HERMETICA

Being English Translations of Hermetic

Discourses and Fragments
by

G. R. S. Mead
Comprising

Corpus Hermeticum I-XIV, XVI-XVIII

The Perfect Sermon (Asclepius)
Hermetic Excerpts from Stobus

Celephas Press
Ulthar - Sarkomand - Inquanok Leeds

2010

The translations here collected were originally published

in vols. 2 and 3 of Meads Thrice-Greatest Hermes:
Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis,
London & Benares: The Theosophical
Publishing Society, 1906
(many reprints)

This electronic edition produced by Celephas Press,

somewhere beyond the Tanarian Hills, and
mani(n)fested in the waking world
in the year 2010 of the
common error.

This work is in the public domain.

CONTENTS
page

Editors introduction

Bibliography .

Corpus Hermeticum

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31
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46
54
61
69
72
77
78

I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.

Poimandres .
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[To Asclepius]
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A sacred sermon of Hermes .
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The Cup or Monad .
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Though unmanifest God is Most Manifest .
In God alone is Good and elsewhere nowhere
The greatest ill among men is ignorance of God
That no one of existing things doth perish .
On thought and sense .
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The Key .
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Mind to Hermes .
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About the Common Mind
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The Secret Sermon on the Mountain .
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To Asclepius, health of soul .
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Definitions of Asclepius to Ammon
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[Asclepius to the King] .
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[The Econium of Kings] .
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The Perfect Sermon, or Asclepius .

83

Hermetic Excerpts from Stobus .

Of piety and true philosophy .

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Of the ineffability of God
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Of truth .
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God, nature and the gods
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Of matter
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Of time .
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Of bodies everlasting and bodies perishable .
Of energy and feeling .
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Of the decans and the stars .
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Of the rule of providence, necessity and fate
Of justice .
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Of providence and fate .
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Of the whole economy .
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VII.
VIII.
IX.
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XI.
XII.
XIII.

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iv

CONTENTS
page

XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.

Of soul (i)
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Of soul (ii)
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Of soul (iii)
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Of soul (iv)
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Of soul (v)
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Of soul (vi)
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The power of choice
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Of Isis to Horus
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An Apophthegm
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From Aphrodit .
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A Hymn of the Gods
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Kor Kosmou (i)
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Kor Kosmou (ii) .
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From the Sermon of Isis to Horus .

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EDITORS INTRODUCTION
THE writings of Hermes Trismegistus were one of a variety of
things to emerge from the intellectual melting pot which
existed across the Eastern Mediterranean in general and in
particular in Alexandria from around 300 B.C.E to 300 C.E.
While almost certainly written in Greek by various authors
unknown, mostly in the latter half of this period, their authorship was traditionally ascribed to the syncretic figure of ThriceGreatest Hermes, formed by identifying the Greek Hermes
with the Egyptian Thoth, but thought to have been a human
sage roughly contemporary with Moses, who invented the
hieroglyphic writing system and gave the Egyptians a code of
laws. This tradition continued to be believed in through the
Middle Ages and Renaissance, although most of these works
were lost to Western Europe through the medival period,
known only in brief quotations or references by early Christian
writers such as Augustine of Hippo.
The translations of Hermetic literature here collected were
previously published in 1906 as part of a three-volume study by
G.R.S. Mead titled Thrice-Greatest Hermes, issued by the Theosophical Publishing Society.
That last detail goes some way to explaining why Meads
translations lack academic respectability; criticisms are rarely
specific, and the claim by Brian Copenhaver (in the introduction to his translation of the Hermetica for Cambridge
University Press) that Meads work must be watched for theosophical motivations seems strange when one considers that
theosophy (without the capital T) in the broad sense of divine
wisdom was pretty much what the original authors of these
works thought they were about; the general tone and style of
the discourses following is, in general, more one of revelationdiscourse or divinely-inspired authoritative teaching than
philosophical argument in the sense generally understood,
v

vi

EDITORS INTRODUCTION

indeed passages in some tractates are openly anti-rationalist

and contemptuous of what was ordinarily called philosophy at
the time. Meads commentaries, interspersed between the
tractates, were indeed written from the point of view of the
European and American theosophical schools of the nineteenth
century of the common error, and are here omitted, as is most
of his apparatus.
Meads translation was selected for the present edition as
being the best of a not particularly great lot, i.e. public domain
English translations of the Hermetica. John Everards 1650
edition has had many reprints and was still used in some
occultist circles in the nineteenth century (both Hargrave
Jennings and W. Wynn Westcott edited reprints) but is of
doubtful reliability and is liable to mislead owing to changes in
English usage. John Chambers The Theological and Philosophical Works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian Neoplatonist
(1882) is frequently literal to the point of unreadability and is
also marred by the translators selecting only the material that
supported his thesis; believing in a unitary authorship of C.H.
I-XIV and some of the Stobus excerpts, he dismissed the
Asclepius, the Kor Kosmou and some other material as false
Hermetica, as if the entire literature was not pseudoepigraphal
in any case. Kingsford & Maitlands Virgin of the World (1885;
comprising C.H. XVI-XVIII, the Asclepius and the Stobus
excerpts, produced as a companion to a re-issue of Everards
translation) is on the other hand far too loose. Walter Scott's,
published in four volumes 1924-1936 and repeatedly reprinted is
regarded as unreliable largely because of liberties taken with
the Greek texts (characterised by Copenhaver as a jungle of
excisions, interpolations and transpositions . . . Scotts translation can be regarded only as a translation of Scott, not of the
Hermetic authors).
The modern English translations (Salaman et al. and Copenhaver the only ones of which I am aware) are have taken
advantage of a critical edition of the Greek and Latin texts by
A. D. Nock and A.-J. Festugire first published (with a French
translation) 1946-54.
The main difficulty with Meads rendering is, to be frank, one
of style. Mead has attempted to render the texts in the lan-

EDITORS INTRODUCTION

vii

guage of the King James Bible and a poetic prose style which
sacrifices the normal rules of English prose word-order, and
occasionally readability, for the sake of scansion; contractions
(een for even, tis for it is, neer for never, &c.),
inversions, redundant insertion of words which are neither in
the text nor needed for the translation to be intelligible, and
complete inconsistency with regard to the use of definite
articles, are commonplace for no apparent reason other than to
maintain a prose rhythm.
A document containing Meads translations of CH I-XIII with
an introduction by J.M. Greer has been in Internet circulation
since the late 1990s (although the introduction appears to
belong to an edition which included XIV, XVI-XVII and the
Asclepius). The following collection comprises all the Corpus
Hermeticum texts, the Asclepius and the Stobus excerpts.
What has been left out.
The following extant theoretical Hermetica are not included
in the present collection.
(i) Fragmenta Hermetica. Brief quotations in Greek and Latin from otherwise
lost works found in writers of late antiquity through to the Middle Ages,
including Tertullian (fl. ca 200-216 C.E.), Lactantius (fl. early 4th cent. C.E.),
and Cyril of Alexandria (fl. early 5th cent. C.E.). Vol. III of Thrice Greatest
Hermes included 28 of these; vol. IV of Nock and Festigures 1946-54
edition of the Hermetica had 36. While probably genuinemany of these
authors also quote from identifiable workswhen read in isolation they
add little to our knowledge of the subject, and may in some instances have
been misquoted, or quoted out of context, for polemical purposes.
(ii) Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius. A tract in ten chapters which
survives in an Armenian translation (dated to the sixth century C.E.) and a
Greek MS. The Armenian version was first turned up in the 1950s, the
Greek some decades later; there is no public domain English translation.
One passage also appears in one of the Stobus excerpts.
(iii) Nag Hammadi Hermetica. Nag Hammadi Codex VI includes, besides the
famous Thunder: Perfect Mind and a garbled excerpt from Platos Republic,
two variant excerpts from the Asclepius (21-29 and the concluding prayer
from 41), a brief scribal note and a previously unknown tract now called The
Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth, all in Coptic translation. There is no
public domain English translation.
(iv) Vienna Fragments. Two Hermetic fragments found on separate papyri in a
Vienna museum (Papyri Vindobonense Grac 29456 r & 29828 r); first
described by Jean-Pierre Mah in 1984. No English translation has been
published.

viii

EDITORS INTRODUCTION

Also, as noted above, Meads commentaries and the bulk of his

textual notes have also been omitted.
Ellipses (. . .) are used mainly by Mead to indicate lacun in
the source texts; square brackets, words interpolated for the
sake of making more coherent English sentences, or in some
instances purely for the sake of scansion or other considerations of style. While punctuation from the original is retained,
many redundant paragraph breaks have been removed; Mead
in many places started a new paragraph with practically every
sentence.
Footnotes in square brackets are due to the present editor,
though in many cases adapted or paraphrased from Meads
notes. Those not in square brackets are verabatim or only
slightly adapted from Meads notes.
Fra. Tripudians Stella
Leeds, England
March 2010 e.v.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Betz, Hans Dieter (ed.): The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, including
the Demotic Spells. University of Chicago Press, 1986, 1992.
Chambers, John (ed. / trans.): The Theological and Philosophical Works of
Hermes Trismegistus, Christian Neoplatonist. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1882; reprinted Kila, MT: Kessinger, 2003 (as Divine Pymander and Other
Writings of Hermes Trismegistus).
Copenhaver, Brian (trans.): Hermetica: the Greek Corpus Hermeticum and
the Latin Asclepius in a new English translation. Cambridge University
Press, 1992, reprinted 1994, 1995, 1997.
Everard, John (trans.): The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, in XVII books. London: printed by R. White for T. Brewster and G.
Moule, 1650, reprinted 1657 and ca. 1850; reprinted with an introduction by
Hargrave Jennings, Bath: Robert Fryar and London: George Redway, 1884;
this edition reprinted San Diego: Wizards Bookshelf, 1985, 2000. Reprinted
with an introduction by W. Wynn Westcott, London: Theosophical
Publishing Society, 1894 (Collectanea Hermetica series, no. 2; included in
subsequent collected reprints of that series).
Kingsford, Anna Bonus and Maitland, Edward (trans.): The Virgin of the
World of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus. Bath: Robert Fryar & London:
George Redway, 1885; reprinted Minneapolis: Wizards Bookshelf, 1977 and
Kila, Montana: Kessinger, 1996, 1997.
Layton, Bentley (trans. / ed.): The Gnostic Scriptures. St. Albans: SCM Press,
1987, 1995.
Mead, G.R.S.: Thrice Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy and
Gnosis (3. vols.). London and Benares: Theosophical Publishing Society,
1906; reprinted London: John M. Watkins, 1949, 1964. Vol. I: Prolegomena.
Vol. II: Sermons. Vol. III: Excerpts and Fragments. Reprinted in one vol.
York Beach, Maine: Weiser, 1992, 2001.
Middle LiddellLiddell, Henry George & Scott, Robert: An Intermediate
Greek-English Lexicon, founded upon the seventh edition of Liddell and
Scotts Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1889, many
reprints.
NHCNag Hammadi Codices; see Robinson (ed.), Nag Hammadi Library in
English.
Nock, Arthur Darby & Festugire, A.-J. (ed. / trans.): Corpus Hermeticum (4
vols.). Paris: 1946-54, third edition 1972-3. Tome I: Poimandres, Traites I-XII.
Tome II: Traites XIII-XVIII, Asclepius. Tome III: Fragments extraits de
Stobe I-XXII. Tome IV: Fragments extraits de Stobe (XXIII-XXIX),
Fragments divers.
Parthey, Gustavus (ed.): Hermes Trismegisti Poemander. Berlin: 1854.
Patrizi, Francesco: Nova de Universis Philosophia. Ferrara, 1591, second edition
Venice, 1593.
PGMPapyri Grc Magic; see Betz (ed.), Greek Magical Papyri.
Robinson, J.M. (ed.): The Nag Hammadi Library in English. Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1978, 1988; paperback reprint, HarperCollins, 1990.
ix

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Salaman, Clement (trans.): Asclepius: a secret discourse of Hermes

Trismegistus (trans. Clement Saalman). London: Gerald Duckworth, 2007.
Salaman, Clement, van Oyen, Dorine and Mah, Jean-Paul (trans): The Way
of Hermes: new translations of the Corpus Hermeticum and Definitions
of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius Rochest, Vermont: Inner Traditions
and London: Duckworth, 1999, reprinted 2001.
Scott, Walter: Hermetica: the ancient Greek and Latin writings which contain
religious or philosophic teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus (4
vols.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924-36; reprinted London: Dawsons, 1968
and Kila, Montana: Kessinger, 1995-2001. Vol. 1: texts and translations; vol.
2: notes on the Corpus Hermeticum; vol. 3: notes on the Asclepius and
Stobus excerpts; vol. 4: Testimonia, i.e. quotations of and references to
Hermes and Hermetic writings in ancient and medival writers, an
appendix and indices added by a later editor after Scotts death.
Yates, Frances Amelia: Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964; reprinted Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1991.

CORPUS
HERMETICUM

[Editors note]
The Corpus Hermeticum is the best known collection of theoretical (gnostic)
Hermetica. The oldest known MSS. are of Byzantine origin and were brought
to Western Europe after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The most complete
of these contain seventeen tracts, although textual evidence suggests that at
least one logos between those now denoted C.H. I and C.H. II is missing, along
with part of C.H. XVII and possibly another tract before that; in other words,
several pages were lost or removed from the prototype before it was copied.
The MSS. which came into the possession of Lorenzo di Medici and were used
as the basis for Marsilio Ficinos translation into Latin finish with C.H. XIV.
Following Ficinos edition, the collection has been frequently cited as the
Pimander or some variant spelling thereof, which strictly speaking only applies
to the first tract.
In a 1574 edition of the Greek text of the Corpus, C.H. XIV was followed by a
fifteenth tract nailed together by an editor out of three Hermetic excerpts from
the the anthology of Stobus and the entry on Hermes Trismegistus in the
Suda (a Byzantine encyclopdia of ca. 1000 C.E., cited by Mead following the
error of a 12th-century writer who mistook the title for the author as the
Lexicon of Suidas), which was in turn followed by the Definitions of Asclepius
to King Ammon, now C.H. XVI. Later editions dropped C.H. XV as spurious
while retaining the numbering of XVI-XVIII.

CH. I: Hermes Trismegistus: Pmandres1

1. It chanced once upon a time my mind was meditating on the
things that are, my thought was raised to a great height, the
senses of my body being held backjust as men who are
weighed down with sleep after a fill of food, or from fatigue of
body. Methought a Being more than vast, in size beyond all
bounds, called out my name and saith: What wouldst thou hear
and see, and what hast thou in mind to learn and know?
2. And I do say: Who art thou?
He saith: I am Man-Shepherd, Mind of all-masterhood; I
know what thou desirest and Im with thee everywhere.
3. [And] I reply: I long to learn the things that are, and comprehend their nature, and know God. This is, I said, what I desire
to hear.
He answered back to me: Hold in thy mind all thou wouldst
know, and I will teach thee.
4. Een with these words His aspect changed, and straightway, in
the twinkling of an eye, all things were opened to me, and I see
a Vision limitless, all things turned into Light,sweet, joyous
[Light]. And I became transported as I gazed. But in a little
while Darkness came settling down on part [of it], awesome and
gloomy, coiling in sinuous folds, so that methought it like unto
a snake. And then the Darkness changed into some sort of a
Moist Nature, tossed about beyond all power of words, belching
out smoke as from a fire, and groaning forth a wailing sound
that beggards all description. [And] after that an outcry inarticulate came forth from it, as though it were a Voice of Fire.
1 [Mead follows the widely accepted derivation of the name Poimandrhj and
includes the gloss shepherd of men as part of his title. A derivation from a
Coptic phrase roughly corresponding to the epiphet mind of sovereignty has
also been suggested; see Copenhaver, Hermetica, note to title of C.H. I. In any
case, in C.H. XI, the only other place in C.H. where Hermes is the recipient of a
revelation-discourse rather than a mystagogue instructing students, the divine
figure delivering the revelation is simply called Mind (nouj). In the text of the
discourse the narrator is unnamed; the name Hermes Trismegistus (in the
genetive case) appears only as a superscription to the title.]

CORPUS HERMETICUM

5. [Thereon] out of the Light . . . a Holy Word (logos)1 descended

upon that Nature. And upwards to the height from the Moist
Nature leaped forth pure Fire; light was it, swift and active too.
The Air, too, being light, followed after the Fire; from out the
Earth-and-Water rising up to Fire so that it seemed to hang
therefrom. But Earth-and-Water stayed so mingled each with
other, that Earth from Water no one could discern. Yet were
they moved to hear by reason of the Spirit-Word (logos)
pervading them.
6. Then saith to me Man-Shepherd: Didst understand this
Vision what it means?
Nay; that shall I know, I said.
That Light, He said, am I, thy God, Mind, prior to Moist
Nature which appeared from Darkness; the Light-Word (logos)
[that appeared] from Mind is Son of God.
What then?say I.
Know that what sees in thee and hears is the Lords Word
(logos); but Mind is Father-God. Not separate are they the one
from other; just in their union [rather] is it Life consists.
Thanks be to Thee, I said.
So, understand the Light [He answered], and make friends
with it.
7. And speaking thus He gazed for long into my eyes: so that I
trembled at the look of Him. But when He raised His head, I
see in Mind the Light, [but] now in Powers no man could
number, and Cosmos a grown beyond all bounds, and that the
Fire was compassed round about by a most mighty Power, and
[now] subdued had come unto a stand. And when I saw these
things I understood by reason of Man-Shepherds Word (logos).
8. But as I was in great astonishment, He saith to me again:
Thou didst behold in Mind the Archetypal Form whose being is
before beginning without end. Thus spake to me ManShepherd.
And I say: Whence then have Natures elements their being?
1 [The Greek term logoj is used frequently in the Corpus and has many possible
English renderings; Mead translates it variously according to context and his
own somewhat messed-up sense of style, but to indicate that it is the same
word in the original, gives it in brackets after the translation.]

C.H. I: POIMANDRES

To this He answer gives: From Will of God. [Nature]

received the Word (logos), and gazing on the Cosmos Beautiful
did copy it, making herself into a cosmos, by means of her own
elements and by the births of souls.1
9. And God-the-Mind, being male and female both, as Light and
Life subsisting, brought forth another Mind to give things form,
who, God as he was of Fire and Spirit: formed Seven Rulers
who enclose the cosmos that the sense perceives. Men call their
ruling Fate.
10. Straightway from out the downward elements Gods Reason
(logos) leaped up to Natures pure formation, and was at-oned2
with the Formative Mind; for it was co-essential with it. And
Natures downward elements were thus left reason-less, so as
to be pure matter.
11. Then the Formative Mind ([at-oned] with Reason), he who
surrounds the spheres and spins them with his whirl, set
turning his formations, and let them turn from a beginning
boundless unto an endless end. For that the circulation of
these [spheres] begins where it doth end, as Mind doth will.
And from the downward elements Nature brought forth lives
reason-less; for He did not extend the Reason (logos) [to them].
The Air brought forth things winged; the Water things that
swim, and Earth-and-Water one from another parted, as Mind
willed. And from her bosom Earth produced what lives she
had, four-footed things and reptiles, beasts wild and tame.
12. But All-Father Mind, being Life and Light, did bring forth
Man co-equal to Himself, with whom He fell in love, as being
His own child; for he was beautiful beyond compare, the Image
of his Sire. In very truth, God fell in love with His own Form;
and on him did bestow all of His own formations.
13. And when he gazed upon what the Enformer had created in
the Father, [Man] too wished to enform; and [so] assent was
given him by the Father. Changing his state to the formative
sphere, in that he was to have his whole authority, he gazed
[9-15 continue the utterence of Poimandres.]
[Here and elsewhere, united would be better. Modern useage of the English
verb atone hardly carries the idea of unite, even if this is its etymology.]
1
2

CORPUS HERMETICUM

upon his Brothers creatures. They fell in love with him, and
gave him each a share of his own ordering. And after that he
had well-learned their eseence and had become a sharer in
their nature, he had a mind to break right through the
Boundary of their spheres, and to subdue the might of that
which pressed upon the Fire.
14. So he who hath the whole authority oer [all] the mortals in
the cosmos and oer its lives irrational, bent his face downwards
through the Harmony: breaking right through its strength, and
showed to downward Nature Gods fair Form. And when she
saw that Form of beauty which can never satiate, and him who
[now] possessed within himself each single energy of [all seven]
Rulers as well as Gods [own] Form, she smiled with love; for
twas as though shed seen the image of Mans fairest form
upon her Water, his shadow on her Earth. He in his turn
beholding the form like to himself, existing in her, in her
Water, loved it and willed to live in it; and with the will came
act, and [so] he vivified the form devoid of reaon. And Nature
took the object of her love and wound herself completely round
him, and they were intermingled, for they were lovers.
15. And this is why beyond all creatures on the earth man is
twofold; mortal because of body, but because of the essential
Man immortal. Though deathless and possessed of sway oer
all, yet doth he suffer as a mortal death, subject to Fate. Thus
though above the Harmony, within the Harmony he hath become a slave. Though male-female: as from a Father malefemale, and though hes sleepless from a sleepless [Sire], yet is
he overcome [by sleep].
16. Thereon [I say: Teach on],1 O Mind of me, for I myself as
well am amorous of the Word (logos).
The Shepherd said: This is the mystery kept hid until this
day. Nature embraced by Man brought forth a wonder, oh so
wonderful. For as he had the nature of the Concord of the
Seven, who, as I said to thee, [were made] of Fire and Spirit
Nature delayed not, but immediately brought forth seven
men, in correspondence with the natures of the Seven, malefemale and moving in the air.
1

[There is a lacuna in the text which Mead has conjecturally filled in.]

C.H. I: POIMANDRES

Thereon [I said]: O Shepherd, . . .;1 for now Im filled with

great desire and long to hear; do not run off.2
The Shepherd said: Keep silence, for not as yet have I
unrolled for thee the first discourse (logos).
Lo! I am still, I said.
17. In such wise then, as I have said,3 the generation of these
seven came to pass. Earth was as woman, her Water filled with
longing; ripeness she took from Fire, spirit from ather. Nature
thus brought forth frames to suit the form of Man. And Man
from Life and Light changed into soul and mind,from Life to
soul, from Light to mind. And thus continued all the senseworlds parts until the period of their end and new beginnings.
18. Now listen to the rest of the discourse (logos) which thou
dost long to hear. The period being ended, the bond that bound
them all was loosened by Gods Will. For all the animals being
male-female, at the same time with man were loosed apart;
some became partly male, some in like fashion [partly] female.
And straightway God spake by His Holy Word (logos): Increase
ye in increasing, and multiply in multitude, ye creatures and
creations all; and man that hath Mind in him, let him learn to
know that he himself is deathless, and that the cause of death
is love, though Love is all.
19. When He said this, His Forethought did by means of Fate
and Harmony effect their couplings and their generations
founded. And so all things were multiplied according to their
kind. And he who thus hath learned to know himself, hath
reached that Good which doth transcend abundance; but he
who through a love that leads astray, expends his love upon his
body,he stays in Darkness wandering, and suffering through
his senses things of Death.
20. What is the so great fault, said I, the ignorant commit, that
they should be deprived of deathlessenss ?
Thou seemst, he said, O thou, not to have given heed to what
thou heardest. Did not I bid thee think?
[Lacuna.]
[A rather literal translation; do not digress or do not go too fast might be
more appropriate in the context.]
3 [Poimandres is thus the speaker again here, until the end of 19.]
1
2

CORPUS HERMETICUM

Yea do I think, and I remember, and therefore give Thee

thanks.
If thou didst think [thereon], [said He], tell me: Why do they
merit death who are in Death?
It is because the gloomy Darkness is the root and base of the
material frame; from it came the Moist Nature; from this the
body in the sense-world was composed; and from this body
Death doth the Water drain.
21. Right was thy thought, O thou! But how doth he who
knows himself, go unto Him, as Gods Word (logos) hath
declared?
And I reply: the Father of the universals doth consist of
Light and Life, and from Him Man was born.
Thou sayest well, [thus] speaking. Light and Life is FatherGod, and from Him Man was born. If then thou learnest that
thou art thyself of Life and Light, and that thou [only] happenst
to be out of them, thou shalt return again to Life. Thus did
Man-Shepherd speak.
But tell me further, Mind of me, I cried, how shall I come to
Life again . . . for God doth say: The man who hath Mind in
him, let him learn to know that he himself [is deathless].
22. Have not all men then Mind?
Thou sayest well, O thou, thus speaking. I, Mind, myself am
present with holy men and good, the pure and merciful, men who
live piously. [To such] my presence doth become an aid, and
straightway they gain gnosis of all things, and win the Fathers
love by their pure lives, and give Him thanks, invoking on Him
blessings, and chanting hymns, intent on Him with ardent love.
And ere they give the body up unto its proper death, they turn
them with disgust from its sensations, from knowledge of what
things they operate. Nay, it is I, the Mind, that will not let the
operations which befall the body, work to their [natural] end.
For being door-keeper Ill close up [all] the entrances, and cut
the mental actions off which base and evil energies induce.
23. But to the Mind-less ones, the wicked and depraved, the
envious and covetous, and those who murder do and love
impiety, I am far off, yielding my place to the Avenging

C.H. I: POIMANDRES

Daimon, who sharpening the fire, tormenteth him and addeth

fire to fie upon him, and rusheth on him through his senses,
thus rendering him the readier for transgressions of the law, so
that he meets with greater torment; nor doth he ever cease to
have desire for appetites inordinate, insatiably striving in the
dark.
24. Well hast thou taught me all, as I desired, O Mind. And
now, pray, tell me further of the nature of the Way Above as
now it is [for me].
To this Man-Shepherd said: When thy material body is to be
dissolved, firat thou surrenderest the body by iteelf unto the
work of change, and thus the form thou hadst doth vanish, and
thou aurrenderest thy way of life: void of its energy, unto the
Daimon. The bodys senses next pass back into their sources,
becoming separate, and resurrect as energies; and passion and
desires withdraw unto that nature which is void of reason.
25. And thus it is that man doth speed his way thereafter
upwards through the Harmony. To the first zone he gives the
Energy of Growth and Waning; unto the second [zone], Device
of Evils [now] de-energized; unto the third, the Guile of the
Desires de-energized; unto the fourth, his Domineering Arrogance, [also] de-energized; unto the fifth, unholy Daring and
the Rashness of Audacity, de-energized; unto the sixth, Striving
for Wealth by evil means, deprived of its aggrandisement; and
to the seventh zone, Ensnaring Falsehood, de-energized.
26. And then, with all the energizings of the Harmony stript
from him, clothed in his proper Power, he cometh to that
Nature which belongs unto the Eighth,1 and there with thosethat-are hymneth the Father. They who are there welcome his
coming there with joy; and he, made like to them that sojourn
there, doth further hear the Powers who are above the Nature
that belongs unto the Eighth, singing their songs of praise to
God in language of their own. And then they, in a band, go to
the Father home; of their own selves they make surrender of
themselves to Powers, and [thus] becoming Powers they are in
God. This the good end for those who have gained Gnosisto
1

[Compare NHC VI, 6, The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth.]

10

CORPUS HERMETICUM

be made one with God. Why shouldst thou then delay? Must it
not be, since thou hast all received, that thou shouldst to the
worthy point the way, in order that through thee the race of
mortal kind may by [thy] God be saved?
27. This when Hed said, Man-Shepherd mingled with the
Powers. But I, with thanks and blessings unto the Father of
the universal [Powers], was freed, full of the power He had
poured into me, and full of what Hed taught me of the nature
of the All and of the loftiest Vision. And I began to preach to
men the Beauty of Devotion and of Gnosis: O ye people, earthborn folk, ye who have given yourselves to drunkenness and
sleep and ignorance of God, be sober now, cease from your
surfeit, cease to be glamoured by irrational sleep !
28. And when they heard, they came with one accord. Whereon
I say: Ye earth-born folk, why have ye given up yourselves to
Death, while yet ye have the power of sharing Deathlessness?
Repent, O ye, who walk with Error arm in arm and make of
Ignorance the sharer of your board; get ye from out the light of
Darkness, and take your part in Deathlessness, forsake
Destruction!
29. And some of them with jests upon their lips departed [from
me], abandoning themselves unto the Way of Death; others
entreated to be taught, casting themselves before my feet. But
I made them arise, and I became a leader of the Race towards
home, teaching the words (logoi), how and in what way they
shall be saved. I sowed in them the words (logoi) of wisdom; of
Deathless Water were they given to drink. And when even was
come and all suns beams began to set, I bade them all give
thanks to God. And when they had brought to an end the
giving of their thanks, each man returned to his own resting
place.
30. But I recorded in my heart Man-Shepherds benefaction, and
with my every hope fulfilled more than rejoiced. For bodys
sleep became the soul's awakening, and closing of the eyes
true vision, pregnant with Good my silence, and the utterance
of my word (logos) begetting of good things. All this befell me
from my Mind, that is Man-Shepherd, Word (logos) of all

C.H. I: POIMANDRES

11

masterhood, by whom being God-inspired I came unto the Plain

of Truth. Wherefore with all my soul and strength thanksgiving give I unto Father-God.
31. Holy art Thou, O God, the universals Father.
Holy art Thou, O God, whose Will perfects itself by means of
its own Powers.
Holy art Thou, O God, who willeth to be known and art
known by Thine own.
Holy art Thou, who didst by Word (logos) make to consist the
things that are.
Holy art Thou, of whom All-nature hath been made an
Image.
Holy art Thou, whose Form Nature hath never made.
Holy art Thou, more powerful than all power.
Holy art Thou, transcending all pre-eminence.
Holy Thou art, Thou better than all praise.
Accept my reasons offerings pure, from soul and heart for
aye stretched up to Thee, O Thou unutterable, unspeakable,
Whose Name naught but the Silence can express.
32. Give ear to me who pray that I may neer of Gnosis fail,
[Gnosis] which is our common beings nature; and fill me with
Thy Power, and with this Grace [of Thine], that I may give the
Light to those in ignorance of the Race, my Brethren, and Thy
Sons. For this cause I believe, and I bear witness; I go to Life
and Light. Blessed art Thou, O Father. Thy Man would holy
be as Thou art holy, een as Thou gavest him Thy full authority
[to be].

