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

Then shall the Earth no longer hold together ; the Sea no longer shall be sailed upon ; nor shall the Heaven continue with the Courses of the Stars, nor the Star- course in Heaven.

The voice of every God 2 shall cease in the [Great] Silence that no one can break; the fruits of Earth shall rot ; nay, Earth no longer shall bring forth ; and Air itself shall faint in that sad listlessness.

XXVI

1. This, when it comes, shall be the World's old age, impiety, — irregularity, and lack of rationality in all good things.

And when these things all come to pass, Asclepius, — then He, [our] Lord and Sire, God First in power, and Ruler of the One God [Visible],3 in check of crime, and calling error back from the corruption of all things unto good manners and to deeds spontaneous with His Will (that is to say God's Goodness), — ending all ill, by either washing it away with water-flood, or burning it away with fire, or by the means of pestilent diseases, spread throughout all hostile lands, — God will recall the Cosmos to its ancient form l ; so that the World itself shall seem meet to be worshipped and admired ; and God, the Maker and Kestorer of so vast a work, be sung by the humanity who shall be then, with ceaseless heraldings of praise and [hymns of] blessing.

1 Of. c. H., x. (xi.) 21.

2 Omnis vox divina ; or, perhaps, the "whole Word of God."

3 That is, Cosmos.

2. For this [Re-] birth of Cosmos is the making new 2 of all good things, and the most holy and most pious bringing-back again of Nature's self, by means of a set course of time, — of Nature, which was without beginning, and which is without an end. For that God's Will hath no beginning ; and, in that 'tis the same and as it is, it is without an end.

Asc. Because God's Nature's the Determination 3 of the Will. Determination is the Highest Good ; is it not so, Thrice-greatest one ?

1 The above passage is cited in the original Greek by Lactantius (D. /., vii. 8) as from the "Perfect Sermon" of Hermes. As we might expect from what had been already said on this subject, it differs from our Latin translation, and runs as follows :

" Now when these things shall be as I have said, Asclepius, then will [our] Lord and Sire, the God and Maker of the First and the One God, look down on what is done, and making firm His Will, that is the Good, against disorder, — recalling error, and cleaning out the bad, either by washing it away with waterflood, or burning it away with swiftest fire, or forcibly expelling it with war and famine, — will bring again His Cosmos to its former state, and so achieve its Restoration."

2 Cf. C. H., iii. (iv.) 1.

3. Tris. Asclepius, Will is Determination's child ; nay, willing in itself comes from the Will.

Not that He willeth aught desiring it ; for that He is the Fullness of all things, and wills what things He has.

He thus wills all good things, and has all that He wills. Nay, rather, He doth think and will all good.

This, then, is God ; the World of Good's His
Image

XXVII

1. Asc. [Is Cosmos] good, Thrice-greatest one ?

Tris. ['Tis] good,1 as I will teach thee, 0
Asclepius.

For just as God is the Apportioner and Steward of good things to all the species, or [more correctly] genera, which are in Cosmos, — that is to say, of Sense,2 and Soul, and Life, — so Cosmos is the giver and bestower of all things which seem unto [us] mortals good ; — that is to say, the alternation of its parts, of seasonable fruits, birth, growth, maturity, and things like these.

And for this cause God doth transcend the height of highest Heaven, extending everywhere, and doth behold all things on every side.

1 This seems & formal contradiction of C. H., x. (xi.) 10, but is not really so.

2 Meaning higher sense, presumably ; reading sensus for sensibus.

2. Beyond the Heaven starless Space doth stretch, stranger to every thing possessed of body.

The Dispensator who's between the Heaven and Earth, is Euler of the Space which we call Zeus [Above].

The Earth and Sea is ruled by Zeus Below 1 ; he is the Nourisher of mortal lives, and of fruitbearing [trees].

It is by reason of the powers of all of these 2 that fruits, and trees, and earth, grow green.

The powers and energies of [all] the other [Gods] will be distributed through all the things that are.