a fiery body, doth traverse every space, after abandoning the soul unto its judgment and whatever chastisement it hath deserved. Tat.2 What dost thou, father, mean by this? The mind is parted from the soul and soul from 1 This is generally translated " the spirit is contracted into the blood, and the soul into the spirit," but such a translation contradicts § 13, where we are told that " the spirit withdraws into the soul" at death. It seems to mean that the spirit passes within, out of the blood, and the soul is then clothed in a spiritvesture, or borne in a spirit- vehicle.

2 From here to the end of § 18 is quoted by Stobseus, Phys., xl. 3 (G. i. 312, 313 ; W. 310, 25 ff.) ; only the dialogue is ascribed in error to Asclepius and Tat and not to Hermes and Tat. spirit? Whereas thou said'st the soul was the mind's vesture, and the soul's the spirit. 17. Her. The hearer, son, should think with him who speaks and breathe with him l ; nay, he should have a hearing subtler than the voice of him who speaks. It is, son, in a body made of earth that this arrangement of the vestures comes to pass. For in a body made of earth it is impossible the mind should take its seat itself by its own self in nakedness. For neither is it possible on the one hand the earthy body should contain such immortality, nor on the other that so great a virtue should endure a body passible in such close contact with it. It taketh, then, the soul for as it were an envelope. And soul itself, being too a thing divine, doth use the spirit as its envelope, while spirit doth pervade the living creature. 18. When then the mind doth free itself from the earth- body, it straightway putteth on its proper robe of fire, with which it could not dwell in an earth-body.

For earth doth not bear fire ; for it is all set in a blaze even by a small spark. And for this cause is water poured round earth, to be a guard and wall, to keep the blazing of the fire away. But mind, the swiftest thing of all divine out1 Cf. P. s. A., x. i. thinkings, and swifter than all elements, hath for its body fire. For mind being builder1 doth use the fire as tool for the construction of all things — the Mind of all [for the construction] of all things, but that of man only for things on earth. Stript of its fire the mind on earth cannot make things divine, for it is human in its dispensation.2 19. The soul in man, however, — not every soul, but one that pious is — is a daimonic something and divine. And such a soul when from the body freed, if it have fought the fight of piety — the fight of piety is to know God and to do wrong to no man — such soul becomes entirely mind. Whereas the impious soul remains in its own essence, chastised by its own self, and seeking for an earthy body where to enter, if only it be human.

For that no other body can contain a human soul ; nor is it right that any human soul should fall into the body of a thing that doth possess no reason. For that the law of God is this : to guard the human soul from such tremendous outrage.3 , i.e. in its economy. 3 This paragraph is quoted by Stobaeus, Phys., xli. 49 (G. i. 430, 431 ; W. 417, 15 ff.). For the idea, cf. P. S. A., xxxii. 2. 20. Tat. How father, then, is a man's soul chastised ? Her. What greater chastisement of any human soul can there be, son, than lack of piety ? What fire has so fierce flame as lack of piety ? What ravenous beast so mauls the body as lack of piety the very soul I Dost thou not see what hosts of ills the impious soul doth bear ? It shrieks and screams : I burn ; I am ablaze ; I know not what to cry or do ; ah, wretched me, I am devoured by all the ills that compass me about ; alack, poor me, I neither see nor hear ! Such are the cries wrung from a soul chastised ; not, as the many think, and thou, son, dost suppose, that a [man's] soul, passing from body, is changed into a beast.

Such is a very grave mistake, for that the way a soul doth suffer chastisement is this : 21. When mind becomes a daimon, the law requires that it should take a fiery body to execute the services of God ; and entering in the soul most impious it scourgeth it with whips made of its sins. And then the impious soul, scourged with its sins, is plunged in murders, outrage, blasphemy, in violence of all kinds, and all the other things whereby mankind is wronged.1 1 Of. P. S. A ., xxv. 4 and xxviii. 1. But on the pious soul the mind doth mount and guide it l to the Gnosis' Light. And such a soul doth never tire in songs of praise [to God] and pouring blessing on all men, and doing good in word and deed to all, in imitation of its Sire.2 22. Wherefore, my son, thou shouldst give praise to God and pray that thou mayst have thy mind Good [Mind]. It is, then, to a better state the soul doth pass ; it cannot to a worse. Further 3 there is an intercourse * of souls ; those of the gods have intercourse with those of men, and those of men with souls of creatures which possess no reason.

