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

1. But this can only be averred of a few men endowed with pious minds. Still, of the rest, the vicious folk, we ought to say no word, for fear a very sacred sermon should be spoiled by thinking of them.

[IX. M.] And * since our sermon treats of the relationship and intercourse 2 of men and Gods, — learn, 0 Asclepius, the power and strength of man !

[Our] Lord and Father, or what is Highest God, — as He's Creator of the Gods in Heaven, so man's the maker of the gods who, in the temples, suffer man's approach, and who not only have light poured on them, but who send forth [their] light [on all] ; not only does a man go forward towards the God[s], but also he confirms the Gods [on earth].3

1 This sentence and the first half of the next, down to " suffer
man's approach," is quoted word for word in Latin by Augustine,
De Civitate Dei, xxiii. 2 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 22.

3 The Latin translation of this paragraph seems confused.

Art thou surprised, Asclepius ; nay is it not that even thou dost not believe ?

2. Asc. I am amazed, Thrice-greatest one ; but willingly I give assent to [all] thy words. I judge that man most blest who hath attained so great felicity.

Tris. And rightly so ; [for] he deserves our wonder, in that he is the greatest of them all.

As for the genus of the Gods in Heaven,— 'tis plain from the commixture1 of them all, that it has been made pregnant from the fairest part of nature,2 and that the only signs [by which they are discerned] are, as it were, before all else their heads.3

3. Whereas the species of the gods which humankind constructs is fashioned out of either nature, — out of that nature which is more ancient and far more divine, and out of that which is in men ; that is, out of the stuff of which they have been made and are configured, not only in their heads alone, but also in each limb and their whole frame.

And 4 so mankind, in imaging Divinity, stays

1 This is, apparently, the "star stuff" of which their bodies are made.

2 De mundissima parte natures esse prcegnatum — whatever that means ; but cf. p. 348, n. 1.

3 Cf. G. H., x. (xi.) 10, 11.

4 This sentence, together with the first five sentences of the next chapter, down to the words "and constant worship," are mindful of the nature and the source of its own self.

So that, just as [our] Sire and Lord did make the Gods seonian, that they might be like Him ; so hath mankind configured its own gods according to the likeness of the look of its own self.1

XXIV

1. Asc. Thou dost not mean their statues, dost thou, 0 Thrice-greatest one?

Tris. [I mean their] statues, 0 Asclepius, — dost thou not see how much thou even, doubtest ? —statues, ensouled with sense, and filled with spirit, which work such mighty and such [strange] results, — statues which can foresee what is to come, and which perchance can prophesy, foretelling things by dreams and many other ways, —[statues] that take their strength away from men, or cure their sorrow, if they do so deserve.

Dost thou not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is the image of the Heaven 2 ; or, what is truer still, the transference, or the descent, of all that are in governance or exercise in Heaven ? And if more truly [still] it must be said, — this land of ours is Shrine of all the World.

quoted in Latin with two or three slight verbal variants by Augustine, De Civitate Dei, xxiii.

1 Cf. xxxvii. 2 below. 2 Cf. Comment, on K. K., 46-48.

2. Further, in that 'tis fitting that the prudent should know all before, it is not right ye should be ignorant of this.

The time will come when Egypt will appear to have in vain served the Divinity with pious mind and constant worship1; and all its holy cult will fall to nothingness and be in vain.

For that Divinity is now about to hasten back from Earth to Heaven, and Egypt shall be left ; and Earth, which was the seat of pious cults, shall be bereft and widowed of the presence of the Gods.

And foreigners shall fill this region and this land; and there shall be not only the neglect of pious cults, but — what is still more painful, — as though enacted by the laws, a penalty shall be decreed against the practice of [our] pious cults and worship of the Gods — [entire] proscription of them.

3. Then shall this holiest land, seat of [our] shrines and temples, be choked with tombs and corpses.2

0 Egypt, Egypt, of thy pious cults tales only will remain, as far beyond belief for thy own sons [as for the rest of men] ; words only will be left cut on thy stones, thy pious deeds recounting !