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

And bid it also mount to heaven ; and it will need no wings, nor will aught hinder it, nor fire of sun, nor aether, nor vortex-swirl,1 nor bodies of the other stars ; but, cutting through them all, it will soar up to the last Body [of them all].2 And shouldst thou will to break through this as well, and contemplate what is beyond — if there be aught beyond the Cosmos3; it is permitted thee.

20. Behold what power, what swiftness, thou dost have ! And canst thou do all of these things, and God not [do them] ?

Then, in this way know 4 God ; as having all things in Himself as thoughts, the whole Cosmos itself.

If, then, thou dost not make thyself like unto God, thou canst not know Him. For like is knowable to like [alone].

Make, [then,] thyself to grow to the same stature as the Greatness which transcends all

1 ^ SIJ/TJ, presumably the vortex or " whorl " of the solar system
(cf. " Vision of Er").

2 Sc. the body or limit of the whole cosmos.

3 Cf. C. H., iv. (v.) 5 : "And things above the heaven— if there be aught." * QT think.

THRICE-GREATEST HERMES

measure ; leap forth from every body ; transcend all Time ; become Eternity l ; and [thus] shalt thou know God.

Conceiving nothing is impossible unto thyself, think thyself deathless and able to know all, — all arts, all sciences, the way of every life.2

Become more lofty than all height, and lower than all depth. Collect into thyself all senses of [all] creatures, — of fire, [and] water, dry and moist. Think that thou art at the same time in every place, — in earth, in sea, in sky ; not yet begotten, in the womb, young, old, [and] dead, in after-death conditions.3

And if thou knowest all these things at once,4 — times, places, doings, qualities, and quantities ; thou canst know God.6

21. But if thou lockest up thy soul within thy body, and dost debase it, saying : I nothing know ; I nothing can ; I fear the sea ; I cannot scale the sky ; I know not who I was, who I shall be ; — what is there [then] between [thy] God and thee ?

For thou canst know naught of things beautiful and good so long as thou dost love thy body and art bad.

1 Lit. jEon. 2 ira-vT^s £(?ov $dos, — or nature of every animal, s Cf. G. H., xiii. (xiv.) 11.

4 Or art simultaneously conscious of.

5 A critical text from "Make, then, thy self" to here is given by R., p. 238.

The greatest bad there is, is not to know God's Good l ; but to be able to know [Good], and will, and hope, is a Straight Way, the Good's own [Path], both leading there and easy.2

If thou but sett'st thy foot thereon, 'twill meet thee everywhere, 'twill everywhere be seen, both where and when thou dost expect it not, — waking, sleeping, sailing, journeying, by night, by day, speaking, [and] saying naught. For there is naught that is not image of the Good.

22. Her. Is God unseen ?

Mind. Hush ! Who is more manifest than
He ? For this one reason hath He made all
things, that through them all thou mayest see
Him.

This is the Good of God, this [is] His Virtue, —that He may be made manifest through all.3

For naught's unseen, even of things that are
without a body. Mind sees itself4 in thinking,
God in making.5

So far these things have been made manifest to thee, Thrice- greatest one ! Reflect on all the rest in the same way within thyself, and thou shalt not be led astray.

— lit. the Godly, or Divine.

2 a/. Ex. i. 4.

3 The preceding question and answer is quoted with very slight verbal variants by Cyril, Contra Julianum, ii. 52.

4 Or is seen. 5 Or doing.

COMMENTAKY

TITLE AND FORM

The title in the MSS. is simply " Mind to Hermes." When, therefore, Cyril, in quoting the first three paragraphs of § 22 of our treatise, says that Hermes wrote these words <c to his own mind," x he is evidently either a very careless reader,2 or had not seen at first hand the treatise from which he quotes.

From its contents, moreover, it is very evident that our treatise, as far as its form is concerned, looks back to the " Poemandres" as the type of instruction to Hermes (or to a Hermes).