The higher, further, have in charge the lower ; the gods look after men, men after animals irrational,5 while God hath charge of all ; for He is higher than them all and all are less than He. Cosmos is subject, then, to God, man to the Cosmos, and irrationals to man. But God is o'er them all, and God contains them all. God's rays, to use a figure, are His energies ; the Cosmos's are natures ; the arts and sciences are man's.6 1 Cf. C. H., iv. (v.) 11 ; vii. (viii.) 11 ; ix. (x.) 10 ; R. 23, n. 5. 2 Namely, the Good. 3 From here to the end is quoted by Stobaeus, Phys., I. xxxix. 8 (G. i. 305-307 ; W. 303, 14 ff.). 4 Kotvuvia. Cf. P. S. A.j xxiii. 1. 5 Cf. P. S. A., v. 1. 6 Of. Ex. viii. 1. The energies act through the Cosmos, thence through the nature-rays of Cosmos upon man ; the nature-rays [act] through the elements ; man [acteth] through the sciences and arts. 23. This is the dispensation * of the universe, depending from the nature of the One, pervading [all things] through the Mind, than which2 is naught diviner or of greater energy ; and naught a greater means for the at-oning men to gods and gods to men.

He, [Mind,] is the Good Daimon. Blessed the soul that is most filled with Him, and wretched3 is the soul that's empty of the Mind. Tat. Father, what dost thou mean, again ? Her* Dost think then, son, that every soul hath the Good [Mind]? For 'tis of Him we speak, not of the mind in service 5 of which we just were speaking, the mind sent down for [the soul's] chastisement. 24. For soul without the mind " can neither speak nor act."6 For oftentimes the mind doth leave the soul, and at that time the soul nor sees 2 Sc. the Mind. 3 /ca/coSafyiav, as opposed to 6 ayaObs SaifjLwv. It is impossible to reproduce the original word-play in translation. 4 Stobaeus (Gaisford) here reads " A." — that is, Asclepius. 5 rov virripertKov, compare § 21, "the services of God" (T&S rov 0eoO vwnpeff(as) ; that is to say, Hermes speaks of the Universal Mind and not of the mind in man. 6 A quotation from the ancient gnomic poet Theognis (v. 177). Theognis lived c. 570-490 B.C. nor understands, but is just like a thing that hath no reason. Such is the power of mind. Yet doth it not endure a sluggish l soul, but leaveth such a soul tied to the body and bound tight down by it. Such soul, my son, doth not have Mind ; and therefore such an one should not be called a man.2 For that man is a thingof-life 3 divine ; man is not measured with the rest of lives of things upon the earth, but with the lives above in heaven, who are called gods.

Nay more, if we must boldly speak the truth, the true " man " is e'en higher than the gods, or at the [very] least the gods and men are every whit in power each with the other equal. 25. For no one of the gods in heaven shall come down on the earth, o'er-stepping heaven's limit ; whereas man doth mount up to heaven and measure it ; he knows what things of it are high, what things are low, and learns precisely all things else besides. And greater thing than all ; without e'en quitting earth, he doth ascend above. So vast a sweep doth he possess of ecstasy.4 1 vwrpas,—? va>epas. Everard translates "an idle or lazy soul," in his usual slipshod fashion of inserting doubles ; Parthey gives " inertem animam " ; Menard, " Vdme vicieuse " ; Chambers, " inert." Several of the old editors omit the entire sentence. 2 Of. Philo, De Som., § 20 ; M. i. 639 ; P. 584 (Hi. iii. 241) : " not for those who are called men, but for those who are truly so." * tKffrdffeus, lit. extension, or consciousness. For this cause can a man dare say that man on earth is god subject to death, while god in heaven is man from death immune.

Wherefore the dispensation of all things is brought about by means of1 these, the twain — Cosmos and Man 2 — but by 3 the One. What " yesterday's sermon," which Hermes addressed to Asclepius, may have been, we have no means of deciding. The similarity of the phrase with the opening words of C. H., ix. (x.) is noticeable, and points, perhaps, to a collection of Sermons to Asclepius and Tat strung together in some chronological order, as delivered day by day. If this be the fact, however, we must assume that such introductions were prefixed by the editor of that collection. "The Key of Thrice-greatest Hermes" must have been considered one of the most remarkable documents of the school, for, as we have already mentioned in the case of " The Cup " treatise, the apocryphal " Books of Moses " plagiarize the title.4 That it was an important treatise may also be seen from the fact that Stobaeus reproduces no less than five extracts from it under the title, " From the [Sermons] of Hermes to Tat," or simply " Of Hermes." Strangely enough in two cases (xxxix. 8 and xl. 3) Stobaeus makes 1 frd. 2 Of. P. S. A., x. 3.

•' fat. 4 R. 182, 3 ; 190, 2. the persons of the dialogue Asclepius and Tat; this, however, must be a mistake, for it contradicts his own headings, it contradicts the nature of the sermon, it contradicts the supposed introduction of the editor of the collection from whom the redactor of our Corpus has taken his text, and it contradicts Chalcidius, who quotes from our treatise as a treatise of Hermes.1 Nevertheless, in spite of the importance of the treatise, it purports to be an epitome,2 an abridgment of the "General Sermons" (ot yeviKoi Xo'yot)3 addressed to Tat. The sermon itself, however, has by no means the appearance of being an abridgment; on the contrary, it is one of the most complete and fundamental expositions that we have. I would, therefore, suggest that the general reference in the words, "as we have shown in treating of the rest" (§ 1), and the precise reference to "The General Sermons," in § 7, have originated this wording of the introduction with the editor of the collection of Asclepius and Tat Sermons which I have previously supposed. It is a gloss of the editor and no part of the original text. If this argument holds good, " The Key," instead of