C.H. II: To Asclepius1

1. Hermes. All that is moved, Asclepius, is it not moved in
something and by something?
Asclepius. Assuredly.
Her. And must not that in which its moved be greater than
the moved?
Asc. It must.
Her. Mover, again, has greater power than the moved?
Asc. It has, of course.
Her. The nature, furthermore, of that in which its moved
must be quite other from the nature of the moved?
Asc. It must, completely.
2. Her. Is not, again, this cosmos vast, [so vast] that than it
there exists no body greater?
Asc. Assuredly.
Her. And massive too, for it is crammed with multitudes of
other frames, nay rather all the other bodies that there are?
Asc. It is.
Her. And yet cosmos is a body?
Asc. It is a body.
Her. And one thats moved?
3. Asc. Assuredly.
Her. Of what size, then, must be the space2 in which its
moved; and of what kind [must be] the nature [of that space]?
Must it not be far vaster [than the cosmos], in order that it may
be able to find room for its continued course, so that the moved
may not be cramped for want of room and lose its motion?
Asc. Something, Thrice-greatest one, it needs must be,
immensely vast
1 [The title is Meads. In the earliest known MS., C.H. I is followed by a title:
Hermes to Tat: General Sermon which clearly does not belong to this
discourse, a dialogue in which Asclepius is the interlocuter; several pages
including the title and possibly opening of the present work thus apparently
went missing from the prototype MS. of the Corpus. The bulk of this discourse
also appears in the anthology of Stobus; the Stobus excerpt begins at the
same point as that in the C.H. MSS.]
2 [Space throughout renders the Greek topoj; Copenhaver has place.]

12

C.H. II

13

4. Her. And of what nature? Must it not be, Asclepius, of just

the contrary? And is not contrary to body bodiless?
Asc. Agreed.
Her. Space, then, is bodiless. But bodiless must either be
some godlike thing or God [Himself]. And by some godlike
thing I mean no more the generable but the ingenerable.
5. If, then, space be some godlike thing, it is substantial; but if
tis God [Himself], it transcends substance. But it is to be
thought of otherwise [than God], and in this way. God is first
thinkable for us, not for Himself, for that the thing thats
thought doth fall beneath the thinkers sense. God then can
not be thinkable unto Himself, in that Hes thought of by
Himself as being nothing else than what He thinks. but He is
something else for us, and so Hes thought of by us.
6. If space is, therefore, to be thought, [it should] not, [then, be
thought as] God, but space. If God is also to be thought, [He
should] not [be conceived] as space, but energy that can contain
[all space]. Further, all that is moved is moved is moved not in
the moved but in the stable. And that which moves [another] is
of course stationary, for tis impossible that it should move with
it.
Asc. How is it, then, that things down here, Thrice-greatest
one, are moved with those that are [already] moved? For thou
hast said the errant spheres were moved by the inerrant one.
Her. This is not, O Asclepius, a moving with, but one against;
they are not moved with one another, but one against the other.
I is this contrariety which turneth the resistance of their motion
into rest. For that resistance is the rest of motion.
7. Hence, too, the errant spheres, being moved contrarily to the
inerrant one, are moved by one another by mutual contrariety,
[and also] by the stable one through contrariety itself. And this
can otherwise not be. The Bears up there, which neither set
nor rise,1 thinkst thou they rest or move?
Asc. They move, Thrice-greatest one.
Her. And what their motion, my Asclepius?
1 [Probably the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, although at the
latitude of Egypt, some of the stars of the former do appear to set.]

14

CORPUS HERMETICUM

Asc. Motion that turns for ever round the same.

Her. But revolutionmotion round sameis fixed by rest.
For round-the-same doth stop beyond-same. Beyond-same
then, being stopped, if it be steadied in round-samethe contrary stands firm, being rendered ever stable by its contrariety.
8. Of this Ill give thee here on earth an instance, which the eye
can see. Regard the animals down here,a man, for instance,
swimming! The water moves, yet the resistance of his hands
and feet give him stability, so that he is not borne along with it,
nor sunk thereby.
Asc. Thou hast, Thrice-greatest one, adduced a most clear
instance.
Her. All motion, then, is caused in station and by station.
The motion, therefore, of the cosmos (and of every other hylic
animal) will not be caused by things exterior to the cosmos, but
by things interior [outward] to the exteriorsuch [things] as
soul, or spirit, or some such other thing incorporal. Tis not its
body that doth move the living thing in it; nay, not even the
whole [body of the universe a lesser] body een though there be
no life in it.
9. Asc. What meanest thou by this, Thrice-greatest one? Is it
not bodies, then, that move the stock and stone and all the
other things inanimate?
Her. By no means, O Asclepius. The something-in-the-body,
the that-which-moves the thing inanhate, this surelys not a
body, for that it moves the two of them-both body of the lifter
and the lifted? So that a thing thats lifeless will not move a
lifeless thing. That which doth move [another thing] is
animate, in that it is the mover. Thou seest, then, how heavy
laden is the soul, for it alone doth lift two bodies. That things,
moreover, moved are moved in something as well as moved by
something is clear.
10. Asc. Yea, O Thrice-greatest one, things moved must needs
be moved in something void.
Her. Thou sayest well, O [my] Asclepius! For naught of
things that are is void. Alone the is-not s void [and] stranger
to subsistence. For that which is subsistent can never change
to void.

C.H. II

15

Asc. Are there, then, O Thrice-greatest one, no such things

as an empty cask, for instance, and an empty jar, a cup and
vat, and other things like unto them ?
Her. Alack, Asclepius, for thy far-wandering from the truth!
Thinkst thou that things most full and most replete are void?
11. Asc. How meanest thou, Thrice-greatest one?
Her. Is not air body?
Asc. It is.
Her. And doth this body not pervade all things, and so,
pervading, fill them? And body; doth body not consist from
blending of the four? Full, then, of air are all thou callest
void; and if of air, then of the four. Further, of this the
converse follows, that all thou callest full are voidof air; for
that they have their space filled out with other bodies, and,
therefore, are not able to receive the air therein. These, then,
which thou dost say are void, they should be hollow named, not
void; for they not only are, but they are full of air and spirit.
12. Asc. Thy argument (logos),Thrice-greatest one, is not to be
gainsaid; air is a body. Further, it is this body which doth
pervade all things, and so, pervading, fill them. What are we,
then, to call that space in which the all doth move?
Her. The Bodiless, Asclepius.
Asc. What, then, is Bodiless?
Her. Tis Mind and Reason (logos), whole out of whole, all
self-embracing, free from all body, from all error free,
unsensible to body and untouchable, self stayed in self,
containing all, preserving those that are, whose rays, to use a
likeness, are Good, Truth, Light beyond light, the Archetype of
soul.
Asc. What, then, is God?
13. Her. Not any one of these is He; for He it is that causeth
them to be, both all and each and every thing of all that are.
Nor hath He left a thing beside that is-not; but they are all
from things-that-are and not from things-that-are-not. For
that the things-that-are-not have naturally no power of being
anything, but rather have the nature of the inability-to-be.
And, conversely, the things-that-are have not the nature of
some time not-being.

16

CORPUS HERMETICUM

14. Asc. What sayst thou ever, then, God is?

Her. God, therefore, is not Mind, but Cause that the Mind is;
God is not Spirit, but Cause that Spirit is; God is not Light, but
Cause that the Light is. Hence should one honour God with
these two names [the Good and Father]names which pertain
to Him alone and no one else. For no one of the other so-called
gods, no one of men, or daimones, can be in any measure Good,
but God alone; and He is Good alone and nothing else. The rest
of things are separable all from the Goods nature; for [all the
rest] are soul and body, which have no space that can contain
the Good.
15. For that as mighty is the Greatness of the Good as is the
Being of all things that areboth bodies and things bodiless,
things sensible and intelligible things. Call not thou, therefore,
aught else Good, for thou wouldst impious be; nor anything at
all at any time call God but Good alone, for so thou wouldst
again be impious.
16. Though, then, the Good is spoken of by all, it is not understood by all, what thing it is. Not only, then, is God not
understood by all, but both unto the gods and some of men they
out of ignorance do give the name of Good, though they can
never either be or become Good. For they are very different
from God, while Good can never be distinguished from Him, for
that God is the same as Good. The rest of the immortal ones
are natheless honoured with the name of God, and spoken of as
gods; but God is Good not out of courtesy but out of nature. For
that Gods nature and the Good is one; one is the kind of both,
from which all other kinds [proceed]. The Good is He who gives
all things and naught receives. God, then, doth give all things
and receive naught. God, then, is Good, and Good is God.
17. The other name of God is Father, again because He is the
that-which-maketh all. The part of father is to make. Wherefore child-making is a very great and a most pious thing in life
for them who think aright, and to leave life on earth without a
child a very great misfortune and impiety; and he who hath no
child is punished by the daimons after death. And this the
punishment: that that mans soul who hath no child, shall be
condemned unto a body with neither mans nor womans

C.H. II

17

nature, a thing accurst beneath the sun. Wherefore, Asclepius,

let not your sympathies be with the man who hath no child, but
rather pity his mishap, knowing what punishment abides for
him. Let all that has been said, then, be to thee, Asclepius, an
introduction to the gnosis of the nature of all things.1

1 [This final paragraph seems somewhat at odds with the highly ascetic tone of
other passages in the Corpus Hermeticum (e.g., parts of I, most of IV, the first
half or so of XII, much of XIII) and has indeed been suggested (Zielinski (1905),
cited by Copenhaver, Hermetica, note to C.H. II.17) as being a polemic against
world-denying Platonic asceticism. Mead in his commentary points out that in
Hinduism, adopting the ascetic life of a religious recluse or wanderer would
only normally be acceptable for one who has already lived the life of a householder and raised children to adulthood.
More generally, this tension has been taken by some commentators as indicating not simply diversity of authorship but the existence of rival Hermetic
schools characterised as optimist on the one hand and pessimist or dualist
on the other. If, though, these works were indeed the production of a MysteryCult which recognised successive grades of initiation or stage of gnsis, it is
possible that the difference of attitude to the mani(n)fested kosmos rather
changed according to what was felt appropriate to each stage, with optimist
logoi targetted at those less advanced students who were only beginning to
sepearate themselves from the world and the dualist ones for those deemed
closer to final liberation (Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, cited by Cophenhaver,
Hermetica, Introduction xxxix); Mead holds a similar position position in some
respects (e.g. in his commentary on C.H. VI) but argues in the opposite
direction, that the doctrine of hating the body &c. is more generally found in
the logoi addressed to Tat, who represents the less advanced student (see C.H.
XIII:2-3 and XIV:1) whereas the more advanced Asclepius gets the more positive
world-affirming sermons (though V, one of the more optimistic tracts
according to Festugire (cited by Copenhaver, note on C.H. V:3) is among the
Tat-discourses); and those where Hermes, rather than addressing a student is
receiving revelations direct from divine figures, include the mixed C.H. I and
the generally optimistic C.H. XI.]

C.H. III: A Sacred Sermon of Hermes

1. THE glory of all things is God, Godhead and Godly Nature.
Source of the things that are is God, who is both Mind and
Nature,yea Matter, the Wisdom that reveals all things.
Source [too] is Godhead,yea Nature, Energy, Necessity, and
End, and Making-new-again. Darkness that knew no bounds
was in Abyss, and Water [too] and subtle Breath intelligent;
these were by Power of God in Chaos. Then Holy Light arose;
and there collected neath Dry Space from out Moist Essence
Elements; all all the Gods do separate things out from fecund
Nature.
2. All things being undefined and yet unwrought, the light
things were assigned unto the height, the heavy ones had their
foundations laid down underneath the moist part of Dry Space,
the universal things being bounded off by Fire and hanged in
Breath to keep them up. And Heaven was seen in seven circles;
its Gods were visible in forms of stars with all their signs; while
Nature had her members made articulate together with the
Gods in her. And [Heavens] periphery revolved in cyclic
course, borne on by Breath of God.
3. And every God by his own proper power brought forth what
was appointed him. Thus there arose four-footed beasts, and
creeping things, and those that in the water dwell, and things
with wings, and everything that beareth seed, and grass, and
shoot of every flower, all having in themselves seed of againbecoming.1 And they selected out the births of men for gnosis
of the works of God and attestation of the energy of Nature; the
multitude of men for lordship over all beneath the Heaven and
gnosis of its blessings, that they might increase in increasing
and multiply in multitude, and every soul infleshed by
revolution of the Cyclic Gods, for observation of the marvels of
the Heaven and Heavens Gods revolution, and of the works of
[paliggenesiaj; used frequently in C.H. XIII whose main theme is a mystical
rebirth, but nowhere else in the Corpus; it is probably meant in a different
sense here, especially since this tract is on the face of it represents a far less
pessimist and dualist gnsis than XIII.]
1

18

C.H. III: A SACRED SERMON OF HERMES

19

God and energy of Nature, for tokens of its blessings, for gnosis
of the power of God, that they might know the fates that follow
good and evil [deeds] and learn the cunning work of all good
arts.
4. [Thus] there begins their living and their growing wise,
according to the fate appointed by the revolution of the Cyclic
Gods, and their deceasing for this end. And there shall be
memorials mighty of their handiworks upon the earth, leaving
dim trace behind when cycles are renewed. For every birth of
flesh ensouled, and of the fruit of seed, and every handiwork,
though it decay, shall of necessity renew itself, both by the
renovation of the Gods and by the turning-round of Natures
rhythmic wheel. For that whereas the Godhead is Natures
evermaking-new-again the cosmic mixture, Nature herself is
also co-established in that Godhead.

C.H. IV: The Cup1 or Monad

Hermes to Tat
1. Hermes. With Reason (logos), not with hands, did the Worldmaker make the universal World; so that thou thus shouldst
think of Him as everywhere and ever-being, the Author of all
things, and One and Only, who by His Will all beings hath
created. This Body of Him is a thing no man can touch, or see,
or measure, a Body inextensible, like to no other frame. Tis
neither Fire nor Water, Air nor Breath; yet all of them come
from it. Now being Good He willed to consecrate this [Body] to
Himself alone, and set its Earth in order and adorn it.
2. So down [to Earth] He sent the Cosmos of this Frame
Divine,man, a life that cannot die, and yet a life that dies.
And oer [all other] lives and over Cosmos [too], did man excel
by reason of the Reason (logos) and the Mind. For contemplator of Gods works did man become; he marvelled and did
strive to know their Author.
3. Reason (logos) indeed, O Tat, among all men hath He
distributed, but Mind not yet; not that He grudgeth any, for
grudging cometh not from Him, but hath its place below, within
the souls of men who have no Mind.2
Tat. Why then did God, O father, not on all bestow a share
of Mind?
Her. He willed, my son, to have it set up in the midst for
souls, just as it were a prize.
4. Tat. And where hath He had it set up?
Her. He filled a mighty Cup with it, and sent it down,
joining a Herald [to it], to whom He gave command to make
this proclamation to the hearts of men: Baptize3 thyself with
this Cups baptism, what heart can do so, thou that hast faith
thou canst ascend to Him that hath sent down the Cup, thou
that dost know for what thou didst come into being! As many
[Krathr is perhaps better rendered mixing bowl.]
[This appears to refer to the doctrine of C.H. I 22-23.]
3 [The Greek literally means immerse.]
1
2

20

C.H. IV: THE CUP, OR MONAD

21

then as understood the Heralds tidings and doused themselves

in Mind, became partakers in the Gnosis; and when they had
received the Mind they were made perfect men. But they
who do not understand the tidings, these, since they possess
the aid of Reason (logos) [only] and not Mind, are ignorant
wherefor they have come into being and whereby.
5. The senses of such men are like irrational creatures; and as
their [whole] make-up is in their feelings and their impulses,
they fail in all appreciation of those things which really are
worth contemplation. These centre all their thought upon the
pleasures of the body and its appetites, in the belief that for its
sake man hath come into being. But they who have received
some portion of Gods giftsthese, Tat, if we judge by their
deeds, have from Deaths bonds won their release; for they
embrace in their own Mind all things, things on the earth,
things in the heaven, and things above the heaven,if there be
aught. And having raised themselves so far they sight the
Good; and having sighted It, they look upon their sojourn here
as a mischance; and in disdain of all, both things in body and
the bodiless, they speed their way unto that One and Only One.
6. This is, O Tat, the Gnosis of the Mind, Vision of things
Divine; God-knowledge is it, for the Cup is Gods.
Tat. Father, I, too, would be baptized.
Her. Unless thou first shalt hate thy Body, son, thou canst
not love thy Self. But if thou lovst thy Self thou shalt have
Mind, and having Mind thou shalt share in the Gnosis.
Tat. Rather, what dost thou mean?
Her. It is not possible, my son, to give thyself to both,I
mean to things that perish and to things divine. For seeing
that existing things are twain, Body and Bodiless, in which the
perishing and the divine are understood, the man who hath the
will to choose is left the choice of one or other; for it can never
be the twain should meet. And in those souls to whom the
choice is left, the waning of the one causes the others growth to
show itself.
7. Now the choosing of the Better not only makes a lot most fair
for him who makes the choice, seeing it makes the man a God,
but also shows his piety to God. Whereas the [choosing] of the

22

CORPUS HERMETICUM

Worse, although it doth destroy the man, it only doth disturb

Gods harmony to this extent, that as processions pass by in the
middle of the way, without being able to do anything but take
the road from others, so do such men move in procession
through the world led by their bodies pleasures.
8. This being so, O Tat, what comes from God hath been and
will be ours; but that which is dependent on ourselves, let this
press onward and have no delay; for tis not God, tis we who
are the cause of evil things, preferring them to good. Thou
seest, son, how many are the bodies through which we have to
pass, how many are the choirs of daimones, how vast the
system of the star-courses [through which our Path doth lie], to
hasten to the One and Only God. For to the Good there is no
other shore; It hath no bounds; It is without an end, and for
Itself It is without beginning, too, though unto us it seemeth to
have onethe Gnosis.
9. Therefore to It Gnosis is no beginning; rather is it [that
Gnosis doth afford] to us the first beginning of Its being known.
Let us lay hold, therefore, of the beginning, and quickly speed
through all [we have to pass]. Tis very hard, to leave the
things we have grown used to, which meet our gaze on every
side, and turn ourselves back to the Old Old [Path].
Appearances delight us, whereas things which appear not
make their believing hard. Now evils are the more apparent
things, whereas the Good can never show Itself unto the eyes,
for It hath neither form nor figure. Therefore the Good is like
Itself alone, and unlike all things else; for tis impossible that
That which hath no body should make Itself apparent to a
body.
10. The Likes superiority to the Unlike and the Unlikes
inferiority unto the Like consists in this:
The Oneness1 being Source and Root of all, is in all things as
Root and Source. Without [this] Source is naught; whereas the
Source [Itself] is from naught but Itself, since It is Source of all
1 [Monj, the monad of the title.
This paragraph appears to begin a new
subject and it seems likely that the preceding sentence refers back to the
passage before and not forward to the discussion of the Monad, a concept
derived from Pythagoreanism.]

C.H. IV: THE CUP, OR MONAD

23

the rest. It is Itself Its Source, since It may have no other

Source. The Oneness then being Source, containeth every
number, but is contained by none; engendereth every number,
but is engendered by no other one.
11. Now all that is engendered is imperfect, it is divisible, to
increase subject and to decrease; but with the Perfect [One]
none of these things doth hold. Now that which is increasable
increases from the Oneness, but succumbs through its own
feebleness when it no longer can contain the One. And now, O
Tat, Gods Image hath been sketched for thee, as far as it can
be; and if thou wilt attentively dwell on it and observe it with
thy hearts eyes, believe me, son, thoult find the Path that
leads above; nay, that Image shall become thy Guide itself,
because the Sight [Divine] hath this peculiar [charm], it
holdeth fast and draweth unto it those who succeed in opening
their eyes, just as, they say, the magnet [draweth] iron.

C.H. V: Though Unmanifest

God is Most Manifest
Hermes to his son Tat

1. I WILL recount for thee this sermon (logos) too, O Tat, that
thou mayst cease to be without the mysteries of the God
beyond all name. And mark thou well how That which to the
many seems unmanifest, will grow most manifest for thee.
Now were It manifest, It would not be. For all that is made
manifest is subject to becoming, for it hath been made manifest.
But the Unmanifest for ever is, for It doth not desire to be
made manifest. It ever is, and maketh manifest all other
things. Being Himself unmanifest, as ever being and ever
making-maniest, Himself is not made manifest. God is not
made Himself; by thinking-manifest, He thinketh all things
manifest. Now, thinking-manifest deals with all things made
alone, for thinking-manifest is nothing else than making.
2. He, then, alone who is not made, tis clear, is both beyond all
power of thinking-manifest, and is unmanifest. And as He
thinketh all things manifest, He manifests through all things
and in all, and most of all in whatsoever things He wills to
manifest. Do thou, then, Tat, my son, pray first unto our Lord
and Father, the One-and-Only One, from whom the One doth
come, to show His mercy unto thee, in order that thou mayest
have the power to catch a thought of this so mighty God, one
single beam of Him to shine into thy thinking. For thought
alone sees the Unmanifest, in that it is itself unmanifest. If,
then, thou hast the power, He will, Tat, manifest to thy mind's
eyes. The Lord begrudgeth not Himself to anything, but
manifests Himself through the whole world. Thou hast the
power of taking thought, of seeing it and grasping it in thy own
hands, and gazing face to face upon Gods Image. But if what
is within thee even is unmanifest to thee, how, then, shall He
Himself who is within thy self be manifest for thee by means of
[outer] eyes?

24

C.H. V: THOUGH UNMANIFEST GOD IS MOST MANIFEST

25

3. But if thou wouldst see Him, bethink thee of the sun,

bethink thee of moon's course, bethink thee of the order of the
stars. Who is the One who watcheth oer that order? For every
order hath its boundaries marked out by place and number.
The suns the greatest god of gods in heaven; to whom all of the
heavenly gods give place as unto king and master. And he, this
so-great one, he greater than the earth and sea, endures to
have above him circling smaller stars than him. Out of respect
to Whom, or out of fear of Whom, my son, [doth he do this]?
Nor like nor equal is the course each of these stars describes in
heaven. Who [then] is He who marketh out the manner of their
course and its extent?
4. The Bear up there that turneth round itself, and carries
round the whole cosmos with itWho is the owner of this
instrument? Who He who hath set round the sea its bounds?
Who He who hath set on its seat the earth? For, Tat, there is
someone who is the Maker and the Lord of all these things. It
could not be that number, place and measure could be kept
without someone to make them. No order whatsoever could be
made by that which lacketh place and lacketh measure; nay,
even this is not without a lord, my son. For if the orderless
lacks something, in that it is not lord of orders path, it also is
beneath a lord-the one who hath not yet ordained it order.
5. Would it were possible for thee to get thee wings, and soar
into the air, and, poised midway tween earth and heaven,
behold the earths solidity, the sea's fluidity (the flowings of its
streams), the spaciousness of air, fires swiftness, [and] the
coursing of the stars, the swiftness of heavens circuit round
them [all]! Most blessed sight were it, my son, to see all these
beneath one swaythe motionless in motion, and the
unmanifest made manifest; whereby is made this order of the
cosmos and the cosmos which we see of order.
6. If thou wouldst see Him too through things that suffer death,
both on the earth and in the deep; think of a mans being
fashioned in the womb, my son, and strictly scrutinize the art
of Him who fashions him, and learn who fashioneth this fair
and godly image of the Man. Who [then] is He who traceth out
the circles of the eyes; who He who boreth out the nostrils and

26

CORPUS HERMETICUM

the ears; who He who openeth [the portal of] the mouth; who
He who doth stretch out and tie the nerves; who He who
channels out the veins; who He who hardeneth the bones; who
He who covereth the flesh with skin; who He who separates the
fingers and the joints; who He who widens out a treading for
the feet; who He who diggeth out the ducts; who He who
spreadeth out the spleen; who He who shapeth heart like to a
pyramid; who He who setteth ribs together; who He who wideneth the liver out; who He who maketh lungs like to a sponge;
who He who maketh belly stretch so much; who He who doth
make prominent the parts most honourable, so that they may
be seen, while hiding out of sight those of least honour?
7. Behold how many arts [employed] on one material, how
many labours on one single sketch; and all exceeding fair, and
all in perfect measure, yet all diversified! Who made them all?
What mother, or what sire, save God alone, unmanifest, who
hath made all things by His Will?
8. And no one saith a statue or a picture comes to be without a
sculptor or [without] a painter; doth [then] such workmanship
as this exist without a Worker? What depth of blindness, what
deep impiety, what depth of ignorance! See, [then] thou neer,
son Tat, deprivest works of Worker! Nay, rather is He greater
than all names, so great is He, the Father of them all. For
verily He is the Only One; and this His work, to be a father.
9. So, if thou forcest me somewhat too bold, to speak, His being
is conceiving of all things and making [them]. And as without
its maker it is impossible that anything should be, so ever is He
not unless He ever makes all things, in heaven, in air, in earth,
in deep, in all of cosmos, in every part that is and that is not of
everything. For there is naught in all the world that is not He.
He is Himself, both things that are and things that are not.
The things that are He hath made manifest, He keepeth things
that are not in Himself.
10. He is the God beyond all name; He the unmanifest, He the
most manifest; He whom the mind [alone] can contemplate, He
visible unto the eyes [as well]; He is the one of no body, the one
of many bodies, nay, rather He of every body. Naught is there

C.H. V: THOUGH UNMANIFEST GOD IS MOST MANIFEST

27

which He is not. For all are He and He is all. And for this
cause hath He all names, in that they are one Fathers. And for
this cause hath He Himself no name, in that Hes Father of
[them] all. Who, then, may sing Thee praise of Thee, or [praise]
to Thee? Whither, again, am I to turn my eyes to sing Thy
praise; above, below, within, without? There is no way, no
place [is there] about Thee, nor any other thing of things that
are. All [are] in Thee; all [are] from Thee, O Thou who givest
all and takest naught, for Thou hast all and naught is there
Thou hast not.
11. And when, O Father, shall I hymn Thee? For none can seize
Thy hour or time. For what, again, shall I sing hymn? For
things that Thou hast made, or things Thou hast not? For
things Thou hast made manifest, or things Thou hast concealed?
How, further, shall I hymn Thee? As being of myself? As
having something of mine own? As being other? For that Thou
art whatever I may be; Thou art whatever I may do ; Thou art
whatever I may speak. For Thou art all, and there is nothing
else which Thou art not. Thou art all that which doth exist,
and Thou art what doth not exist,Mind when Thou thinkest,
and Father when Thou makest, and God when Thou dost
energize, and Good and Maker of all things
(For that the subtler part of matter is the air, of air the soul,
of soul tbe mind, and of mind God.)1

1 [This sentence is repeated from C.H. XII:14 and is probably a scribal gloss or
comment that got appended to the text in error.]

C.H. VI: In God Alone is Good and

Elsewhere Nowhere
1. GOOD, O Asclepius, is in none else save God alone; nay,
rather, Good is God Himself eternally. If it be so, [Good] must
be essence, from every kind of motion and becoming free
(though naught is free from It), possessed of stable energy
around Itself, never too little, nor too much, an ever-full supply.
[Though] one, yet [is It] source of all; for what supplieth all is
Good. When I, moreover, say [supplieth] altogether [all], it is
for ever Good. But this belongs to no one else save God alone.
For He stands not in need of any thing, so that desiring it He
should be bad; nor can a single thing of things that are be lost
to Him, on losing which He should be pained; for pain is part of
bad. Nor is there aught superior to Him, that He should be
subdued by it; nor any peer to Him to do Him wrong, or [so
that] He should fall in love on its account; nor aught that gives
no ear to Him, whereat He should grow angry; nor wiser aught,
for Him to envy.
2. Now as all these are non-existent in His being, what is there
left but Good alone? For just as naught of bad is to be found in
such transcendent Being, so too in no one of the rest will Good
be found. For in them all are all the other thingsboth in the
little and the great, both in each severally and in this living one
thats greater than them all and mightiest [of them]. For
things subject to birth abound in passions, birth in itself being
passible. But where theres passion, nowhere is there Good;
and where is Good, nowhere a single passion. For where is day,
nowhere is night; and where is night, day is nowhere.
Wherefore in genesis the Good can never be, but only be in the
ingenerate. But seeing that the sharing in all things hath been
bestowed on matter, so doth it share in Good. In this way is
the Cosmos good ; that, in so far as it doth make all things, as
far as making goes its Good, but in all other things it is not
Good. For its both passible and subject unto motion, and
maker of things passible.

28

C.H. VI: IN GOD ALONE IS GOOD

29

3. Whereas in man by greater or by less of bad is good

determined. For what is not too bad down here, is good; and
good down here is the least part of bad. It cannot, therefore, be
that good down here should be quite clean of bad, for down here
good is fouled with bad; and being fouled, it stays no longer
good, and staying not it changes into bad. In God alone, is,
therefore, Good, or rather Good is God Himself. So then,
Asclepius, the name alone of Good is found in men, the thing
itself nowhere [in them], for this can never be. For no material
body doth contain It,a thing bound on all sides by bad, by
labours, pains, desires and passions, by error and by foolish
thoughts. And greatest ill of all, Asclepius, is that each of these
things that have been said above, is thought down here to be
the greatest good. And what is still an even greater ill, is bellylust, the error that doth lead the band of all the other illsthe
thing that makes us turn down here from Good.
4. And I, for my own part, give thanks to God, that He hath cast
it in my mind about the Gnosis of the Good, that it can never be
It should be in the world. For that the world is fullness1 of
the bad, but God of Good, and Good of God. The excellencies of
the Beautiful are round the very essence [of the Good]; nay,
they do seem too pure, too unalloyed; perchance tis they that
are themselves Its essences. For one may dare to say,
Asclepius,if essence, sooth, He haveGods essence is the
Beautiful; the Beautiful is further also Good. There is no Good
that can be got from objects in the world. For all the things
that fall beneath the eye are imagethings and pictures as it
were; while those that do not meet [the eye are the realities],
especially the [essence] of tbe Beautiful and Good.2 Just as the
eye cannot see God, so can it not behold the Beautiful and
Good. For that they are integral parts of God, wedded to Him
alone, inseparate familiars, most beloved, with whom God is
Himself in love, or they with God.
5. If thou canst God conceive, thou shalt conceive the Beautiful
and God, transcending Light, made lighter than the Light by
God. That Beauty is beyond compare, inimitate that Good, een
[plhrwma; a technical term in some Gnostic systems.]
[Mead has conjecturally restored a lacuna in the text.]

