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.
But whence this [Substance] doth arise, or floweth forth, He, [and He] only, knows.
Or rather, in space and nature, He is near unto Himself . . . though as He is not seen by us, ... understand [Him] by conjecture.1
7. The spectacle of Him, however, is not left unto conjecture ; nay [for] His very rays,2 in greatest splendour, shine all round on all the Cosmos that doth lie above and lie below.
For He is stablished in the midst, wreathed with the Cosmos,3 and just as a good charioteer, He safely drives the cosmic team,4 and holds them in unto Himself,5 lest they should run away in dire disorder.
The reins are Life, and Soul, and Spirit,
Deathlessness, and Genesis.
1 The text is very corrupt. Patrizzi translates : " Vel quia ipso loco, et natura prope se ipsum existens, non a nobis conspicitur cogit nos per conjecturas intelligere " — which certainly does not represent the Greek. Menard conjectures brilliantly but in entire emancipation from the text : " Pour comprendre par induction ce qui se derobe a noire vue, il faudrait etre pres de lui et analogue a sa nature" Reitzenstein discovers two lacunas in the text, but does not attempt to fill them. As the text stands, then, all attempt at translation seems hopeless.
2 Lit. his very sight, — avr^i y fyis, that is, his rays, fyis being used of the visual rays which were supposed by the science of the time to proceed from the eyes. Cf. Ex. vii. 4.
3 Wearing the Cosmos as a wreath or crown ; the visible sun being regarded as a " head." See " The Perfect Sermon."
4 Lit. car or chariot — #p/ta.
5 Lit. binds it to himself — avaS-fi<ras tls
He lets it, then, drive [round] not far off from Himself — nay, if the truth be said, together with Himself.
8. And in this way He operates l all things.
To the immortals He distributeth perpetual
permanence ; and with the upper hemisphere of His own Light — all that he sends above from out His other side,2 [the side of him] which looks to Heaven — He nourisheth the deathless parts of Cosmos.
But with that side that sendeth down [its Light], and shineth round all of the hemisphere 3 of Water, and of Earth, and Air, He vivifieth, and by births and changes keepeth in movement to and fro the animals4 in these [the lower] parts of Cosmos. . . .
9. He changes them in spiral fashion, and doth transform them into one another, genus to genus, species into species, their mutual changes into one another being balanced — just as He does when He doth deal with the Great Bodies.
For in the case of every body, [its] permanence [consists in] transformation.
In case of an immortal one, there is no dissolution ; but when it is a mortal one, it is accompanied with dissolution.1
2 Lit. part.
3 KVTos=a, hollow, vase, or vessel.
4 That is, those lives subject to death, as opposed to the immortals.
And this is how the deathless body doth differ from the mortal, and how the mortal one doth differ from the deathless.
10. Moreover, as His Light's continuous, so is His Power of giving Life to lives continuous, and not to be brought to an end in space or in abundance.
For there are many choirs of daimons round Him, like unto hosts of very various kinds ; who though they dwell with mortals, yet are not far from the immortals ; but having as their lot from here unto the spaces of the Gods,2 they watch o'er the affairs of men, and work out things appointed by the Gods — by means of storms, whirlwinds and hurricanes, by transmutations wrought by fire and shakings of the earth,3 with famines also and with wars requiting [man's] impiety, — for this is in man's case the greatest ill against the Gods.
11. For that the duty of the Gods is to give benefits; the duty of mankind is to give worship4; the duty of the daimons is to give requital.
For as to all the other things men do, through error, or foolhardiness, or by necessity, which they call Fate,1 or ignorance — these are not held requitable among the Gods ; impiety alone is guilty at their bar.
1 Compare " Sermon to Tat," I. (Menard). Cf. Stob., Eel, i. 61 ; 274, 24 W.
2 Lit. " the land of these " — that is, of the immortals.
3 Cf. Ex. ix. 5.
4 Or, to be pious. Cf. P. S. A., ix. 1.
12. The Sun is the preserver2 and the nurse of every class.3