1 Chalcid., Comment, in Timceum (ed. Fabric.), p. 350. 2 Compare also the introduction to C. #., xvi. (see K. 191, 1) ; and also Ex. i. 16 and Comment. 3 Cf. § 7, below ; G. H., xiii. (xiv.) 1 ; and Exs. ix. 1 and xviii. 1. The title must be so translated, I think, in spite of the fact that in the introductory words of the above treatise the term is immediately followed by the antithesis "rebirth" (iraXtyyeveffia), as though the Sermons were on birth or genesis (yei/eo-ts), — which, as we know from the Naassene Document, was the subject of the Lesser Mysteries, whereas Rebirth was that of the Greater. Everard gives " in the general speeches " ; Parthey, " in communibus " ; Menard, " dans les discours generaux " ; Chambers, " in the Generalities." being an epitome, is a further teaching that presupposes a prior instruction already given in "The General Sermons," and so stands out as a more intimate exposition of the inward doctrine of the higher grades of the school. Reitzenstein (p. 461) would have it that the doctrine of Sermons, ix. (x.) and x. (xi.), is a mediate one between the dualism of vi. (vii.) and the pronounced pantheistic mysticism of v. (vi.) and xi. (xii.) ; but I should fancy that these labels, even if they are correctly attached, would not represent such overwhelming contradictions to the Trismegistic doctors as they appear to do to their modern critics. There were different points of view ; there were different grades of instruction; every doctrine had more truth in it at the proper time and in the right place. In any case this sermon is one of the most beautiful tractates preserved to us.

1. Our treatise begins with the statement that the universe and all therein is due to the Energy or Effective Working of God— that is to say, His Will. This Will is immutable and constant — the Law of the universe. How subtly these philosophers in their most intimate circles used these terms may be seen from the Gnostic Doctor, Basilides, who writes : "Naught was, — neither matter, nor substance, nor voidness of substance, nor simplicity, nor impossibility of composition, nor inconceptibility, nor imperceptibility, neither man, nor angel [Hermetice, daimon], nor God ; in fine, neither anything at all for which man has ever found a name, nor any operation which falls within the range either of his perception or conception. " Such, or rather far more removed from the power of man's comprehension, was the state of Non-Being, when the Deity beyond Being, without thinking, or feeling, or determining, or choosing, or being compelled, or desiring, willed to create universality." " When I use the term will," writes Basilides, " I do so merely to suggest the idea of an operation transcending all volition, thought, or sensible action." 1 2. God's Energy, or Self-realization, is, then, His Will (Oe\rja-i$) ; His Essence (ovarta) or Substance is " to will the being of all things " ; in brief, He is the Very Subsistence (i/Tra/o^?) of all — a term which subsequently came into great prominence in the later Platonic philosophy.

3. In § 3 we have a clear distinction drawn between the transcendent idea of God as Creator or Wilier, and the ordinary conception of God as Maker or Fabricator or Demiurge — a distinction that meets us in almost every Gnostic system. In our treatise, however, there is no setting of the one idea over against the other in any sense of antagonism. It is only stated that the self-operation of Deity transcends all such limited conceptions as that of a Maker or Fabricator. 4. The distinctive feature of God as the Good, or the Desirable, the Supreme Consummation, is " that He should be known " (TO yvwpi^ecrQai) ; in other words, the science of all sciences is the Gnosis of God. 5. The Vision Glorious, the One Sight, is next spoken of under the simile of the shining of a Eay of the Light 1 Hipp., Philos., vii. 21 (ed. D. and S., p. 358) ; F. F. F., pp. 257, 258. and Life of the Spiritual Sun into the mind. This consummation of Ecstasis,1 we are told, was a transcending of the limitations of body, and was a faculty possessed by the forebears ("wpoyovoi) of the " race " into which Hermes and now Tat are being born ; these ancestors are mentioned under symbolic Greek names, evidently a substitute for Egyptian ones, for the reference is clearly to the priesthood of some past civilization of the Nile Land. At the same time, it can be referred to certain grades of super-men, regarded as gods, who had reached to certain stages of celestial dignity.2

To this idea of ancient Masters of the Gnosis in Egypt, Lactantius refers as follows : " And so it appears that he [Cronus] was not born from Heaven (which is impossible), but from that man who was called Uranus ; and that this is so, Trismegistus bears witness, when, in stating that there have been very few in whom the perfect science has been found, he mentioned in their number Uranus, Cronus, and Hermes his kinsfolk."3 Lactantius seems to be somewhat under the fascination of the theory of Euhemerus, and has no credence in the Heaven-born, in spite of the Christ Birth. We, however, learn from him that he knew of a statement by Hermes in this connection in which, besides Uranus and Cronus, an ancient Hermes was mentioned. Now in our treatise this is not the case, and Tat and not Hermes is the speaker ; whereas in P. S. A., xxxvii., where Hermes speaks of his progenitor Hermes, no 1 Cf. § 25, where ecstasis is explained as an extension of consciousness,— a certain " greatness " (pcyeeos). 2 See the "Chart of Orphic Cosmogony," facing p. 87 of my Orpheus (London, 1896), where Uranus and Cronus are referred to the two lower of the three Noetic " planes " transcending the Sensible Universe.