1
2

30

CORPUS HERMETICUM

as God is Himself. As, then, thou dost conceive of God, conceive

the Beautiful and Good. For they cannot be joined with aught
of other things that live, since they can never be divorced from
God. Seekst thou for God, thou seekest for the Beautiful. One
is the Path that leadeth unto ItDevotion joined with Gnosis.
6. And thus it is that they who do not know and do not tread
Devotions Path, do dare to call man beautiful and good, though
he have neer een in his visions seen a whit thats Good, but is
enwrapped with every kind of bad, and thinks the bad is good,
and thus doth make unceasing use of it, and even feareth that
it should be taen from him, so straining every nerve not only to
preserve but even to increase it. Such are the things that men
call good and beautiful, Asclepius,things which we cannot
flee or hate; for hardest thing of all is that weve need of them
and cannot live without them.

C.H. VII: The Greatest Ill among Men

is Ignorance of God1
1. WHITHER stumble ye, sots, who have sopped up the wine of
ignorance unmixed, and can so far not carry it that ye already
even spew it forth? Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the
[true] eyes of the heart! And if ye cannot all, yet ye at least
who can! For that the ill of ignorance doth pour oer all the earth
and overwhelm the soul thats battened down within the body,
preventing it from fetching port within Salvations harbours.
2. Be then not carried off by the fierce flood, but using the
shore-current, ye who can, make for Salvations port, and,
harbouring there, seek ye for one to take you by the hand and
lead you unto Gnosis gates. Where shines clear Light, of every
darkness clean; where not a single soul is drunk, but sober all
they gaze with their hearts eyes on Him who willeth to be
seen. No ear can hear Him, nor can eye see Him, nor tongue
speak of Him, but [only] mind and heart. But first thou must
tear off from thee the cloak which thou dost wear,the web of
ignorance, the ground of bad, corruptions chain, the carapace
of darkness, the living death, sensations corpse, the tomb thou
carriest with thee, the robber in thy house, who through the
things he loveth, hateth thee, and through the things he
hateth, bears thee malice.
3. Such is the hateful cloak thou wearest,that throttles thee
[and holds thee] down to it, in order that thou mayst not gaze
above, and, having seen the Beauty of the Truth, and Good that
dwells therein, detest the bad of it; having found out the plot
that it hath schemed against thee, by making void of sense
those seeming things which men think senses. For that it hath
with mass of matter blocked them up and crammed them full of
loathsome lust, so that thou mayst not hear about the things
that thou shouldst hear, nor see the things that thou shouldst
see.

[This diatribe has no internal statement of authorship or addressee.]

31

C.H. VIII: That no one of Existing Things

doth Perish, but Men in Error Speak
of their Changes as Destructions and
as Deaths
[Hermes to Tat.]1

1. [Hermes.] Concerning Soul and Body, son, we now must

speak; in what way Soul is deathless, and whence comes the
activity in compoising and dissolving Body. For theres no
death for aught of things [that are]; the thought [this] word
conveys, is either void of fact, or [simply] by the knocking off a
syllable what is called death, doth stand for deathless. For
death is of destruction, and nothing in the Cosmos is destroyed.
For if Cosmos is second God, a life that cannot die, it cannot be
that any part of this immortal life should die. All things in
Cosmos are part of Cosmos, and most of all is man, the rational
animal.
2. For truly first of all, eternal and transcending birth, is God
the universals Maker. Second is he after His image, Cosmos,
brought into being by Him, sustained and fed by Him, made
deathless, as by his own Sire, living for aye, as ever free from
death. Now that which ever-liveth, differs from the Eternal; for
He hath not been brought to being by another, and even if He
have been brought to being, He hath not been brought into
being by Himself, but ever is brought into being. For the
Eternal, in that It is eternal, is the all. The Father is Himself
eternal of Himself, but Cosmos hath become eternal and
immortal by the Father.
3. And of the matter stored beneath it, the Father made of it a
universal body, and packing it together made it spherical
wrapping it round the life[a sphere] which is immortal in
itself, and that doth make materiality eternal. But He, the
Father, full-filled with His ideas, did sow the lives into the
1 [An interpolation by Mead.
The interlocuter is not named in the text or
original title; but the speaker addresses him as son which elsewhere in C.H. is
restricted to Tat.]

32

C.H. VIII: NONE OF EXISTING THINGS DOTH PERISH

33

sphere, and shut them in as in a cave, willing to order forth the

life with every kind of living. So He with deathlessness
enclosed the universal body, that matter might not wish to
separate itself from bodys composition, and so dissolve into its
own [original] unorder. For matter, son, when it was yet
incorporate, was in unorder. And it doth still retain down here
this [nature of unorder] enveloping the rest of the small lives
that increase-and-decrease which men call death.
4. It is round earthly lives that this unorder doth exist. For
that the bodies of the heavenly ones preserve one order allotted
to them from the Father as their rule; and it is by the
restoration of each one [of them] this order is preserved
indissolute. The restoration then of bodies on the earth is
[thus their] composition, whereas their dissolution restores
them to those bodies which can never be dissolved, that is to
say, which know no death. Privation, thus, of sense is brought
about, not loss of bodies.
5. Now the third lifeMan, after the image of the Cosmos
made, [and] having mind, after the Father's will, beyond all
earthly livesnot only doth have feeling with the second God,
but also hath conception of the first; for of the one tis sensible
as of a body, while of the other it conceives as bodiless and the
Good Mind.
[Tat.] Doth then this life not perish?
[Her.] Hush, son! and understand what God, what Cosmos
[is], what is a life that cannot die, and what a life subject to
dissolution. Yea, understand the Cosmos is by God and in God;
but Man by Cosmos and in Cosmos. The source and limit and
the constitution of all things is God.

C.H. IX: On Thought and Sense

That the Beautiful and Good is in God only
and Elsewhere Nowhere.
1. I GAVE the Perfect Sermon (logos), yesterday, Asclepius;1 today I think it right, as sequel thereunto, to go through point by
point the Sermon about Sense. Now sense and thought do
seem to differ, in that the former has to do with matter, the
latter has to do with substance. But unto me both seem to be
at-one and not to differin men I mean. In other lives sense is
at-oned with nature, but in men thought. Now mind doth differ
just as much from thought as God doth from divinity. For that
divinity by God doth come to be, and by mind thought, the
sister of the word (logos) and instruments of one another. For
neither doth the word (logos) find utterance without thought,
nor is thought manifested without word.
2. So sense and thought both flow together into man, as though
they were entwined with one another. For neither without sensing can one think, nor without thinking sense. But it is possible
[they say] to think a thing apart from sense, as those who fancy
sights in dreams. But unto me it seems that both of these
activities occur in dream-sight, and sense doth pass out of the
sleeping to the waking state. For man is separated into soul and
body, and only when the two sides of his sense agree together,
does utterance of its thought conceived by mind take place.
3. For it is mind that doth conceive all thoughtsgood thoughts
when it receives the seeds from God, their contraries when [it
receiveth them] from one of the daimonials; no part of Cosmos
being free of daimon, who stealthily doth creep into the daimon
whos illumined by Gods Light: and sow in him the seed of its
own energy. And mind conceives the seed thus sown, adultery,
murder, parricide, [and] sacrilege, impiety, [and] strangling,
casting down precipices, and all such other deeds as are the
work of evil daimones.
1 [Logos teleios is the probable original title of the long discourse more commonly known as the Asclepius.]

34

C.H. IX: ON THOUGHT AND SENSE

35

4. The seeds of God, tis true, are few, but vast and fair, and
good-virtue and self-control, devotion. Devotion is God-gnosis;
and he who knoweth God, being filled with all good things,
thinks godly thoughts and not thoughts like the many [think].
For this cause they who Gnostic are, please not the many, nor
the many them. They are thought mad and laughed at; theyre
hated and despised, and sometimes even put to death. For we
did say that bad must needs dwell here on earth, where tis in
its own place. Its place is earth, and not Cosmos, as some will
sometimes say with impious tongue. But he who is a devotee of
God, will bear with allonce he has sensed the Gnosis. For
such an one all things, een though they be for others bad, are
for him good; deliberately he doth refer them all unto the
Gnosis. And, thing most marvellous, tis he alone who maketh
bad things good.
5. But I return once more to the Discourse (logos) on Sense.
That sense doth share with thought in man, doth constitute
him man. But tis not [every] man, as I have said, who benefits
by thought; for this man is material, that other one substantial.
For the material man, as I have said, [consorting] with the bad,
doth have his seed of thought from daimons; while the substantial men [consorting] with the Good, are saved by God.
Now God is Maker of all things, and in His making, He maketh
all [at last] like to Himself; but they, while theyre becoming
good by exercise of their activity, are unproductive things. It is
the working of the Cosmic Course that maketh their becomings
what they are, befouling some of them with bad and others of
them making clean with good. For Cosmos, too, Asclepius,
possesseth sense-and-thought peculiar to itself, not like to that
of man; tis not so manifold, but as it were a better and a
simpler one.
6. The single sense-and-thought of Cosmos is to make all
things, and make them back into itself again, as Organ of the
Will of God, so organised that it, receiving all the seeds into
itself from God, and keeping them within itself, may make all
manifest, and [then] dissolving them, make them all new again;
and thus, like a Good Gardener of Life, things that have been
dissolved, it taketh to itself, and giveth them renewal once

36

CORPUS HERMETICUM

again. There is no thing to which it gives not life; but taking all
unto itself it makes them live, and is at the same time the
Place of Life and its Creator.
7. Now bodies matter [-made] are in diversity. Some are of
earth, of water some, some are of air, and some of fire. But
they are all composed; some are more [composite], and some
are simpler. The heavier ones are more [composed], the lighter
less so. It is the speed of Cosmos Course that works the
manifoldness of the kinds of births. For being a most swift
Breath, it doth bestow their qualities on bodies together with
the One Pleromathat of Life.
8. God, then, is Sire of Cosmos; Cosmos, of [all] in Cosmos. And
Cosmos is Gods Son; but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos. And
properly hath it been called Cosmos [Order]; for that it orders
all with their diversity of birth, with its not leaving aught
without its life, with the unweariedness of its activity, the
speed of its necessity, the composition of its elements, and
order of its creatures. The same, then, of necessity and of
propriety should have the name of Order. The sense-andthought, then, of all lives doth come into them from without,
inbreathed by what contains [them all]; whereas Cosmos
receives them once for all together with its coming into being,
and keeps them as a gift from God.
9. But God is not, as some suppose, beyond the reach of senseand-thought. It is through superstition men thus impiously
speak. For all the things that are, Asclepius, all are in God, are
brought by God to be, and do depend on Himboth things that
act through bodies, and things that through soul-substance
make [other things] to move, and things that make things live by
means of spirit, and things that take unto themselves the things
that are worn out. And rightly so; nay, I would rather say, He
doth not have these things; but I speak forth the truth, He is
them all Himself. He doth not get them from without, but gives
them out [from Him]. This is Gods sense-and-thought, ever to
move all things. And never time shall be when een a whit of
things that are shall cease; and when I say a whit of things
that are, I mean a whit of God. For things that are, God hath;
nor aught [is there] without Him, nor [is] He without aught.

C.H. IX: ON THOUGHT AND SENSE

37

10. These things should seem to thee, Asclepius, if thou dost

understand them, true; but if thou dost not understand, things
not to be believed. To understand is to believe, to not believe is
not to understand. My word (logos) doth go before [thee] to the
truth. But mighty is the mind, and when it hath been led by
word up to a certain point, it hath the power to come before
[thee] to the truth. And having thought oer all these things,
and found them consonant with those which have already been
translated by the reason, it hath [een now] believed, and found
its rest in that Fair Faith. To those, then, who by God[s good
aid] do understand the things that have been said [by us]
above, theyre credible; but unto those who understand them
not, incredible. Let so much, then, suffice on thought-andsense.

C.H. X: The Key

Of Thrice-Greatest Hermes
1. Hermes. My yesterdays discourse (logos) I did devote to
thee, Asclepius, and so tis [only] right I should devote to-days
to Tat; and this the more because tis the abridgement of the
General Sermons (Logoi) which he has had addressed to him.
God, Father and the Good, then, Tat, hath the same nature,
or more exactly, energy. For nature is a predicate of growth,
and used of things that change, both mobile and immobile, that
is to say, both human and divine, each one of which He willeth
into being. But energy consists in something else, as we have
shown in treating of the rest, both things divine and human
things; which thing we ought to have in mind when treating of
the Good.
2. Gods energy is then His Will; further His essence is to will
the being of all things. For what is God and Father and the
Good but the to be of all that are not yet? Nay, subsistence a
self of everything that is;this, then, is God, this Father, this
the Good; to Him is added naught of all the rest. And though
the Cosmos, that is to say the Sun, is also sire himself to them
that share in him; yet so far is be not the cause of good unto the
lives, he is not even of their living. So that een if he be a sire,
he is entirely so by the compulsion of the Goods Good-will,
apart from which nor being nor becoming could eer be.
3. Again, the parent is the childrens cause, both on the fathers
and the mothers side, only by sharing in the Goods desire
[that doth pour] through the Sun. It is the Good which doeth
the creating. And such a power can be possessed by no one else
than Him alone who taketh naught, but wills all things to be; I
will not, Tat, say makes. For that the maker is defective for long
periods (in which he sometimes makes, and sometimes doth not
make) both in the quality and in the quantity [of what he
makes]; in that he sometimes maketh them so many and such
like, and sometimes the reverse. But God and Father and the
Good is [cause] for all to be. So are at least these things for
who can see.
38

C.H. X: THE KEY

39

4. For It doth will to be, and It is both Itself and most of all by
reason of Itself. Indeed all other things beside are just because
of It; for the distinctive feature of the Good is that it should be
known. Such is the Good, O Tat.
Tat. Thou hast, O father, filled us so full of this so good and
fairest Sight, that thereby my minds eye hath now become for
me almost a thing to worship. For that the Vision of the Good
doth not, like the suns beam, fire-like blaze on the eyes and
make them close; nay, on the contrary, it shineth forth and
maketh to increase the seeing of the eye, as far as eer a man
hath the capacity to hold the inflow of the radiance that the
mind alone can see. Not only does it come more swiftly down to
us, but it does us no harm, and is instinct with all immortal life.
5. They who are able to drink in a somewhat more than others
of this Sight, ofttimes from out the body fall asleep into this
fairest Spectacle, as was the case with Uranus and Cronus, our
forebears. May this be our lot too, O father mine!
Her. Yea, may it be, my son! But as it is, we are not yet
strung to the Vision, and not as yet have we the power our
minds eye to unfold and gaze upon the Beauty of the GoodBeauty that naught can eer corrupt or any comprehend. For
[only] then wilt thou upon It gaze when thou canst say no word
concerning It. For Gnosis of the Good is holy silence and a
giving holiday to every sense.
6. For neither can he who perceiveth It, perceive aught else; nor
he who gazeth on It, gaze on aught else; nor hear aught else,
nor stir his body any way. Staying his bodys every sense and
every motion he stayeth still. And shining then all round his
mind, It shines through his whole soul, and draws it out of
body, transforming all of him to essence. For it is possible, my
son, that a mans soul should be made like to God, een while it
still is in a body, if it doth contemplate the Beauty of the Good.
7. Tat. Made like to God! what dost thou, father, mean?
Her. Of every soul apart are transformations, son.
Tat. That meanest thou? Apart!
Her. Didst thou not, in the General Sermons, hear that from
One Soulthe All-soulcome all these souls which are made to
revolve in all the cosmos, as though divided off? Of these souls,

CORPUS HERMETICUM

40

then, it is that there are many changes, some to a happier lot

and some to [just] the contrary of this. Thus some that were
once creeping things change into things that in the water dwell,
the souls of water things change to earth-dwellers, those that
live on the earth change into things with wings, and souls that
live in air change into men, while human souls reach the first
step of deathlessness changed into daimones. And so they
circle to the choir of the Inerrant Gods; for of the Gods there
are two choirs, the one Inerrant, and the other Errant. And
this is the most perfect glory of the soul.
8. But if a soul on entering in the body of a man persisteth in its
vice, it neither tasteth deathlessness nor shareth in the Good;
but speeding back again it turns into the path that leads to
creeping things. This is the sentence of the vicious soul. And
the souls vice is ignorance. For that the soul who hath no
knowledge of the things that are, or knowledge of their nature,
or of Good, is blinded by the bodys passions and tossed about.
This wretched soul, not knowing what she is, becomes the slave
of bodies of strange form in sorry plight, bearing the body as a
load; not as the ruler, but the ruled. This [ignorance] is the
souls vice.
9. But on the other hand the virtue of the soul is Gnosis. For he
who knows, he good and pious is, and still while on the earth
divine.
Tat. But who is such an one, O father mine?
Her. He who doth not say much or lend his ear to much. For
he who spendeth time in arguing and hearing arguments, doth
shadow fight. For God, the Father and the Good, is not to be
obtained by speech or hearing. And yet though this is so, there
are in all the beings senses, in that they cannot without senses
be. But Gnosis is far different from sense. For sense is brought
about by that which hath the mastery oer us, while Gnosis is
the end of science,1 and science is Gods gift.
10. All science is incorporal, the instrument it uses being the
mind, just as the mind employs the body. Both then come into
bodies, [I mean] both things that are cognizable by mind alone
1

[pisthmhj. Copenhaver has learning.]

C.H. X: THE KEY

41

and things material. For all things must consist out of

antithesis and contrariety; and this can otherwise not be.
Tat. Who then is this material God of whom thou speakest?
Her. Cosmos is beautiful, but is not goodfor that it is
material and freely passible; and though it is the first of all
things passible, yet 'is it in the second rank of being and
wanting in itself. And though it never hath itself its birth in
time, but ever is, yet is its being in becoming, becoming for all
time the genesis of qualities and quantities; for it is mobile and
all material motions genesis.1
11. It is intelligible rest that moves material motion in this way:
since Cosmos is a spherethat is to say, a head. And naught of
head aboves material, as naught of feet belows intelligible, but
all material. And head itself moved in a sphere-like waythat
is to say, as head should move, is mind. All then that are
united to the tissue of this head (in which is soul) are in
their nature free from death,just as when body hath been
made in soul, are things that have more soul than body.
Whereas those things which are at greater distance from this
tissuethere, where are things which have a greater share of
body than of soulare by their nature subject unto death. The
whole, however, is a life; so that the universe consists of both
the hylic and of the intelligible.
12. Again, the Cosmos is the first of living things, while man is
second after it, though first of things subject to death. Man
hath the same ensouling power in him as all the rest of living
things; yet is he not only not good, but even evil, for that hes
subject unto death. For though the Cosmos also is not good in
that it suffers motion, it is not evil, in that it is not subject unto
death. But man, in that hes subject both to motion and to
death, is evil.
13. Now then the principles of man are thiswise vehicled: mind
in the reason (logos), the reason in the soul, soul in the spirit,
[and] spirit in the body. Spirit pervading [body] by means of
veins and arteries and blood, bestows upon the living creature
motion, aud as it were doth bear it in a way. For this cause
1

[Or becoming.]

42

CORPUS HERMETICUM

some do think the soul is blood, in that they do mistake its

nature, not knowing that [at death] it is the spirit that must
first withdraw into the soul, whereon the blood congeals and
veins and arteries are emptied, and then the living creature is
withdrawn; and this is bodys death.
14. Now from One Source all things depend; while Source
[dependeth] from the One and Only [One]. Source is, moreover,
moved to become Source again; whereas the One standeth perpetually and is not moved. Three then are they: God, the
Father and the Good, Cosmos and man. God doth contain
Cosmos; Cosmos [containeth] man. Cosmos is eer God's Son,
man as it were Cosmoss child.
15. Not that, however, God ignoreth man; nay, right well doth
He know him, and willeth to be known. This is the sole
salvation for a man-Gods Gnosis. This is the Way Up to the
Mount.1 By Him alone the soul becometh good, not whiles is
good, whiles evil, but [good] out of necessity.
Tat. What dost thou mean, Thrice-greatest one ?
Her. Behold an infants soul, my son, that is not yet cut off because its body is still small and not as yet come unto its full bulk.
Tat. How?
Her. A thing of beauty altogether is [such a soul] to see, not
yet befouled by bodys passions, still all but hanging from the
Cosmic Soul! But when the body grows in bulk and draweth
down the soul into its mass, then doth the soul cut off itself and
bring upon itself forgetfulness, and no more shareth in the
Beautiful and Good. And this forgetfulness becometh vice.
16. It is the same for them who go out from the body. For when
the soul withdraws into itself, the spirit doth contract itself
within the blood, and soul within the spirit. And then the mind,
stript of its wrappings, and naturally divine, taking unto itself a
fiery body, doth traverse every space, after abandoning the soul
unto its judgment and whatever chastisement it hath deserved.
Tat. What dost thou, father, mean by this? The mind is
parted from the soul and soul from spirit? Whereas thou saidst
the soul was the minds vesture, and the souls the spirit.
1

lit., to Olympus.

C.H. X: THE KEY

43

17. Her. The hearer, son, should think with him who speaks
and breathe with him; nay, he should have a hearing subtler
than the voice of him who speaks. It is, son, in a body made of
earth that this arrangement of the vestures comes to pass. For
in a body made of earth it is impossible the mind should take
its seat itself by its own self in nakedness. For neither is it
possible on the one hand the earthy body should contain such
immortality, nor on the other that so great a virtue should
endure a body passible in such close contact with it. It taketh,
then, the soul for as it were an envelope. And soul itself, being
too a thing divine, doth use the spirit as its envelope, while
spirit doth pervade the living creature.
18. When then the mind doth free itself from the earth-body, it
straightway putteth on its proper robe of fire, with which it
could not dwell in an earth-body. For earth doth not bear fire;
for it is all set in a blaze even by a small spark. And for this
cause is water poured round earth, to be a guard and wall, to
keep the blazing of the fire away. But mind, the swiftest thing
of all divine out-thinkings, and swifter than all elements, hath
for its body fire. For mind being builder1 doth use the fire as
tool for the construction of all thingsthe Mind of all [for the
construction] of all things, but that of man only for things on
earth. Stript of its fire the mind on earth cannot make things
divine, for it is human in its dispensation.
19. The soul in man, however,not every soul, but one that
pious isis a daimonic something and divine. And such a soul
when from the body freed, if it have fought the fight of piety
the fight of piety is to know God and to do wrong to no man
such soul becomes entirely mind. Whereas the impious soul
remains in its own essence, chastised by its own self, and
seeking for an earthy body where to enter, if only it be human.
For that no other body can contain a human soul; nor is it right
that any human soul should fall into the body of a thing that
doth possess no reason. For that the law of God is this: to
guard the human soul from such tremendous outrage.2
1

dhmiourgj.
[This appears to contradict 7-8, which can be read as teaching the ascent
and descent of soul through levels of being including the human.]
2

44

CORPUS HERMETICUM

20. Tat. How father, then, is a mans soul chastised?

Her. What greater chastisement of any human soul can
there be, son, than lack of piety? What fire has so fierce flame
as lack of piety? What ravenous beast so mauls the body as
lack of piety the very soul? Dost thou not see what hosts of ills
the impious soul doth bear? It shrieks and screams: I burn; I
am ablaze; I know not what to cry or do; ah, wretched me, I am
devoured by all the ills that compass me about; alack, poor me,
I neither see nor hear! Such are the cries wrung from a soul
chastised; not, as the many think, and thou, son, dost suppose,
that a [mans] soul, passing from body, is changed into a beast.
Such is a very grave mistake, for that the way a soul doth
suffer chastisement is this:
21. When mind becomes a daimon, the law requires that it
should take a fiery body to execute the services of God; and
entering in the soul most impious it scourgeth it with whips
made of its sins. And then the impious soul, scourged with its
sins, is plunged in murders, outrage, blasphemy, in violence of
all kinds, and all the other things whereby mankind is wronged.
But on the pious soul the mind doth mount and guide it to the
Gnosis Light. And such a soul doth never tire in songs of
praise [to God] and pouring blessing on all men, and doing good
in word and deed to all, in imitation of its Sire.
22. Wherefore, my son, thou shouldst give praise to God and
pray that thou mayst have thy mind Good [Mind]. It is, then, to
a better state the soul doth pass; it cannot to a worse. Further
there is an intercourse of souls; thee of the gods have intercourse with those of men, and those of men with souls of creatures which possess no reason. The higher, further, have in
charge the lower; the gods look after men, men after animals
irrational, while God hath charge of all; for He is higher than
them all and all are less than He. Cosmos is subject, then, to
God, man to the Cosmos, and irrationals to man. But God is oer
them all, and God contains them all. Gods rays, to use a figure,
are His energies; the Cosmoss are natures; the arts and sciences
are mans. The energies act through the Cosmos, thence through
the nature-rays of Cosmos upon man; the nature-rays [act] through
the elements; man [acteth] through the sciences and arts.

C.H. X: THE KEY

45

23. This is the dispensation of the universe, depending from the

nature of the One, pervading [all things] through the Mind, than
which is naught diviner or of greater energy; and naught a
greater means for the at-oning men to gods and gods to men.
He, [Mind,] is the Good Daimon. Blessed the soul that is most
filled with Him, and wretched is the soul thats empty of the
Mind.
Tat. Father, what dost thou mean, again?
Her. Dost think then, son, that every soul hath the Good
[Mind]? For tis of Him we speak, not of the mind in service of
which we just were speaking, the mind sent down for [the
souls] chastisement.
24. For soul without the mind can neither speak nor act.1 For
oftentimes the mind doth leave the soul, and at that time the
soul nor sees nor understands, but is just like a thing that hath
no reason. Such is the power of mind. Yet doth it not endure a
sluggish soul, but leaveth such a soul tied to the body and
bound tight down by it. Such soul, my son, doth not have Mind;
and therefore such an one should not be called a man. For that
man is a thing-of-life divine; man is not measured with the rest
of lives of things upon the earth, but with the lives above in
heaven, who are called gods. Nay more, if we must boldly
speak the truth, the true man is een higher than the gods, or
at the [very] least the gods and men are every whit in power
each with the other equal.
25. For no one of the gods in heaven shall come down on the
earth, oer-stepping heaven's limit; whereas man doth mount
up to heaven and measure it; he knows what things of it are
high, what things are low, and learns precisely all things else
besides. And greater thing than all; without een quitting
earth, he doth ascend above. So vast a sweep doth he possess
of ecstasy. For this cause can a man dare say that man on
earth is god subject to death, while god in heaven is man from
death immune. Wherefore the dispensation of all things is
brought about by means of these, the twainCosmos and
Manbut by the One.
1

[A quotation from the Elegies of the poet Theognis of Megera (fl. 6th century

B.C.E.).]

C.H. XI: Mind unto Hermes1

1. Mind. Master this sermon (logos),2 then, Thrice-greatest
Hermes, and bear in mind the spoken words; and as it hath
come unto Me to speak, I will no more delay.
Hermes. As many men say many things, and these diverse,
about the All and Good, I have not learned the truth. Make it,
then, clear to me, O Master mine! For I can trust the
explanation of these things, which comes from Thee alone.
2. Mind. Hear [then], My son, how standeth god and All. God;
on;3 Cosmos; Time; Becoming. God maketh on; on,
Cosmos; Cosmos, Time; and Time, Becoming. The Good,the
Beautiful, Wisdom, Blessedness,is essence, as it were, of God;
of on, Sameness; of Cosmos, Order; of Time, Change; and of
Becoming, Life and Death. The energies of God are Mind and
Soul; of on, lastingness, and deathlessness; of Cosmos,
restoration and the opposite thereof; of Time, increase and
decrease; and of Becoming, quality. on is, then, in God;
Cosmos, in on; in Cosmos, Time; in Time, Becoming. on
stands firm round God; Cosmos is moved in on; Time hath its
limits in the Cosmos; Becoming doth become in Time.
3. The source, therefore, of all is God; their essence, on; their
matter, Cosmos. Gods power is on; ons work is Cosmos
which never hath become, yet ever doth become by on.
Therefore will Cosmos never be destroyed, for ons
indestructible; nor doth a whit of things in Cosmos perish, for
Cosmos is enwrapped by on round on every side.
Her. But Gods Wisdomwhat is that?
1 [This discourse shares with C.H. I the form of a revelation-discourse where
Hermes receives teaching from a divine figure. The Nous of C.H. XI may be
intended to be identical with Poimandres in C.H. I, who is addressed by the
narrator twice as my mind.]
2 Or thy reason. [Copenhaver: Mark my words. Nock and Festugire moved
this sentence to after the first speech of Hermes to Nous.]
3 [Awn, eternity, apparently treated by Mead as a proper name of a divine
being or hypostasis and connected with the elaborate systems of ons found in
accounts of Christian Gnostic doctrines. The word occurs 27 times in C.H. XI
and three times in the rest of the Corpus.]

46

C.H. XI: MIND TO HERMES

47

Mind. The Good and Beautiful, and Blessedness, and Virtues

all, and on. on, then, ordereth [Cosmos], imparting deathlessness and lastingness to matter.
4. For its becoming doth depend on on, as on doth on God.
Now Genesis1 and Time, in Heaven and on the Earth, are of
two natures. In Heaven they are unchangeable and indestructible, but on the Earth theyre subject unto change and to
destruction. Further, the ons soul is God; the Cosmos soul is
on; the Earths soul, Heaven. And Gods in Mind; and Mind,
in Soul; and Soul, in Matter; and all of them through on. But
all this Body: in which are all the bodies, is full of Soul; and
Soul is full of Mind, and [Mind] of God. It fills it from within,
and from without encircles it, making the All to live. Without,
this vast and perfect Life [encircles] Cosmos; within, it fills [it
with] all lives; above, in Heaven, continuing in sameness;
below, on Earth, changing becoming.
5. And on doth preserve this [Cosmos], or by Necessity, or by
Foreknowledge, or by Nature, or by whatever else a man
supposes or shall suppose. And all is thi, God energizing.
The Energy of God is Power that naught can eer surpass, a
Power with which no one can make comparison of any human
thing at all, or any thing divine. Wherefore, O Hermes, never
think that aught of things above or things below is like to God,
for thou wilt fall from truth. For naught is like to That which
hath no like, and is Alone and One. And do not ever think that
any other can possibly possess His power; for what apart from
Him is there of life, and deathlessness and change of quality?
For what else should He make? Gods not inactive: since all
things [then] would lack activity; for all are full of God. But
neither in the Cosmos anywhere, nor in aught else, is there
inaction. For that inaction is a name that cannot be applied
to either what doth make or what is made.
6. But all things must be made; both ever made, and also in
accordance with the influence of every space. For He who
makes, is in them all; not stablished in some one of them, nor
making one thing only, but making all. For being Power, He
1

[Could also be translated becoming, here and elsewhere.]

