Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

1. I have not, therefore, 0 Asclepius and Ammon, said what many say, that God could not excise and banish evil from the Scheme 2 of Things ; — to whom no answer need at all be given. Yet for your sakes I will continue what I have begun, and give a reason.

They say that God ought to have freed the World from bad in every way ; for so much is it3 in the World, that it doth seem to be as though it were one of its limbs.

This was foreseen by Highest God and [due] provision made, as much as ever could have been in reason made, then when He thought it proper to endow the minds of men with sense,4 and science and intelligence.

1 Naturas. 2 Lit. nature. 3 Sc. evil or bad.

4 Presumably meaning the higher sense.

2. For it is by these things alone whereby we stand above the rest of animals, that we are able to avoid the snares and crimes of ill.

For he who shall on sight have turned from them, before he hath become immeshed in them, — he is a man protected by divine intelligence and [godly] prudence.

For that the ground-work of [true] science doth consist of the top-stones of virtue.

3. It is by Spirit that all things are governed in the Cosmos, and made quick, — Spirit made subject to the Will of Highest God, as though it were an engine or machine.

So far, then, [only] let Him be by us conceived,— as Him who is conceivable by mind alone, who is called Highest God, the Kuler and Director of God Sensible,1 — of Him who in Himself includes all Space, all Substance, and all Matter, of things producing and begetting, and all whatever is, however great it be.

•JL

XVII

1. It is by Spirit that all species in the Cosmos are [or] moved or ruled, — each one according to its proper nature given it by God.

Matter,2 or Cosmos, on the other hand, is that which holds all things, — the field of motion,3 and the that which crowds together l all ; of which God is the Euler, distributing unto all cosmic things all that is requisite to each.

1 That is, Cosmos. 2 Again v\t], 3 Agitatio.

It is with Spirit that He fills all things, according to the quality of each one's nature.

2. [Now,] seeing that the hollow roundness2 of the Cosmos is borne round into the fashion of a sphere ; by reason of its [very] quality or form, it never can be altogether visible unto itself.

So that, however high a place in it thou shouldest choose for looking down below, thou could'st not see from it what is at bottom, because in many places it confronts [the senses], and so is thought to have the quality [of being visible throughout].3

For it is solely owing to the forms of species, with images of which it seems insculpted, that it is thought [to be] as though 'twere visible [throughout] ; but as a fact 'tis ever to itself invisible.

3. Wherefore, its bottom, or its [lowest] part, if [such a] place there be within a sphere, is called in Greek a-eides 4 ; since that eidein 5 in

1 Frequentatio.

2 Cava rotunditas — that is, presumably, concavity.

3 Propter quod multis locis instat, qualitatemque habere creditur.
The Latin translation is evidently faulty. Me'nard omits the
sentence entirely, as he so often does when there is difficulty.

4 'A-6i5fc— that is, " Invisible" ; that is, Hades ('AtS^s or"A5rjs).

Greek means " seeing," — which "being-seen" the sphere's beginning1 lacks.

Hence, too, the species have the name eideai? since they're of form we cannot see.

Therefore, in that they are deprived of " beingseen," in Greek they are called Hades ; in that they are at bottom 3 of the sphere, they're called in Latin Inferi.

These, then, are principal and prior,4 and, as it were, the sources and the heads of all the things which are in them,5 through them, or from them.

XVIII

1. Asc. All things, then, in themselves (as thou, Thrice-greatest one, dost say) are cosmic [principles] (as I should say) of all the species which are in them, [or] as it were, the sum and substance of each one of them.6

Tris. So Cosmos, then, doth nourish bodies ;

A \ f\ J~

the Spirit, souls ; the [Higher] Sense (with which Celestial Gift mankind alone is blest)7 doth feed the mind.

1 Primum spheres ; the top or bottom presumably, or periphery, of the world-sphere.

2 ei'Se'cu — ? tSeot — that is, forms, species, — but also used of the highest species, viewed as " ideas."