3 Div. Institt., i. 11 (ed. Fritz., i. 29, 30). mention is made of Uranus and Cronus. Therefore Lactantius refers to a lost treatise of Hermes. 6. The nature of Ecstasy is then further explained ; it is the fruit of meditation or contemplation, the consummation of the Theoretic Life. " The Gnosis of the Good is holy silence and a giving holiday (/carapy/a) to every sense." The Holy Silence reminds us of the Sige of the Christian Gnostics ; here, however, instead of the Mother-^Eon of Cosmos, it is used in the sense of the pure mother-nature of the little cosmos of man, the divine womb that brings to birth the true man. With this may be compared 0. H., xiii. (xiv.) 2 : " Wisdom conceived by mind in silence, such is the matter and the womb from out which man is born, and the true Good the seed." It is hardly necessary to add that this is the Yoga of the Upanishads. Indeed, the first part of § 6 might be taken word for word from those sublime treatises of Vaidik theosophy, and shows how identical is the thought of those who have first-hand experience of the higher consciousness.

" For it is possible, my son, that a man's soul should be made like to God (aTroOecoOrjvat), e'en while it still is in a body, if it doth contemplate the Beauty of the Good." This is the " deification " (aTroOewans), or " apotheosis " of a man ; he becomes like unto God, in that he becomes a god. The Beauty of the Good is the Cosmic Order ; and the mode of this meditation was to bring the soul into sympathy with the Cosmic Soul. THE METAMORPHOSES OF THE SOUL 7. The secret of this divine operation (or theurgy) is based upon the fact that the soul can be transformed into every likeness. The Great Likeness of God is the Cosmic Order, the making oneself into this Likeness is the supreme transformation or transfiguration of the soul. The separated or individual soul is in perpetual pilgrimage, revolving on the wheel of transformation. This doctrine was shared in by many other faiths, and it was also Egyptian. In this connection we may refer instructively to Hippolytus' quotations from the Naassene Document (§ 3 S.): "And they1 say that the soul is very difficult to discover, and hard to understand ; for it never remains of the same appearance, or form, or in the same state, so that we can describe it by a general type, or comprehend it by an essential quality."

On this Hippolytus comments : "These variegated metamorphoses they2 have laid down in the Gospel superscribed 'According to the Egyptians.' " The Gospel according to the Egyptians is lost, with the exception of a few fragments. We, however, here learn that it described the metamorphoses of the soul. It was a Gospel having its origin in Egypt and suited to Egyptian modes of thought. It follows, therefore, that the doctrine of the soul's transformation was Egyptian.3 1 The quotation is from the text of the Hellenistic Commentator, who is referring to the Chaldaeans. 2 The Gnostics Hippolytus calls the Naassenes. 3 Reitzenstein (p. 22, 2) says that it was in error that the Greeks stated the Egyptians believed in metempsychosis ; in this I believe that Reitzenstein is himself in error. The Egyptians at any rate demonstrably believed in soul metamorphosis ; and when we find people who lived in Egypt teaching this metamorphosis in connection with metempsychosis, it is but natural to conclude that the Greeks, who were in touch with the living tradition of Egypt, knew more about the matter than modern scepticism. The Hermetic doctrine of the evolution of the soul, by means of multitudinous transformations, is characterised by certain main moments, for in the course of it it passes through definite stages of existence designated as animal, human, daimonic, and god-like ; there being, further, two grades of being within the choir of gods — the errant and inerrant. The final stage is the most perfect glory (So£a) or power of the soul.

With all of this there is a strikingly exact parallel of ideas in the Pauline Letters. " But some one will say : How do the dead rise, and with what body do they come [? back] ? " Thou foolish one ! That which thou sowest is not made quick unless it die. "And that which thou sowest — 'tis not the body that shall be thou sowest, but a naked grain of wheat or of one of the other seeds.1 " 'Tis God that gives to it 2 a body as he will, — yea to every one of the seeds its proper body. " Not every flesh is the same flesh ; but there is one of men, another flesh of beasts, another flesh of birds, and another of fishes. "There are also bodies celestial, as well as bodies terrestrial. But the glory of the celestial [bodies] is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. " [And of the former] the glory of the sun is one, and the glory of the moon is another, and [yet] another is the glory of the stars ; for star diff ereth from star in glory. " So also is the resurrection of the dead. " 3