48

CORPUS HERMETICUM

energiseth in the things He makes and is not independent of

them,although the things He makes are subject to Him. Now
gaze through Me upon the Cosmos thats now subject to thy
sight; regard its Beauty carefullyBody in pure perfection,
though one than which theres no more ancient one, ever in
prime of life, and ever-young, nay, rather, in even fuller and yet
fuller prime!
7. Behold, again, the seven subject Worlds; ordered by ons
order: and with their varied course full-filling on! [See how]
all things [are] full of light, and nowhere [is there] fire; for tis
the love and blending of the contraries and the dissimilars that
doth give birth to light down shining by the energy of God, the
Father of all good, the Leader of all order, and Ruler of the
seven world-orderings! [Behold] the Moon, forerunner of them
all, the instrument of nature, and the transmuter of its lower
matter! [Look at] the Earth set in the midst of All, foundation
of the Cosmos Beautiful, feeder and nurse of things on Earth!
And contemplate the multitude of deathless lives, how great it
is, and that of lives subject to death; and midway, between
both, immortal [lives] and mortal, [see thou] the circling Moon.
8. And all are full of Soul, and all are moved by it, each in its
proper way; some round the Heaven, others around the Earth;
[see] how the right [move] not unto left, nor yet the left unto
the right; nor the above below, nor the below above. And that
all these are subject unto Genesis, My dearest Hermes, thou
hast no longer need to learn of Me. For that they bodies are,
have souls, and they are moved. But tis impossible for them to
come together into one without some one to bring them [all]
together. It must, then, be that such a one as this must be
some one whos wholly One.
9. For as the many motions of them [all] are different, and as
their bodies are not like, yet has one speed been ordered for
them all, it is impossible that there should be two or more
makers for them. For that one single order is not kept among
the many; but rivalry will follow of the weaker with the
stronger, and they will strive. And if the maker of the lives
that suffer change and death, should be another, he would
desire to make the deathless ones as well; just as the maker of

C.H. XI: MIND TO HERMES

49

the deathless ones, [to make the lives] that suffer death. But
come! if there be two:if Matters one, and Soul is one, in
whose hands would there be the distribution a for the making?
Again, if both of them have some of it, in whose hands may
there be the greater part?
10. But thus conceive it, then; that every living body doth
consist of soul and matter, whether [that body be] of an
immortal, or a mortal, or an irrational [life]. For that all living
bodies are ensouled; whereas, upon the other hand, those that
live not, are matter by itself. And, in like fashion, Soul when in
its self is, after its own maker, cause of life; but the cause of all
life is He who makes the things that cannot die.
Her. How, then, is it that, first, lives subject unto death are
other than the deathless ones? And, next, how is it that that
Life which knows no death, and maketh deathlessness, doth
not make animals immortal?
11. Mind. First, that there is some one who does these things,
is clear; and, next, that He is also One, is very manifest. For,
also, Soul is one, and Life is one, and Matter one.
Her. But who is He ?
Mind. Who may it other be than the One God? Whom else
should it beseem to put Soul into lives but God alone? One,
then, is God. It would indeed be most ridiculous, if when thou
dost confess the Cosmos to be one, Sun one, Moon one, and
Godhead l one, thou shouldst wish God Himself to be some one
or other of a number !
12. All things, therefore, He makes, in many [ways]. And what
great thing is it for God to make life, soul, and deathlessness,
and change, when thou [thyself) dost do so many things? For
thou dost see, and speak, and hear, and smell, and taste, and
touch, and walk, and think, and breathe. And it is not one man
who smells, s second one who speaks, a third who touches,
another one who smells, another one who walks, another one
who thinks, and [yet] another one who breathes. But one is he
who doth all these. And yet no one of these could be apart from
God. For just as, shouldst thou cease from these, thou wouldst
no longer be a living thing, so also, should God cease from them
(a thing not law to say), no longer is He God.

50

CORPUS HERMETICUM

13. For if it hath been shown that no thing can [inactive]1 be,
how much less God? For if theres aught He doth not make (if
it be law to say), He is imperfect. But if He is not only not
inactive, but perfect [God], then He doth make all things. Give
thou thyself to Me, My Hermes, for a little while: and thou
shalt understand more easily how that Gods work is one, in
order that all things may bethat are being made, or once
have been, or that are going to be made. And this is, My
belovd, Life; this is the Beautiful; this is the Good ; this, God.
14. And if thou wouldst in practice understand [this work],
behold what taketh place with thee desiring to beget. Yet this
is not like unto that, for He doth not enjoy. For that indeed He
hath no other one to share in what He works, for working by
Himself, He ever is at work, Himself being what He doth. For
did He separate Himself from it, all things would [then]
collapse, and all must die, Life ceasing. But if all things are
lives, and also Life is one; then, one is God. And, furthermore,
if all are lives, both those in Heaven and those on Earth, and
One Life in them all is made to be by God, and God is itthen,
all are made by God. Life is the makingone of Mind and
Soul; accordingly Death is not the destruction of those that are
at-oned, but the dissolving of their union.
15. on, moreover, is Gods image; Cosmos [is] ons; the Sun,
of Cosmos; and Man, [the image] of the Sun. The people call
change death, because the body is dissolved, and life, when its
dissolved, withdraws to the unmanifest. But in this sermon
(logos), Hermes, my beloved, as thou dost hear, I say the
Cosmos also suffers change,for that a part of it each day is
made to be in the unmanifest,yet it is neer dissolved. These
are the passions of the Cosmosrevolvings and concealments;
revolving is conversion and concealment renovation.
16. The Cosmos is all-formed,not having forms external to
itself, but changing them itself within itself. Since, then,
1 [Mead did not place with word in square brackets, but footnoted it as his
interpolation since a word has apparently dropped out of the text, observing
that earlier editions had conjectured apart from God. Copenhaver, following
amendments proposed by Nock & Festigure, has that you cannot be
without making something ]

C.H. XI: MIND TO HERMES

51

Cosmos is made to be all-formed, what may its maker be? For

that, on the one hand, He should not be void of all form; and, on
the other hand, if Hes all-formed, He will be like the Cosmos.
Whereas, again, has He a single form, He will thereby be less
than Cosmos. What, then, say we He is?that we may not
bring round our sermon (logos) into doubt; for naught that
mind conceives of God is doubtful. He, then, hath one idea,
which is His own alone, which doth not fall beneath the sight,
being bodiless, and [yet] by means of bodies manifesteth all
[ideas]. And marvel not that theres a bodiless idea.
17. For it is like the form of reason (logos)1 and mountain-tops
in pictures. For they appear to stand out strongly from the
rest, but really are quite smooth and flat. And now consider
what is said more boldly, but more truly! Just as man cannot
live apart from Life, so neither can God live without [His] doing
good. For this is as it were the life and motion as it were of
Godto move all things and make them live.
18. Now some of the things said should bear a sense peculiar to
themselves. So understand, for instance, what I'm going to say.
All are in God, [but] not as lying in a place. For place is both a
body and immovable, and things that lie do not have motion.
Now things lie one way in the bodiless, another way in being
made manifest. Think, [then,] of Him who doth contain them
all; and think, that than the bodiless naught is more
comprehensive, or swifter, or more potent, but it is the most
comprehensive, the swiftest, and most potent of them all.
19. And, thus, think from thyself, and bid thy soul go unto any
land;2 and there more quickly than thy bidding will it be. And
bid it journey oceanwards; and there, again, immediately twill
be, not as if passing on from place to place, but as if being there.
And bid it also mount to heaven; and it will need no wings, nor
will aught hinder it, nor fire of sun, nor ther, nor vortex-swirl:
nor bodies of the other stars; but, cutting through them all, it
Or points of the sermon. [structure of a wordCopenhaver.]
[Patrizis 1591 edition, followed by Parthey in 1854 and Nock & Festugire in
1946, amended ej n de kai to ej 'Indikhn, to India. While not adopting this
alteration in his translation, Mead uses it as fuel for some speculations at the
end of his commentary.]
1
2

52

CORPUS HERMETICUM

will soar up to the last Body [of them all]. And shouldst thou
will to break through this as well, and contemplate what is
beyondif there be aught beyond the Cosmos; it is permitted
thee.1
20. Behold what power, what swiftness, thou dost have! And
canst thou do all of these things, and God not [do them]? Then,
in this way know God; as having all thine in Himself as
thoughts, the whole Cosmos itself. If, then, thou dost not make
thyself like unto God, thou canst not know Him. For like is
knowable to like [alone]. Make, [then,] thyself to grow to the
same stature as the Greatness which transcends all measure;
leap forth from every body; transcend all Time; become
Eternity;2 and [thus] shalt thou know God. Conceiving nothing
is impossible unto thyself, think thyself deathless and able to
know all,all arts, all sciences, the way of every life. Become
more lofty than all height, and lower than all depth. Collect
into thyself all senses of [all] creatures,of fire, [and] water,
dry and moist. Think that thou art at the same time in every
place,in earth, in sea, in sky; not yet begotten, in the womb,
young, old, [and] dead, in after-death conditions. And if thou
knowest all these things at once,times, places, doings,
qualities, and quantities; thou canst know God.
21. But if thou lockest up thy soul within thy body, and dost
debase it, saying: I nothing know; I nothing can; I fear the sea;
I cannot scale the sky; I know not who I was, who I shall be;
what is there [then] between [thy] God and thee? For thou
canst know naught of things beautiful and good so long as thou
dost love thy body and art bad. The greatest bad there is, is not
to know Gods Good;3 but to be able to know [Good], and will,
and hope, is a Straight Way, the Goods own [Path], both leading
there and easy. If thou but settst thy foot thereon, twill meet
thee everywhere, twill everywhere be seen, both where and
when thou dost expect it not,waking, sleeping, sailing,
[However, you may have to make a few SAN checks.]
[awn. It is unclear why Mead here actually translated the word, since the
statement recalls the cosmogony of 2-4 where Ain is the immediate
production of God.]
3 [t qeon, lit. the divine. Compare also title of C.H. VII.]
1
2

C.H. XI: MIND TO HERMES

53

journeying, by night, by day, speaking, [and] saying naught.

For there is naught that is not image of the Good.
22. Her. Is God unseen?
Mind. Hush! Who is more manifest than He? For this one
reason hath He made all things, that through them all thou
mayest see Him. This is the Good of God, this [is] His Virtue,
that He may be made manifest through all. For naughts
unseen, even of things that are without a body. Mind sees itself
in thinking, God in making. So far these things have been
made manifest to thee, Thrice-greatest one! Reflect on all the
rest in the same way within thyself, and thou shalt not be led
astray.

C.H. XII: About the Common Mind

Hermes to Tat
1. Hermes. The Mind, O Tat, is of Gods very essense(if such
a thing as essence of God there be)and what that is, it and it
only knows precisely. The Mind, then, is not separated off from
Gods essentiality, but is united unto it, as light to sun. This
Mind in men is God, and for this cause some of mankind are
gods, and their humanity is nigh unto divinity. For the Good
Daimon said: Gods are immortal men, and men are mortal
gods.
2. But in irrational lives Mind is their nature. For where is
Soul, there too is Mind; just as where Life, there is there also
Soul. But in irrational lives their soul is life devoid of mind; for
Mind is the in-worker of the souls of men for good;He works
on them for their own good. In lives irrational He doth cooperate with each ones nature; but in the souls of men He
counteracteth them. For every soul, when it becomes embodied,
is instantly depraved by pleasure and by pain. For in a
compound body, just like juices, pain and pleasure seethe, and
into them the soul, on entering in, is plunged.
3. Oer whatsoever souls the Mind doth, then, preside, to these
it showeth its own light, by acting counter to their prepossessions, just as a good physician doth upon the body prepossessed by sickness, pain inflict, burning or lancing it for
sake of health. In just the selfsame way the Mind inflicteth
pain upon the soul, to rescue it from pleasure, whence comes its
every ill. The great ill of the soul is godlessnesss; then
followeth fancy for all evil things and nothing good. So, then,
Mind counteracting it doth work good on the soul, as the
physician health upon the body.
4. But whatsoever human souls have not the Mind as pilot, they
share in the same fate as souls of lives irrational. For [Mind]
becomes co-worker with them, giving full play to the desires
towards which [such souls] are borne,[desires] that from the
rush of lust strain after the irrational; [so that such human
54

C.H. XII: ON THE COMMON MIND

55

souls,] just like irrational animals, cease not irrationally to

rage and lust, nor ever are they satiate of ills. For passions and
irrational desires are ills exceeding great; and over these God
hath set up the Mind to play the part of judge and executioner.
5. Tat. In that case, father mine, the teaching (logos) as to
Fate,1 which previously thou didst explain to me, risks to be
over-set. For that if it be absolutely fated for a man to fornicate,
or commit sacrilege, or do some other evil deed, why is he
punished,when he hath done the deed from Fate's necessity?
Her. All works, my son, are Fates; and without Fate naught
of things corporalor good, or illcan come to pass. But it is
fated too, that he who doeth ill, shall suffer. And for this cause
he doth itthat he may suffer what he suffereth, because he
did it.
6. But for the moment, [Tat,] let be the teaching (logos) as to
vice and Fate, for we have spoken of these things in other [of
our sermons]; but now our teaching (logos) is about the Mind:
what Mind can do, and how it is [so] different,in men being
such and such, and in irrational lives [so] changed; and [then]
again that in irrational lives it is not of a beneficial nature,
while that in men it quencheth out the wrathful and the lustful
elements. Of men, again, we must class some as led by reason,
and others as unreasoning.
7. But all men are subject to Fate, and genesis and change, for
these are the beginning and the end of Fate. And though all
men do suffer fated things, those led by reason (those whom we
said the Mind doth guide) do not endure like suffering with the
rest; but, since theyve freed themselves from viciousness, not
being bad, they do not suffer bad.
Tat. How meanest thou again, my father? Is not the
fornicator bad; the murderer bad; and [so with] all the rest?
Her. [I meant not that;] but that the Mind-led man, my son,
though not a fornicator, will suffer just as though he had
committed fornication, and though he be no murderer, as
though he had committed murder. The quality of change he
1 [imarmenh. This appears eight times in Latinised form as a technical term in
the Logos Teleios but is infrequently used in the other Greek treatises of the
Corpus Hermeticum. The reference may be to a lost discourse.]

56

CORPUS HERMETICUM

can no more escape than that of genesis. But it is possible for

one who hath the Mind, to free himself from vice.
8. Wherefore Ive ever heard, my son, Good Daimon also say
(and had He set it down in written words, He would have
greatly helped the race of men;1 for He alone, my son, doth
truly, as the First-born God, gazing upon all things, give voice
to words (logoi) divine)yea, once I heard Him say:
All things are one, and most of all the bodies which the
mind alone perceives. Our life is owing to [Gods] Energy and
Power and on. His Mind is Good, so is His Soul as well. And
this being so, intelligible things know naught of separation. So,
then, Mind, being Ruler of all things, and being Soul of God,
can do whateer it wills.
9. So do thou understand, and carry back this word (logos) unto
the question thou didst ask before,I mean about Minds Fate.
For if thou dost with accuracy, son, eliminate [all] captious
arguments (logoi), thou wilt discover that of very truth the
Mind, the Soul of God, doth rule oer alloer Fate, and Law,
and all things else; and nothing is impossible to it,neither
oer Fate to set a human soul, nor under Fate to set [a soul]
neglectful of what comes to pass. Let this so far suffice from
the Good Daimons most good [words].
Tat. Yea, [words] divinely spoken, father mine, truly and
helpfully. But further still explain me this.
10. Thou saidst that Mind in lives irrational worked in them as
[their] nature, co-working with their impulses. But impulses of
lives irrational, as I do think, are passions. Now if the Mind coworketh with [these] impulses, and if the impulses of [lives]
irrational be passions, then is Mind also passion, taking its
colour from the passions.
Her. Well put, my son! Thou questionest right nobly, and it
is just that I as well should answer [nobly].
11. All things incorporal when in a body are subject unto
passion, and in the proper sense they are [themselves] all
1 [This passage seems to suggest the existence of an oral tradition in the
Poimandres-community or however else we designate the school or sect that
produced these tracts, a suggestion apparently rejected by XIII:15.]

C.H. XII: ON THE COMMON MIND

57

passions. For every thing that moves [another] is incorporal;

while every thing thats moved is body. Incorporals are further
moved by Mind, and movements passion. Both, then, are
subject unto passionboth mover and the moved, the former
being ruler and the latter ruled. But when a man hath freed
himself from body, then is he also freed from passion. But,
more precisely, son, naught is impassible, but all are passible.
Yet passion differeth from passibility; for that the one is active,
while the others passive. Incorporals moreover act upon themselves, for either they are motionless or they are moved; but
whichsoeer it be, its passion. But bodies are invariably acted
on, and therefore are they passible. Do not, then, let terms
trouble thee; action and passion are both the selfsame thing.
To use the fairer sounding term, however, does no harm.
12. Tat. Most clearly hast thou, father mine, set forth the
teaching (logos).
Her. Consider this as well, my son; that these two things
God hath bestowed on man beyond all mortal livesboth mind
and speech (logos) equal to immortality. He hath the mind for
knowing God and uttered speech (logos) for eulogy of Him. And
if one useth these for what he ought, hell differ not a whit from
the immortals? Nay, rather, on departing from the body, he
will be guided by the twain unto the Choir of Gods and Blessed
Ones.
13. Tat. Why, father mine!do not the other lives make use of
speech (logos)?
Her. Nay, son; but use of voice; speech is far different from
voice. For speech is general among all men, while voice doth
differ in each class of living thing.
Tat. But with men also, father mine, according to each race,
speech differs.
Her. Yea, son, but man is one; so also speech is one and is
interpreted, and it is found the same in Egypt, and in Persia,
and in Greece. Thou seemest, son, to be in ignorance of
Reasons (logos)1 worth and greatness. For that the Blessed
God, Good Daimon, hath declared:
1 [The Greek appears to be playing with multiple meanings of logoj; Copenhaver has speech here, reasoned speech in the next paragraph.]

CORPUS HERMETICUM

58

Soul is in Body, Mind in Soul; but Reason (logos) is in Mind,

and Mind in God; and God is Father of [all] these.
14. The Reason, then, is the Minds image, and Mind Gods
[image]; while Body is [the image] of the Form; and Form [the
image] of the Soul. The subtlest part of Matter is, then, Air; of
Air, Soul; of Soul, Mind; and of Mind, God. And God surroundeth all and permeateth all; while Mind surroundeth Soul, Soul
Air, Air Matter. Necessity and Providence and Nature are
instruments of Cosmos and of Matters ordering; while of
intelligible things each is Essence, and Sameness is their
Essence. But of the Bodies of the Cosmos each is many; for
through possessing Sameness, [these] composed Bodies, though
they do change from one into another of themselves, do
natheless ever keep the incorruption of their Sameness.
15. Whereas in all the rest of composed bodies, of each there is a
certain number; for without number structure cannot be, or
composition, or decomposition. Now it is units that give birth
to number and increase it, and, being decomposed, are taken
back again into themselves. Matter is one; and this whole
Cosmosthe mighty God and image of the mightier One, both
with Him unified, and the conserver of the Will and Order of
the Fatheris filled full of Life.1 Naught is there in it throughout the whole of on, the Father's [everlasting] Re-establishment,nor of the whole, nor of its parts,which doth not live.
For not a single thing thats dead, hath been, or is, or shall be
in [this] Cosmos. For that the Father willed it should have Life
as long as it should be. Wherefore it needs must be a God.
16. How, then, O son, could there be in the God, the image of
the Father: in the plenitude of Life-dead things? For that
death is corruption, and corruption is destruction. How then
could any part of that which knoweth no corruption be
corrupted, or any whit of him the God destroyed?
Tat. Do they not, then, my father, diethe lives in it, that
are its parts?
Her. Hush, son!led into error by the term in use for what
takes place. They do not die, my son, but are dissolved as com1

[lit., is a plenitude (plhrwma) of life.]

C.H. XII: ON THE COMMON MIND

59

pound bodies. Now dissolution is not death, but dissolution of a

compound; it is dissolved not so that it may be destroyed, but
that it may become renewed. For what is the activity of life? Is
it not motion? What then in Cosmos is there that hath no
motion? Naught is there, son!
17. Tat. Doth not Earth even, father, seem to thee to have no
motion?
Her. Nay, son; but rather that she is the only thing which,
though in very rapid motion, is also stable. For how would it
not be a thing to laugh at, that the Nurse of all should have no
motion, when she engenders and brings forth all things? For
tis impossible that without motion one who doth engender,
should do so. That thou shouldst ask if the fourth part is not
inert, is most ridiculous; for that the body which doth have no
motion, gives sign of nothing but inertia.
18. Know, therefore, generally, my son, that all that is in
Cosmos is being moved for decrease or for increase. Now that
which is kept moving, also lives; but there is no necessity that
that which lives, should be all same. For being simultaneous,
the Cosmos, as a whole, is not subject to change, my son, but all
its parts are subject unto it; yet naught [of it] is subject to
corruption, or destroyed. It is the terms employed that confuse
men. For tis not genesis that constituteth life, but tis sensation;
it is not change that constituteth death, but tis forgetfulness.
Since, then, these things are so, they are immortal all,
Matter, [and] Life, [and] Spirit, Mind [and] Soul, of which
whatever liveth, is composed.
19. Whatever then doth live, oweth its immortality unto the
Mind, and most of all doth man, he who is both recipient of
God, and coessential with Him. For with this life alone doth
God consort; by visions in the night, by tokens in the day, and
by all things doth He foretell the future unto him,by birds, by
inward parts, by wind, by tree. Wherefore doth man lay claim
to know things past, things present and to come.
20. Observe this, too, my son; that each one of the other lives
inhabiteth one portion of the Cosmos,aquatic creatures
water, terrene earth, and aery creatures air; while man doth

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CORPUS HERMETICUM

use all these,earth, water, air, [and] fire; he seeth heaven,

too, and doth contact it with [his] sense. But God surroundeth
all, and permeateth all, for He is energy and power; and it is
nothing difficult, my son, to conceive God.
21. But if thou wouldst Him also contemplate, behold the
ordering of the Cosmos, and [see] the orderly behaviour of its
ordering; behold thou the Necessity of things made manifest,
and [see] the Providence of things become and things becoming;
behold how Matter is all-full of Life; [behold] this so great God
in movement, with all the good and noble [ones]gods,
daimones and men!
Tat. But these are purely energies, O father mine!
Her. If, then, theyre purely energies, my son,by whom,
then, are they energized except by God? Or art thou ignorant,
that just as Heaven, Earth, Water, Air, are parts of Cosmos, in
just the selfsame way Gods parts are Life and Immortality,
[and] Energy, and Spirit, and Necessity, and Providence, and
Nature, Soul, and Mind, and the Duration of all these that is
called Good? And there is naught of things that have become,
or are becoming, in which God is not.
22. Tat. Is He in Matter, father, then ?
Her. Matter, my son, is separate from God, in order that
thou mayst attribute unto it the quality of space. But what
thing else than mass thinkst thou it is, if its not energized?
Whereas if it be energized, by whom is it made so? For
energies, we said, are parts of God. By whom are, then, all
lives enlivened? By whom are things immortal made immortal?
By whom changed things made changeable? And whether thou
dost speak of Matter, or of Body, or of Essence, know that these
too are energies of God; and that materiality is Matters energy,
that corporality is Bodies energy, and that essentiality doth
constitute the energy of Essence; and this is God-the All.
23. And in the All is naught that is not God. Wherefore nor
size, nor space, nor quality, nor form, nor time, surroundeth God;
for He is All, and All surroundeth all, and permeateth all. Unto
this Reason (logos), son, thy adoration and thy worship pay.
There is one way alone to worship God; [it is] not to be bad.

C.H. XIII:
The Secret Sermon on the Mountain
Concerning Rebirth and the Promise of Silence
of Thrice-greatest Hermes unto Tat his Son

1. Tat. [Now] in the General Sermons,1 father, thou didst speak

in riddles most unclear, conversing on Divinity; and when thou
saidst no man could eer be saved before Rebirth, thy meaning
thou didst hide. Further, when I became thy Suppliant, in
Wending up the Mount, after thou hadst conversed with me,
and when I longed to learn the Sermon (Logos) on Rebirth (for
this beyond all other things is just the thing I know not), thou
saidst, that thou wouldst give it mewhen thou shalt have
become a stranger to the world. Wherefore I got me ready and
made the thought in me a stranger to the world-illusion. And
now do thou fill up the things that fall short in me with what
thou saidst would give me the tradition of Rebirth, setting it
forth in speech or in the secret way. I know not, O Thricegreatest one, from out what matter and what womb Man comes
to birth, or of what seed.
2. Hermes. Wisdom that understands in silence [such is the
matter and the womb from out which Man is born], and the
True Good the seed.
Tat. Who is the sower, father? For I am altogether at a loss.
Her. It is the Will of God, my son.
Tat. And of what kind is he that is begotten, father? For I
have no share of that essence in me, which doth transcend the
senses. The one that is begot will be another one from God,
Gods Son?
Her. All in all, out of all powers composed.
Tat. Thou tellest me a riddle, father, and dost not speak as
father unto son.
Her. This Race, my son, is never taught; but when He
willeth it, its memory is restored by God.
[The General Sermons (genikoi logoi) addressed to Tat have already been
mentioned (X:1, 7); it is possible that the lost tract following C.H. I in the
prototype MS. was one of them.]

61

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3. Tat. Thou sayest things impossible, O father, things that are

forced. Hence answers would I have direct unto these things.
Am I a son strange to my fathers race? Keep it not, father,
back from me. I am a true-born son; explain to me the manner
of Rebirth.
Her. What may I say, my son? I can but tell thee this.
Wheneer I see within myself the Simple Vision3brought to
birth out of Gods mercy: I have passed through myself into a
Body that can never die. And now I am not what I was before;
but I am born in Mind. The way to do this is not taught, and it
cannot be seen by the compounded element by means of which
thou seest. Yea, I have had my former composed form dismembered for me. I am no longer touched, yet have I touch; I
have dimension too; and [yet] am I a stranger to them now.
Thou seest me with eyes, my son; but what I am thou dost not
understand [even] with fullest strain of body and of sight.
4. Tat. Into fierce frenzy and mind-fury hast thou plunged me,
father, for now no longer do I see myself.
Her. I would, my son, that thou hadst een passed right
through thyself, as they who dream in sleep yet sleepless.
Tat. Tell me this too! Who is the author of Rebirth?
Her. The Son of God, the One Man, by Gods Will.
5. Tat. Now hast thou brought me, father, unto pure stupefaction. Arrested from the senses which I had before, . . .; for
[now] I see thy Greatness identical with thy distinctive form.
Her. Even in this thou art untrue; the mortal form doth
change with every day. Tis turned by time to growth and
waning, as being an untrue thing.
6. Tat. What then is true, Thrice-greatest One?
Her. That which is never troubled, son, which cannot be
defined; that which no colour hath, nor any figure, which is not
turned, which hath no garment, which giveth light; that which
is comprehensible unto itself [alone], which doth not suffer
change; that which no body can contain.
Tat. In very truth I lose my reason, father. Just when I
thought to be made wise by thee, I find the senses of this mind
of mine blocked up.

C.H. XIII: THE SECRET SERMON ON THE MOUNTAIN

63

Her. Thus is it, son: That which is upward borne like fire,
yet is borne down like earth, that which is moist like water, yet
blows like air, how shalt thou this perceive with sensethe
that which is not solid nor yet moist, which naught can bind or
loose, of which in power and energy alone can man have any
notion,and even then it wants a man who can perceive the
Way of Birth in God?
7. Tat. I am incapable of this, O father, then?
Her. Nay, God forbid, my son! Withdraw into thyself, and it
will come; will, and it comes to pass; throw out of work the
bodys senses, and thy Divinity shall come to birth; purge from
thyself the brutish torments-things of matter.
Tat. I have tormentors then in me, O father?
Her. Ay, no few, my son; nay, fearful ones and manifold.
Tat. I do not know them, father.
Her. Torment the first is this Not-knowing, son; the second
one is Grief; the third, Intemperance; the fourth, Concupiscence; the fifth, Unrighteousness; the sixth is Avarice; the
seventh, Error; the eighth is Envy; the ninth, Guile; the tenth
is Anger; eleventh, Rashness; the twelfth is Malice. These are
in number twelve; but under them are many more, my son; and
creeping through the prison of the body they force the man
thats placed within to suffer in his senses. But they depart
(although not all at once) from him who hath been taken pity
on by God; and this it is which constitutes the manner of
Rebirth. And . . . the Reason (logos).1
8. And now, my son, be still and solemn silence keep! Thus
shall the mercy that flows on us from God not cease.
Henceforth rejoice, O son, for by the Powers of God thou art
being purified for the articulation of the Reason (logos). Gnosis
of God hath come to us, and when this comes, my son, Notknowing is cast out. Gnosis of Joy hath come to us, and on its
coming, son, Sorrow will flee away to them who give it room.
The Power that follows Joy do I invoke, thy Self-control. O
Power most sweet! Let us most gladly bid it welcome, son!
How with its coming doth it chase Intemperance away!
[It is unclear if there is a lacuna in the text here. Copenhaver merges these
last words with the previous sentence: this is the basis of rebirth, the means
and method.]

