Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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—it was from this coagulate He fashioned souls enough in myriads,1 moulding with order and with measure the efflorescent product of the mixture for what He willed, with skilled experience and fitting reason, so that they should not be compelled to differ any way one from another.
10. For, you must know, the efflorescence that exhaled out of the movement God induced, was not like to itself. For that its first florescence was greater, fuller, every way more pure, than was its second ; its second was far second to the first, but greater far than was its third.2 And thus the total number of degrees reached up to sixty.3 In spite of this, in laying down the law, He ordered it that all should be eternal, as though from out one essence, the forms of which Himself alone could bring to their completion.
11. Moreover, He appointed for them limits and reservations in the height of upper Nature,4 that they might keep the cylinder1 a- whirl in proper order and economy and [thus] might please their Sire. And so in that all-fairest station of the -ZEther He summoned unto Him the natures of all things that had as yet been made, and spake these words :
1 Cf. Plato, Tim., 41 : " He divided the whole mixture into souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star." So also Philo, who speaks of the souls as " equal in number to the stars"— De Sora., i. § 22 ; M. 642, P. 586 (Ri. iii. 244).
2 Cf. Plato, ibid. : " They [the souls] were not, however, pure as before, but diluted to the second and third degrees.
3 See § 56 below.
4 Of the Nature Above (TTJS &v<a <f>v<rtc,>s) ; cf. the "Jerusalem Above" of the "Gnostics." Of. also Tim., 41 D: "And having there [that is, among the stars] placed them as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and declared to them the laws of destiny, according to which their first birth should be one and the same for all, — no one should suffer a disadvantage at his hands ; they were to be sown in the instruments of time
" 0 Souls, ye children fair of Mine own Breath and My solicitude, whom I have now with My own Hands 2 brought to successful birth and consecrate to My own world, give ear unto these words of Mine as unto laws, and meddle not with any other space but that which is appointed for you by My will.
"For you, if ye keep steadfast, the Heaven, with the star-order, and thrones I have ordained full-filled with virtue, shall stay as now they are for you ; but if ye shall in any way attempt some innovation contrary to My decrees, I swear to you by My most holy Breath, and by this mixture out of which I brought you into being, and by these Hands of Mine which gave you life,3 that I will speedily devise for you a bond and punishments."
12. And having said these words, the God, severally adapted to them, and to come forth the most religious of animals; and as human nature was of two kinds, the superior race would hereafter be called man." With the last sentence, cf also § 12 below.
1 Cf. P. S. A., xix. 2 Cf. § 31 below.
3 Cf. Hermes-Prayer, iii. 3, and note.
who is my Lord, mixed the remaining cognate elements (Water and Earth *) together, and, as before, invoking on them certain occult words, words of great power though not so potent as the first, He set them moving rapidly, and breathed into the mixture power of life ; and taking the coagulate (which like the other floated to the top), when it had been well steeped and had become consistent, He modelled out of it those of the [sacred] animals2 possessing forms like unto men's.
The mixtures' residue He gave unto those souls that had gone in advance and had been summoned to the lands of Gods, to regions near the Stars, and to the [choir of] holy daimones. He said :
13. "My sons, ye children of My Nature,
fashion things ! Take ye the residue of what
My art hath made, and let each fashion something
which shal] bear resemblance to his own nature.
These will I further give to you as models."
He took and set in order fair and fine, agreeably to the motions of the souls, the world of sacred animals, appending as it were to those resembling men those which came next in order, and on these types of lives He did bestow
1 We have had previous mention of fire, (aether) and air, — the psychosis being the quintessence.