1 The " grain of mustard seed "— " wheat" if a good body comes therefrom, " tares " if an imperfect growth results. 2 Sc. the soul as grain. 3 1 Cor. xv 35-42. And by " resurrection of the dead," I believe that Paul meant what all the instructed of the time meant — namely, the " reaching the first step of deathlessness," as Hermes has it in our treatise. The death or vice of the soul is ignorance, the virtue or life of the soul is Gnosis. " For he who knows, he good and pious is, and still while on the earth, divine." 8. With § 8, however, we are confronted with what appears to be a great difficulty. Hermes here seems to teach distinctly that a vicious (that is, an ignorant) soul, one who has not attained to Gnosis, goes back to attachment to animal bodies, while in §§ 19 ff., he at great length denies that a human soul can possibly do so. Is there any solution of this apparently complete self-contradiction in one and the same treatise ? Far as I am from desiring to play the apologist for any scripture, I am prevented from appending an impatient " No " to this query, for the following considerations :

In the first place, Hermes in § 8 is speaking of the vicious or ignorant soul, while in § 19 he is speaking not only of the " human " soul, but of the human soul that hath the Good Mind (§ 23); whereas the ignorant soul " doth not have Mind, and, therefore, such an one should not be called a man " (§ 24). Here, then, we have a fundamental distinction in souls incarnated into the " body of a man " (§ 8) ; they are of two classes. The doctrine of § 8 applies to one class, the doctrine of § 19 to another. Metempsychosis, in the sense of continued revolution on the wheel of life and death, is only for him who "persisteth in his vice" — that is to say, is still ignorant. Gnosis thus means the freedom from samsara, to use a common Brahmanical and Buddhistic term. The ignorant soul does not see the Light, being " blinded by the body's passions, and tossed about " ; this is the "turmoil" of which Plato speaks in the Timceus. And here I must refer the reader to " Plato Concerning Metempsychosis," in the "Prolegomena," a chapter which I have written mainly in elucidation of the problems raised by our treatise.

9. So much, then, for the soul which persisteth in its vice or ignorance ; but the virtue of the soul is Gnosis. "For he who knows, he good and pious is, and still while on the earth, divine." This is precisely the same idea as that of the Jlvanmukta in Indian theosophy — namely, the man who has reached Mukti or Liberation while still living in the body. Hermes thus proceeds to distinguish Gnosis, the end of human science, from sense or opinion. Gnosis is the apotheosis of the mind, its immediate perception of the things-that-are — namely, the Intelligible Cosmos. 11. The Sensible or Hylic Cosmos is then explained, and also the nature of man, and his relationship to the Cosmos and God. 13. The vehicles of man's " Soul " are then categorized (fax*! $£ avOpwTrov oxelrai rov rpoirov TOVTOV), the Soul being here used in the sense of the Self, and as distinguished from the " soul " in the category. They are as follows, one within the other, in the sense of being respectively more intimate to the true nature of man : Mind (you?) ; reason (Xo'yo?) ; soul (^jrvxn) ', spirit ( TTvevjma) ; body (a-co/ma).

The remarkable similarity of this category with the psychology of the Upanishads cannot fail to strike the student of those mother-treatises of Vaidik theosophy. Thus we read in the Kathopanishad, I. iii. 10, 11 : " Beyond the senses are the rudiments l ; beyond the rudiments impulsive mind; beyond the mind, the reason ; beyond the reason, the Great Self. "Beyond the Great, the Increate2; beyond the Increate, the Man 3 ; beyond the Man, not any thing ; That is the goal; That is the final end." The analogy is striking. Body = gross elements ; spirit = subtle elements ; soul = impulsive mind (manas)', reason = reason (buddhi*)', Mind = the Great (Mahat); Source (axp?i) = the Increate; the One and Only (TO ev KCU juoVoy) = the Man. These so-called " vehicles," " envelopes," or " sheaths " (koshas), are elsewhere given in the Upanishads as: anna-may a-kosha — that is, the kosha composed of, or resulting from, food (body); prana-maya-k., of life (spirit) ; mano-maya-k., of impulse (soul) ; vijnanamaya-k., of discrimination (reason); ananda-maya-k., of bliss (Mind). " Spirit " is thus seen to correspond to life (prdna) ; it is that which "bestows upon the living creature motion, and, as it were, doth bear it " (i.e. support it) " in a way" (§ 13). It is not Life, but individualized

1 The subtler elements. 2 Avyakta, undifferentiated cosmic substance. 3 Purusha, the True Man. 4 The manas and buddhi of the Upanishads are not to be confounded with these terms as at present employed in modern Theosophical literature. life, and in the Aupanishad literature is differentiated into five modes, which may be almost translated as etheric currents or modes of motion in the body.1 The quotation from Proclus in " Plato Concerning Metempsychosis," will have sufficiently shown that this " life " is of the same nature as the animal life. It is that principle of soul which man shares with the animals. And here we may refer to Jamblichus (De Myst., viii. 6), when referring to the " Hermaic writings " he says : " Man has two souls, as these writings say. The one is from the first Mind, and partakes also of the power of the Creator, while the other, the soul under constraint, comes from the revolution of the celestial [spheres] ; into the latter the former, the soul that is the seer of God,2 insinuates itself at a later period. " This being so, the soul that descends into us from the worlds [or spheres] keeps time with the circuit of these worlds, while the soul from the Mind existing in us in an intelligible fashion is free from the whirl of genesis; by this the bonds of Destiny are burst asunder ; by this the Path up to the Gods whom mind alone can see is brought to birth; by such a life as this is that Great Art Divine, which leads us up to That beyond the spheres of genesis, brought to its consummation."

