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

But they are all composed ; some are more [composite], and some are simpler. The heavier ones are more [composed], the lighter less so.

It is the speed of Cosmos' Course that works the manifoldness of the kinds of births. For being a most swift Breath, it doth bestow their qualities on bodies together with the One Pleroma — that of Life.

8. God, then, is Sire of Cosmos ; Cosmos, of [all] in Cosmos. And Cosmos is God's Son ; but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos.

And properly hath it been called Cosmos [Order] ; for that it orders 1 all with their diversity of birth, with its not leaving aught without its life, with the unweariedness of its activity, the speed of its necessity, the composition of its elements, and order of its creatures.

The same, then, of necessity and of propriety should have the name of Order.

The sense-and-thought, then, of all lives doth come into them from without, inbreathed by what contains [them all] ; whereas Cosmos receives them once for all together with its coming into being, and keeps them as a gift from God.

9. But God is not, as some suppose, beyond the reach of sense-and-thought. It is through superstition men thus impiously speak.

For all the things that are, Asclepius, all are in God, are brought by God to be, and do depend on Him — both things that act through bodies, and things that through soul-substance make [other things] to move, and things that make things live by means of spirit, and things that take unto themselves the things that are worn out.

And rightly so ; nay, I would rather say, He doth not have these things; but I speak forth the truth, He is them all Himself. He

1 Or adorns.

doth not get them from without, but gives them out [from Him].

This is God's sense-and-thought, ever to move all things. And never time shall be when e'en a whit of things that are shall cease ; and when I say " a whit of things that are," I mean a whit of God. For things that are, God hath ; nor aught [is there] without Him, nor [is] He without aught.

1 0. These things should seem to thee, Asclepius, if thou dost understand them, true ; but if thou dost not understand, things not to be believed.

To understand is to believe, to not believe is not to understand.

My word (logos) doth go before [thee] l to the truth. But mighty is the mind, and when it hath been led by word up to a certain point, it hath the power to come before [thee 2] to the truth.

And having thought o'er all these things, and found them consonant with those which have already been translated by the reason, it3 hath [e'en now] believed, and found its rest in that Fair Faith.

To those, then, who by God['s good aid] do understand the things that have been said [by us] above, they're credible ; but unto those who understand them not, incredible.

1 Cf. C. H., iv. (v.) 11 ; vii. (viii.) 2 ; x. (xi.) 21 ; E. 23, n. 5.

2 That is, presumably, before the pupil of the Gnosis is conscious of it in his physical brain.

3 Sc. the mind.

Let so much, then, suffice on thought-andsense.

COMMENTARY

TITLE AND ORDERING

This treatise bears a double title: — "On Thought and Sense," and "That the Beautiful and Good is in God only." The former heading is clearly taken from the concluding words: "Let so much then suffice on thought-and-sense " ; whereas the introductory sentence speaks of the Sermon on Sense only. The latter heading seems to be a thoughtless repetition of the title of 0. ff.} vi. (vii.).

The opening words : " I gave the Perfect Sermon yesterday, Asclepius," inform us not only that we have to do with an Asclepius Dialogue, but also that our sermon followed directly on the "Perfect Sermon," a Latin version of which has fortunately been preserved to us.1

It is, therefore, of very great interest to find that Lactantius,2 in quoting a sentence from our treatise (§ 4) — " Devotion is God-gnosis " — continues with the words : " Asclepius, his hearer, has also explained the same idea at greater length in the Perfect Sermon."

1 For it would, of course, be absurd to suppose that the " Perfect Sermon" could in any way be thought to indicate C. JBT., vi. (vii.), the last Asclepius Dialogue in our Corpus ; especially when our sermon (§ 4) directly combats the teaching of G. H., vi.

2 Div. Institt., ii. 15 (Ed. Fritz., i. 106) ; cf. also v. 14.

Lactantius had, therefore, a collection before him in which these two sermons stood in close connection.