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CORPUS HERMETICUM

9. Now fourth, on Continence I call, the Power against Desire.1

This step, my son, is Righteousness firm seat. For without
judgment see how she hath chased Unrighteousness away. We
are made righteous, son, by the departure of Unrighteousness.
Power sixth I call to us,that against Avarice, Sharing-withall. And now that Avarice is gone, I call on Truth. And Error
flees, and Truth is with us. See how [the measure of] the Good
is full, my son, upon Truths coming. For Envy hath gone from
us; and unto Truth is joined the Good as well, with Life and
Light. And now no more doth any torment of the Darkness
venture nigh, but vanquished [all] have fled with whirring
wings.
10. Thou knowest [now], my son, the manner of Rebirth. And
when the Ten is come, my son, that driveth out the Twelve, the
Birth in understanding is complete, and by this Birth we are
made into Gods. Who then doth by His mercy gain this Birth
in God, abandoning the body's senses, knows himself [to be of
Light and Life]2 and that he doth consist of these, and [thus] is
filled with Bliss.
11. Tat. By God made steadfast, father, no longer with the
sight my eyes afford I look on things, but with the energy the
Mind doth give me through the Powers. In heaven am I, in
earth, in water, air; I am in animals, in plants; Im in the
womb, before the womb, after the womb; Im everywhere! But
further tell me this: How are the torments of the Darkness,
when they are twelve in number, driven out by the ten Powers?
What is the way of it, Thrice-greatest one?
12. Her. This dwelling-place3 through which we have just
passed, my son, is constituted from the circle of the types-oflife,4 this being composed of elements, twelve in number, but of
one nature, an omniform idea. For mans delusion there are
[Mead conjectures that there is text missing at this point.]
[An interpolation by Mead to parallel C.H. I:21, which comes before another
description of the overcoming of or purification from various vices. Copenhaver
has recognizes himself as constituted of the intelligibles.]
3 [skhnoj, lit. tent, used figuratively N.T. and earlier for the body as dwellingplace of the soul.]
4 [i.e., the Zodiacal circle. Mead obfuscates the implied astrological doctrine by
over-literal translation, possibly deliberately.]
1
2

C.H. XIII: THE SECRET SERMON ON THE MOUNTAIN

65

disunions in them, son, while in their action they are one. Not
only can we never part Rashness from Wrath; they cannot even
be distinguished. According to right reason (logos), then, they
naturally withdraw once and for all, in as much as they are
chased out by no less than ten powers, that is, the Ten. For,
son, the Ten is that which giveth birth to souls. And Life and
Light are unified there, where the One hath being from the
Spirit. According then to reason (logos) the One contains the
Ten, the Ten the One.
13. Tat. Father, I see the All, I see myself in Mind.
Her. This is, my son, Rebirthno more to look on things from
bodys view-point (a thing three ways in space extended), . . .
though this Sermon (logos) on Rebirth, on which I did not
comment;in order that we may not be calumniators of the All
unto the multitude, to whom indeed the God Himself doth will
we should not.
14. Tat. Tell me, O father: This Body which is made up of the
Powers, is it at any time dissolved?
Her. Hush, [son]! Speak not of things impossible, else wilt
thou sin and thy Minds eye be quenched. The natural body
which our sense perceives is far removed from this essential
birth. The first must be dissolved, the last can never be; the
first must die, the last death cannot touch. Dost thou not know
thou hast been born a God, Son of the One, even as I myself?
15. Tat. I would, O father, hear the Praisegiving with hymn
which thou didst say thou heardest then when thou wert at the
Eight [the Ogdoad] of Powers.
Her. Just as the Shepherd1 did foretell [I should], my son,
[when I came to] the Eight.2 Well dost thou haste to strike thy
tent, for thou hast been made pure. The Shepherd, Mind of all
[i.e., Poimandres, the divine figure of C.H. I.]
[A reference to C.H. I:26 where after being purified of seven vices the soul
enters the eighth spherethe sphere beyond the planets and thus free of their
baneful influence. There is though a dual meaning of Ogdoad; in some
Gnostic systems such as that attributed to Ptolmey (a disciple of Valentinus) by
Irenus, the first productions of the parent of the entirity formed a group of
eight powers (see IrPt in Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures). The prototype was
possibly the company of eight gods in the Hermepolitan creation myth, also
alluded to in the Hermetic Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth in NHC VI.]
1
2

CORPUS HERMETICUM

66

masterhood, hath not passed on to me more than hath been

writ down, for full well did He know that I should of myself be
able to learn all, and hear what I should wish, and see all
things. He left to me the making of fair things; wherefore the
Powers within me, een as they are in all: break into song.
16. Tat. Father, I wish to hear; I long to know these things.
Her. Be still, my son ; hear the Praise-giving now that keeps
[the soul] in tune, Hymn of Re-birtha hymn I would not have
thought fit so readily to tell, hadst thou not reached the end of
all. Wherefore this is not taught, but is kept hid in silence.
Thus then, my son, stand in a place uncovered to the sky,
facing the southern wind, about the sinking of the setting sun,
and make thy worship; so in like manner too when he doth rise,
with face to the east wind.1 Now, son, be still!
THE SECRET HYMNODY
17. Let every nature of the World receive the utterance of my
hymn! Open thou Earth! Let every bolt of the Abyss be drawn
for me. Stir not, ye Trees! I am about to hymn creations Lord,
both All and One. Ye Heavens open, and ye Winds stay still;
[and] let Gods deathless Sphere receive my word (logos)! For I
will sing the praise of Him who founded all; who fixed the
Earth, and hung up Heaven, and gave command that Ocean
should afford sweet water [to the Earth], to both those parts
that are inhabited and those that are not, for the support and
use of every man; who made the Fire to shine for gods and meu
for every act. Let us together all give praise to Him, sublime
above the Heavens, of every nature Lord! Tis He who is the
Eye of Mind; may He accept the praise of these my Powers!
18. Ye Powers that are within me, hymn the One and All; sing
with my Will, Powers all that are within me! O blessed Gnosis,
by thee illumined, hymning through thee the Light that mind
alone can see, I joy in Joy of Mind. Sing with me praises all ye
Powers! Sing praise, my Self-control; sing thou through me, my
Righteousness, the praises of the Righteous; sing thou, my
Sharing-all, the praises of the All; through me sing, Truth,
Truths praises! Sing thou, O Good, the Good! O Life and Light,
1

[Compare Asc. 41 for these directions.]

C.H. XIII: THE SECRET SERMON ON THE MOUNTAIN

67

from us to you our praises flow! Father, I give Thee thanks, to

Thee Thou Energy of all my Powers; I give Thee thanks, O God,
Thou Power of all my Energies!
19. Thy Reason (logos) sings through me Thy praises. Take
back through me the All into [Thy] Reason[my] reasonable
oblation! Thus cry the Powers in me. They sing Thy praise,
Thou All; they do Thy Will. From Thee Thy Will; to Thee the
All. Receive from all their reasonable oblation.1 The All that is
in us, O Life, preserve; O Light illumine it; O God in-spirit it.
It is Thy Mind that plays the Shepherd to Thy Word, O Thou
Creator, Bestower of the Spirit [upon all].
20. [For] Thou art God; Thy Man thus cries to Thee through
Fire, through Air, through Earth, through Water, [and]
through Spirit, through Thy creatures. Tis from Thy on2 I
have found Praise-giving; and in Thy Will: the object of my
search, have I found rest.
Tat. By thy good pleasure have I seen this Praise-giving
being sung, O father; I have set it in my Cosmos too.3
Her. Say in the Cosmos that thy mind alone can see, my son.
Tat. Yea, father, in the Cosmos that the mind alone can see;
for I have been made able by thy Hymn, and by thy Praisegiving my mind hath been illumined. But further I myself as
well would from my natural mind send praise-giving to God.
21. Her. But not unheedfully, my son.
Tat. Ay. What I behold in mind, that do I say. To thee, thou
Parent of my Bringing into Birth, as unto God I, Tat, send
reasonable offerings. O God and Father, thou art the Lord, thou
art the Mind. Receive from me oblations reasonable as thou
wouldst wish; for by thy Will all things have been perfected.4
[Copenhaver has speech offerings here and below; compare Asc. 41.]
[An analogy has been suggested (see Copenhaver, apparatus ad loc.) with part
of the ascent of the so-called Mithras Liturgy (PGM IV. 487-536) where the
theurgist ascends through various elements to Aion.]
3 [Copenhaver, following an amendation proposed by Festugire, has I have
found the rest I seek; I have seen, as you wished it as the end of the hymn, and
This praise that you have told, father, I have also established in my cosmos as
Tats response.]
4 [The Greek, panta teleitai, could have the specific connotation of the completion or perfection of a Mystery-initiation.]
1
2

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CORPUS HERMETICUM

Her. Send thou oblation, son, acceptable to God, the Sire of

all; but add, my son, too, through the Word (logos).
Tat. I give thee, father, thanks for showing me to sing such
hymns.
22. Her. Happy am I, my son, that thou hast brought the good
fruits forth of Truth, products that cannot die. And now that
thou hast learnt this lesson from me, make promise to keep
silence on thy virtue, and to no soul, my son, make known the
handing on to thee the manner of Rebirth, that we may not be
thought to be calumniators. And now we both of us have given
heed sufficiently, both I the speaker and the hearer thou. In
Mind hast thou become a Knower of thyself and of our
[common] Sire.

C.H. XIV:
Thrice-Greatest Hermes to Asclepius
Unto Asclepius Good Heath of Soul!1

1. SINCE in thy absence my son Tat desired to learn the nature

of the things that are, and would not let me hold it over, as
[natural to] a younger son fresh come to gnosis of the
[teachings] on each single point,I was compelled to tell [him]
more, in order that the contemplation [of them] might be the
easier for him to follow. I would, then, choosing out the chiefest
heads of what was said, write them in brief to thee, explaining
them more mystic-ly, as unto one of greater age and one well
versed in Nature.
2. If all things manifest have been and are being made, and
made things are not made by their own selves but by another;
[if] made things are the many,nay more, are all things
manifest and all things different and not alike; and things that
are being made are being made by other [than themselves];
there is some one who makes these things; and He cannot be
made, but is more ancient than the things that can. For things
that can be made, I say, are made by other [than themselves];
but of the things that owe their being to their being made, it is
impossible that anything should be more ancient than them all,
save only That which is not able to be made.
3. So He is both Supreme, and One, and Only, the truly wise in
all, as having naught more ancient [than Himself]. For He
doth rule oer both the number, size and difference of things
that are being made, and oer the continuity of their making
[too]. Again, things makeable are seeable; but He cannot be
seen. For for this cause He maketh,that He may not be able
to be seen. He, therefore, ever maketh; and therefore can He
neer be Been. To comprehend Him thus is meet; and comprehending, [it is meet] to marvel; and marvelling,to count
oneself as blessed, as having learnt to know ones Sire.

[The form is epistlatory rather than the more usual dialogue / sermon.]
69

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CORPUS HERMETICUM

4. For what is sweeter than one's own true Sire? Who, then, is
He; and how shall we learn how to know Him? Is it not right to
dedicate to Him done the name of God, or that of Maker, or of
Father, or rather [all] the three;God for His Power, and
Maker for His Energy, and Father for His Good? Now Power
doth differ from the things which are being made; while Energy
consisteth in all things being made. Wherefore we ought to put
away verbosity and foolish talk, and understand these twothe
made and Maker. For that of them there is no middle [term];
there is no third.
5. Wherefore in all that thou conceivest, in all thou hearest,
these two recall to mind; and think all things are they,
reckoning as doubtful naught, nor of the things above, nor of
the things below, neither of things divine, nor things that suffer
change or things that are in obscuration. For all things are
[these] twain, Maker and made, and tis impossible that one
should be without the other; for neither is it possible that
Maker should exist without the made, for each of them is
one and the same thing. Wherefore tis no more possible for
one from other to be parted, than self from self.
6. Now if the Maker is naught else but That which makes,
Alone, Simple, Uncompound, it needs must do this [making] to
Itself,to Which its Maker's making is its being made. And
as to all thats being made,it cannot be [so made] by being
made by its own self; but it must needs be made by being made
by other. Without the Maker made is neither made nor is;
for that the one without the other doth lose its proper nature by
deprivation of that other. If, then, all things have been
admitted to be two,the that which is being made and that
which makes,[all then] are one in union of these,the that
which leadeth and the that which followeth. The making
God is that which leadeth; the that which is being made,
whateer it be, the that which followeth.
7. And do not thou be chary of things made because of their
variety, from fear of attribution of a low estate and lack of glory
unto God. For that His Glorys one,to make all things; and
this is as it were Gods Body,the making [of them]. But by
the Makers self naught is there thought or bad or base. These

C.H. XIV: HERMES TO ASCLEPIUS

71

things are passions which accompany the making process, as

rust doth brass and filth doth body; but neither doth the brasssmith make the rust, nor the begettem of the body filth, nor
God [make] evil. It is continuance in the state of being made
that makes them lose, as though it were, their bloom; and tis
because of this God hath made change, as though it were the
making clean of genesis.
8. Is it, then, possible for one and the same painter man to
make both heaven, and gods, and earth, and sea, and men, and
all the animals, and lifeless things, and trees, and yet
impossible for God to make all things? What monstrous lack of
understanding; what want of knowledge as to God! For such
the strangest lot of all do suffer; for though they say they
worship piously and sing the praise of God, yet by their not
ascribing unto Him the making of all things, they know not
God; and, added unto this not-knowing, theyre guilty even of
the worst impiety to Himpassions to Him attributing, or
arrogance, or impotency. For if He doth not make all things,
from arrogance He doth not make, or not being able,which is
impiety [to think].
9. One Passion hath God onlyGood; and He whos Good, is
neither arrogant nor impotent. For this is Godthe Good,
which hath all power of making all. And all that can be made
is made by God,that is, by [Him who is] the Good and who
can make all things. But wouldst thou learn how He doth
make, and how things made are made, thou mayst do so.
10. Behold a very fair and most resemblant imagea husbandman casting the seed into the ground; here wheat, there barley,
and there [again] some other of the seeds! Behold one and the
same man planting the vine, the apple, and [all] other trees! In
just the selfsame way doth God sow Immortality in Heaven,
and Change on Earth, and Life and Motion in the universe.
These are not many, but few and easy to be numbered; for four
in all are they,and God Himself and Genesis, in whom are all
that are.

C.H. XVI: The Definitions of Ascelpius

unto King Ammon
The Perfect Sermon of Asclepius unto the King.1

1. GREAT is the sermon (logos) which I send to thee, O King

the summing up and digest, as it were, of all the rest. For it is
not composed to suit the manys prejudice, since it contains
much that refuteth them. 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]
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, the sermon (logos)
keepeth clear the meaning 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, O 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,2 and its surface beauty: so to speak, take all the strength
out of the solemn and the strongthe energetic speech of
Names. The Greeks, O King, have novel words, energic of
argumentation [only]; and thus is the philosophizing of the
1 [This should not be confused with the Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to
Asclepius, originally known only in an Armenian translation (whence
Copenhaver cites it as the Armenian Definitions) although a Greek MS. was
more recently discovered. See Salaman et al., The Way of Hermes for an
English translation.]
2 [Despite the strong Egyptianism of this passage (which flatly contradicts a
statement about speech in XII:13) it includes a Greek word-play and was almost
certainly originally written in Greek, which Mead admits in his commentary.
Compare also the anti-intellectualism of Asc. xii-xiv.]

72

C.H. XVI: DEFINITIONS OF ASCLEPIUS TO AMMON

73

Greeksthe noise of words. But we do not use words; but we

use sounds full-filled with deeds.
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, 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-hat 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 his epithet of All from [the
idea of] multitude, and not from [that of] fullnesswhich is
impossible; for if he part All from the One, he will destroy the
All. For all things must be Oneif they indeed are One. Yea,
they are One; and they shall never cease being Onein order
that the Fullness may not be destroyed.
4. See then in Earth a host of founts of Water and of Fire forthspirting in its midmost parts; in one and the same [space all]
the three natures visibleof Fire, and Water, and of Earth,
depending from one Root. Whence, too, it is believed to be the
Treasury of every matter. It sendeth forth of its abundance,
and in the place [of what it sendeth forth] receiveth the
subsistence from above.
5. For thus the DemiurgeI mean the Suneternally doth
order Heaven and Earth, pouring down Essence, 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,
this is his Substance, the reservoir of which would be His Light.
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
1

[The text here appears highly corrupt.]

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CORPUS HERMETICUM

7. The spectacle of Him, however, is not left unto conjecture;

nay [for] His very rays, 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, and just as
a good charioteer, He safely drives the cosmic team, and holds
them in unto Himself, lest they should run away in dire
disorder. The reins are Life, and Soul, and Spirit, Deathlessness, and Genesis. He lets it, then, drive [round] not far off
from Himselfnay, if the truth be said, together with Himself.
8. And in this way He operates all things. To the immortals He
distributeth perpetual permanence; and with the upper hemisphere of His own Lightall that he sends above from out His
other side: [the side of him] which looks to HeavenHe
nourisheth the deathless parts of Cosmos. But with that side
that sendeth down [its Light], and shineth round all of the
hemisphere of Water, and of Earth, and Air, He vivifieth, and
by births and changes keepeth in movement to and fro the
animals 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 balancedjust 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. 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 Lights 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,
they watch oer the affairs of men, and work out things appointed by the Godsby means of storms, whirlwinds and hurricanes, by transmutations wrought by fire and shakings of the
earth, with famines also and with wars requiting [mans] impiety,
for this is in mans case the greatest ill against the Gods.

C.H. XVI: DEFINITIONS OF ASCLEPIUS TO AMMON

75

11. For that the duty of the Gods is to give benefits; the duty of
mankind is to give worship;1 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: or ignorancethese are not held requitable among the Gods; impiety
alone is guilty at their bar.
12. The Sun is the preserver and the nurse of every class. And
just as the Intelligible World, holding the Sensible in its
embrace, fills it [all] full, distending it with forms of every kind
and every shapeso, too, the Sun distendeth all in Cosmos,
affording births to all, and strengtheneth them. When they are
weary or they fail, He takes them in His arms again.
13. And under Him is ranged the choir of daimonsor, rather,
choirs; for these are multitudinous and very varied, ranked
underneath the groups of Stars, in equal number with each one
of them. So, marshalled in their ranks, they are the ministers of
each one of the Stars, being in their natures good, and bad, that
is, in their activities (for that a daimons essence is activity);
while some of them are [of[ mixed [natures], good and bad.
14. To all of these has been allotted the authority oer things
upon the Earth; and it is they who bring about the multifold
confusion of the turmoils on the Earthfor states and nations
generally, and for each individual separately. For they do
shape our souls like to themselves, and set them moving with
them,obsessing nerves, and marrow, veins and arteries, the
brain itself, down to the very heart.
15. For on each one of us being born and made alive, the
daimons take hold on usthose [daimones] who are in service
at that moment [of the wheel] of Genesis, who are ranged under
each one of the Stars. For that these change at every moment;
they do not stay the same, but circle back again. These, then,
descending through the body to the two parts of the soul, set it
awhirling, each one towards its own activity. But the souls
rational part is set above the lordship of the daimons
designed to be receptacle of God.
1

Or to be pious.

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CORPUS HERMETICUM

16. Who then doth have a Ray shining upon him through the
Sun within his rational partand these in all are fewon
them the daimons do not act; for no one of the daimons or of
Gods has any power against one Ray of God. As for the rest,
they are all led and driven, soul and body, by the daimons
loving and hating the activities of these. The reason (logos),
[then,] is not the love that is deceived and that deceives. The
daimons, therefore, exercise the whole of this terrene economy:
using our bodies as [their] instruments. And this economy
Hermes has called Heimarmen.1
17. The World Intelligible, then, depends from God; the Sensible
from the Intelligible [World]. The Sun, through the Intelligible
and the Sensible Cosmos, pours forth abundantly the stream
from God of Good,that is, the demiurgic operation. And
round the Sun are the Eight Spheres, dependent from Him
the [Sphere] of the Non-wandering Ones, the Six [Spheres] of
the Wanderers, and one Circumterrene.2 And from the Spheres
depend the daimones; and from these, men. And thus all
things and all [of them] depend from God.
18. Wherefore God is the Sire of all; the Suns [their] Demiurge;
the Cosmos is the instrument of demiurgic operation. Intelligible Essence regulateth Heaven; and Heaven, the Gods; the
daimones, ranked underneath the Gods, regulate men. This is
the host of Gods and daimones. Through these God makes all
things for His own self. And all [of them] are parts of God; and
if they all [are] partsthen, God is all. Thus, making all, He
makes Himself; nor ever can He cease [His making], for He
Himself is ceaseless. Just, then, as God doth have no end and
no beginning, so doth His making have no end and no
beginning.

1 [Conventionally translated fate; it appears in romanized Greek as a technical

term in the Latin Asclepius.]
2 [This appears to describe a heliocentric cosmology and may have been taken
as such by some Renaissance Hermeticists; see Yates, Giordano Bruno.]

C.H. XVII: [Of Asclepius to the King]1

[]
Asclepius. If thou dost think [of it], O King, even of bodies
there are things bodiless.
The King. What [are they]?(asked the King.)
Asc. The bodies that appear in mirrorsdo they not seem
then to have no body?
The King. It is so, O Asclepius; thou thinkest like a God!
(the King replied.)
Asc. There are things bodiless as well as these; for instance,
forms2do not they seem to thee to have no body, but to appear
in bodies not only of the things which are ensouled, but also of
those which are not ensouled?
The King. Thou sayest well, Asclepius.
Asc. Thus, [then,] there are reflexions of things bodiless on
bodies, and of bodies too upon things bodilessthat is to say,
[reflexions] of the Sensible on the Intelligible World, and of the
[World] Intelligible on the Sensible. Wherefore, pay worship to
the images, O King, since they too have their forms as from the
World Intelligible.
(Thereon His Majesty arose and said:)
The King. It is the hour, O Prophet, to see about the comfort
of our guests. To-morrow, [then,] will we resume our sacred
converse.

1 [This fragment is untitled in MS.; Mead argues that some pages in the
prototpye MS. are missing including the ending of CH. XVI and the title, and
probably the bulk of the text, of the present work. The speaker is identified in
some texts as Tat; Mead considered this a spurious correction by a copyist.
The unnamed King is perhaps meant to be the King Ammon who is addressed
in C.H. XVI.]
2 [In the sense of Platonic Ideas, probably.]

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C.H. XVIII: [The Econium of Kings]

(About the Souls being Hindered
by the Passions of the Body)1
1. [Now] in the case of those professing the harmonious art of
muse-like melodyif, when the piece is played, the discord of
the instruments doth hinder their intent, its rendering becomes
ridiculous. For when his instruments are quite too weak for
whats required of them, the music-artist needs must be
laughed at by the audience. For He, with all good will, gives of
His art unweariedly; they blame the [artists] weakness. He
then who is the Natural Musician-God, not only in His making
of the harmony of His [celestial] songs, but also in His sending
forth the rhythm of the melody of His own song[s] right down
unto the separate instruments, is, as God, never wearied. For
that with God there is no growing weary.
2. So, then, if ever a musician desires to enter into the highest
contest of his art he canwhen now the trumpeters have
rendered the same phrase of the [composers] skill, and
afterwards the flautists played the sweet notes of the melody
upon their instruments, and they complete the music of the
piece with pipe and plectrum[if any thing goes wrong,] one
does not lay the blame upon the inspiration of the musicmaker. Nay, [by no means,]to him one renders the respect
that is his due; one blames the falseness of the instrument, in
that it has become a hindrance to those who are most excellent
embarrassing the maker of the music in [the execution of] his
melody, and robbing those who listen of the sweetness of the
song.
3. In like way also, in our case, let no one of our audience for
the weakness that inheres in body, blame impiously our Race.
Nay, let him know God is Unwearied Spiritfor ever in the
1 [Mead, in common with other commentators, is of the view that the title is the
spurious interpolation of a later redactor and that this insipid piece of rhetoric
was tacked on to the end of the Corpus at an early stage of compliation,
possibly in order to reassure some actual emperor of the loyalty of the
Poimandres-Community; the references to kings in XVI and XVII may also
have suggested it.]

78

C.H. XVIII: THE ECONIUM OF KINGS

79

self-same way possessed of His own science, unceasing in His

joyous gifts, the self-same benefits bestowing everywhere.
4. And if the Pheidiasthe Demiurgeis not responded to, by
lack of matter to perfect His skilfulness, although for His own
part the Artist has done all he can, let us not lay the blame on
Him. But let us, [rather,] blame the weakness of the string, in
that, because it is too slack or is too tight, it mars the rhythm of
the harmony.
5. So when it is that the mischance occurs by reason of the
instrument, no one doth blame the Artist. Nay, [more;] the
worse the instrument doth chance to be, the more the Artist
gains in reputation by the frequency with which his hand doth
strike the proper note, and more the love the listeners pour
upon that Music-maker, without the slightest thought of
blaming him. So will we too, most noble [Sirs], set our own lyre
in tune again, within, with the Musician !
6. Nay, I have seen one of the artist-folkalthough he had no
power of playing on the lyrewhen once he had been trained
for the right noble theme, make frequent use of his own self as
instrument, and tune the service of his string by means of
mysteries, so that the listeners were amazed at how he turned
necessitude into magnificence.
Of course you know the story of the harper who won the
favour of the God who is the president of music-work. [One
day,] when he was playing for a prize, and when the breaking
of a string became a hindrance to him in the contest, the favour
of the Better One supplied him with another string, and placed
within his grasp the boon of fame. A grasshopper was made to
settle on his lyre, through the foreknowledge of the Better One,
and [so] fill in the melody in substitution of the [broken] string.
And so by mending of his string the harpers grief was stayed,
and fame of victory was won.
7. And this I feel is my own case, most noble [Sirs]! For but just
now I seemed to make confession of my want of strength, and
play the weakling for a little while; but now, by virtue of the
strength of [that] Superior One, as though my song about the
King had been perfected [by Him, I seem] to wake my muse.

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CORPUS HERMETICUM

For, you must know, the end of [this] our duty will be the
glorious fame of Kings, and the good-will of our discourse
(logos) [will occupy itself] about the triumphs which they win.
Come then, let us make haste! For that the singer willeth it,
and hath attuned his lyree for this; nay more, more sweetly will
he play, more fitly will he sing, as he has for his song the
greater subjects of his theme.
8. Since, then, he has the [stringing] of his lyre tuned specially
to Kings, and has the key of laudatory songs, and as his goal
the Royal praises, let him first raise himself unto the highest
Kingthe God of wholes. Beginning, [then,] his song from the
above, he, [thus,] in second place, descends to those after His
likeness who hold the sceptres power; since Kings themselves,
indeed, prefer the [topics] of the song should step by step
descend from the above, and where they have their [gifts of]
victory presided oer for them, thence should their hopes be led
in orderly succession.
9. Let, then, the singer start with God, the greatest King of
wholes, who is for ever free from death, both everlasting and
possessed of [all] the might of everlastingness, the Glorious
Victor, the very first, from whom all victories descend to those
who in succession do succeed to victory.
10. Our sermon (logos) then, doth hasten to descend to [Kingly]
praises and to the Presidents of common weal and peace, the
Kingswhose lordship in most ancient times was placed upon
the highest pinnacle by God Supreme; for whom the prizes
have already been prepared even before their prowess in the
war; of whom the trophies have been raised even before the
shock of conflict. For whom it is appointed not only to be Kings
but also to be best. At whom, before they even stir, the foreign
land doth quake.
(ABOUT THE BLESSING OF THE BETTER [ONE]
AND PRAISING OF THE KING)
11. But now our theme (logos) doth hasten on to blend its end
with its beginningswith blessing of the Better [One]; and
then to make a final end of its discourse (logos) on those
divinest Kings who give us the [great] prize of peace. For just

C.H. XVIII: THE ECONIUM OF KINGS

81

as we began [by treating] of the Better [One] and of the Power

Above, so let us make the end bend round again unto the same
the Better [One]. Just as the Sun, the nurse of all the things
that grow, on his first rising, gathers unto himself the firstfruits of their yield with his most mighty hands, using his rays
as though it were for plucking off their fruitsyea, [for] his
rays are [truly] hands for him who plucketh first the most
ambrosial [essences] of plantsso, too, should we, beginning
from the Better [One], and [thus] recipient of His wisdoms
stream, and turning it upon the garden of our souls above the
heavens,we should [direct and] train these [streams] of
blessing back again unto their source, [blessing] whose entire
power of germination [in us] He hath Himself poured into us.
12. Tis fit ten thousand tongues and voices should be used to
send His blessings back again unto the all-pure God, who is the
Father of our souls; and though we cannot utter what is fitfor
we are [far] unequal to the task[yet will we say what best we
can]. For Babes just born have not the strength to sing their
Fathers glory as it should be sung; but they give proper thanks
for them, according to their strength, and meet with pardon for
their feebleness. Nay, it is rather that Gods glory doth consist
in this [one] very thingthat He is greater than His children;
and that the prelude and the source, the middle and the end, of
blessings, is to confess the Father to be infinitely puissant and
never knowing what a limit means.
13. So is it, too, in the Kings case. For that we men, as though
we were the children of the King, feel it our natural duty to
give praise to him. Still must we ask for pardon [for our
insufficiency], een though tis granted by our Sire before we
[even] ask. And as it cannot be the Sire will turn from Babes
new-born because they are so weak, but rather will rejoice
when they begin to recognise [his love]so also will the Gnosis
of the all [rejoice], which doth distribute life to all, and power of
giving blessing back to God, which He hath given [us].
14. For God, being Good, and having in Himself eternally the
limit of His own eternal fitness, and being deathless, and
containing in Himself that lot of that inheritance that cannot
come unto an end, and [thus] for ever ever-flowing from out

CORPUS HERMETICUM

82

that energy of His, He doth send tidings to this world down

here [to urge us] to the rendering of praise that brings us home
again. With Him, therefore, is there no difference with one
another; there is no partiality with Him. But they are one in
Thought. One is the Prescience of all. They have one Mind
their Father. One is the Sense thats active through them
their passion for each other. Tis Love 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, 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,1 and is the lord of
reason (logos) that [makes] for peace. And in as much, in sooth,
as he hath made himself the natural protector of the kingdom
which is not his native land: 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.

[A Greek wordplay on basileus (king) and basei leia (light step).]