Hermes in our treatise is, however, more precise as to the so-called " vehicles " or " souls," for he writes (§ 17) : "Mind taketh, then, the soul for, as it were, an 1 Of. K. K.t 44, 45, Comment. 2 Of. C. H., ix. (x.) 3 : "The daimon who's illumined by God's Light." envelope. And soul itself being, too, a thing divine,1 doth use the spirit as its envelope, while spirit doth pervade the living creature." 2 The Supreme Principle of all, the One and Only One, who " standeth perpetually " (§ 14), is the Intelligible Logos (jy vor]T>j <7Ta.<Ti?, cf. § 11), the 6 e<TTo>? of the Christianized Gnosis, as seen especially in the Simonian Great Announcement. He is the Cause of the perpetual motion of the Hylic Cosmos. Compare this with the following passage of Numenius : " Now there are two modes of life, the first of the First and the second of the Second God. For it is evident that the First God should be standing (etrTok), and the Second, on the contrary, moved. The First, then, is occupied about things intelligible, and the Second about things intelligible and sensible. " Marvel not that I say this ; for thou shalt hear what is still more marvellous. For I say that it is not the motion that appertains to the Second, but the rest that pertains to the First, which is the innate 1 motion ' from which both their cosmic order and their eternal community and their preservation [or salvation] is poured forth on things universal." 3

1 That is, being logos, as from the Creator or Second Mind. 2 Cf. Exx. iv. 2 ; xv. 2 ; xix. 3 ; and Frag, xviii. Quoted by Eusebius, Prcep. Evang., XI. xviii. 20, 21 (539 B), ed. Dindorf (Leipzig, 1867), ii. 41. We do not know Numenius' date, but it was probably about the first half of the first century A.D. Though Numenius is almost invariably designated as a Pythagorean, he was rather a universalist, for his object was not only to trace the doctrines of Plato up to Pythagoras, but to show that they were not at variance with the doctrines and mysteries of the Brahmans, Jews, Magi and Egyptians. 15. In § 15 the Gnosis is again declared to be the only Path of Salvation or Safety.1 It is the Way Up to the Mount,2 the Olympian Path. The term Eleusis was also interpreted as Anabasis, or the Way Up.3 Compare the Jewish commentator in the Naassene Document (§ 27): " First is the Mystery called ' Eleusis ' and ' Anaktoreion' — Eleusis because we come from Above,4 streaming down from Adamas,5 . . . and Anaktoreion from ' Eeturning Above. ' " 16. The next main doctrine touched on is one of immense importance, for it gives us the inner teaching which illuminates the " dark saying " in the "Poemandres" (§ 24), when treating of the Way Up (avoSo?) :

"And thou surrenderest thy way of life unto the daimon." For in our treatise Hermes tells us that at death : "The mind stript of its wrappings, and naturally divine, taking unto itself a fiery body, doth traverse every space, after abandoning the soul unto its judgment and whatever chastisement it hath deserved." The key to this is the sentence (§ 21) : "When mind becomes a daimon, the law requires that it should take a fiery body to execute the services of God." 1 Cf. the passage from Jamblichus quoted above. 2 Cf. C. H., xiii. (xiv.) 1 : " The Passing o'er the Mount." 3 Uf. C. H., i. 24. 4 Eleusis meaning Coming, Advent. 5 The Man or Mind. At death, the mind, of its own nature, perforce becomes a " servant of God," a Therapeut 1 ; the man is his own judge and his own chastizer. The " fire of hell " is then but the reflection of the light of the mind ; it is the burning remorse of a mind that now sees the inevitable results of every selfish action — thought, word, and deed ; that each of these comes inevitably back on the sender forth of it.

