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

1 The meaning of this term is not to " sprinkle " with water, but to " plunge the whole body " into water.

2 Kal fv QV/J.CP Kctl tv opyf) r^jv Kpatriv «x°VT(S'

3 Lit. " they do not wonder at." * Sc. the Mind.

things on the earth, things in the heaven, and things above the heaven, — if there be aught.1 And having raised themselves so far they sight the Good ; and having sighted It, they look upon their sojourn here as a mischance ; and in disdain of all, both things in body and the bodiless, they speed their way unto that One and Only One.

6. This is, 0 Tat, the Gnosis of the Mind,
Vision of things Divine ; God-knowledge is it,
for the Cup is God's.

Tat. Father, I, too, would be baptized. Her. Unless thou first shalt hate thy Body, son, thou canst not love thy Self. But if thou lov'st thy Self thou shalt have Mind, and having Mind thou shalt share in the Gnosis. Tat. Father, what dost thou mean ? Her. It is not possible, my son, to give thyself to both, — I mean to things that perish and to things divine. For seeing that existing things are twain, Body and Bodiless, in which the perishing and the divine are understood, the man who hath the will to choose is left the choice of one or other ; for it can never be the twain should meet. And in those souls to whom the choice is left, the waning of the one causes the other's growth to show itself.

1 Cf. C. H. xi. (xii.) 19 :" And contemplate what is beyond— if there be aught beyond the Cosmos."

7. Now the choosing of the Better not only proves a lot most fair for him who makes the choice, seeing it makes the man a God, but also shows his piety to God. Whereas the [choosing] of the Worse, although it doth destroy the " man/' it only doth disturb God's harmony to this extent, that as processions pass by in the middle of the way, without being able to do anything but take the road from others, so do such men move in procession through the world led by their bodies' pleasures.1

8. This being so, 0 Tat, what comes from God hath been and will be ours ; but that which is dependent on ourselves, let this press onward and have no delay ; for 'tis not God, 'tis we who are the cause of evil things, preferring them to good.

Thou see'st, son, how many are the bodies through which we have to pass, how many are the choirs of daimones, how vast the system of the star-courses 2 [through which our Path doth lie], to hasten to the One and Only God.

For to the Good there is no other shore 3 ;
It hath no bounds ; It is without an end > and

1 Critical text of simile is also given by E. 102, n. 2. Quoted by Zosimus in § " On the Anthropos Doctrine."

2 teal o-uvexetov teal Sp6/j.ovs atrrepuv, — the Septenary Spheres or " Cyclic Gods "; for the oWx* «« (lit. continuity) is evidently the same as the apuovla, Harmony, Concord, System.

oj', — lit. not to be crossed, not to be forded.

for Itself It is without beginning, too, though unto us it seemeth to have one — the Gnosis.

9. Therefore to It Gnosis is no beginning ; rather is it [that Gnosis doth afford] to us the first beginning of Its being known.

Let us lay hold, therefore, of the beginning, and quickly speed through all [we have to pass].

Tis very hard, to leave the things we have grown used to, which meet our gaze on every side, and turn ourselves back to the Old Old [Path].

Appearances delight us, whereas things which appear not make their believing hard.

Now evils are the more apparent things, whereas the Good can never show Itself unto the eyes, for It hath neither form nor figure.

Therefore the Good is like Itself alone, and unlike all things else ; for 'tis impossible that That which hath no body should make Itself apparent to a body.

10. The " Like's " superiority to the " Unlike " and the " Unlike's " l inferiority unto the " Like " consists in this :

The Oneness 2 being Source 3 and Eoot of all, is in all things as Koot and Source. Without [this] Source is naught; whereas the Source [Itself] is from naught but Itself, since It is

1 Reading with B., rov

2 novds, — the Monad, that is the Good. 3 Or, Beginning.

Source of all the rest. It is Itself Its Source, since It may have no other Source.

The Oneness then being Source, containeth every number, but is contained by none ; engendereth every number, but is engendered by no other one.