THE PERFECT SERMON

(ASCLEPIUS)

[Editors note]
Titles of this tract in extant MSS. vary. Perfect Sermon (Sermo perfectus,
lgoj tleioj) is how this tract is cited by the early Christian writer Lactantius,
who quotes passages in Greek in his Divine Institutes (ca. 311 C.E.). Logos
teleios could also mean Sermon of Initiation.
The earliest complete texts of the discourse are in Latin. The original language
of composition was almost certainly Greek; some Greek words appear in
romanized form in the Latin text as technical terms and a few passages appear
to depend on Greek word-plays.
Further excerpts from the Greek appear in the anthology of Stobus and the
writings of a 6th-century writer Johannes Laurentius Lydus. Mead, on comparing these quotations and those of Lactantius with the Latin, remarked that
the latter was an exceedingly free rendering of the Greek, showing many
expansions and contractions, and often missing the sense of the original
Some Latin quotations are found in the De Civitate Dei of Augustine of Hippo
(early 5th cent. C.E.). Since Mead wrote, a Coptic translation of sections 21-29
was found in a codex discovered at Nag Hammadi (NHC VI, 8); this contains
some quite significant variations with the Latin and is regarded as probably
closer to the Greek original. The same codex includes a slight variation of the
concluding prayer of the Asclepius (NHC VI, 7). The date of this codex is uncertain but probably no later than the fourth century C.E.
The division into chapters seems somewhat arbitrary but is long-established
and is retained for citation purposes. Mead additionally added his own section
numbering within chapters, and also noted a division into fifteen sections from
the French edition of Mnard (1867), which latter was followed by Anna
Kingsford and Edward Maitland when they included the Asclepius in The
Virgin of the World, an 1885 collection of Hermetic texts. These are omitted,
and many apparently redundant paragraph breaks have been removed.

THE PERFECT SERMON

(ASCLEPIUS)
Asclepius iste pro sole mihi est.1
I.
[Trismegistus.] God, O Asclepius, hath brought thee unto us
that thou mayest hear a Godly sermon, a sermon such as well
may seem of all the previous ones weve [either] uttered, or
with which weve been inspired by the Divine, more Godly than
the piety of [ordinary] faith. If thou with eye of intellect shalt
see this Word thou shalt in thy whole mind be filled quite full of
all things good. If that, indeed, the many be the good, and
not the one, in which are all. Indeed the difference between
the two is found in their agreement,All is of One or One
is All. So closely bound is each to other, that neither can be
parted from its mate. But this with diligent attention shalt thou
learn from out the sermon that shall follow [this]. But do thou,
O Asclepius, go forth a moment and call in the one who is to
hear.2
(And when he had come in, Asclepius proposed that Ammon
too should be allowed to come. Thereon Thrice-greatest said:)
[Tris.] There is no cause why Ammon should be kept away
from us. For we remember how we have ourselves set down in
writing many things to his address, as though unto a son most
dear and most beloved, of physics many things, of ethics [too]
as many as could be. It is, however, with thy name I will
inscribe this treatise. But call, I prithee, no one else but
Ammon, lest a most pious sermon on a so great theme be spoilt
by the admission of the multitude. For tis the mark of an
unpious mind to publish to the knowledge of the crowd a
tractate brimming oer with the full Greatness of Divinity.
[Roughly: This Asclepius is like the sun to me. This begins the text in the
edition from which Mead was working, but was identified by him as a scribal
gloss, meaning that this treatise called Asclepius had illumined the scribe.]
2 [This, it will become apparent, is Tat. The sacred group of four is perhaps a
literary artifice, or even (as Mead suggests) the responsibility of a redactor;
Asclepius is the interlocuter throughout.]
1

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(When Ammon too had come within the holy place, and when
the sacred group of four was now complete with piety and with
Gods goodly presenceto them, sunk in fit silence reverently,
their souls and minds pendent on Hermes lips, thus Love
Divine began to speak.)
II.
[Tris.] The soul of every man, O [my] Asclepius, is deathless;
yet not all in like fashion, but some in one way or [one] time,
some in another.
Asc. Is not, then, O Thrice-greatest one, each soul of one
[and the same] quality?
Tris. How quickly hast thou fallen, O Asclepius, from
reasons true sobriety! Did not I say that All is One, and
One is All, in as much as all things have been in the Creator
before they were created. Nor is He called unfitly All, in that
his members are the All. Therefore, in all this argument, see
that thou keep in mind Him who is One-All, or who Himself
is maker of the All.
All things descend from Heaven to Earth, to Water and to
Air. Tis Fire alone, in that it is borne upwards, giveth life;
that which [is carried] downwards [is] subservient to Fire.
Further, whatever doth descend from the above, begetteth;
what floweth upwards, nourisheth. Tis Earth alone, in that it
resteth on itself, that is Receiver of all things, and [also] the
Restorer of all genera that it receives. This Whole: therefore, as
thou rememberest, in that it is of all,in other words, all
things, embraced by nature under Soul and World, are in
[perpetual] flux, so varied by the multiform equality of all their
forms, that countless kinds of well-distinguished qualities may
be discerned, yet with this bond of union, that all should seem
as One, and from One All.
III.
That, then, from which the whole Cosmos is formed, consisteth
of Four ElementsFire, Water, Earth, and Air; Cosmos [itself
is] one, [its] Soul [is] one, and God is one. Now lend to me the
whole of thee,all that thou canst in mind, all that thou
skillst in penetration. For that the Reason of Divinity may not

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87

be known except by an intention of the senses like to it Tis

likest to the torrents flood, down-dashing headlong from above
with all-devouring tide; so that it comes about, that by the
swiftness of its speed it is too quick for our attention, not only
for the hearers, but also for the very teachers.
Heaven, then, God Sensible, is the director of all bodies;
bodies increasings and decreasings are ruled by Sun and Moon.
But He who is the Ruler of the Heaven, and of its Soul as well,
and of all things within the Cosmos,He is God, who is the
Maker of all things. For from all those that have been said
above: oer which the same God rules, there floweth forth a flood
of all things streaming through the Cosmos and the Soul, of
every class and kind, throughout the Nature of [all] things. The
Cosmos hath, moreover, been prepared by God as the receptacle
of forms of every kind. Forth-thinking Nature by these kinds of
things, He hath extended Cosmos unto Heaven by means of the
Four Elements,all to give pleasure to the eye of God.
IV.
And all dependent from Above are subdivided into species in
the fashion which I am to tell. The genera of all things
company with their own species; so that the genus is a class in
its entirety, the species is part of a genus. The genus of the
Gods will, therefore, make the species of the Gods out of itself.
In like way, too, the genus of the daimons, and of men, likewise
of birds, and of all [animals] the Cosmos doth contain within
itself, brings into being species like itself. There is besides a
genus other than the animal,a genus, or indeed a soul, in
that its not without sensation,in consequence of which it
both finds happiness in suitable conditions, and pines and
spoils in adverse ones;I mean [the class] of all things on the
earth which owe their life to the sound state of roots and
shoots, of which the various kinds are scattered through the
length and breadth of Earth.
The Heaven itself is full of God. The genera we have just
mentioned, therefore, occupy up to the spaces of all things
whose species are immortal. For that a species is part of a
genus,as man, for instance, of mankind,and that a part
must follow its own classs quality. From which it comes to

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THE PERFECT SERMON

pass that though all genera are deathless, all species are not so.
The genus of Divinity is in itself and in its species [also]
deathless. As for the genera of other things,to their genus,
they [too] are everlasting; [for] though [the genus] perish in its
species, yet it persists through its fecundity in being born. And
for this cause its species are beneath the sway of death; so that
man mortal is, mankind immortal.
V.
And yet the species of all genera are interblended with all
genera; some which have previously been made, some which
are made from these. The latter, then, which are being made,
either by Gods, or daimons, or by men,are species all most
closely like to their own several genera. For that it is
impossible that bodies should be formed without the will of
God; or species be configured without the help of daimons; or
animals be taught and trained without the help of men.
Whoever of the daimons, then, transcending their own genus,
are, by chance, united with a species: by reason of the
neighbourhood of any species of the Godlike class,these are
considered like to Gods. Whereas those species of the daimons
which continue in the quality of their own class,these love
men's rational nature [and occupy themselves with men], and
are called daimons proper. Likewise is it the case with men, or
more so even. Diverse and multiform, the species of mankind.
And coming in itself from the association spoken of above, it of
necessity doth bring about a multitude of combinations of all
other species and almost of all things.
Wherefore doth man draw nigh unto the Gods, if he have
joined himself unto the Gods with Godlike piety by reason of
his mind, whereby he is joined to the Gods; and [nigh] unto the
daimons, in that he is joined unto them [as well]. Whereas
those men who are contented with the mediocrity of their own
class, and the remaining species of mankind, will be like those
unto the species of whose class they've joined themselves.
VI.
It is for reasons such as these, Asclepius, man is a mighty
wonder,an animal meet for our worship and for our respect.

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89

For he doth pass into Gods Nature, as though himself were

God. This genus [also] knows the genus of the daimons, as
though man knew he had a [common] origin with them. He
thinketh little of the part of human nature in him, from
confidence in the divineness of [his] other part. How much
more happy is the blend of human nature [than of all the rest]!
Joined to the Gods by his cognate divinity, a man looks down
upon the part of him by means of which hes common with the
Earth. The rest of things to which he knows hes kin, by
[reason of] the heavenly order [in him], he binds unto himself
with bonds of love; and thus he turns his gaze to Heaven.
So, then, [man] hath his place in the more blessed station of
the Midst; so that he loves [all] those below himself, and in his
turn is loved by those above. He tills the Earth. He mingles
with the Elements by reason of the swiftness of his mind. He
plunges into the Seas depths by means of its profundity. He
puts his values on all things. Heaven seems not too high for
him; for it is measured by the wisdom of his mind as though it
were quite near. No darkness of the Air obstructs the
penetration of his mind. No density of Earth impedes his work.
No depth of Water blunts his sight. [Though still] the same
[yet] is he all, and everywhere is he the same.
Of all these genera, those [species] which are animal have
[many] roots, which stretch from the above below, whereas
those which are stationarythese from [one] living root send
forth a wood of branching greenery up from below into the
upper parts. Moreover, some of them are nourished with a twofold form of food, while others with a single form. Twain are
the forms of foodfor soul and body, of which [all] animals
consist. Their soul is nourished by the ever-restless motion of
the World; their bodies have their growth from foods [drawn]
from the water and the earth of the inferior world. Spirit, with
which they all are filled, being interblended with the rest, doth
make them live; sense being added, and also reason in the case
of manwhich hath been given to man alone as a fifth patt out
of the ther. Of all the living things [God] doth adorn, extend,
exalt, the sense of man alone unto the understanding of the
Reason of Divinity. But since I am impressed to speak
concerning Sense, I will a little further on set forth for you the

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THE PERFECT SERMON

sermon on this [point]; for that it is most holy, and [most]

mighty, not less than in the Reason of Divinity itself.
VII.
But now Ill finish for you what I have begun. For I was
speaking at the start of union with the Gods, by which men
only consciously enjoy the Gods regard,I mean whatever men
have won such rapture that they have obtained a share of that
Divine Sense of intelligence which is the most Divine of Senses,
found in God and in man's reason.
Asc. Are not the senses of all men, Thrice-greatest one, the
same?
Tris. Nay, [my] Asclepius, all have not won true reason; but
wildly rushing in pursuit of [reasons] counterfeit, they never
see the thing itself, and are deceived. And this breeds evil in
their minds, and [thus] transforms the best of animals into the
nature of a beast and manners of the brutes.
But as to Sense and all things similar, I will set forth the
whole discourse when [I explain] concerning Spirit. For man is
the sole animal that is twofold. One part of him is simple: the
[man] essential, (ousids)1 as say the Greeks as say the
Greeks, but which we call the form of the Divine Similitude.
He also is fourfold : that which the Greeks call hylic, (hulikos)
[but] which we call cosmic; of which is made the corporal part,
in which is vestured what we just have said is the divine in
man:in which the godhead of the Mind alone, together with
its kin, that is the Pure Minds senses, findeth home and rest,
its self with its own self, as though shut in the bodys walls.
Asc. What, then, Thrice-greatest one, has caused it that man
should be planted in the world, and should not pass his life in highest happiness in that part [of the universe] where there is God?
[Tris.] Rightly thou questionest, O [my] Asclepius! And we
pray God that He bestow on us the power of setting forth this
reason; since everything depends upon His Will, and specially
those things that are set forth about the Highest Whole, the
Reason thats the object of our present argument. Hear, then,
Asclepius!
1 [Here as in many other places, romanised Greek words appeared in the Latin
text. I have placed them in brackets after Meads English rendering.]

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VIII.
The Lord and Maker of all things, whom we call rightly God,
when from Himself He made the second [God], the Visible and
Sensible,I call him Sensible not that He hath sensation in
Himself (for as to this, whether or no He have himself
sensation, we will some other time declare), but that He is the
object of the senses of those who see;when, then, He made
Him first, but second to Himself, and that He seemed to Him
[most] fair, as one filled to the full with goodness of all things,
He fell in love with Him as being part of His Divinity.
Accordingly, in that He was so mighty and so fair, He willed
that some one else should have the power to contemplate the
One He had made from Himself. And thereon He made man,
the imitator of His Reason and His Love. The Will of God is in
itself complete accomplishment; inasmuch as together with His
having willed, in one and the same time He hath brought it to
full accomplishment. And so, when He perceived that the
essential (ousids) [man] could not be lover of all things,
unless He clothed him in a cosmic carapace, He shut him in
within a house of body,and ordered it that all [men] should be
so,from either nature making him a single blend and fairproportioned mixture.
Therefore hath He made man of soul and body,that is, of
an eternal and a mortal nature; so that an animal thus blended
can content his dual origin,admire and worship things in
heaven, and cultivate and govern things on earth. By mortal
thingse I do not mean the water or the earth [themselves], for
these are two of the [immortal] elements that nature hath
made subject unto men,but [either] things that are by men,
or [that are] in or from them; such as the cultivation of the
earth itself, pastures, [and] buildings, harbours, voyagings,
intercommunications, mutual services, which are the firmest
bonds of men between themselves and that part of the Cosmos
which consists [indeed] of water and of earth, [but is] the
Cosmos terrene part,which is preserved by knowledge and
the use of arts and sciences; without which [things] God willeth
not Cosmos should be complete. In that necessity doth follow
what seems good to God; performance waits upon His will. Nor

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is it credible that that which once hath pleased Him, will

become unpleasing unto God; since He hath known both what
will be, and what will please Him, long before.
IX.
But, O Asclepius, I see that thou with swift desire of mind art
in a hurry to be told how man can have a love and worship of
the Heaven, or of the things that are therein. Hear, then,
Asclepius! The love of God and Heaven, together with all them
that are therein, is one perpetual act of worship. No other
thing ensouled, of Gods or animals, can do this thing, save man
alone. Tis in the admiration, adoration, [and] the praise of
men, and [in their] acts of worship, that Heaven and Heavens
hosts find their delight.
Nor is it without cause the Muses choir hath been sent down
by Highest Deity unto the host of men; in order that, forsooth,
the terrene world should not seem too uncultured, had it lacked
the charm of measures, but rather that with songs and praise
of men accompanied with music, He might be lauded,He who
alone is all, or is the Sire of all; and so not even on the earths:
should there have been an absence of the sweetness of the
harmony of heavenly praise.
Some, then, though they be very few, endowed with the Pure
Mind, have been entrusted with the sacred charge of contemplating Heaven. Whereas those men who, from the two-fold
blending of their nature, have not as yet withdrawn their inner
reason from their bodys mass, these are appointed for the
study of the elements, and [all] that is below them.
Thus mans an animal; yet not indeed less potent in that hes
partly mortal, but rather doth he seem to be all the more fit
and efficacious for reaching Certain Reason, since he has had
mortality bestowed on him as well. For it is plain he could not
have sustained the strain of both, unless he had been formed
out of both natures, so that he could possess the powers of
cultivating Earthly things and loving Heaven.
X.
The Reason of a thesis such as this, O [my] Asclepius, I would
that thou shouldst grasp, not only with the keen attention of

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thy soul, but also with its living power [as well]. For tis a
Reason that most men cannot believe; the Perfect and the True
are to be grasped by the more holy minds. Hence, then, will I
begin.
The Lord of the Eternity is the first God; the seconds
Cosmos; man is the third. God is the Maker of the Cosmos and
of all the things therein; at the same time He ruleth all, with
man himself, [who is] the ruler of the compound thing; the
whole of which man taking on himself, doth make of it the
proper care of his own love, in order that the two of them,
himself and Cosmos, may be an ornament each unto other; so
that from this divine compost of man, World seems most fitly
called Kosmos1 in Greek.
He knows himself; he knows the World as well. So that he
recollects, indeed, what is convenient to his own parts. He calls
to mind what he must use, that they may be of service to
himself; giving the greatest praise and thanks to God, His
Image reverencing,not ignorant that he is, too, Gods image
the second [one]; for that there are two images of GodCosmos
and man.
So that it comes to pass that, since mans is a single
structure,in that part [of him] which doth consist of Soul, and
Sense, of Spirit, and of Reason, hes divine; so that he seems to
have the power to mount from as it were the higher elements
into the Heaven. But in his cosmic part, which is composed of
fire, and water, and of air, he stayeth mortal on the Earth,
lest he should leave all things committed to his care forsaken
and bereft. Thus human kind is made in one part deathless,
and in the other part subject to death while in a body.
XI.
Now of that dual nature,that is to say of man,there is a
chief capacity. [And that is] piety, which goodness follows
after. [And] this [capacity] then, and then only, seems to be
perfected, if it be fortified with virtue of despising all desires for
alien things. For alien from every part of kinship with the
Gods are all things on the Earth, whatever are possessed from
bodily desires,to which we rightly give the name possessions,
1

[The Greek word also has the meanings of order and ornament.]

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in that they are not born with us, but later on begin to be
possessed by us; wherefore we call them by the name
possessions.1
All such things, then, are alien from man,even his body.
So that we can despise not only what we long for, but also that
from which the vice of longing comes to us. For just as far as
the increase of reason leads our soul, so far one should be man;
in order that by contemplating the divine, one should look down
upon, and disregard the mortal part, which hath been joined to
him, through the necessity of helping on the lower world.
For that, in order that a man should be complete in either
part, observe that he hath been composed of elements of either
part in sets of four;with hands, and feet, both of them pairs,
and with the other members of his body, by means of which he
may do service to the lower (that is to say the terrene) world.
And to these parts [are added other] four;of sense, and soul,
of memory, and foresight, by means of which he may become
acquainted with the rest of things divine, and judge of them.
Hence it is brought about that man investigates the differences
and qualities, effects and quantities of things, with critical
research; yet, as he is held back with the too heavy weight of
bodys imperfection, he cannot properly descry the causes of the
nature of [all] things which [really] are the true ones.
Man, then, being thus created and composed, and to such
ministry and service set by Highest God,man, by his keeping
suitably the world in proper order, [and] by his piously adoring
God, in both becomingly and suitably obeying Gods Good Will,
[man being] such as this, with what reward thinkst thou he
should be recompensed? If that, indeed,since Cosmos is
Gods work,he who preserves and adds on to its beauty by his
love, joins his own work unto Gods Will; when he with toil and
care doth fashion out the species (which He hath made
[already] with His Divine Intent), with help of his own body;
with what reward thinkst thou he should be recompensed, unless it be with that with which our forebears have been blest?
That this may be the pleasure of Gods Love, such is our
prayer for you, devoted ones. In other words, may He, when ye
[A rather weak wordplay in the Latin; possibly an attempt to render an
untranslatable wordplay in the Greek.]

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have served your time, and have put off the worlds restraint,
and freed yourselves from deathly bonds, restore you pure and
holy to the nature of your higher self, that is of the Divine!
XII.
Asc. Rightly and truly, O Thrice-greatest one, thou speakest.
This is the prize for those who piously subordinate their lives to
God and live to help the world.
Tris. [To those], however, who have lived in other fashion
impiously,[to them] both is return to Heaven denied, and
theres appointed them migration into other bodies unworthy of
a holy soul and base; so that, as this discourse of ours will
show: souls in their life on earth run risk of losing hope of
future immortality.
But [all of this] doth seem to some beyond belief; a tale to
others; to others [yet again], perchance, a subject for their
mirth. For in this life in body, it is a pleasant thingthe pleasure
that one gets from ones possessions. Tis for this cause that
spite, in envy of its [hope of] immortality, doth clap the soul in
prison, as they say, and keep it down, so that it stays in that
part of itself in which its mortal, nor suffers it to know the part
of its divinity.
For I will tell thee, as though it were prophetic-ly, that no
one after us shall have the Single Love, the Love of wisdomloving, which consists in Gnosis of Divinity alone,[the practice
of] perpetual contemplation and of holy piety. For that the
many do confound philosophy with multifarious reasoning.
Asc. Why is it, then, the many make philosophy so hard to
grasp; or wherefore is it they confound this thing with multifarious reasoning ?
XIII.
Tris. Tis in this way, Asclepius;by mixing it, by means of
subtle expositions, with divers sciences not easy to be
grasped,such as arithmetic, and music, and geometry. But
Pure Philosophy, which doth depend on godly piety alone,
should only so far occupy itself with other arts, that it may
[know how to] appreciate the working out in numbers of the
fore-appointed stations of the stars when they return, and of

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the course of their procession. Let her, moreover, know how to

appreciate the Earths dimensions, its qualities and quantities,
the Waters depths, the strength of Fire, and the effects and
nature of all these. [And so] let her give worship and give
praise unto the Art and Mind of God.
As for [true] Music,to know this is naught else than to
have knowledge of the order of all things, and whatsoeer Gods
Reason hath decreed. For that the order of each several thing
when set together in one [key] for all, by means of skilful
reason, will make, as twere, the sweetest and the truest
harmony with Gods [own] Song.
XIV.
Asc. Who, therefore, will the men be after us?
Tris. They will be led astray by sophists cleverness, and
turned from True Philosophy,the Pure and Holy [Love]. For
that to worship God with single mind and soul, and reverence
the things that He hath made, and to give thanks unto His
Will, which is the only thing quite full of Good,this is Philosophy unsullied by the souls rough curiousness. But of this
subject let what has been said so far suffice.
And now let us begin to treat of Spirit and such things.
There was first God and Matter (hul), which we in Greek believe [to be] the Cosmos; and Spirit was with Cosmos, or Spirit
was in Cosmos, but not in like way as in God; nor were there
things [as yet] from which the Cosmos [comes to birth] in God.
They were not; just for the very reason that they were not, but
were as yet in that [condition] whence they have had their
birth. For those things only are not called ingenerable which
have not yet been born, but [also] those which lack the
fertilizing power of generating, so that from them naught can
be born. And so whatever things there are that have in them
the power of generating,these two are generable, [that is to
say,] from which birth can take place, though they be born from
their own selves [alone]. For theres no question that from
those born from themselves birth can with ease take place,
since from them all are born.
God, then, the everlasting, God the eternal, nor can be born,
nor could He have been born. That is, That was, That shall be

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ever. This, therefore, is Gods Natureall from itself [alone].

But Matter (hul) (or the Nature of the Cosmos) and Spirit,
although they do not seem to be things born from any source,
yet in themselves possess the power of generation and of
generating,the nature of fecundity. For the beginning [truly]
is in [just that] quality of nature which possesses in itself the
power and matter both of conception and of birth? This, then,
without conception of another, is generable of its own self.
XV.
But, on the other hand, [whereas] those things which only have
the power of bringing forth by blending with another nature,
are thus to be distinguished, this Space of Cosmos, with those
that are in it, seems not to have been born, in that [the Cosmos]
has in it undoubtedly all Natures potency. By Space I mean
that in which are all things. For all these things could not have
been had Space not been, to hold them all. Since for all things
that there have been, must be provided Space. For neither could
the qualities nor quantities, nor the positions, nor [yet] the
operations, be distinguished of those things which are no where.
So then the Cosmos, also, though not born, still has in it the
births of all; in that, indeed, it doth afford for all of them most
fecund wombs for their conception It, therefore, is the sum of
[all that] quality of Matter which hath creative potency,
although it hath not been [itself] created. And, seeing that
[this] quality of Matter is in its nature [simple] productiveness ;
so the same [source] produces bad as well [as good].
XVI.
I have not, therefore, O Asclepius and Ammon, said what many
say, that God could not excise and banish evil from the Scheme
of Things;to whom no answer need at all be given. Yet for
your sakes I will continue what I have begun, and give a reason.
They say that God ought to have freed the World from bad in
every way; for so much is its in the World, that it doth seem to be
as though it were one of its limbs. This was foreseen by Highest
God and [due] provision made, as much as ever could have been
in reason made, then when He thought it proper to endow the
minds of men with sense, and science and intelligence.

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For it is by these things alone whereby we stand above the

rest of animals, that we are able to avoid the snares and crimes
of ill. For he who shall on sight have tunied from them, before
he hath become immeshed in them,he is a man protected by
divine intelligence and [godly] prudence. For that the groundwork of [true] science doth consist of the top-stones of virtue.
It is by Spirit that all things are governed in the Cosmos, and
made quick,Spirit made subject to the Will of Highest God, as
though it were an engine or machine. So far, then, [only] let
Him be by us conceived,as Him who is conceivable by mind
alone, who is called Highest God, the Ruler and Director of God
Sensible,of Him who in Himself includes all Space, all
Substance, and all Matter, of things producing and begetting,
and all whatever is, however great it be.
XVII.
It is by Spirit that all species in the Cosmos are [or] moved or
ruled,each one according to its proper nature given it by God.
Matter (hul), or Cosmos, on the other hand, is that which
holds all things,the field of motion, and the that which crowds
together all; of which God is the Ruler, distributing unto all
cosmic things all that is requisite to each. It is with Spirit that
He fills all things, according to the quality of each ones nature.
[Now,] seeing that the hollow roundness of the Cosmos is
borne round into the fashion of a sphere; by reason of its [very]
quality or form, it never can be altogether visible unto itself.
So that, however high a place shouldest choose for looking
down couldst not see from it what is because in many places it
confronts in it thou below, thou at bottom, [the senses], and so
is thought to have the quality [of being visible throughout]. For
it is solely owing to the forms of species, with images of which it
seems insculpted, that it is thought [to be] as though twere
visible [throughout]; but as a fact tis ever to itself invisible.
3. Wherefore, its bottom, or its [lowest] part, if [such a] place
there be within a sphere, is called in Greek a-eids; since that
eidein1 in Greek means seeing,which being-seen the
[sic, s.b. idein (den). The Greek word-play, deriving the name of Hades from
the word for visible with the negative prefix, was established in classical
times; it appears in some of the dialogues of Plato, for instance.]

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spheres beginning lacks. Hence, too, the species have the

name eideai,1 since theyre of form we cannot see. Therefore, in
that they are deprived of being-seen, in Greek they are called
Hades; in that they are at bottom of the sphere, theyre called
in Latin Inferi. These, then, are principal and prior, and, as it
were, the sources and the heads of all the things which are in
them, through them, or from them.
XVIII.
Asc. All things, then, in themselves (as thou, Thrice-greatest
one, dost say) are cosmic [principles] (as I should say) of all the
species which are in them, [or] as it were, the sum and
substance of each one of them.
Tris. So Cosmos, then, doth nourish bodies; the Spirit, souls;
the [Higher] Sense2 (with which Celestial Gift mankind alone is
blest) doth feed the mind. And [these are] not all men, but
[they are] few, whose minds are of such quality that they can be
receptive of so great a blessing.
For as the Worlds illumined by the Sun, so is the mind of
man illumined by that Light; nay, in [still] fuller measure. For
whatsoever thing the Sun doth shine upon, it is anon, by
interjection of the Earth or Moon, or by the intervention of the
night, robbed of its light. But once the [Higher] Sense hath
been commingled with the soul of man, there is at-onement
from the happy union of the blending of their natures; so that
minds of this kind are never more held fast in errors of the
darkness. Wherefore, with reason have they said the [Higher]
Senses are the souls of Gods; to which I add: not of all Gods,
but of the great ones [only]; nay, even of the principles of these.
XIX
Asc. What dost thou call, Thrice-greatest one, the heads of
things, or sources of beginnings?
Tris. Great are the mysteries which I reveal to thee, divine
the secrets I disclose; and so I make beginning of this thing1
with prayers for Heavens favour. The hierarchies of Gods are
[Mead queries this as an error for daj, as in the Platonic Ideas or forms.]
[sensus; Copenhaver renders consciousness, the context suggests that nous
or something like it is meant.]
1
2

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numerous; and of them all one class is called the Noumenal,1

the other [class] the Sensible.2 The former are called Noumenal, not for the reason that they're thought to lie beyond our
senses; for these are just the Gods we sense more truly than
the ones we call the visible,just as our argument will prove,
and thou, if thou attend, wilt be made fit to see. For that a
lofty reasoning, and much more one that is too godlike for the
mental grasp of [average] men, if that the speakers words are
not received with more attentive service of the ears,will fly
and flow beyond them; or rather will flow back [again], and
mingle with the streams of its own source.
There are, then, [certain] Gods who are the principals of all
the species. Next there come those whose essence (ousia) is
their principal. These are the Sensible, each similar to its own
dual source who by their sensibility affect all things,the one
part through the other part [in each] making to shine the
proper work of every single one. Of Heaven,or of whatsoeer it
be that is embraced within the term,the essence-chief
(ousiarchs) is Zeus; for tis through Heaven that Zeus gives life
to all. Suns essence-chief (ousiarchs) is light; for the good gift
of light is poured on us through the Suns disk.
The, Thirty-six, who have the name of Horoscopes are in
the [self] same space as the Fixed Stars; of these the essencechief (ousiarchs), or prince, is he whom they call Pantomorph
(pantomorphos), or Omniform, who fashioneth the various
forms for various species. The Seven who are called spheres,
have essence-chiefs (ousiarchai), that is, [have each] their
proper rulers, whom they call [all together] Fortune and
Heimarmen,3 whereby all things are changed by natures law;
perpetual stability being varied with incessant motion. The
Air, moreover, is the engine, or machine, through which all
things are made(there is, however, an essence-chief of this, a
second [Air])mortal from mortal things and things like these.
These hierarchies of Gods, then, being thus and [in this way]
related: from bottom unto top, are [also] thus connected with
each other, and tend towards themselves; so mortal things are
intelligibilis.
2 sensibilis.
3 Fate, emarmnh.
1

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bound to mortal, things sensible to sensible. The whole of [this

grand scale of] Rulership, however, seems to Him [who is] the
Highest Lord, either to be not many things, or rather [to be]
one. For that from One all things depending, and flowing down
from it,when they are seen as separate, theyre thought to be
as many as they possibly can be; but in their union it is one
[thing], or rather two, from which all things are made;that is,
from Matter, by means of which the other things are made, and
by the Will of Him, by nod of whom they're brought to pass.
XX.
Asc. Is this again the reason, O Thrice-greatest one?
Tris. It is, Asclepius. For Gods the Father or the Lord of all,
or whatsoever else may be the name by which Hes named more
holily and piously by men,which should be set apart among
ourselves for sake of our intelligence. For if we contemplate
this so transcendent God, we shall not make Him definite by
any of these names. For if a [spoken] word is this:a sound
proceeding from the air, when struck by breath,1 denoting the
whole will, perchance, of man, or else the [higher] sense, which
by good chance a man perceives by means of mind, when out of
[all his] senses,a name the stuff of which, made of a syllable
or two, has so been limited and pondered, that it might serve in
man as necessary link between the voice and ear;thus [must]
the Name of God in full consist of Sense, and Spirit, and of Air,
and of all things in them, or through, or with them.
Indeed, I have no hope that the Creator of the whole of
Greatness, the Father and the Lord of all the things [that are],
could ever have one name, even although it should be made up
of a multitudeHe who cannot be named, or rather He who
can be called by every name. For He, indeed, is One and All; so
that it needs must be that all things should be called by the
same name as His, or He Himself called by the names of all.
He, then, alone, yet all-complete in the fertility of either sex,
ever with child of His own Will, doth ever bring to birth
whatever He hath willed to procreate. His Will is the Allgoodness, which also is the Goodness of all things, born from
the nature of His own Divinity,in order that all things may
1

spiritu.