The soul, thus, lives out (and that too in the most realistic fashion, it realizes the actuality of the law in all its most minute details) the inevitable consequences of its past vicious deeds in body. Here we have the hint of a psychology and of an inner teaching that persuades us there was a profound wisdom at the back of the intermediate instruction of these schools. Compare this most reasonable theory of after-death "illumination" with the crudities of the eternal torment idea of popular religion with which we are so familiar, and reflect on what a "falling off" there has been from the Gnosis of the early days. And what is the " fiery body " of the mind but the ray-like or starry vehicle of the man, the avyoeide? y ao-TpoeiSes of Philoponus ? 2 This is the true " Astral Body " of a man, and not the "watery vesture" which is referred to under the term in modern nomenclature. This is the true Body of Purification, that burns up all impurities, and in the light of the conflagration burns into man the memory of the Gnosis. The soul is thus "chastised by its own self"; and if Hermes had taught us nothing else, he would have amply deserved the gratitude of humanity, and the title

1 Gf. § 23 : " The mind in service." 2 See my Orpheus, pp. 292 ff. of Thrice-greatest. Yet is "Hermes" no single man, but a mind illuminated by the Mind. 21. So then " the impious soul, scourged with its own sins, is plunged in murders, outrage, blasphemy, in violence of all kinds, and all the other things whereby mankind is wronged." This is the " scourge " by which the Christ drives the unworthy out of His Temple. It does not mean that the soul is driven into doing these things, but that it is made to realize or suffer them — the consequences of its prior misdeeds. Whatever wrong it has done to its fellows, such it suffers, in the realization of its true nature, whereby the Light of Gnosis brings into amazing contrast the darkness or ignorance of its past actions.1 22. And so Hermes explains the nature of " the dispensation of the universe" — the interlinking of the grades of being from God downwards — the intercourse or communion of souls. God, Cosmos and Man are grades of being. Each is a sun, as it were, in their operations, or powers or rays. God's rays are His energies or self -realizing operations ; those of Cosmos are the natures of things, those of Man are the arts and sciences.

This communion or intercourse of higher with lower natures is to be realized on the side of man by the consummation of the sacred marriage, whereby man becomes a god, and finally God. He only is blessed who is filled with God — that is to 1 With this compare the function of the Mind on the soul in incarnation, as described in C. H., xii. (xiii.) 4. say, the true Gnostic who has received the consecration of the Fullness or Pleroma.1 Whereas the soul that is empty of God is deprived of that Fullness, cut off from it, and so empty of the Mind. This is the state of Emptiness (/cewo/za) or Insufficiency (lycrre/o^a). 24. Such souls, says Hermes, should not be called men. For a true man is not only equal to a god, but even higher than the gods. Such a man we should, in Christian nomenclature, call a Christ — one animated or illuminated by the Mind or Spirit of God. 1 Of. John i. 16 : "Of His Fullness have we all received." (Text : P. 85-99 ; Pat. 20b-23.) 1. Mind. Master this sermon (logos)? then, Thrice-greatest Hermes, and bear in mind the spoken words ; and as it hath come unto Me to speak, I will no more delay.

Hermes. As many men say many things, and these diverse, about the All and Good, I have not learned the truth. Make it, then, clear to me, 0 Master mine ! For I can trust the explanation of these things, which comes from Thee alone. 2. Mind. Hear [then], My son, how standeth God and All. God; ^Eon2; Cosmos; Time; Becoming.3 God maketh ^Eon ; ^Eon, Cosmos ; Cosmos, Time ; and Time, Becoming. 1 Or thy reason. 2 Eternity ; the ideal world, beyond time. Gf. P. S. A.t xxx., xxxi. The Good, — the Beautiful, Wisdom, Blessedness, — is essence, as it were,1 of God ; of Mou, Sameness 2 ; of Cosmos, Order ; of Time, Change ; and of Becoming, Life and Death. The energies of God are Mind and Soul; of Mou, lastingness 3 and deathlessness ; of Cosmos, restoration and the opposite thereof4 ; of Time, increase and decrease ; and of Becoming, quality. Mon is, then, in God ; Cosmos, in Mon ; in Cosmos, Time ; in Time, Becoming. Mon stands firm round God ; Cosmos is moved in .ZEon ; Time hath its limits 5 in the Cosmos ; Becoming doth become in Time.

3. The source,6 therefore, of all is God ; their essence, j5Con ; their matter, Cosmos. God's power is ^Eon ; .ZEon's work is Cosmos —which never hath become, yet ever doth become by ^Eon. Therefore will Cosmos never be destroyed, for ^Eon's indestructible ; nor doth a whit of things in Cosmos perish, for Cosmos is enwrapped by Mon round on every side. Her. But God's Wisdom — what is that ? Mind. The Good and Beautiful, and Blessedness, and Virtue's all, and 1 That is to say, the term " m-ence " cannot really be applied to God, for He is beyond " fo-ing." 2 Or identity. 3 Or duration. 5 Or is accomplished. then, ordereth1 [Cosmos], imparting deathlessness and lastingness to matter. 4. For its2 becoming doth depend on Mon, as ^Eon doth on God. Now Genesis3 and Time, in Heaven and on the Earth, are of two natures. In Heaven they are unchangeable and indestructible, but on the Earth they're subject unto change and to destruction. Further, the ^Eon's soul is God ; the Cosmos' soul is JEon ; the Earth's soul, Heaven. And God's in Mind ; and Mind, in Soul ; and Soul, in Matter ; and all of them through .Eon.

