Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
By mortal things 2 I do not mean the water or the earth [themselves], for these are two of the [immortal] elements that nature hath made subject unto men, — but [either] things that are by men, or [that are] in or from them 3 ; such as the cultivation of the earth itself, pastures, [and] buildings, harbours, voyagings, intercommunications, mutual services, which are the firmest bonds of men between themselves and that part of the Cosmos which consists [indeed] of water and of earth, [but is] the Cosmos' terrene part, — which is preserved by knowledge and the use of arts and sciences ; without which [things] God willeth not Cosmos should be complete.4
1 This sentence is also quoted by Lactantius (Div. Institt., vii. 13) in the original Greek, which reads :
" From the two natures, the deathless and the mortal, He made one nature, — that of man, one and the selfsame thing. And having made the selfsame [man] both somehow deathless and also somehow mortal, He brought him [forth], and set him up betwixt the godlike and immortal nature and the mortal ; that seeing all he might wonder at all."
2 That is, the " things on earth."
3 That is, the two elements mentioned.
4 The above paragraph seems to have been very imperfectly translated into Latin.
In that necessity doth follow what seems good to God ; performance waits upon His will.
Nor is it credible that that which once hath pleased Him, will become unpleasing unto God ; since He hath known both what will be, and what will please Him, long before.
IX
1. [V. M.] But, 0 Asclepius, I see that thou with swift desire of mind art in a hurry to be told how man can have a love and worship of the Heaven, or of the things that are therein. Hear, then, Asclepius !
The love of God and Heaven, together with all them that are therein, is one perpetual act of worship.1
No other thing ensouled, of Gods or animals, can do this thing, save man alone.2 Tis in the admiration, adoration, [and] the praise of men, and [in their] acts of worship, that Heaven and Heaven's hosts find their delight.
2. Nor is it without cause the Muses' choir hath been sent down by Highest Deity unto the host of men ; in order that, forsooth, the terrene world should not seem too uncultured, had it lacked the charm of measures, but rather that with songs and praise of men accompanied with music,1 He might be lauded, — He who alone is all, or is the Sire of all ; and so not even on the earths,2 should there have been an absence of the sweetness of the harmony of heavenly praise.
1 Una est obsequiorurnfrequentatio. Of. Ex. i. 3.
2 Cy. (,'. #., xvi. 11 : " The duty of mankind is to give worship."
3. Some, then, though they be very few, endowed with the Pure Mind,3 have been entrusted with the sacred charge of contemplating Heaven.
Whereas those men who, from the two-fold blending of their nature, have not as yet withdrawn their inner reason from their body's mass,4 these are appointed for the study of the elements, and [all] that is below them.
4. Thus man's an animal ; yet not indeed less potent in that he's partly mortal, but rather doth he seem to be all the more fit and efficacious for reaching Certain Keason, since he has had mortality bestowed on him as well.
For it is plain he could not have sustained the strain of both, unless he had been formed out of both natures,5 so that he could possess the powers of cultivating Earthly things and loving Heaven.
1 Musicatis ; or perhaps " Muse-inspired " ; a word which, like so many others, occurs only in the Latin of this treatise.
2 In terris, pi. 3 Cf. vii. 1 and 2 above.
4 The reading is "interiorem intelligentiam mole corporis resed&runt," of which I can make nothing ; resederunt is evidently an error.
6 There is here a " double " in the text, which the editor has not removed.
1. The Reason of 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 1 [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.2 Hence, then, will I begin.
2. [VI. M.] The Lord of the Eternity3 is the first God ; the second's Cosmos ; man is the third.4