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be, just as they all have been, and that henceforth the nature of
being born from their own selves may be sufficient to all things
that will be born. Let this, then, be the reason given thee,
Asclepius, wherefore and how all things are made of either sex.
XXI.
Asc. Thou speakst of God, then, O Thrice-greatest one?
Tris. Not only God, Asclepius, but all things living and inanimate. For tis impossible that any of the things that are
should be unfruitful. For if fecundity should be removed from
all the things that are, it could not be that they should be for
ever what they are. I mean that Nature, Sense, and Cosmos,
have in themselves the power of being born, and of preserving
all things that are born. For either sex is full of procreation;
and of each one there is a union, or,whats more true,a
unity incomprehensible; which you may rightly call Ers or
Aphrodit, or both [names].
This, then, is truer than all truth, and plainer than what the
mind[s eye] perceives;that from that Universal God of
Universal Nature all other things for evermore have found, and
had bestowed on them, the mystery of bringing forth; in which
there is innate the sweetest Charity, [and] Joy, [and] Merriment, Longing, and Love Divine. We might have had to tell the
mighty power and the compulsion of this mystery, if it had not
been able to be known by every one from personal experience,
by observation of himself.1
For if thou shouldst regard that supreme [point] of time
when . . .2 the one nature doth pour forth the young into the
other one, and when the other greedily absorbs [it] from the
first, and hides it [ever] deeper [in itself];then, at that time,
out of their common congress, females attain the nature of the
1 [From this sentence to around the middle of cap. xxix, a version of the text
appears in Coptic translation in NHC VI, with a number of significant variations from the Latin. See Robinson (ed.), Nag Hammadi Library in English for
a translation.]
2 [There is no lacuna in the text, and the Latin, which Mead helpfully gives in a
note (. . . quo ex crebro attritu prurimus ut . . .) presents no real difficulty for
translation; literally . . . when from constant rubbing we itch so that . . .
although prurimus, itch, is used in a transferred sense (one hopes . . . if not,
you should really get that checked out). Mead clearly still had at least one foot
in the nineteenth century.]

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males, males weary grow with female listlessness.1 And so the

consummation of this mystery, so sweet and requisite, is
wrought in secret; lest, owing to the vulgar jests of ignorance,
the deity of either sex2 should be compelled to blush at natural
congress,and much more still, if it should be subjected to the
sight of impious folk.
XXII.
The pious are not numerous, however; nay, they are very few,
so that they may be counted even in the world. Whence it doth
come about, that in the many bad inheres, through defect of the
Gnosis and Discernment of the things that are. For that it is
from the intelligence of Godlike Reason; by which all things are
ordered, there come to birth contempt and remedy of vice
throughout the world. But when unknowingness and ignorance
persist, all vicious things wax strong, and plague the soul with
wounds incurable; so that, infected with them, and invitiated, it
swells up, as though it were with poisons,except for those
who know the Discipline of souls and highest Cure of intellect.
So, then, although it may do good to few alone, tis proper to
develope and explain this thesis:wherefore Divinity hath
deigned to share His science and intelligence with men alone.
Give ear, accordingly! When God, [our] sire and Lord, made
man, after the Gods, out of an equal mixture of a less pure
cosmic part and a divine,it [naturally] came to pass the
imperfections of the cosmic part remained commingled with
[our] frames, and other oness [as well], by reason of the food
and sustenance we have out of necessity in common with all
lives; by reason of which things it needs must be that the
desires, and passions, and other vices, of the mind should
occupy the souls of human kind.
As for the Gods, in as much as they had been made of Natures
fairest part, and have no need of the supports of reason and of
1 [The Coptic, as translated by James Brashler, Peter Dirkse and Douglas
Parrott in Robinson, op. cit., puts this bit as follows: when the semen
reaches the climax, it leaps forth. In that moment the female receives the
strength of the male; the male for his part receives the strength of the female,
while the semen does this.]
2 [Read by Copenhaver as the divinity that arises in both natures through
sexual coupling.]

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discipline:although, indeed, their deathlessness, the very

strength of being ever of one single age, stands in this case for
prudence and for science,still, for the sake of reasons unity,
instead of science and of intellect (so that the Gods should not
be strange to these),He, by His everlasting law, decreed for
them an order, circumscribed by the necessity of law. While as
for man, He doth distinguish him from all the other animals by
reason and by discipline alone; by means of which men can
remove and separate their bodies vices, He helping them to
hope and effort after deathlessness.
In fine, He hath made man both good and able to share in
immortal life,out of two natures, [one] mortal, [one] divine.
And just because he is thus fashioned by the Will of God, it is
appointed that man should be superior both to the Gods, who
have been made of an immortal nature only, and also to all
mortal things. It is because of this that man, being joined unto
the Gods by kinsmanship, doth reverence them with piety and
holy mind; while, on their side, the Gods with pious sympathy
regard and guard all things of men.
XXIII.
But this can only be averred of a few men endowed with pious
minds. Still, of the rest, the vicious folk, we ought to say no
word, for fear a very sacred sermon should be spoiled by
thinking of them.
And since our sermon treats of the
relationship and intercourse of men and Gods,learn, O
Asclepius, the power and strength of man! [Our] Lord and
Father, or what is Highest God,as Hes Creator of the Gods in
Heaven, so mans the maker of the gods who, in the temples,
suffer mans approach, and who not only have light poured on
them, but who send forth [their] light [on all]; not only does a
man go forward towards the God[s], but also he confirms the
Gods [on earth]. Art thou surprised, Asclepius; nay is it not
that even thou dost not believe?
Asc. I am amazed, Thrice-greatest one; but willingly I give
assent to [all] thy words. I judge that man most blest who hath
attained so great felicity.
Tris. And rightly so; [for] he deserves our wonder, in that he
is the greatest of them all. As for the genus of the Gods in

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Heaven,tis plain from the commixture of them all, that it has

been made pregnant from the fairest part of nature, and that
the only signs [by which they are discerned] are, as it were,
before all else their heads.
Whereas the species of the gods which humankind constructs
is fashioned out of either nature,out of that nature which is
more ancient and far more divine, and out of that which is in
men; that is, out of the stuff of which they have been made and
are configured, not only in their heads alone, but also in each
limb and their whole frame. And so mankind, in imaging
Divinity, stays mindful of the nature and the source of its own
self. So that, just as [our] Sire and Lord did make the Gods
onian,1 that they might be like Him; so hath mankind
configured its own gods according to the likeness of the look of
its own self.
XXIV.
Asc. Thou dost not mean their statues, dost thou, O Thricegreatest one?
Tris. [I mean their] statues, O Asclepius,dost thou not see
how much thou even, doubtest?statues, ensouled with sense,
and filled with spirit, which work such mighty and such
[strange] results,statues which can foresee what is to come,
and which perchance can prophesy, foretelling things by
dreams and many other ways,[statues] that take their
strength away from men, or cure their sorrow, if they do so
deserve. Dost thou not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is the
image of the Heaven; or, what is truer still, the transference, or
the descent, of all that are in governance or exercise in Heaven?
And if more truly [still] it must be said,this land of ours is
Shrine of all the World.
Further, in that 'tis fitting that the prudent should know all
before, it is not right ye should be ignorant of this. The time
will come when Egypt will appear to have in vain served the
Divinity with pious mind and constant worship; and all its holy
cult will fall to nothingness and be in vain. For that Divinity is
now about to hasten back from Earth to Heaven, and Egypt
shall be left; and Earth, which was the seat of pious cults, shall
1

[Affectation for eternal.]

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THE PERFECT SERMON

be bereft and widowed of the presence of the Gods. And

foreigners shall fill this region and this land; and there shall be
not only the neglect of pious cults, butwhat is still more
painful,as though enacted by the laws, a penalty shall be
decreed against the practice of [our] pious cults and worship of
the Gods[entire] proscription of them.
Then shall this holiest land, seat of [our] shrines and
temples, be choked with tombs and corpses. O Egypt, Egypt, of
thy pious cults tales only will remain, as far beyond belief for
thy own sons [as for the rest of men]; words only will be left cut
on thy stones, thy pious deeds recounting! And Egypt will be
made the home of Scyth or Indian, or some one like to them,
that is a foreign neighbour. Ay, for the Godly company shall
mount again to Heaven, and their forsaken worshippers shall
all die out; and Egypt, thus bereft of God and man, shall be
abandoned.
And now I speak to thee, O River,1 holiest [Stream]! I tell
thee what will be. With bloody torrents shalt thou overflow thy
banks. Not only shall thy streams divine be stained with blood;
but they shall all flow over [with the same]. The tale of tombs
shall far exceed the [number of the] quick; and the surviving
remnant shall be Egyptians in their tongue alone, but in their
actions foreigners.
XXV.
Why dost thou weep, Asclepius? Nay, more than this, by far
more wretched,Egypt herself shall be impelled and stained
with greater ills. For she, the Holy [Land], and once deservedly
the most beloved by God, by reason of her pious service of the
Gods on earth,she, the sole colony of holiness, and teacher of
religion [on the earth], shall be the type of all that is most
barbarous. And then, out of our loathing for mankind, the
World will seem no more deserving of our wonder and our
praise. All this good thing,than which there has been fairer
naught that can be seen, nor is there anything, nor will there
[ever] be,will be in jeopardy.
And it will prove a burden unto men; and on account of this
they will despise and cease to love this Cosmos as a whole,
1

[i.e., the Nile.]

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the changeless work of God; the glorious construction of the

Good, comprised of multifold variety of forms; the engine of
Gods Will, supporting His own work ungrudgingly; the multitudinous whole massed in a unity of all, that should be
reverenced, praised and loved,by them at least who have the
eyes to see. For Darkness will be set before the Light, and
Death will be thought preferable to Life. No one will raise his
eyes to Heaven; the pious man will be considered mad, the
impious a sage; the frenzied held as strong, the worst as best.
For soul, and all concerning it,whereby it doth presume
that either it hath been born deathless, or that it will attain to
deathlessness, according to the argument I have set forth for
you,[all this] will be considered not only food for sport: but
even vanity. Nay, [if ye will] believe me, the penalty of death
shall be decreed to him who shall devote himself to the Religion
of the Mind.1 New statutes shall come into force, a novel law;
naught [that is] sacred, nothing pious, naught that is worthy of
the Heaven, or Gods in Heaven, shall [eer] be heard, or [even]
mentally believed.
The sorrowful departure of the Gods from men takes place;
bad angels2 only stay, who mingled with humanity will lay
their hands on them, and drive the wretched folk to every ill of
recklessness,to wars, and robberies, deceits, and all those
things that are opposed to the souls nature. Then shall the
Earth no longer hold together; the Sea no longer shall be sailed
upon; nor ehall the Heaven continue with the Courses of the
Stars, nor the Star-course in Heaven. The voice of every God
shall cease in the [Great] Silence that no one can break; the
fruits of Earth shall rot; nay, Earth no longer shall bring forth;
and Air itself shall faint in that sad listlessness.
XXVI.
This, when it comes, shall be the Worlds old age, impiety,
irregularity, and lack of rationality in all good things. And
when these things all come to pass, Asclepius,then He, [our]
Lord and Sire, God First in power, and Ruler of the One God
[Visible], in check of crime, and calling error back from the
1

[Mentis religione, mens possibly here a Latin equivalent of nous.]

Nocentes angeli. [The Coptic (trans. cit.) has wicked angels.]

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THE PERFECT SERMON

corruption of all things unto good manners and to deeds

spontaneous with His Will (that is to say Gods Goodness),
ending all ill, by either washing it away with water-flood, or
burning it away with fire, or by the means of pestilent diseases,
spread throughout all hostile lands,God will recall the
Cosmos to its ancient form; so that the World itself shall seem
meet to be worshipped and admired; and God, the Maker and
Restorer of so vast a work, be sung by the humanity who shall
be then, with ceaseless heraldings of praise and [hymns of]
blessing.
For this [Re-]birth of Cosmos is the making new of all good
things, and the most holy and most pious bringing-back again
of Natures self, by means of a set course of time,of Nature,
which was. without beginning, and which is without an end.
For that Gods Will hath no beginning; and, in that tis the
same and as it is, it is without an end.
Asc. Because Gods Natures the Determination of the Will.
Determination is the Highest Good; is it not so, Thrice-greatest
one?
Tris. Asclepius, Will is Determinations child; nay, willing ih
itself comes from the Will. Not that He willeth aught desiring
it; for that He is the Fullness of all things, and wills what
things He has. He thus wills all good things, and has all that
He wills. Nay, rather, He doth think and will all good. This,
then, is God; the World of Goods His Image.
XXVII.
Asc. [Is Cosmos] good, Thrice-greatest one?
Tris. [Tis] good, as I will teach thee, O Asclepius. For just as
God is the Apportioner and Steward of good things to all the
species, or [more correctly] genera, which are in Cosmos,that
is to say, of Sense: and Soul, and Life,so Cosmos is the giver
and bestower of all things which seem unto [us] mortals good;
that is to say, the alternation of its parts, of seasonable fruits,
birth, growth, maturity, and things like these. And for this
cause God doth transcend the height of highest Heaven, extending everywhere, and doth behold all things on every side.
Beyond the Heaven starless Space doth stretch, stranger to
every, thing possessed of body. The Dispensator whos between

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the Heaven and Earth, is Ruler of the Space which we call Zeus
[Above]. The Earth and Sea is ruled by Zeus Below;1 he is the
Nourisher of mortal lives, and of fruitbearing [trees]. It is by
reason of the powers of all of these that fruits, and trees, and
earth, grow green. The powers and energies of [all] the other
[Gods] will be distributed through all the things that are.
Yea, they who rule the earth shall be distributed [through all
the lands], and [finally] be gathered in a state,at top of
Egypts upper part,which shall be founded towards the
setting sun, and to which all the mortal race shall speed.
Asc. But now, just at this moment, where are they, Thricegreatest one?
Tris. They're gathered in a very large community, upon the
Libyan Hill. And now enough concerning this hath been
declared.
But now the question as to deathlessness or as to death must
be discussed. The expectation and the fear of death torture the
multitude, who do not know True Reason. Now death is
brought about by dissolution of the body, wearied out with toil,
and of the number, when complete, by which the bodys
members are arranged into a single engine for the purposes of
life. The body dies, when it no longer can support the lifepowers of a man. This, then, is death,the bodys dissolution,
and the disappearance of corporeal sense.2
As to this death anxiety is needless. But theres another
[death] which no man can escape, but which the ignorance and
unbelief of man think little of.
Asc. What is it, O Thrice-greatest one, that men know
nothing of, or disbelieve that it can be?
Tris. So, lend thy ear, Asclepius!
Jupiter Plutonius.
[This passage in Greek was quoted in the anthology of Stobus under the
head Of Hermes, from those to Asclepius. Followeth Meads translation of
this Greek version:
Now must we speak of death. For death affrights the many as the greatest
of all ills, in ignorance of fact. Death is the dissolution of the toiling frame. For
when the number of the bodys joints becomes complete,the basis of the
body's jointing being number,that body dies; [that is,] when it no longer can
support the man.
And this is death,the body's dissolution and the
disappearance of corporeal sense.]
1
2

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THE PERFECT SERMON

XXVIII.

When, [then,] the souls departure from the body shall take
place,then shall the judgment and the weighing of its merit
pass into its highest daimons power. And when he sees it
pious is and just,he suffers it to rest in spots appropriate to
it. But if he find it soiled with stains of evil deeds, and fouled
with vice,he drives it from Above into the Depths, and hands
it oer to warring hurricanes and vortices of Air, of Fire, and
Water.
Twixt Heaven and Earth, upon the waves of Cosmos, is it
dragged in contrary directions, for ever racked with ceaseless
pains; so that in this its deathless nature doth afflict the soul,
in that because of its unceasing sense, it hath the yoke of
ceaseless torture set upon its neck.1 Know, then, that we
should dread, and be afraid, and [ever] be upon our guard, lest
we should be entangled in these [toils]. For those who do not
now believe, will after their misdeeds be driven to believe, by
facts not words, by actual sufferings of punishment and not by
threats.
Asc. The faults of men are not, then, punished, O Thricegreatest one, by law of man alone?
Tris. In the first place, Asclepius, all things on Earth must
die. Further, those things which live by reason of a body, and
which do cease from living by reason of the same,all these,
according to the merits of this life, or its demerits, find due
[rewards or] punishments. [And as to punishments] theyre all
the more severe, if in their life [their misdeeds] chance to have
been hidden, till their death. For [then] they will be made full
conscious of all things by the divinity, just as they are,
according to the shades of punishment allotted to their crimes.
XXIX.
Asc. And these deserve [still] greater punishments, Thricegreatest one?2
[The Coptic goes into more detail here.]
[From this point on the Coptic is almost completely different and for the
remainder of the extract goes off on one about the tortures inflicted on sinners
by daimons (NHC VI, 78:14-43), apparently regarding those who steal from
temples as the worst offenders.]
1
2

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Tris. [Assuredly;] for those condemned by laws of man do

lose their life by violence, so that [all] men may see they have
not yielded up their soul to pay the debt of nature, but have
received the penalty of their deserts. Upon the other hand, the
righteous man finds his defence in serving God and deepest
piety. For God doth guard such men from every ill.
Yea, He who is the Sire of all, [our] Lord, and who alone is
all, doth love to show Himself to all. It is not by the place
where he may be, nor by the quality which he may have, nor by
the greatness which he may possess, but by the minds intelligence alone, that He doth shed His light on man,[on him]
who shakes the clouds of Error from his soul, and sights the
brilliancy of Truth, mingling himself with the All-sense of the
Divine Intelligence; through love of which he wins his freedom
from that part of him oer which Death rules, and has the seed
of the assurance of his future Deathlessness implanted in him.
This, then, is how the good will differ from the bad. Each
several one will shine in piety, in sanctity, in prudence, in
worship, and in service of [our] God, and see True Reason, as
though [he looked at it] with [corporal] eyes; and each will by
the confidence of his belief excel all other men, as by its light
the Sun the other stars. For that it is not so much by the
greatness of his light as by his holiness and his divinity, the
Sun himself lights up the other stars.
Yea, [my] Asclepius, thou shouldst regard him as the second
God, ruling all things, and giving light to all things living in the
Cosmos, whether ensouled or unensouled. For if the Cosmos is
a living thing, and if it has been, and it is, and will be everliving,naught in the Cosmos is subject to death.
For of an ever-living thing, it is [the same] of every part
which is; [that is,] that tis [as ever-living] as it is [itself]; and in
the World itself [which is] for everyone, and at the self-same
time an ever-living thing of life,in it there is no place for
death.
And so he should be the full store of life and deathlessness; if
that it needs must be that he should live for ever. And so the
Sun, just as the Cosmos, lasts for aye. So is he, too, for ever
ruler of [all] vital powers, or of [our] whole vitality ; he is their
ruler, or the one who gives them out. God, then, is the eternal

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THE PERFECT SERMON

ruler of all living things, or vital functions, that are in the

World. He is the everlasting giver-forth of Life itself. Once for
all [time] He hath bestowed Life on all vital powers; He further
doth preserve them by a law that lasts for evermore, as I will
[now] explain.
XXX.
For in the very Life of the Eternity is Cosmos moved; and in the
On
very Everlastingness1 of Life [itself] is Cosmic Space.
which account it shall not stop at any time, nor shall it be
destroyed; for that its very self is palisaded round about, and
bound together as it were, by Livings Sempiternity. Cosmos is
[thus] Life-giver unto all that are in it, and is the Space of all
that are in governance beneath the Sun. The motion of the
Cosmos in itself consisteth of a two-fold energy. Tis vivified
itself from the without by the Eternity, and vivifies all things
that are within, making all different, by numbers and by times,
fixed and appointed [for them].
Now Times distinguished on the Earth by quality of air, by
variation of its heat and cold; in Heaven by the returnings of the
stars to the same spots, the revolution of their course in Time.
And while the Cosmos is the home of Time, it is kept green
[itself] by reason of Times course and motion. Time, on the
other hand, is kept by regulation. Order and Time effect renewal
of all things which are in Cosmos by means of alternation.
All things, then, being thus, there's nothing stable, nothing
fixed, nothing immoveable, of things that are being born, in
Heaven or on the Earth. Immoveable [is] God alone, and
rightly [He] alone; for He Himself is in Himself, and by
Himself, and round Himself, completely full and perfect. He is
His own immoveable stability. Nor by the pressure of some
other one can He be moved, nor in the space [of anyone]. For in
Him are all [spaces], and He Himself alone is in them all;
unless someone should venture to assert that Gods own
motions in Eternity; nay, rather, it is just Immoveable Eternity
itself, back into which the motion of all times is funded, and out
of which the motion of all times takes its beginning.
[Both Eternity and Everlastingness render ternitas; probably an in the
Greek.]

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XXXI.
God, then, hath [ever] been unchanging: and ever, in like
fashion, with Himself hath the Eternity consisted,having
within itself Cosmos ingenerate, which we correctly call [God]
Sensible. Of that [transcendent] Deity this Image hath been
made,Cosmos the imitator of Eternity. Time, further, hath
the strength and nature of its own stability, in spite of its being
in perpetual motion,from its necessity of [ever] from itself
reverting to itself.1
And so, although Eternity is stable, motionless, and fixed,
still, seeing that the movement of [this] Time (which is subject
to motion) is ever being recalled into Eternity,and for that
reason. Times mobility is circular,it comes to pass that the
Eternity itself, although in its own self, is motionless, [yet] on
account of Time, in which it is(and it is in it),it seems to be
in movement as all motion. So that it comes to pass, that both
Eternitys stability becometh moved, and Times mobility
becometh stable. So may we ever hold that God Himself is
moved into Himself by [ever-] same transcendency of motion.
For that stability is in His vastness motion motionless; for by
His vastness is [His] law exempt from change.
That, then, which so transcends, which is not subject unto
sense, [which is] beyond all bounds, [and which] cannot be
grasped,That transcends all appraisement; That cannot be
supported, nor borne up, nor can it be tracked out. For where,
and when, and whence, and how, and what, He is,-is known to
none. For Hes borne up by [His] supreme stability, and His
stability is in Himself [alone],whether [this mystery] be God,
or the Eternity, or both, or one in other, or both in either.
And for this cause, just as Eternity transcends the bounds of
Time; so Time [itself], in that it cannot have bounds set to it by
number, or by change, or by the period of the revolution of some
second [kind of Time],is of the nature of Eternity. Both, then,
seem boundless, both eternal.
And so stability, though
naturally fixed, yet seeing that it can sustain the things that
are in motion,because of all the good it does by reason of its
firmness, deservedly doth hold the chiefest place.
1

[Compare the God-Ain-Kosmos-Time-Becoming scheme in C.H. XI.]

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THE PERFECT SERMON

XXXII

The principals of all that are, are, therefore, God and on.1
The Cosmos, on the other hand, in that tis moveable, is not a
principal. For its mobility exceeds its own stability by treating
the immoveable fixation as the law of everlasting movement.
The Whole Sense, then, of the Divinity, though like [to Him] in
its own self immoveable, doth set itself in motion within its own
stability. Tis holy, incorruptible, and everlasting, and if there
can be any better attribute to give to it, [tis its],Eternity of
God supreme, in Truth itself subsisting, the Fullness of all
things, of Sense, and of the whole of Science, consisting, so to
say, with God.
The Cosmic Sense is the container of all sensibles, [all]
species, and [all] sciences. The human [higher2 sense consists]
in the retentiveness of memory, in that it can recall all things
that it hath done. For only just as far ae the man-animal haa
the divinity of Sense descended; in that God hath not willed the
highest Sense divine should be commingled with the rest of
animals; lest it should blush for shame on being mingled with
the other lives. For whatsoever be the quality, or the extent, of
the intelligence of a mans Sense, the whole of it consists in
power of recollecting what is past. It is through his retentiveness of memory, that mans been made the ruler of the
earth.
Now the intelligence of Nature can be won by quality of
Cosmic Sense,from all the things in Cosmos which sense can
perceive. Concerning [this] Eternity, which is the second
[one],the Sense of this we get from out the senses Cosmos,
and we discern its quality [by the same means]. But the
intelligence of Quality [itself], the Whatness of the Sense of
God Supreme, is Truth alone,of which [pure] Truth not even
the most tenuous sketch, or [faintest] shade, in Cosmos is
discerned. For where is aught [of it] discerned by measurement
of times,wherein are seen untruths, and births [-and-deaths],
and errors?
[Still ternitas in the Latin.]
[The frequent interpolation of the word higher where there is nothing in the
text corresponding is one of the few respects in which this translation is
distorted by the views of the theosophical schools of the nineteenth century.]
1
2

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Thou seest, then, Asclepius, on what we are [already]

founded, with what we occupy ourselves, and after what we
dare to strive. But unto Thee, O God most high, I give my
thanks, in that Thou hast enlightened me with Light to see
Divinity! And ye, O Tat, Asclepius and Ammon, in silence hide
the mysteries divine within the secret places of your hearts,
and breathe no word of their concealment!
Now in our case the intellect doth differ from the sense in
this,-that by the minds extension intellect can reach to the
intelligence and the discernment of the quality of Cosmic
Sense. The Intellect of Cosmos, on the other hand, extends to
the Eternity and to the Gnosis of the Gods who are above itself.
And thus it comes to pass for men, that we perceive the things
in Heaven, as it were through a mist, at, far as the condition of
the human sense allows. Tis true that the extension [of the
mind] which we possess for the survey of such transcendent
things, is very narrow [still]; but [it will be] most ample when it
shall perceive with the felicity of [true] self-consciousness.
XXXIII.
Now on the subject of a Void,which seems to almost all a
thing of vast importance,I hold the following view. Naught
is, naught could have been, naught ever will be void. For all
the members of the Cosmos are completely full; so that Cosmos
itself is full and [quite] complete with bodies, diverse in quality
and form, possessing each its proper kind and size. And of
these bodiesones greater than another, or anothers less than
is another, by difference of strength and size. Of course, the
stronger of them are more easily perceived, just as the larger
[are]. The lesser ones, however, or the more minute, can
scarcely be perceived, or not at allthose which we know are
things [at all] by sense of touch alone. Whence many come to
think they are not bodies, and that there are void spaces,
which is impossible.
So also [for the Space] which is called Extra-cosmic,if there
be any (which I do not believe),then] is it filled by Him with
things Intelligible, that is things of like nature with His own
Divinity; just as this Cosmos which is called the Sensible, is
fully filled with bodies and with animals, consonant with its

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THE PERFECT SERMON

proper nature and its quality;[bodies] the proper shape of

which we do not all behold, but [see] some large beyond their
proper measure, some very small; either because of the great
space which lies between [them and ourselves], or else because
our sight is dull; so that they seem to us to be minute, or by the
multitude are thought not to exist at all, because of their too
great tenuity. I mean the daimones, who, I believe, have their
abode with us, and heroes, who abide between the purest part
of air above us and the earth,where it is ever cloudless, and
no [movement from the] motion of a single star [disturbs the
peace].
Because of this, Asclepius, thou shalt call nothing void;
unless thou wilt declare of what thats void, which thou dost
say is void;for instance, void of fire, of water, or things like to
these. For if it should fall out, that it should seem that
anything is able to be void of things like these,though that
which seemeth void be little or be big, it still cannot be void of
spirit and of air.
XXXIV.
In like way must we also talk concerning Space,1a term
which by itself is void of sense. For Space seems what it is
from that of which it is [the space]. For if the qualifying word
is cut away, the sense is maimed. Wherefore we shall [more]
rightly say the space of water, space of fire, or [space] of things
like these. For as it is impossible that aught be void; so is
Space also in itself not possible to be distinguished what it is.
For if you postulate a space without that [thing] of which it is
[the space], it will appear to be void space,which I do not
believe exists in Cosmos.
If nothing, then, is void, so also Space by its own self does not
show what it is unless you add to it lengths, breadths [and
depths],just as you add the proper marks unto mens bodies.
These things, then, being thus, Asclepius, and ye who are with
[him],know the Intelligible Cosmos (that is, [the one] which is
discerned by contemplation of the mind alone) is bodiless; nor
can aught corporal be mingled with its nature,[by corporal I
1 [The word in the Latin is locus, redering the Greek topoj, not spatium; it
would perhaps be better translated place.]

