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.
With Him,3 therefore, is there no difference with one another ; there is no partiality 4 with Him.
But they are one in Thought. One is the
Prescience 6 of all. They have one Mind — their
Father.
One is the Sense that's active through them —
1 Lit. "at their recognition,'3 — tvl rrjs fTnyvdxreus — a play on epignosis and gnosis, and a parallel between the wisdom of God and the royal knowledge of the King.
2 els r6v8f vbv Kbff^ov ira.pi\wv T^\V airayythlav (is StafftaffTiK^v eiHfaliiav, — where it may be possible to connect airayyehta with the familiar eucryyeAiov.
3 titeiffe. 4 rb a\\oirp6ffa\\ov.
their passion for each other.1 'Tis Love 2 Himself who worketh the one harmony of all.
15. Thus, therefore, let us sing the praise of God.
Nay, rather, let us [first] descend to those who have received their sceptres from Him.
For that we ought to make beginning with our Kings, and so by practising ourselves on them, accustom us to songs of praise, and train ourselves in pious service to the Better [One].
[We ought] to make the very first beginnings of our exercise of praise begin from him,3 and through him exercise the practice [of our praise], that so there may be in us both the exercising of our piety towards God, and of our praise to Kings.
16. For that we ought to make return to them, in that they have extended the prosperity of such great peace to us.
It is the virtue of the King, nay, 'tis his name alone, that doth establish peace.
He has his name of King because he levelleth the summits of dissension with his smooth tread,4 and is the lord of reason (logos) that [makes] for peace.
And in as much, in sooth, as he hath made els d\A^)\ovs <f>i\rpov.
,— the Higher Love. 3 Sc. the King.
4 The word-play between j8a<n\6us and ftdvti Ae/a is unreproducible in English.
himself the natural protector of the kingdom which is not his native land,1 his very name [is made] the sign of peace.
For that, indeed, you know, the appellation of the King has frequently at once restrained the foe.
Nay, more, the very statues of the King are peaceful harbours for those most tempest-tossed.
The likeness of the King alone has to appear to win the victory, and to assure to all the citizens freedom from hurt and fear.
COMMENTAKY
THE APOLOGY OF A PCEMANDRIST
This, the last piece in our Corpus, differs so greatly ooth in style and form of contents from the rest of our sermons, that we are plainly dealing with a different order of endeavour.
The style is for the most part so very artificial and forced, that we are conscious of labour and effort, and sometimes of such obscurity as to make a clear rendering almost impossible. The contents are of the nature of an elaborate set Eulogy of Kings.
Whether or not this concluding piece ever bore a proper title it is impossible to say, for the existing headings are plainly added by a later redactor,2 — as we have already seen in a number of other instances. I have therefore ventured to superscribe as the main title " The Encomium of Kings," 1 and have placed the contents-headings in parentheses.
1 rrjs ftaffi\eias TT
2 In fact, are due to the first hand in B C D M. See R. 355, 1 ; 358, 12.
Eeitzenstein, in his analysis of the Corpus, concludes (p. 207) that this Eulogy was appended to the collection of treatises by the original redactor, or collector.
He was an Egyptian Rhetor, who was a follower of the Trismegistic tradition, and his object in making the collection was mainly to show the Eulers of the Empire that not only was there nothing in the Hermes religion that could excite their suspicion, but that, on the contrary, it was in its most fundamental teachings admirably calculated to inculcate Loyalty to the Eulers of the Empire's destinies.
It is, indeed, to this " Apology," so to speak, that we owe the good fortune of the preservation of our Corpus.
SPECULATIONS AS TO DATE
Who the " most noble [Sirs] "of §§5 and 7, to whom the Eulogy is immediately addressed, may be, is difficult to determine, for though the subject is the " Encomium of Kings " in general, some actual King was evidently in the mind of the writer when he penned § 16. Perhaps the "most noble" may have been the high officials of Egypt.
The lost conclusion of our Encomium, for our actual text is evidently incomplete, may have given clearer indications of the Emperor for whose ultimate perusal the Eulogy was intended. As it is, the indications are of the vaguest.