Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

Providence 1 (for 'tis the first to meet with it) ; but Providence [itself] 2 extends itself to Heaven.

For which cause,3 too, the Gods revolve, and speed round [Heaven],4 possessed of tireless, never-ceasing motion.

But Fate [extends itself in Cosmos] ; for which cause, too, Necessity [encompasses the Cosmos]. 5

And Providence foreknows ; but Fate's the reason of the disposition of the Stars.6

Such is the law that no one can escape, by which all things are ordered.7

1 Lit. "first has Providence." The following words in parentheses seem to be the gloss of a scribe who was puzzled by the sentence. Usener, however, would detect a lacuna after the parentheses and the beginning of a new excerpt after that, and Wachsmuth agrees with him. This seems to me to be unnecessary .

2 That is, pure Providence unmixed with Necessity and Fate.

3 That is, because of Providence, the law of heaven.

4 avrdv.

5 The text is hopeless, being simply : ^l^ap^vn Se, 5i(Tn Kal

That is, the Seven Spheres. 7 Cf. Exx. x., xi., xii.

EXCERPT XIV.

OF SOUL [I.]

(Title from Patrizzi (p. 40) ; preceded by " Of Thricegreatest Hermes," and followed by " To the Same Ammon."

Text : Stob., Phys., xxxv. 9, under heading : "Of Hermes
from the [Sermons] to Ammon " ; G. pp. 282, 283 ; M. i.
196, 197; W. 281, 282.

Me"nard, Livre IV., No. iii. of " Fragments of the Books of Hermes to Ammon," pp. 259, 260.)

1. THE Soul is further [in itself] incorporal essence, and even when in body it by no means doth depart from the essentiality peculiar to itself.

Its nature is, according to its essence to b< for ever moving, according to its thought [to bej self-motive [purely], not moved in something, / nor towards something, nor [yet] because of/ something.

For it is prior [to them] in power, and prior stands not in any need of consequents.

"In something," furthermore, — means space,
and time, and nature ; " towards something," —
[this] means harmony, and form, and figure ;
"" because of something," — [this] means body, for
'tis because of body that there is time, and space,
and nature.

Now all these things are in connection with each other by means of a congenital relationship.

2. For instance, now, the body must have space, for it would be past all contriving that a body should exist without a space.

It changes, too, in nature, and 'tis impossible for change to be apart from time, and from the movement nature makes ; nor is it further possible for there to be composing of a body apart from harmony.

It is because of body, then, that space exists ; for that by its reception of the changes of the body, it does not let a thing that's changing pass away.

But. changing, it doth alternate from one thing to another, and is deprived of being in a permanent condition, but not of being body.

For body, qud body, remains body ; but any special moment of its state does not remain.

The body, then, keeps changing in its states.

3. And so, space is incorporal, and time, and natural motion ; but each of these has naturally ifs own peculiar property.

The property of space is receptivity ; of time
['tis] interval and number; of nature [it is]
motion ; of harmony ['tis] love ; of body, change.

The special nature of the Soul, however, is essential thought.1

1 Or thinking according to essence, — ?? KOT' oixriav

EXCERPT XV.

[OF SOUL, II.]

(Patrizzi (p. 40) runs this on to the preceding without a break.

Text : Stob., Phys., xxxv. 7, under heading : " Of Hermes
from the [Sermons] to Ammon " ; G. pp. 291, 292 ; M. i.
203, 204 ; W. i. 289, 290.

Me"nard, Livre IV., No. iv. of " Fragments of the Books of Hermes to Ammon," pp. 261, 262.)

1. THAT which is moved is moved according to the operation of the motion that doth move the all.

For that the Nature of the all supplies the all with motion, — one [motion being] the [one] according to its l Power, the other that according to [its] Operation.2

The former doth extend itself throughout the whole of Cosmos, and holdeth it together from within ; the latter doth extend itself [around it], and encompasseth it from without. And these go everywhere together through all things.

1 Sc. Nature's. 2 Or energy.

VOL. III. 65 5

Now the [Productive] Nature1 of all things supplies the things produced with [power of re-] production, sowing the seeds of its own self, [and] having its becomings 2 by means of moving matter.