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

It is difficult to bring out the delicacy of the wording of the original in translation. First God's ultimate intention is stated to be the making of all things like unto (ovoid) Himself ; the world-process is to be ultimately consummated in the Great Sameness of Union with Him. But meantime while this making, creating or becoming, or transformation, is going on, the imperfections cannot produce, that is, become creators in their turn ; they are unproductive (a'0o/oa). That which is the instrument or organ of God's making is the Cosmic Course (fyopa). We are finally (§ 7) told that the differences of bodies are conditioned by the speed of this Cosmic Course ; therefore the opposite poles, Other and Same, are both ultimately referable to Cosmos, the Likeness of God.

The end to be achieved is to develop the " sense-andthought " of the Cosmos, the One Sense, not manifold, but simple. This is the deliberate working with the Will of God, the Cosmic Will, the perpetual renewing of all things (ai/ai/eoxrt?).

The Cosmos, then, as the Logos of God, is the Good Gardener of Life ; it is both the place of Life and its Creator — that is to say, both female and male, both Mother and Father.

THE POSSIBILITY OF KNOWING GOD

But the Cosmos is not apart from God, nor even in
God ; God does not have Cosmos as a possession, but is
Cosmos and all therein (§ 9). Cosmos is Son of God,
His Very Self (§ 8).

Therefore we can learn to know somewhat of the nature of God by sense and thought, for, " God is not, as some suppose, beyond the reach of sense and thought " (avai(70r]To$ KOI avorjros) ; that is, God does not entirely transcend sense and thought, for God is all things.

"As some suppose" doubtless refers again to the " blasphemers " of § 4 — that is, the apparently dualistic doctrine set forth in C. H., vi. (vii.).1

And so, finally, we learn that Faith, in the true sense, is a certitude of the mind, or of true manhood. " To understand is to believe" (§ 10). Gnosis and not belief is the Fair Faith.

Compare with this the " Perfect Sermon," x. 1 :

" The reason for a thesis such as this, 0 my Asclepius, I would that thou should'st grasp, not only with the keen attention of thy soul, but also with its living power as well.

" For 'tis a reason that most men cannot believe ; the Perfect and the True are to be grasped by the more holy minds. "

1 Reitzenstein (p. 171, 2) compares this doctrine of the insensibility and incognizability of God with the Sabsean Gnosis.

COEPUS HEKMETICUM X. (XI.)

THE KEY

OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES

(Text : P. 67-84 ; Pat. 9b-12.)

1. Hermes. My yesterday's discourse (logos) I did devote to thee, Asclepius, and so 'tis [only] right I should devote to-day's to Tat ; and this the more because 'tis the abridgment of the General Sermons (Logoi) which he has had addressed to him.

" God, Father and the Good," then, Tat, hath l the same nature, or more exactly, energy.

For nature is a predicate of growth, and used of things that change, both mobile and immobile, that is to say, both human and divine, each one of which He willeth into being.

1 The three are only different names for one idea ; the verb is
in the singular in the Greek. Cf. 0. H., ii. (iii.) 16 and 17 :
" Good then is God and God is Good" ; and " The other name of
God is Father."

But energy consists in something else, as we have shown in treating of the rest, both things divine and human things 1 ; which thing we ought to have in mind when treating of the Good.2

2. God's energy is then His Will ; further His essence is to will the being of all things. For what is "God and Father and the Good" but the to be of all that are not yet? Nay, subsistence 3 self of everything that is ; — this, then, is God, this Father, this the Good ; to Him is added naught of all the rest.

And though the Cosmos, that is to say the Sun, is also sire himself to them that share in him ; yet so far is he not the cause of good unto the lives, he is not even of their living.

So that e'en if he be a sire, he is entirely so by the compulsion of the Good's Good-will, apart from which nor being nor becoming could e'er be.

3. Again, the parent is the children's cause, both on the father's and the mother's side,4 only by sharing in5 the Good's desire [that doth pour] through the Sun. It is the Good which doeth the creating.

And such a power can be possessed by no one