Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
This is the true " Astral Body " of a man, and not the "watery vesture" which is referred to under the term in modern nomenclature.
This is the true Body of Purification, that burns up all impurities, and in the light of the conflagration burns into man the memory of the Gnosis.
The soul is thus "chastised by its own self"; and if Hermes had taught us nothing else, he would have amply deserved the gratitude of humanity, and the title
1 Gf. § 23 : " The mind in service."
2 See my Orpheus, pp. 292 ff.
of Thrice-greatest. Yet is "Hermes" no single man, but a mind illuminated by the Mind.
THE "SCOURGE" OF THE CHRIST
21. So then " the impious soul, scourged with its own sins, is plunged in murders, outrage, blasphemy, in violence of all kinds, and all the other things whereby mankind is wronged."
This is the " scourge " by which the Christ drives the unworthy out of His Temple. It does not mean that the soul is driven into doing these things, but that it is made to realize or suffer them — the consequences of its prior misdeeds. Whatever wrong it has done to its fellows, such it suffers, in the realization of its true nature, whereby the Light of Gnosis brings into amazing contrast the darkness or ignorance of its past actions.1
THE DISPENSATION OF THE UNIVERSE
22. And so Hermes explains the nature of " the dispensation of the universe" — the interlinking of the grades of being from God downwards — the intercourse or communion of souls.
God, Cosmos and Man are grades of being. Each is
a sun, as it were, in their operations, or powers or rays.
God's rays are His energies or self -realizing operations ;
those of Cosmos are the natures of things, those of
Man are the arts and sciences.
This communion or intercourse of higher with lower natures is to be realized on the side of man by the consummation of the sacred marriage, whereby man becomes a god, and finally God.
He only is blessed who is filled with God — that is to
1 With this compare the function of the Mind on the soul in incarnation, as described in C. H., xii. (xiii.) 4.
say, the true Gnostic who has received the consecration of the Fullness or Pleroma.1
Whereas the soul that is empty of God is deprived of that Fullness, cut off from it, and so empty of the Mind. This is the state of Emptiness (/cewo/za) or Insufficiency (lycrre/o^a).
24. Such souls, says Hermes, should not be called men. For a true man is not only equal to a god, but even higher than the gods. Such a man we should, in Christian nomenclature, call a Christ — one animated or illuminated by the Mind or Spirit of God.
1 Of. John i. 16 : "Of His Fullness have we all received."
COEPUS HEKMETICUM XL (XII.)
MIND UNTO HERMES
(Text : P. 85-99 ; Pat. 20b-23.)
1. Mind. Master this sermon (logos)? then, Thrice-greatest Hermes, and bear in mind the spoken words ; and as it hath come unto Me to speak, I will no more delay.
Hermes. As many men say many things, and these diverse, about the All and Good, I have not learned the truth. Make it, then, clear to me, 0 Master mine ! For I can trust the explanation of these things, which comes from Thee alone.
2. Mind. Hear [then], My son, how standeth
God and All.
God; ^Eon2; Cosmos; Time; Becoming.3
God maketh ^Eon ; ^Eon, Cosmos ; Cosmos,
Time ; and Time, Becoming.
1 Or thy reason.
2 Eternity ; the ideal world, beyond time. Gf. P. S. A.t xxx., xxxi.
3 Genesis.
THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
The Good, — the Beautiful, Wisdom, Blessedness, — is essence, as it were,1 of God ; of Mou, Sameness 2 ; of Cosmos, Order ; of Time, Change ; and of Becoming, Life and Death.
The energies of God are Mind and Soul; of Mou, lastingness 3 and deathlessness ; of Cosmos, restoration and the opposite thereof4 ; of Time, increase and decrease ; and of Becoming, quality.
Mon is, then, in God ; Cosmos, in Mon ; in
Cosmos, Time ; in Time, Becoming.
Mon stands firm round God ; Cosmos is
moved in .ZEon ; Time hath its limits 5 in the
Cosmos ; Becoming doth become in Time.
3. The source,6 therefore, of all is God ; their essence, j5Con ; their matter, Cosmos.
God's power is ^Eon ; .ZEon's work is Cosmos —which never hath become, yet ever doth become by ^Eon.
Therefore will Cosmos never be destroyed, for ^Eon's indestructible ; nor doth a whit of things in Cosmos perish, for Cosmos is enwrapped by Mon round on every side.
Her. But God's Wisdom — what is that ?