Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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21. Eight was thy thought, 0 thou ! But how doth " he who knows himself, go unto Him," as God's Word (Logos) hath declared ?
And I reply : the Father of the universals doth consist of Light and Life, and from Him Man was born.
Thou sayest well, [thus] speaking. Light and Life is Father-God, and from Him Man was born.
If then thou learnest that thou art thyself of
1 There is a word-play between irxdvrjs and
2 Sc. Darkness. 3 Sc. The Moist Nature.
Life and Light, and that them [only] happen st
to be out of them, thou shalt return again to Life.
Thus did Man-Shepherd speak.
But tell me further, Mind of me, I cried, how shall / come to Life again .... for God doth say : " The man who hath Mind in him, let him learn to know that he himself [is deathless]."
22. Have not all men then Mind ?
Thou sayest well, 0 thou, thus speaking. I,
Mind, myself am present with holy men and good,
the pure and merciful, men who live piously.
[To such] my presence doth become an aid, and straightway they gain gnosis of all things, and win the Father's love by their pure lives, and give Him thanks, invoking on Him blessings, and chanting hymns, intent on Him with ardent love.
And ere they give the body up unto its proper death, they turn them with disgust from its sensations, from knowledge of what things they operate.1 Nay, it is I, the Mind, that will not let the operations which befall the body, work to their [natural] end. For being door-keeper I'll close up [all] the entrances, and cut the mental actions off which base and evil energies induce.
23. But to the Mind-less ones, the wicked and depraved, the envious and covetous, and those who murder do and love impiety, I am far off, yielding my place to the Avenging Daimon, who sharpening the fire, tormenteth him and addeth fire to fire upon him, and rusheth on him through his senses, thus rendering him the readier for transgressions of the law, so that he meets with greater torment ; nor doth he ever cease to have desire for appetites inordinate, insatiately striving in the dark.1
1 fibres ctvroav rk
24. Well hast thou taught me all, as I desired, 0 Mind. And now, pray, tell me further of the nature of the Way Above .as now it is [for me].2
To this Man-Shepherd said : When thy material body is to be dissolved, first thou surrenderest the body by itself unto the work of change, and thus the form thou hadst doth vanish, and thou surrenderest thy way of life,3 void of its energy, unto the Daimon.4 The body's senses next pass back into their sources, becoming separate, and resurrect as energies ; and passion and desire 5 withdraw unto that nature which is void of reason.
25. And thus it is that man doth speed his way thereafter upwards through the Harmony.
1 The text of this paragraph is hopelessly confused in the MSS.
2 IT* pi TT/J av6$ov TTJS yivo/jLfvrjs.
3 rb $605, the " habitual " part of man, presumably way of life impressed by habit on the body ; or it may be " class " of life as in the Vision of Er.
4 Cf. G. H., x. (xi.) 16.
6 6 6vfjit>s Kal -ft tiriOvfjLla, — the masculine and feminine as positive and negative aspects of the " animal soul."
To the first zone he gives the Energy of Growth and Waning ; unto the second [zone], Device of Evils [now] de-energized l ; unto the third, the Guile of the Desires de-energized; unto the fourth, his Domineering Arrogance, [also] de-energized ; unto the fifth, unholy Daring and the Kashness of Audacity, deenergized ; unto the sixth, Striving for Wealth by evil means, deprived of its aggrandisement ; and to the seventh zone, Ensnaring Falsehood, de-energized.2
26. And then, with all the energizings of the Harmony stript from him, clothed in his proper Power, he cometh to that Nature which belongs unto the Eighth,3 and there with those-that-are hymneth the Father.
They who are there welcome his coming there with joy; and he, made like to them that sojourn there, doth further hear the Powers who are above the Nature that belongs unto the Eighth, singing their songs of praise to God in language of their own.