Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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Tris. Nay, [my] Asclepius, all have not won true reason 2 ; but wildly rushing in pursuit of [reason's] counterfeit,3 they never see the thing itself, and are deceived. And this breeds evil in their minds, and [thus] transforms the best of animals into the nature of a beast and manners of the brutes.
2. But as to Sense and all things similar, 1 will set forth the whole discourse when [I explain] concerning Spirit.
For man is the sole animal that is twofold. One part of him is simple : the [man] "essential,"4 as say the Greeks, but which we call the " form of the Divine Similitude."
He also is fourfold : that which the Greeks call " hylic,"5 [but] which we call "cosmic"; of which is made the corporal part, in which is vestured what we just have said is the divine in man,6 — in which the godhead of the Mind alone, together with its kin, that is the Pure Mind's senses, findeth home and rest, its self with its own self, as though shut in the body's walls.
1 Lit. more.
2 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 23, 24 ; iv. (v.) 3 ; and ix. 3 below.
3 Lit. image.
4 The Greek term ovcridSris is here retained. Cf. viii. 2 below.
5 The Greek V\IK^V being retained in the Latin.
6 Cf. C. H., xvi. 15.
3. [IV. M.] Asc. What, then, Thrice-greatest one, has caused it that man should be planted in the world, and should not pass his life in highest happiness in that part [of the universe] where there is God?
[Tris.~\ Rightly thou questionest, 0 [my] Asclepius ! And we pray God that He bestow on us the power of setting forth this reason ; since everything depends upon His Will, and specially those things that are set forth about the Highest Whole, the Reason that's the object of our present argument. Hear, then, Asclepius !
VIII
1. The Lord and Maker of all things, whom we call rightly God, when from Himself He made the second [God], the Visible and Sensible,1 — I call him Sensible not that He hath sensation in Himself (for as to this, whether or no He have himself sensation, we will some other time declare), but that He is the object of the senses of those who see ; — when, then, He made Him first, but second to Himself, and that He seemed to Him [most] fair, as one filled to the full with goodness of all things, He fell in love with Him as being part of His Divinity.1
1 Sc. the Logos as Cosmos. Of. xxxi. 1 below.
2. Accordingly, in that He was so mighty and so fair, He willed that some one else should have the power to contemplate the One He had made from Himself. And thereon He made man, — the imitator of His Keason and His Love.2
The Will of God is in itself complete accomplishment ; inasmuch as together with His having willed, in one and the same time He hath brought it to full accomplishment.
And so, when He perceived that the "essential"3 [man] could not be lover4 of all things, unless He clothed him in a cosmic carapace, He shut him in within a house of body, — and ordered it that all [men] should be so, — from either nature making him a single blend and fair-proportioned mixture.
1 The Greek original of this passage is quoted by Lactantius,
Div. Institt., iv. 6, and runs as follows in Fritzsche's (0. F.) text
(Leipzig, 1842) :
" The Lord and Maker of all things (whom 'tis our custom to call God) when He had made the second God, the Visible and Sensible, — I call him Sensible not that He hath sensation in Himself (for as to this, whether or no He have himself sensation, we will some other time enquire), but that He is object of senses and of mind ;— when, then, He'd made Him first, and One and Only, He seemed to Him most fair, and filled quite full of all things good. At Him He marvelled, and loved Him altogether as His Son." With the last words, cf. Plat., Tim., 37 D.
2 Diligentice.
3 The Greek oua-itaS-ns being again, as in vii. 2, retained in the
Latin. Of. C. H., i. 15 and ix. (x.) 5.
3. Therefore hath He made man of soul and body, — that is, of an eternal and a mortal nature ; so that an animal thus blended can content his dual origin, — admire and worship things in heaven, and cultivate and govern things on earth.1