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

And for the followers of the Doctrine of Thricegreatest Hermes, this Old Old Path could have meant nothing but the Archaic Wisdom of Ancient Egypt. The Wisdom of Egypt was thus the Gnosis.

1 See F. F. F.y p. 261.

CORPUS HERMETICUM V. (VI.)

THOUGH UNMANIFEST GOD IS
MOST MANIFEST

OF HERMES TO HIS SON TAT

(Text: P. 41-48; Pat. 12b-13b.)

1. I WILL recount for thee this sermon (logos) too, 0 Tat, that thou may'st cease to be without the mysteries of the God beyond all name.1 And mark thou well how That which to the many seems unmanifest, will grow most manifest for thee.

Now were It manifest, It would not be. For all that is made manifest is subject to becoming, for it hath been made manifest. But the Unmanifest for ever is, for It doth not desire to be made manifest. It ever is, and maketh manifest all other things.

Being Himself unmanifest, as ever being and ever making - manifest, Himself is not made manifest. God is not made Himself; by thinking-manifest,1 He thinketh all things manifest.

1 Cf. § 8 end, and § 9 beginning.

Now " thinking-manifest " deals with things made alone, for thinking-manifest is nothing else than making.

2. He, then, alone who is not made, 'tis clear, is both beyond all power of thinking-manifest, and is un manifest.

And as He thinketh all things manifest, He manifests through all things and in all, and most of all in whatsoever things He wills to manifest.

Do thou, then, Tat, my son, pray first unto our Lord and Father, the One-and-Only One, from whom the One2 doth come, to show His mercy unto thee, in order that thou mayest have the power to catch a thought of this so mighty God, one single beam of Him to shine into thy thinking. For thought alone "sees" the Unmanifest, in that it is itself unmanifest.

If, then, thou hast the power, He will, Tat, manifest to thy mind's eyes. The Lord begrudgeth not Himself to anything, but manifests Himself through the whole world.

Thou hast the power of taking thought, of seeing it and grasping it in thy own " hands," and gazing face to face upon God's Image.3 But if what is within thee even is unmanifest to thee, how, then, shall He Himself who is within thy self be manifest for thee by means of [outer] eyes ?

1 iv <t>a.vTo.(ria. — that is to say, by thinking into manifestation.

2 Presumably the Manifested God ; the One-and-Only One being the Unmanifested, the God beyond all name.

3 The Intelligible Cosmos.

3. But if thou wouldst "see" Him, bethink thee of the sun, bethink thee of moon's course, bethink thee of the order of the stars. Who is the One who watcheth o'er that order ? For every order hath its boundaries marked out by place and number.

The sun's the greatest god of gods in heaven ; to whom all of the heavenly gods give place as unto king and master. And he, this so-great one, he greater than the earth and sea, endures to have above him circling smaller stars than him. Out of respect to Whom, or out of fear of Whom, my son, [doth he do this] ?

Nor like nor equal is the course each of these stars describes in heaven. Who [then] is He who marketh out the manner of their course and its extent ?

4. The Bear up there that turneth round
itself, and carries round the whole cosmos with
it — Who is the owner of this instrument ? Who
He who hath set round the sea its bounds ?
Who He who hath set on its seat the earth ?

For, Tat, there is someone who is the Maker and the Lord of all these things. It could not be that number, place and measure could be kept without someone to make them. No order whatsoever could be made by that which lacketh place and lacketh measure ; nay, even this l is not without a lord, my son. For if the orderless lacks something, in that it is not lord of order's path, it also is beneath a lord — the one who hath not yet ordained it order.

5. Would it were possible for thee to get thee wings, and soar into the air, and, poised midway 'tween earth and heaven, behold the earth's solidity, the sea's fluidity (the flowings of its streams), the spaciousness of air, fire's swiftness, [and] the coursing of the stars, the swiftness of heaven's circuit round them [all] !