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

3. Yea, they who rule the earth shall be distributed [through all the lands], and [finally] be gathered in a state,3 — at top of Egypt's upper part,4 — which shall be founded towards the setting sun, and to which all the mortal race shall speed.

Asc. But now, just at this moment, where are they, Thrice-greatest one ?

Tris. They're gathered in a very large community,1 upon the Libyan Hill.2 And now enough concerning this hath been declared.

1 Jupiter Plutonius. Me"nard suggests "Zeus souterrain (Sarapis T) " ; the original was probably Zeus Aidoneus.

2 It is not clear who " these " are ; perhaps all that have so far been mentioned, but this does not seem satisfactory. Doubtless the Latin translation is, as usual, at fault.

3 Or city. 4 In summo dEgypti initio.

4. [X. M.] But now the question as to deathlessness or as to death must be discussed.

The expectation and the fear of death torture the multitude, who do not know True Reason.

Now death is brought about by dissolution of the body, wearied out with toil, and of the number, when complete, by which the body's members are arranged into a single engine for the purposes of life. The body dies, when it no longer can support the life - powers 3 of a man.

This, then, is death, — the body's dissolution, and the disappearance of corporeal sense.4

As to this death anxiety is needless. But there's another [death] which no man can

1 Givitate.

2 In monte Libyco ; lit. on a (or the) Libycan, or Libyan or
African Hill or Mount. Compare with this xxxvii. below.

3 Vitalia.

4 This passage is quoted in the original Greek by Stobseus, Florilegium, cxx. 27 (G. iii. 464 ; M. iv. 105, 106 ; Pat. 45, under title " Death"), under the heading " Of Hermes from the [Sermons] to Asclepius." It runs as follows :

" Now must we speak of death. For death affrights the many as the greatest of all ills, in ignorance of fact. Death is the dissolution of the toiling frame. For when the 'number' of the body's joints becomes complete, — the basis of the body's jointing being number, — that body dies ; [that is,] when it no longer can support the man. And this is death, — the body's dissolution and the disappearance of corporeal sense."

The directness and the sturdy vigour of the Greek original has clearly lost much in the rhetorical paraphrasing of the Latin translator.

escape,1 but which the ignorance and unbelief of man think little of.

5. Asc. What is it, 0 Thrice-greatest one, that men know nothing of, or disbelieve that it can be ?

Tris. So, lend thy ear, Asclepius !

XXVIII

1. When, [then,] the soul's departure from the body shall take place, — then shall the judgment and the weighing of its merit pass into its highest daimon's power.2

And when he sees it pious is and just, — he suffers it to rest in spots appropriate to it.

But if he find it soiled with stains of evil deeds, and fouled with vice, — he drives it from Above into the Depths, and hands it o'er to warring hurricanes and vortices of Air, of Fire, and Water.3

1 Necessaria. 2 Of. C. H., x. (xi.) 21.

3 The substance of these two sentences is contained in a a quotation" from the Greek by J. Laurentius Lydus, De Mensibus, iv. 149 (Wunsch, 167, 15) : "According to the Egyptian Hermes who, in what is called ' The Perfect Sermon,3 says as follows : ' But such souls as transgress the norm of piety, when they do leave their body, are handed over to the daimones and carried downwards through the air, cast forth as from a sling into the zones of fire and hail, which poets call Pyriphlegethon and Tartarus.' " That this is a "quotation," however, I doubt very much, for if we compare it with D. M., iv. 31 (W. 90, 24), which very faintly echoes the teaching of our chaps, iv., v., xxvii., we shall find that

2. 'Twixt Heaven and Earth, upon the waves of Cosmos, is it dragged in contrary directions, for ever racked with ceaseless pains * ; so that in this its deathless nature doth afflict the soul, in that because of its unceasing sense, it hath the yoke of ceaseless torture set upon its neck.

Know, then, that we should dread, and be

Tartarus and Pyriphlegethon are entirely due to Laurentius himself. The passage runs as follows :