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.
Nay, it will seem to thee as well to contradict sometimes my sermons too.
Hermes, my master, in many a conversation, both when alone, and sometimes, too, when Tat was there, has said, that unto those who come across my books, their composition will seem most simple and [most] clear ; but, on the contrary, as 'tis unclear, and has the [inner]
1 At the end after P^S. A., but the pages are unnumbered.
meaning of its words concealed, it will be still unclearer, when, afterwards, the Greeks will want to turn our tongue into their own, — for this will be a very great distorting and obscuring of [even] what has been [already] written.
2. Turned into our own native tongue,1 the sermon (logos) keepeth clear the meaning2 of the words (logoi) [at any rate].
For that its very quality of sound, the [very] power of the Egyptian names, have in themselves the bringing into act of what is said.
As far as, then, thou canst, 0 King — (and thou canst [do] all things) — keep [this] our sermon from translation ; in order that such mighty mysteries may not come to the Greeks, and the disdainful speech of Greece, with [all] its looseness, and its surface beauty,3 so to speak, take all the strength out of4 the solemn and the strong — the energetic 5 speech of Names.
The Greeks, 0 King, have novel words, energic of " argumentation " [only] ; and thus is the philosophizing of the Greeks — the noise of words.
But we do not use words ; but we use sounds full-filled with deeds.
1 This presumably means from the hieroglyphic into the demotic — rrj Trarpcpa 8ia\fKTca ep/tTjpev^uei/os.
2 Lit. the mind. 3 Or, perhaps, smartness.
4 Make jejune, so to say — ^irij\ov TTO^O-T?.
5 That is, " words of power," words that do things.
THRICE -GREATEST HERMES
3. Thus, then, will I begin the sermon by invocation unto God, the universals' Lord and Maker, [their] Sire, and [their] Encompasser; who though being All is One,1 and though being One is All ; for that the Fullness of all things is One, and [is] in One, this latter One not coming as a second [One], but both being One.
And this is the idea 2 that I would have thee
keep, through the whole study of our sermon,
Sire!
For should one try to separate what seems to be both All and One and Same from One,— he will be found to take 3 his epithet of " All " from [the idea of] multitude, and not from [that of) fullness * — which is impossible ; for if he part All from the One, he will destroy the All.5
For all things must be One — if they indeed are One. Yea, they are One; and they shall never cease being One — in order that the Fullness may not be destroyed.
4. See then in Earth a host of founts of Water and of Fire forth-spirting in its midmost parts ; in one and the same [space all] the three natures visible — of Fire, and Water, and of Earth, depending from one Root.1
1 Cf. R. 127, 3 ; and P. 8. A., i. 1. 2 Lit. mind.
3 The construction is very elliptical ; &8€(c£/iej'05 simply.
4 That is, completeness, perfection, — ir\-np&iJ.a.Tos.
5 Cf. Plato, Soph., 259 D, B.
Whence, too, it 2 is believed to be the Treasury 3 of every matter. It sendeth forth of its 4 abundance, and in the place [of what it sendeth forth] receiveth the subsistence from above.5
For thus the Demiurge6 — I mean the Sun — eternally doth order Heaven and Earth, pouring down Essence,7 and taking Matter up, drawing both round Himself and to Himself all things, and from Himself giving all things to all.
For He it is whose goodly energies extend not only through the Heaven and the Air, but also onto Earth, right down unto the lowest Depth and the Abyss.
6. And if there be an Essence which the mind alone can grasp,8 this is his Substance,9 the reservoir10 of which would be His Light.
1 Cf. P. S. A., iv. 1. 2 Sc. Earth.
3 A magazine, a store-house, — Ta/xielW. The term " treasure " (6rj<Tavp6s') is found in most lavish use in the Greek -Coptic Gnostic works, and also in Christian Gnostic literature and Jewish Apocalyptic. 4 Sc. matter's.
5 rV &/o>0ei/ virap£u', — hyparxis, substance or subsistence, a word of frequent use and highly technical meaning with the last of the Neo-Platonists, especially with Proclus. Cf. G. H., x. (xi.) 2.
6 Cf. P. S. A., xxix. 4.
7 Lit. bringing or drawing down; K<n<iy^iv = deducere, elicere — used frequently of magic arts.
8 vo-n-r^] ovaia — intelligibilis essentia.
9 ZyKos = moles, mass, bulk, volume ; in later philosophy it means "atom," and may mean so here, of course in the philosophical and mystic and not in the physical sense.
receptaculum.