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.
" Who I am thou shalt know when I depart.1 What I am seen to be, that am I not ; but what I am, thou shalt see when thou comest." 2
None but those who have reached the Christ-state can know it ; no teaching will avail to explain its manner and its mysteries. It must be realized.
THE NEW CREATION
4. But Tat, who has "made himself ready," is becoming quickened by the power of his master. His spiritual senses are being born ; already he is losing touch with the physical; he no longer sees himself. But this is not enough ; he must not only be able to lose consciousness of his physical body, and see and hear as though with the mind alone, but he must "invert" himself, pass right through himself, and no longer see things as without him, but all things as within him.
All this is a New Creation to be accomplished in the man himself. The Author or Genesiurge of Ee-birth, as contrasted with the Maker or Demiurge of Birth, is the One Man, the Logos, the Energic Reason and Will of God ; the one is the Creator of the Immortal Body, the other is the Maker of the mortal frame.
1 That is, when the Presence is withdrawn, — by contrast.
2 Texts and Studies, V. i. 14.
THE WAY OF BIRTH IN GOD
5. The reading of the next sentence is faulty, and it is impossible to extract the correct meaning. The "Greatness" (TO ueyeOoi) and "distinctive form" (yapaKTYip) are terms familiar enough to us in Christian Gnostic writings.1 Greatness connotes the same idea as Mon ; " character " or " distinctive form " or " rank " is generally the impression from a typical original, and here stands for the form by which a man is recognised.
6. Hermes then proceeds to describe the nature of this Greatness or Mon, or Sameness, manifested in difference. It is, alchemically speaking, the One Element, which can only be comprehended by one Born in God — that is, by a God.
7. The way of this Birth is then described as a de-energizing, or throwing out of work of the body's senses, with a corresponding energizing of the One Sense, the Momc Consciousness ; or as a purging out of the tendencies of the lower nature, and replacing them by the energies of the Divine Powers.
1 The term "Greatness," however, is probably of Egyptian derivation. In the Papyrus Insinger, written somewhere during the last half of the first century B.C. and first half of the first century A.D., according to Spiegelberg, God's Wisdom and Providence are praised (coll. xxxv., xxxvi.). The superscription of this section runs : " The Four-and-Twentieth Teaching : The Instruction : Learn the Greatness of God, that thou mayest let it come into thine heart " (xxxv. 17) ; and later on : " He knoweth the Blasphemer who thinketh wickedness, He knoweth the Pious with the Greatness of God in his heart. The tongue, before even it is questioned — its words God knoweth " (xxxvi. 3-5). This is further explained by the sentence : " Thoth is heart and tongue of the Pious ; lo ! his house is God ! " (xxxv. 19). R. 237.
This is the Mystery of Kepentance (pera-vola), not a change of mind only, but a change throughout the whole nature ; all things in the man turn towards God.
The forces or energies of the soul have no direction in themselves ; it is the will of man that can turn them " downwards " or " upwards," so that they become vices or virtues.
OF THE TEN AND THE TWELVE