But all this Body,4 in which are all the bodies, is full of Soul ; and Soul is full of Mind, and [Mind] of God. It 5 fills it 6 from within, and from without encircles it, making the All to live. Without, this vast and perfect Life 7 [encircles] Cosmos ; within, it fills [it with] all lives 8 ; above, in Heaven, continuing in sameness ; below, on Earth, changing becoming. 5. And Mon doth preserve this [Cosmos], or by Necessity, or by Foreknowledge, or by 1 Or adorneth. 2 Sc. Matter's Becoming or Genesis. 4 Sc. Cosmos. 5 Sc. Soul. 6 Sc. Body, of Universe or Cosmos. 7 Or Animal ; that is, Soul. 8 Or animals. Nature, or by whatever else a man supposes or shall suppose. And all is this, — God energizing. The Energy of God is Power that naught can e'er surpass, a Power with which no one can make comparison of any human thing at all, or any thing divine. Wherefore, 0 Hermes, never think that aught of things above or things below is like to God, for thou wilt fall from truth. For naught is like to That which hath no like, and is Alone and One.

And do not ever think that any other can possibly possess His power ; for what apart from Him is there of life, and deathlessness and change of quality? For what else should He make * ? God's not inactive,2 since all things [then] would lack activity ; for all are full of God. But neither in the Cosmos anywhere, nor in aught else, is there inaction. For that "inaction" is a name that cannot be applied to either what doth make or what is made.3 6. But all things must be made ; both ever 1 Sc. than those which are Himself. 2 apyts. There is a word-play in the terms Zpyov (work), fvepyuv (working in, energizing), tvepyfis (active, energetic), fvepyeia (in-working, activity), and apyts (not-working, inactive, idle), apyia (inactivity, idleness), which it is impossible to bring out fully in English. 3 Or what becomes. made, and also in accordance with the influence of every space.1 For He who makes, is in them all ; not stablished in some one of them, nor making one thing only, but making all. For being Power, He energiseth in the things He makes and is not independent of them,— although the things He makes are subject to Him.

Now gaze through Me2 upon the Cosmos that's now subject to thy sight ; regard its Beauty carefully — Body in pure perfection, though one than which there's no more ancient one, ever in prime of life, and ever-young, nay, rather, in even fuller and yet fuller prime ! 7. Behold, again, the seven subject Worlds3; ordered 4 by ^Eon's order,5 and with their varied course full-filling ^Eon ! [See how] all things [are] full of light, and nowhere [is there] fire ; for 'tis the love and blending of the contraries and the dissimilars 1 This seems to mean, that all things in the world of gemesis- (making, creating, or becoming) have their root-activity, first from the sameness of becoming of the one sphere or space, and then their differentiated activity from the seven spheres, spaces, or planes, which are the instruments of God in the differentiation of the Cosmos. 2 Mind — i.e. with the mind's eye, or spiritual sight, or by the help of the Master's illuminating power. Of. G. H., i. 7 and xiii. (xiv.) 11. 3 K^a-fjiovs, cosmoi or world-orders. 4 Or adorned, or made beautiful. 5 The order of the ^Eon (Eternity, the Spiritual Space), aeonian or everlasting order.

that doth give birth to light down shining by the energy of God,1 the Father of all good, the Leader of all order, and Ruler of the seven world-orderings ! [Behold] the Moon, forerunner of them all, the instrument of nature, and the transmuter of its lower matter ! [Look at] the Earth set in the midst of All, foundation of the Cosmos Beautiful, feeder and nurse of things on Earth ! And contemplate the multitude of deathless lives, how great it is, and that of lives subject to death ; and midway, between both, immortal [lives] and mortal, [see thou] the circling Moon. 8. And all are full of Soul, and all are moved by it, each in its proper way ; some round the Heaven, others around the Earth ; [see] how the right [move] not unto left, nor yet the left unto the right; nor the above below, nor the below above. And that all these are subject unto Genesis,2 My dearest Hermes, thou hast no longer need to learn of Me. For that they bodies are, have souls, and they are moved. But 'tis impossible for them to come together into one without some one to bring them [all]

1 The text from " Now gaze ..." to here is given in R. 36, n. 1. 2 Or becoming. together. It must, then, be that such a one as this must be some one who's wholly One. 9. For as the many motions of them [all] are different, and as their bodies are not like, yet has one speed been ordered for them all, it is impossible that there should be two or more makers for them. For that one single order is not kept among "the many"; but rivalry will follow of the weaker with the stronger, and they will strive. And if the maker of the lives that suffer change and death, should be another,1 he would desire to make the deathless ones as well ; just as the maker of the deathless ones, [to make the lives] that suffer death. But come ! if there be two,2 — if Matter's one, and Soul is one, in whose hands would there be the distribution3 for the making? Again, if both of them have some of it, in whose hands may there be the greater part ? 10. But thus conceive it, then; that every living body doth consist of soul and matter, whether [that body be] of an immortal, or a mortal, or an irrational [life].