Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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That thou shouldst ask if the fourth part l is not inert, is most ridiculous ; for that the body which doth have no motion, gives sign of nothing but inertia.
18. Know, therefore, generally, my son, that all that is in Cosmos is being moved for decrease or for increase.
Now that which is kept moving, also lives ; but there is no necessity that that which lives, should be all same.
1 Sc. element.
For being simultaneous, the Cosmos, as a whole, is not subject to change, my son, but all its parts are subject unto it ; yet naught [of it] is subject to corruption, or destroyed.
It is the terms employed that confuse men. For 'tis not genesis that constituteth life, but 'tis sensation ; it is not change that constituteth death, but 'tis forgetfulness.
Since, then, these things are so, they are immortal all, — Matter, [and] Life, [and] Spirit, Mind [and] Soul, of which whatever liveth, is composed.
19. Whatever then doth live, oweth its immortality unto the Mind, and most of all doth man, he who is both recipient of God, and coessential with Him.
For with this life alone doth God consort ; by visions in the night, by tokens in the day, and by all things doth He foretell the future unto him, — by birds, by inward parts, by wind, by tree.
Wherefore doth man lay claim to know things past, things present and to come.
20. Observe this, too, my son ; that each one of the other lives inhabiteth one portion of the Cosmos, — aquatic creatures water, terrene earth, and aery creatures air ; while man doth use all these, — earth, water, air, [and] fire ; he seeth heaven, too, and doth contact it with [his] sense.
But God surroundeth all, and permeateth all,1 for He is energy and power ; and it is nothing difficult, my son, to conceive God.
21. But if thou wouldst Him also contemplate, behold the ordering of the Cosmos, and [see] the orderly behaviour of its ordering ; behold thou the Necessity of things made manifest, and [see] the Providence of things become and things becoming ; behold how Matter is all-full of Life ; [behold] this so great God in movement, with all the good and noble [ones] — gods, daimones and men !
Tat. But these are purely energies, 0 father mine !
Her. If, then, they're purely energies, my son, — by whom, then, are they energized except by God ?
Or art thou ignorant, that just as Heaven, Earth, Water, Air, are parts of Cosmos, in just the selfsame way God's parts are Life and Immortality, [and] Energy, and Spirit, and Necessity, and Providence, and Nature, Soul, and Mind, and the Duration2 of all these that is called Good ?
And there is naught of things that have become, or are becoming, in which God is not.
22. Tat. Is He in Matter, father, then ?
Her. Matter, my son, is separate from God,
1 Gf. § 14 above. 2 Sc. Mon.
in order that thou may'st attribute unto it the quality of space. But what thing else than mass1 think'st thou it is, if it's not energized? Whereas if it be energized, by whom is it made so ? For energies, we said, are parts of God.
By whom are, then, all lives enlivened ? By whom are things immortal made immortal ? By whom changed things made changeable ?
And whether thou dost speak of Matter, or of Body, or of Essence, know that these too are energies of God ; and that materiality is Matter's energy, that corporality is Bodies' energy, and that essentiality doth constitute the energy of Essence ; and this is God — the All.
23. And in the All is naught that is not God. Wherefore nor size, nor space, nor quality, nor form, nor time, surroundeth God ; for He is All, and All surroundeth all, and permeateth all.
Unto this Reason (Logos), son, thy adoration and thy worship pay. There is one way alone to worship God ; [it is] not to be bad.2
1 Probably in the sense of "quantity."
2 Lactantius, D. I., vi. 25, translates the last two sentences into Latin, with the strange remark that Hermes so spake in treating "About Justice." See the following Commentary on § 6, and Ex. xi.
COMMENTAKY
THE SAYINGS OF THE GOOD DAIMON
This Sermon has as its subject the Common or General Mind — Great Mind, Good Mind, Good Daimon. For Mind, as we are told (§ 2), is the Benefactor of men (evepyerns avOpwTrcw) ; He is the Good Shepherd, the Good Husbandman, the Good Physician, as He is called in different tractates.