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

6 A quotation from the ancient gnomic poet Theognis (v. 177).
Theognis lived c. 570-490 B.C.

nor understands, but is just like a thing that hath no reason. Such is the power of mind.

Yet doth it not endure a sluggish l soul, but leaveth such a soul tied to the body and bound tight down by it. Such soul, my son, doth not have Mind ; and therefore such an one should not be called a man.2 For that man is a thingof-life 3 divine ; man is not measured with the rest of lives of things upon the earth, but with the lives above in heaven, who are called gods.

Nay more, if we must boldly speak the truth, the true " man " is e'en higher than the gods, or at the [very] least the gods and men are every whit in power each with the other equal.

25. For no one of the gods in heaven shall come down on the earth, o'er-stepping heaven's limit ; whereas man doth mount up to heaven and measure it ; he knows what things of it are high, what things are low, and learns precisely all things else besides. And greater thing than all ; without e'en quitting earth, he doth ascend above. So vast a sweep doth he possess of ecstasy.4

1 vwrpas,—? va>epas. Everard translates "an idle or lazy soul," in his usual slipshod fashion of inserting doubles ; Parthey gives " inertem animam " ; Menard, " Vdme vicieuse " ; Chambers, " inert." Several of the old editors omit the entire sentence.

2 Of. Philo, De Som., § 20 ; M. i. 639 ; P. 584 (Hi. iii. 241) : " not for those who are called men, but for those who are truly so."

3 Or animal.

* tKffrdffeus, lit. extension, or consciousness.

For this cause can a man dare say that man on earth is god subject to death, while god in heaven is man from death immune.

Wherefore the dispensation of all things is brought about by means of1 these, the twain — Cosmos and Man 2 — but by 3 the One.

COMMENTARY

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE "GENERAL SERMONS"

What " yesterday's sermon," which Hermes addressed to Asclepius, may have been, we have no means of deciding. The similarity of the phrase with the opening words of C. H., ix. (x.) is noticeable, and points, perhaps, to a collection of Sermons to Asclepius and Tat strung together in some chronological order, as delivered day by day. If this be the fact, however, we must assume that such introductions were prefixed by the editor of that collection.

"The Key of Thrice-greatest Hermes" must have been considered one of the most remarkable documents of the school, for, as we have already mentioned in the case of " The Cup " treatise, the apocryphal " Books of Moses " plagiarize the title.4

That it was an important treatise may also be seen from the fact that Stobaeus reproduces no less than five extracts from it under the title, " From the [Sermons] of Hermes to Tat," or simply " Of Hermes." Strangely enough in two cases (xxxix. 8 and xl. 3) Stobaeus makes

1 frd. 2 Of. P. S. A., x. 3.

•' fat. 4 R. 182, 3 ; 190, 2.

the persons of the dialogue Asclepius and Tat; this, however, must be a mistake, for it contradicts his own headings, it contradicts the nature of the sermon, it contradicts the supposed introduction of the editor of the collection from whom the redactor of our Corpus has taken his text, and it contradicts Chalcidius, who quotes from our treatise as a treatise of Hermes.1

Nevertheless, in spite of the importance of the treatise, it purports to be an epitome,2 an abridgment of the "General Sermons" (ot yeviKoi Xo'yot)3 addressed to Tat.

The sermon itself, however, has by no means the appearance of being an abridgment; on the contrary, it is one of the most complete and fundamental expositions that we have.

I would, therefore, suggest that the general reference in the words, "as we have shown in treating of the rest" (§ 1), and the precise reference to "The General Sermons," in § 7, have originated this wording of the introduction with the editor of the collection of Asclepius and Tat Sermons which I have previously supposed. It is a gloss of the editor and no part of the original text.

If this argument holds good, " The Key," instead of

1 Chalcid., Comment, in Timceum (ed. Fabric.), p. 350.

2 Compare also the introduction to C. #., xvi. (see K. 191, 1) ; and also Ex. i. 16 and Comment.