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.
[Look at] the Earth set in the midst of All, foundation of the Cosmos Beautiful, feeder and nurse of things on Earth !
And contemplate the multitude of deathless lives, how great it is, and that of lives subject to death ; and midway, between both, immortal [lives] and mortal, [see thou] the circling Moon.
8. And all are full of Soul, and all are moved by it, each in its proper way ; some round the Heaven, others around the Earth ; [see] how the right [move] not unto left, nor yet the left unto the right; nor the above below, nor the below above.
And that all these are subject unto Genesis,2 My dearest Hermes, thou hast no longer need to learn of Me. For that they bodies are, have souls, and they are moved.
But 'tis impossible for them to come together into one without some one to bring them [all]
1 The text from " Now gaze ..." to here is given in R. 36, n. 1. 2 Or becoming.
together. It must, then, be that such a one as this must be some one who's wholly One.
9. For as the many motions of them [all] are different, and as their bodies are not like, yet has one speed been ordered for them all, it is impossible that there should be two or more makers for them.
For that one single order is not kept among "the many"; but rivalry will follow of the weaker with the stronger, and they will strive.
And if the maker of the lives that suffer change and death, should be another,1 he would desire to make the deathless ones as well ; just as the maker of the deathless ones, [to make the lives] that suffer death.
But come ! if there be two,2 — if Matter's one, and Soul is one, in whose hands would there be the distribution3 for the making? Again, if both of them have some of it, in whose hands may there be the greater part ?
10. But thus conceive it, then; that every living body doth consist of soul and matter, whether [that body be] of an immortal, or a mortal, or an irrational [life].
For that all living bodies are ensouled ; whereas, upon the other hand, those that live not, are matter by itself.
1 From the maker of the immortals. 2 Sc. makers.
3 Sc. of matter and life.
And, in like fashion, Soul when in its self is, after its own maker, cause of life ; but the cause -of all life is He who makes the things that cannot die.
Her. How, then, is it that, first, lives subject unto death are other than the deathless ones ? And, next, how is it that that Life which knows no death, and maketh deathlessness, doth not make animals immortal?
11. Mind. First, that there is some one who does these things, is clear ; and, next, that He is also One, is very manifest. For, also, Soul is one, and Life is one, and Matter one.
Her. But who is He ?
Mind. Who may it other be than the One
God ? Whom else should it beseem to put Soul
into lives but God alone ? One, then, is God.
It would indeed be most ridiculous, if when thou dost confess the Cosmos to be one, Sun one, Moon one, and Godhead l one, thou shouldst wish God Himself to be some one or other of a number !
12. All things, therefore, He makes, in many [ways]. And what great thing is it for God to make life, soul, and deathlessness, and change, when thou [thyself] dost do 2 so many things ?
For thou dost see, and speak, and hear, and
1 Or Divinity.
2 Or make ; a play on the double meaning of the Greek verb.
smell, and taste, and touch, and walk, and think, and breathe. And it is not one man who smells, a second one who speaks, a third who touches, another one who smells, another one who walks, another one who thinks, and [yet] another one who breathes. But one is he who doth all these.
And yet no one of these could be apart from God. For just as, shouldst thou cease from1 these, thou wouldst no longer be a living thing, so also, should God cease from them (a thing not law to say), no longer is He God.
13. For if it hath been shown that no thing can inactive2 be, how much less God? For if there's aught He doth not make (if it be law to say), He is imperfect. But if He is not only not inactive, but perfect [God], then He doth make all things.
Give thou thyself to Me, My Hermes, for a little while,3 and thou shalt understand more easily how that God's work is one, in order that all things may be — that are being made, or once have been, or that are going to be made. And this 4 is, My beloved, Life ; this is the Beautiful ; this is the Good ; this, God.
1 Lit. become inactive of