Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
The Spirit is evidently Cosmic Life (vi. 4 ; xxvii. 1) and individual life (x. 4).2 The exposition of it begins with xiv. 2 ; Spirit and Matter, or the Nature of the Cosmos (xiv. 3), are practically regarded as the Positive and Negative, or Masculine and Feminine Energies of the Divine.
Spirit is the Kuler (xvii. 1) of all things in Cosmos or Nature ; it is the immediate Instrument of the Will of God (xvi. 3) ; and is, indeed, loosely identified with that Will (xix. 4) ; while in still looser fashion Spirit seems to be symbolized by " Heaven " and the Sensible Cosmos by " Earth " (xix. 2).
It is very probable that this doctrine of Spirit as Divine Breath is fundamentally Egyptian, and owes nothing to immediate Semitic influence. However this may be, the use of the term Sense, as apparently in some way superior to Reason (vi. 4; x. 4), is very striking, and, as in some cases opposed to the exaltation of the Eeason found elsewhere in our tractates, under the influence of this leading idea of Greek philosophy, discloses an Egyptian point of view.
1 Cf. also G. H., xiii. (xiv.) 19, 20, and R. 39, n. 1.
2 Cf. G. H.t x. (xi.) 13, and Commentary.
We have already noticed this use of the term in some of our tractates, but in our present sermon it is brought into great prominence. This Sense is not the differentiated senses, but a Unit or Cosmic Sense.
It is " the Divine Sense of intelligence," and is found only in God and in man's reason (vii. 1 ; xxxii. 2).
It is the "Higher Sense (with which Celestial Gift mankind alone is blest) " — characterized as the " feeder of the mind " (xviii. 1) ; yet on the other hand this " Higher Sense " is that " which by good chance a man perceives by mind, when out of all his senses."
This Sense is in some fashion closely connected with Nature and Cosmos (xxi. 1) ; through it man "disciplines his soul," and "cures his intellect," thus gaining " intelligence of God-like Eeason " (xxii. 1), and finally " mingling himself with the All-sense of the Divine Intelligence " (xxix. 2).
This All-sense is the same as the " Whole Sense of Divinity," and is the Likeness of God ; it is " in its own self immoveable," and yet " doth set itself in motion within its own stability " (xxxii. 1). Man must make himself like unto this Likeness.
This Likeness is evidently the -#Con or Intelligible Cosmos ; for the " Cosmic Sense is the Container of all sensibles" (xxxii. 2).
In man its chief normal characteristic is the retentiveness of memory, " through which man is made ruler of the Earth" (xxxii. 2). This Sense is then man's continuum, the germ of everlastingness in him, the root-ground of consciousness (xxxii. 3), the Single Sense of the intelligence (xli. 4), which is fully brought to birth only when a man " is wholly plunged in consciousness of life (in sensu vitce)" (xxxvii. 3), — the " spiritual life " of the Christian Gnostics.
The fact that we have only a translation to deal with prevents us laying too much stress on details, but the general idea is clear enough ; so too with the rest of this, the longest of our sermons, we must be content to refer only to general points, the chief of which are the " prophetic " utterances.
THE PKOPHETIC UTTERANCES
These present us with problems of very great difficulty, and, so far, I have neither seen any solution nor has any occurred to me.
So much work has been done on contemporary prophetic utterances of this nature, especially on the Sibylline Literature, that it may be said that the scholastic mind has reached certain general criteria with regard to such pronouncements — the chief of which is that the hypothesis of genuine prophecy is not to be entertained.
In the Sibylline literature, indeed, this is clearly established; for much of it consists of traditional history written in the prophetical tense, so to say; when the history comes to an end the date of the " prophetical " writer is at once detected, for all that follows has no longer any relation to historical events.
In the case of our " prophecies," however, we have nothing of this nature to guide us. All we can say is that they seem to have been written, most probably, at a time when the Trismegistic communities were being persecuted.