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

" For the Egyptian Hermes, in his Sermon called Perfect, says that the Avenging of the daimones, being present in matter itself, chastise the human part [of us] according as it has deserved ; while the Purifying ones confined to the air purify the souls after death that are trying to soar aloft, [conducting them] round the haily and fiery zones of the air, which the poets and Plato himself in the Phcedo call Tartarus and Pyriphlegethon ; while the Saving ones again, stationed in the lunar space, save the souls." Cf. Ex. ix. 6.

1 Menard here quotes a couple of lines from Empedocles (c.
494-434 B.C.), cited by Plutarch, but without giving any reference.
They are from the famous passage beginning €<mv avdyirns x^^o.
K.T.A. (369-382), of which the following is Fairbanks' translation.
See Fairbanks (A.), The First Philosophers of Greece (London,
1898), p. 205 :

" There is an utterance of Necessity, an ancient decree of the Gods, eternal, sealed fast with broad oaths : Whenever any one defiles his body sinfully with bloody gore or perjures himself in regard to wrongdoing, — one of those spirits who are heir to long life (Sat/teal', o'/re /jLUKpatuvts \€\dxaffi /JtoTo), — thrice ten thousand seasons shall he wander apart from the blessed, being born meanwhile in all sorts of mortal forms (<f)v6^vov iravrola 5m XP^VOV eftea Qvnrwv] changing one bitter path of life for another. For mighty Air pursues him Seaward, and Sea spews him forth on the threshold of Earth, and Earth casts him into the rays of the unwearied Sun, and Sun into the eddies of Air : one receives him from the other, and all hate him. One of these now am I too, a fugitive from the gods and a wanderer, at the mercy of raging Strife."

afraid, and [ever] be upon our guard, lest we should be entangled in these [toils].

For those who do not now believe, will after their misdeeds be driven to believe, by facts not words, by actual sufferings of punishment and not by threats.

3. Asc. The faults of men are not, then, punished, 0 Thrice-greatest one, by law of man alone ?

Tris. In the first place, Asclepius, all things on Earth must die.

Further, those things which live by reason of a body, and which do cease from living by reason of the same, — all these, according to the merits of this life, or its demerits, find due [rewards or] punishments.

[And as to punishments] they're all the more severe, if in their life [their misdeeds] chance to have been hidden, till their death.1 For [then] they will be made full conscious of all things by the divinity, just as they are, according to the shades of punishment allotted to their crimes.

1 Cf. the Vision of Thespesius (Aridseus) in Plutarch, De Sera Numinis Vindicta : " Thus he had to see that the shades of notorious criminals who had been punished in earth-life were not so hardly dealt with . . . ; whereas those who had passed their lives in undetected vice, under cloak and show of virtue, were hemmed in by the retributory agents, and forced with labour and pain to turn their souls inside out."

XXIX

1. Asc. And these deserve [still] greater punishments, Thrice-greatest one?

Tris. [Assuredly ;] for those condemned by laws of man do lose their life by violence, so that [all] men may see they have not yielded up their soul to pay the debt of nature, but have received the penalty of their deserts.

Upon the other hand, the righteous man finds his defence in serving God and deepest piety. For God doth guard such men from every ill.1

2. Yea, He who is the Sire of all, [our] Lord, and who alone is all, doth love to show Himself to all.