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117

mean] what can be known by quality, by quantity, and

numbers. For there is nothing of this kind in that.
This Cosmos, then, which is called Sensible, is the receptacle
of all things sensible,of species, qualities, or bodies. But not
a single one of these can quicken without God. For God is all,
and by Him [are] all things, and all [are] of His Will. For that
He is all Goodness, Fitness, Wisdom, unchangeable,that can
be sensed and understood by His own self alone. Without Him
naught hath been, nor is, nor will be.
For all things are from Him, in Him, and through Him,
both multitudinous qualities, and mighty quantities, and
magnitudes exceeding every means of measurement, and
species of all forms;which things, if thou shouldst understand, Asclepius, thou wilt give thanks to God. And if thou
shouldst observe it as a whole, thou wilt be taught, by means of
the True Reason, that Cosmos in itself is knowable to sense,
and that all things in it are wrapped as in a vesture by that
Higher Cosmos [spoken of above].
XXXV.
Now every single class of living thing, Asclepius, of whatsoever
kind, or it be mortal or be rational, whether it be endowed with
soul, or be without one, just as each has its class, so does each
several [class] have images of its own class. And though each
separate class of animal has in it every form of its own class,
still in the selfsame [kind of] form the units differ from each
other. And so although the class of men is of one kind, so that a
man can be distinguished by his [general] look, still individual
men within the sameness of their [common] form do differ from
each other.
For the idea which is divine, is bodiless, and is whatever is
grasped by the mind. So that although these two, from which
the general form and body are derived, are bodiless, it is
impossible that any single form should be produced exactly like
another,because the moments of the hours and points of
inclination [when theyre born] are different. But they are
changed as many times as there are moments in the hour of
that revolving Circle in which abides that God whom we have
called All-formed.

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THE PERFECT SERMON

The species, then, persists, as frequently producing from

itself as many images, and as diverse, as there are moments in
the Cosmic Revolution,a Cosmos which doth [ever] change in
revolution. But the idea [itself] is neither changed nor turned.
So are the forms of every single genus permanent, [and yet]
dissimilar in the same [general] form.
XXXVI.
Asc. And does the Cosmos have a species, O Thrice-greatest one?
Tris. Dost not thou see, Asclepius, that all has been explained to thee as though to one asleep? For what is Cosmos,
or of what doth it consist, if not of all things born? This, then,
you may assert of heaven, and earth, and elements. For though
the other things possess more frequent change of species, [still
even] heaven, [by its] becoming moist, or dry, or cold, or hot, or
clear, or dull, [all] in one kind of heaven,these [too] are
frequent changes into species.
Earth hath, moreover, always many changes in its species;
both when she brings forth fruits, and when she also nourishes
her bringings-forth with the return of all the fruits; the diverse
qualities and quantities of air, its stoppings and its flowings;
and before all the qualities of trees, of flowers, and berries, of
scents, of savoursspecies. Fire [also] brings about most
numerous conversions, and divine. For these are all-formed
images of Sun and Moon; theyre, as it were, like our own
mirrors, which with their emulous resplendence give us back
the likenesses of our own images.
XXXVII.
But now let this suffice about such things; and let us once again
return to man and reason,gift divine, from which man has
the name of rational animal. Less to be wondered at are the
things said of man,though they are [still] to be admired.
Nay, of all marvels that which wins our wonder [most] is that
man has been able to find out the nature of the Gods and bring
it into play.
Since, then, our earliest progenitors were in great error,
seeing they had no rational faith about the Gods, and that they
paid no heed unto their cult and holy worship,they chanced

ASCLEPIUS

119

upon an art whereby they made Gods [for themselves]. To this

invention they conjoined a power that suited it, [derived] from
cosmic nature; and blending these together, since souls they
could not make, [they set about] evoking daimons souls or
those of angels; [and thus] attached them to their sacred
images and holy mysteries, so that the statues should, by
means of these, possess the powers of doing good and the
reverse.
For thy forebear, Asclepius, the first discoverer of medicine,1
to whom there is a temple hallowed on Libyas Mount, hard by
the shore of crocodiles, in which his cosmic man reposes, that is
to say his body; for that the rest [of him], or better still, the
whole (if that a man when wholly [plunged] in consciousness of
life, be better), hath gone back home to heaven,still
furnishing, [but] now by his divinity, the sick with all the
remedies which he was wont in days gone by to give by art of
medicine
Hermes, which is the name of my forebear, whose home is in
a place called after him, doth aid and guard all mortal [men]
who come to him from every side. As for Osiris [spouse]; how
many are the blessings that we know Isis bestows when shes
propitious; how many does she injure when shes wrath! For
that the terrene and the cosmic Gods are easily enraged, in
that they are created and composed of the two natures.
And for this cause it comes to pass that these are called the
sacred animals by the Egyptians, and that each several state
gives service to the souls of those whose souls have been made
holy. while they were still alive; so that [the several states] are
governed by the laws [of their peculiar sacred animals], and
called after their names. It is because of this, Asclepius, those
[animals] which are considered by some states deserving of
their worship, in others are thought otherwise; and on account
of this the states of the Egyptians wage with each other
frequent war.
[Presumably means the Greek God Asklpios, here apparent supposed to have
been a deified human pioneer of medicine, or the Egyptian deity Imhotep (also
a deified human, a 3rd dynasty official to whom many important discoveries
and accomplishments were ascribed including the design of Djosers step
pyramid) with whom he was identified by Greek-speaking residents of Egypt.
The geographical reference is somewhat vague.]

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THE PERFECT SERMON

XXXVIII.

Asc. And of what nature, O Thrice-greatest one, may be the

quality of those who are considered terrene Gods?
Tris. It doth consist, Asclepius, of plants, and stones, and
spices, which contain the nature of [their own] divinity. And
for this cause they are delighted with repeated sacriilce, with
hymns, and lauds, and sweetest sounds, tuned to the key of
Heavens harmonious song.
So that what is of heavenly nature, being drawn down into
the images by means of heavenly use and practices, may be
enabled to endure with joy the nature of mankind, and sojourn
with it for long periods of time. Thus is it that man is the
maker of the Gods.
But do not, O Asclepius, I pray thee, think the doings of the
terrene Gods are the result of chance. The heavenly Gods dwell
in the heights of Heaven, each filling up and watching oer the
rank he hath received; whereas these Gods of ours, each in its
way,by looking after certain things, foretelling others by
oracles and prophecy, foreseeing others, and duly helping them
along,act as allies of men, as though they were our relatives
and friends.
XXXIX.
Asc. What part of the economy, Thrice-greatest one, does the
Heimarmen, or Fate, then occupy? For do not the celestial
Gods rule over generals; the terrene occupy particulars?
Tris. That which we call Heimarmen, Asclepius, is the
necessity of all things that are born, bound ever to themselves
with interlinked enchainments. This, then, is either the
effector of all things, or it is highest God, or what is made the
second God by God Himself,or else the discipline of all things
both in heaven and on earth, established bp the laws of the
Divine
And so these twain, Fate and Necessity, are bound to one
another mutually by inseparable cohesion. The former of them,
the Heimarmen, gives birth to the beginnings of all things;
Necessity compels the end of [all] depending from these
principals. On these doth Order follow, that is their warp-andwoof, and Times arrangement for the perfecting of [all] things.

ASCLEPIUS

121

For there is naught without the interblend of Order. That

Cosmos is made perfect in all things; for Cosmos self is
vehicled in Order, or totally consists of Order.1
XL.
So, then, these three, Fate, [and] Necessity, [and] Order, are
most immediately effected by Gods Will, who rules the Cosmos
by His Law and by His Holy Reason. From these, accordingly,
all willing or notwilling is altogether foreign, according to Gods
will. They are not moved by wrath nor swayed by favour, but
are the instruments of the Eternal Reasons self-compulsion,
which is [the Reason] of Eternity, that never can be turned
aside, or changed, or be destroyed.
First, then, is Fate, which, as it were, by casting in the seed,
supplies the embryo of all that are to be. Follows Necessity,
whereby they all are forcibly compelled unto their end. Third,
Order [comes], preserving warp-and-woof of [all] the things
which Fate and [which] Necessity arrange. This, then, is the
Eternity, which neither doth begin nor cease to be, which, fixed
by law unchangeable, abides in the unceasing motion of its
course.
It rises and it sets, by turns, throughout its limbs ; so that by
reason of Times changes it often rises with the very limbs with
which it [once] had set. For [its] sphericity,its law of
revolution,is of this nature, that all things are so straitly
joined to their own selves, that no one knoweth what is the
beginning of their revolution; since they appear for ever all to
go before and follow after their own selves. Good and bad
issues, [therefore,] are commingled in all cosmic things.
And now it hath been told you on each several point,as
man hath power [to tell], and God hath willed it and permitted
it. This, then, alone remains that we should do,bless God
and give Him praise; and so return to taking thought for
body[s comfort]. For now suficiently have we been filled with
feast of mind by our discourse on sacred things.

1 [As noted, kosmos in Greek also has the meaning of order. In the Latin text
the word used is mundus which Mead has rendered Cosmos in most, though
not all instances.]

122

THE PERFECT SERMON

XLI

Now when they came forth from the holy place, they turned
their faces towards the south1 when they began their prayers to
God. For when the sun is setting, should anyone desire to pray
to God, he ought to turn him thitherwards; so also at the rising
of the same, unto that spot which lies beneath the sun. As they
were just beginning to recite the prayer, Asclepius did whisper:
[Asc.] Let us suggest to father, Tat,what he did bid us do,
that we should say our prayer to God with added incense and
with unguents.
Whom when Thrice-greatest heard, he grew distressed and
said:
[Tris.] Nay, nay, Asclepius; speak more propitious words!
For this is like to profanation of [our] sacred rites,when thou
dost pray to God, to offer incense and the rest. For naught is
there of which He stands in need, in that He is all things, or all
are in Him. But let us worship, pouring forth our thanks. For
this is the best incense in Gods sightwhen thanks are given
to Him by men.2
[We give] Thee grace, Thou highest [and] most excellent! For
by Thy Grace we have received the so great Light of Thy own
Gnosis. O holy Name, fit [Name] to be adored, O Name unique,
by which the Only God is to be blest through worship of [our]
Sire,[of Thee] who deignest to afford to all a Fathers piety,
and care, and love, and whatsoever virtue is more sweet [than
these], endowing [us] with sense, [and] reason, [and] intelligence;with sense that we may feel Thee; with reason that we
may track Thee out from the appearances of things; with
means of recognition that we may joy in knowing Thee.
Saved by Thy Power divine, let us rejoice that Thou hast
shown Thyself to us in all Thy Fullness. Let us rejoice that
Thou hast deigned to consecrate us, [still] entombed in bodies,
to Eternity. For this is the sole festival of praise worthy of
man,to know Thy Majesty. We have known Thee; yea, by the
Single Sense of our intelligence, we have perceived Thy Light
1 [Considered an error for south-west or west by Mead, but the same direction
is given in C.H. XIII:16.]
2 [Compare the speech offerings (Copenhavers trans.) of C.H. XIII:19, 21.

ASCLEPIUS

123

supreme,O Thou true Life of life, O Fecund Womb that giveth

birth to every nature!
We have known Thee, O Thou completely filled with the
Conception from Thyself of Universal Nature! We have known
Thee, O Thou Eternal Constancy! For in the whole of this our
prayer in worship of Thy Good, this favour only of Thy
Goodness do we crave;that Thou wilt keep us constant in our
Love of knowing Thee, and let us neer be cut off from this kind
of Life.
With this desire we [now] betake us to [our] pure and fleshless meal.1

1 [From We give Thee grace a variation of this prayer in Coptic appears in

one of the Nag Hammadi codices (NHC VI, 63:33-65:7), immediately following
the Hermetic tract The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth and in turn
followed by a scribal note (in which the scribe claimed to have very many
Hermetic discourses), which was in turn followed by the version of Asc. xxi-xxix
already mentioned. Another version of this prayer appears in a Greek papyrus
preserved in the Louvre (PGM III, 591-606) where it forms the conclusion of a
somewhat fragmentary invocation of Hlios.]

STOBAEI
HERMETICA

[Editors note]
Johannes Stobus (fl. late 5th cent. C.E.), to use the Latinised form of his
name, compiled a massive collection of extracts from Greek writers for the
purpose of instructing his son. These include around forty excerpts of
varying length from Hermetic writings. Some of these represent portions
of otherwise known texts including parts of C.H. II, IV and IX and the
Asclepius; the majority are from otherwise unknown logoi, including two
substantial parts of a tract known as the Kor Kosmou or Virgin of the
World.
Mead has translated 27 of these excerpts (in addition to the quotation from
Asc. xxvii, which appears in a note to his rendering of the Latin). The
ordering seems influenced by his classification scheme of the literature
where Hermes and his various disciples represent different stages of
gnsis; thus we have I-XI adressed to Tat, XII-XIX addressed to Ammon,
XX with no clear adressee and XXI-XXVII mainly featuring Isis and
Horus. These numbers are thus peculiar to this edition. The numbering of
excerpts used in modern literature (e.g. the apparatus to Copenhavers
Hermetica) follows Nock & Festugires edition of the texts (first pub. 194654) in which excerpts numbered I-XXIX appeared in vols. III-IV.
Three of the excerpts (I, III and VIII by Meads numbering) were
interspersed in a rearranged Latin edition of C.H. I-XIV by Francesco
Patrizi (1591) which was used as the basis for J. Everards Divine
Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus.
An English translation by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland of the
Kor Kosmou and other Stobus excerpts, along with C.H. XVI-XVIII (run
together under the title Definitions of Asclepios) and the Asclepius was
published in 1885 under the title Virgin of the World by Robert Fryar of
Bath, as a companion to his re-issuing of Everards seventeenth-century
translation of CH. I-XIV and three Stobus excerpts. J.D. Chambers
included 21 excerpts in his 1882 edition of the Hermetica, rejecting
Aphrodite, the Kor Kosmou, and the other Isis to Horus material and
expressing doubts about Of the Decans and the Stars, but including the
fragment on Death from Asclepius xxvii despite having rejected the work
as a whole. I am aware of no more recent English translations.

Excerpt I

Of Piety and [True] Philosophy

Hermes to Tat
[The title is from Patrizis edition. This forms the First Book in Everads
Divine Pymander.]

1.1 Her. Both for the sake of love to man, and piety to God, I
[now], my son, for the first time take pen in hand. For there
can be no piety more righteous than to know the things that
are, and to give thanks for these to Him who made them,
which I will never cease to do.
Tat. By doing what, O father, then, if naught be true down
here, may one live wisely?
2. Her. Be pious, son! Who pious is, doth reach the height of [all]
philosophy; without philosophy the height of piety cannot be
scaled. But he who learns what are existent things, and how
they have been ordered, and by whom, and for whose sake,he
will give thanks for all unto the Demiurge, as unto a good sire, a
nurse [most] excellent, a steward who doth never break his trust.
3. Who giveth thanks, he will be pious; and he who pious is, will
[get to] know both where is Truth, and what it is. And as he
learns, he will more and more pious grow. For never, son, can
an embodied soul that has once leaped aloft, so as to get a hold
upon the truly Good and True, slip back again into the
contrary. For when the soul [once] knows the Author of its
Peace, tis filled wit wondrous love, and with forgetfulness of
every ill, and can no more keep from the Good.
4. Let this be, O [my] son, the goal of piety;to which if thou
attain, thou shalt both nobly live, and happily depart from life,
for that thy soul no longer will be ignorant of whither it should
wing its flight again. This is the only [Way], my son,the Path
[that leads] to Truth, [the Path] on which our forebears, too, did
set their feet, and, setting them, did find the Good. Solemn and
smooth this Path, yet difficult to tread for soul while still in
body.
1

Section numbers, like the excerpt numbers themselves, are Meads.

127

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

5. For first it hath to fight against itself, and make a great

dissension, and manage that the victory should rest with the
one part [of its own self]. For that there is a contest of the one
against the two,1the former trying to flee, the latter dragging
down. And theres great strife and battle [dire] of these with
one another,the one desiring to escape, the others striving to
detain.
6. The victory, moreover, of the one or of the others is not
resemblant. For that the one doth hasten [upwards] to the
Good, the others settle [downwards] to the bad. The one longs
to be freed; the others love their slavery. If [now] the two be
vanquished, they remain deprived of their own selves and of
their ruler; but if the one be worsted, tis harried by the two,
and driven about, being tortured by the life down here. This is,
[my] son, the one who leadeth thee upon the Thither Path.
Thou must, [my] son, first leave behind thy body, before the
end [of it is reached], and come out victor in the life of conflict,
and thus as victor wend thy way towards home.
7. And now, [my] son, I will go through the things that are by
heads; for thou wilt understand the things that will be said, if
thou remember what thy ears have heard.2
All things that are, are [then] in motion; alone the that which
is not, is exempt from it.
Every body is in a state of change; [but] all bodies are not
dissolvable; some bodies [only] are dissolvable.
[The reference is possibly to the tripartite division of the person described in
Excerpt XVII, which opposes soul (presumably yuch) to qumj and piuma,
translated heart and appitite in shudder quotes by Mead; the former has
many shades of meaning including soul, life, breath, heart (metaphorically), mind, temper, will, desire, anger; the latter, more straightforwardly desire, yearning, longing (Middle Liddell, s.v.). In excerpt XVII, in
any case, thumos is being used for something like emotions and epithumia for
bodily desires. This is something like the Platonic scheme in the Republic
and elsewhere, and is also apparently alluded to in C.H. I:24 where ho thumos
kai h epithumia (there rendered passion and desire) are discarded in the
process of ascent.]
2 [From hereon to the end of 15 the treatise assumes the traditional wisdom
literatureform of a collection of sentences on related subjects but with no
development of any connected theme; they are represented as the heads of the
Hermetic teaching, but it is also possible they are rather the original material
and that 1-6 and 16-17 were written later to serve as a frame for them.]
1

OF PIETY AND TRUE PHILOSOPHY

129

Not every animal is mortal; not every animal, immortal.

That which can be dissolved, can [also] be destroyed; the
permanent [is] the unchangeable; the that which doth not
change, [is] the eternal.
What doth become for ever, for ever also is destroyed; what
once for all becomes, is never more destroyed, nor does it [ever
more] become some other thing.
8. First God; second the Cosmos; third [is] man. The Cosmos,
for mans sake; and man, for Gods.
The souls irrational part is mortal; its rational part, immortal.
All essence [is] immortal; all essence, free from change.
All that exists [is] twofold; naught of existing things remains.
Not all are moved by soul; the soul moves all that doth exist.
9. All that suffereth [is] sensible; not all thats sensible, doth
suffer.
All that feels pain, doth also have experience of pleasure,a
mortal life; not all that doth experience pleasure, feeleth [also]
pain,a life immortal.
Not every bodys subject to disease; all bodies subject to
disease are subject [too] to dissolution.
10. The minds in God; the reasoning facultys in man.
The reasons in the mind; the minds above all suffering.
Nothing in bodys true; all in the bodiless is free from whats
untrue.
All that becomes, [is] subject unto change; not all that doth
become, need be dissolved.
Naught[s] good upon the earth; naught[s] bad in heaven.
11. God[s] good; [and] man [is] bad.
Good [is] free-willed; bad is against the will.
The gods do choose what things are good, as good; . . .
The good law of the mighty [One] is the good law; good laws
the law.1
Times for the gods; the law for men.2
Bad is the stuff that feeds the world; time is the thing that
brings man to an end.
1

[Mead regards the text here as corrupt.]

2 Or: time is divine, the law is mans.

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

12. All in the heaven is free from change; all on the earth is
subject unto it.
Naught in the heavens a slave; naught on the earth is free.
Nothing can not be known in heaven; naught can be known
on earth.
The things on earth do not consort with things in heaven.
All things in heaven are free from blame; all on the earth are
blameworthy.
The immortal is not mortal; the mortal, not immortal.
That which is sown, is not invariably brought forth; but that
which is brought forth, must have invariably been sown.
13. [Now] for a body that can be dissolved, [there are] two
times:[the period] from its sowing till its birth, and from its
birth until its death; but for an everlasting body, the time from
birth alone.
Things subject unto dissolution wax and wane.
The matter thats dissolved, doth undergo two contrary transformings:death and birth; but everlasting [matter], doth
change either to its own self, or into things like to itself.
The birth of man [is] the beginning of his dissolution; mans
dissolution the beginning of his birth.
That which departs, [returns; and what returns] departs
[again].
14. Of things existent, some are in bodies, some in forms, and
some [are] in activities.
Body[s] in forms; and form and energy in body.
The deathless shares not in the mortal [part]; the mortal
shares in the immortal.
The mortal body doth not mount into the deathless one; the
deathless one descends unto the mortal frame.
Activities do not ascend, but they descend.
15. The things on earth bestow no benefit on things in heaven;
the things in heaven shower every benefit on things on earth.
Of bodies everlasting heaven is the container; of those
corruptible, the earth.
Earth [is] irrational; the heaven [is] rational.
The things in heaven [are] under it; the things on earth
above the earth.

OF PIETY AND TRUE PHILOSOPHY

131

[Heavens] the first element; [earths] the last element.

Fore-knowledge [is] Gods Order; Necessity[s] handmaiden
to Fore-knowledge.
Fortune[s] the course of the disorderly,the image of
activity: untrue opinion.
What, [then] is God? The Good that naught can change.
What, man? The bad that can be changed.
16. If thou rememberest these heads: thou wilt remember also
what I have already set forth for thee with greater wealth of
words. For these are summaries of those. Avoid, however,
converse with the many [on these things]; not that I would that
thou shouldst keep them selfishly unto thyself, but rather that
thou shouldst not seem ridiculous unto the multitude. For that
the likes acceptable unto the like; the unlikes never friend to
the unlike. Such words as these have very very few to give
them ear; nay, probably, they will not even have the few. They
have, moreover, some [strange force] peculiar unto themselves;
for they provoke the evil all the more to bad. Wherefore thou
shouldst protect the many [from themselves], for they ignore
the power of whats been said.
17. Tat. What meanest thou, O father?
Her. This, [my] son! All that in man is animal, is proner
unto bad [than unto good]; nay, it doth cohabit with it, because
it is in love with it. Now if this animal should learn that Cosmos is subject to genesis, and all things come and go according
to Fore-knowledge and by Necessity, Fate ruling all,in no
long time it would grow worse than it is now: [and] thinking
scorn of the whole [universe] as being subject unto genesis, and
unto Fate referring [all] the causes of the bad, would never
cease from every evil deed. Wherefore, care should be taken of
them, in order that being [left] in ignorance, they may become
less bad through fear of the unknown.

Excerpt II

[Of The Ineffability of God]

Hermes to Tat
[The title is Meads. The form suggests we are here seeing the beginning of
development from sentence material into connected discourses.]

To understand God is difficult, to speak [of Him] impossible.

For that the Bodiless can never be expressed in body, the
Perfect never can be comprehended by that which is imperfect,
and that tis difficult for the Eternal to company with the
ephemeral. The one is for ever, the other doth pass; the one is
in [the clarity of] Truth, the other in the shadow of appearance.
So far off from the stronger [is] the weaker, the lesser from the
greater [is so far], as [is] the mortal [far] from the Divine.
It is the distance, then, between the two that dims the Vision
of the Beautiful. For tis with eyes that bodies can be seen,
with tongue that things seen can be spoken of; but That which
hath no body, that is unmanifest, and figureless, and is not
made objective [to us] out of matter,cannot be comprehended
by our sense.
I have it in my mind, O Tat, I have it in my mind, that what
cannot be spoken of, is God.

132

Excerpt III

Of Truth
Hermes to Tat
[The title is Patrizis edition. This forms the Fifteenth Book in Everads
Divine Pymander. The teaching is mostly ordinary Platonism.]

1. [Her.] Concerning Truth, O Tat, it is not possible that man

should dare to speak, for mans an animal imperfect, composed
out of imperfect members, his tabernacle1 patched together
from many bodies strange [to him]. But what is possible and
right, this do I say,that Truth is [to be found] in the eternal
bodies only, [those things] of which the bodies in themselves
are true:fire very fire and nothing else, earth very earth and
nothing else, air very air and nothing else, and water very
water and naught else. Our frames, however, are a compound
of all these. For they have [in them] fire, and they have also
earth, theyve water, too, and air; but they are neither fire, nor
earth, nor water, nor air, nor any [element thats] true. And if
our composition has not had Truth for its beginning, how can it
either see or speak the Truth ? Nay, it can only have a notion
of it,[and that too] if God will.
2. All things, accordingly, that are on earth, O Tat, are not the
Truth; they're copies [only] of the True. And these are not all
things, but few [of them]; the rest consist of falsity and error,
Tat, and shows of seeming like unto images. Whenever the
appearance doth receive the influx from above, it turns into a
copy of the Truth; without its energizing from above, it is left
false. Just as the portrait also indicates the body in the
picture, but in itself is not a body, in spite of the appearance of
the thing thats seen. Tis seen as having eyes; but it sees
naught, hears naught at all. The picture, too, has all the other
things, but they are false, tricking the sight of the beholders,
these thinking that they see whats true, while what they see is
really false. All, then, who do not see whats false see truth. If,
then, we thus do comprehend, or see, each one of these just as
it really is, we really comprehend and see. But if [we compre1

[sknos. See note on C.H. XIII:12.]

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

hend, or see, things] contrary to that which is, we shall not

comprehend, nor shall we know aught true.
3. [Tat.] There is, then, father, Truth een on the earth ?
[Her.] Not inconsiderably, O son, art thou at fault. Truth is
in no wise, Tat, upon the earth, nor can it be. But some men
can, [I say,] have an idea of it,should God grant them the
power of godly vision. Thus there is nothing true on earth,[so
much] I know and say. All are appearances and shows,I
know and speak true [things]. We ought not, surely, though, to
call the knowing and the speaking of true things the Truth?
4. [Tat.] Why, how on earth ought we to know and speak of
things being true,yet nothings true on earth?
[Her.] This [much] is true,that we do not know aught
thats true down here. How could it be, O son? For Truth is the
most perfect virtue, the very highest Good, by matter undisturbed, uncircumscribed by body,naked, [and] evident,
changeless, august, unalterable Good. But things down here, O
son, thou seest what they are,not able to receive this Good,
corruptible, [and] passible, dissolvable, changeful, and ever
altering, being born from one another. Things, then, that are
not true even to their own selves, how can they [possibly] be
true? For all that alters is untrue; it does not stay in what it is,
but shows itself to us by changing into one another its
appearances.
5. [Tat.] And even man,is he not true, O father?
[Her.] As man,he is not true, O son. For that the True is
that which has its composition from itself alone, and in itself
stays as it is. But man has been composed of many things, and
does not stay in his own self. He changes and he alters, from
age to age, from form to form, and that too, even while he;s still
in [one and] the [same] tent.1 Nay, many fail to recognize their
children, when a brief space of time comes in between; and so
again of children with their parents. That, then, which
changes so that its no longer recognized,can that be true, O
Tat? Is it not, rather, false, coming and going, in the [all]
[sknos again; a different English word being used for no better reason than
scansion as far as I can tell.]

OF TRUTH

135

varied shows of its [continual] changes? But do thou have it in

thy mind that a true thing is that which stays and lasts for aye.
But man is not for ever; wherefore it is not true. Mans an
appearance. And appearance is extreme untruth.
6. [Tat.] But these external bodies: father, too, in that they
change, are they not true?
[Her.] All that is subject unto genesis and change, is verily
not true; but in as much as they are brought to being by the
Forefather [of them all], they have their matter true. But even
they have something false in that they change; for naught that
doth not stay with its own self is true.
[Tat.] True, father [mine]! Is one to say, then, that the Sun
alone,in that in greater measure than the rest of them he
doth not change but stayeth with himself,is Truth?
[Her.] [Nay, rather, but] because he, and he only, hath
entrusted unto him the making of all things in cosmos, ruling
all and making all;to whom I reverence give, and worship pay
unto his Truth, and recognise him as the Demiurge after the
One and First.
[Tat.] What then, O father, shouldst thou say is the first
Truth?
[Her.] The One and Only, Tat,He who is not of matter, or
in body, the colourless, the figureless, the changeless [One], He
who doth alter not, who ever is. But the untrue, O son, doth
perish. All things, however, on the earth that perish,the
Forethought of the True hath comprehended [them], and doth
and will encompass [them]. For birth without corruption cannot
be; corruption followeth on every birth, in order that it may be
born again. For that things that are born, must of necessity be
born from things that are destroyed; and things that have been
born, must of necessity be [once again] destroyed, in order that
the genesis of things existent may not stop. First, [then], see
that thou recognize him as the Demiurge for birth-and-death of
[all] existent things.
8. Things that are born out of destruction, then, must of
necessity be false,in that they are becoming now these
things, now those. For tis impossible they should become the
same. But that which is not same,how can it possibly be

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

true? Such things we should, then, call appearances, [my] son;

for instance, if we give the man his proper designation, [we
ought to designate him] a man's appearance ;[and so] the
child a childs appearance, the youth a youths appearance, the
man a mans appearance, the old man an appearance of the
same. For man is not a man, nor child a child, nor youth a
youth, nor grown up man a grown up man, nor aged man a
[single] aged man. But as they change they are untrue,both
pre-existent things and things existent. But thus think of
them, son,as even these untruths being energies dependent
from above from Truth itself. And this being so, I say untruth
is Truths in-working

Excerpt IV

[God, Nature and the Gods]

[The title is Meads. Neither internally nor in the heading given by
Stobus is there any direct indication of the adressee, but Mead has
grouped it with the Tat-logoi based on supposed parallels with Excerpt VII,
which comes shortly before it in Stobus Physica.]

1. There is, then, That which transcends being,beyond all

things existent, and all that really are. For That-transcendingbeing is [that mystery] because of which exists that being-ness1
which is called universal, common unto intelligibles that really
are, and to those beings which are thought of according to the
law of sameness. Those which are contrary to these, according
to the law of otherness, are again themselves according to
themselves. And Nature is an essence which the senses can
perceive, containing in itself all sensibles.
2. Between these are the intelligible and the sensible gods.
Things that pertain to the intelligence, share in [the nature of]
the Gods that are intelligible only; while things pertaining to
opinion, have their part with those that are the sensible. These
latter are the images of the intelligences; the Sun, for instance,
is the image of the Demiurgic God above the Heaven. For just
as He hath made the universe, so doth Sun make the animals,
and generate the plants, and regulate the breaths.

osithj.
137

Excerpt V

[Of Matter]
Hermes to Tat.
[The title is Meads. It is identified as being from those (sermons being
understood by Mead) to Tat by Stobus heading and by the speaker
addressing the listened as son.]

Matter both has been born, O son, and it has been [before it
came into existence]; for Matter is the vase of genesis, and
genesis, the mode of energy of God, whos free from all necessity
of genesis, and pre-exists. [Matter], accordingly, by its reception of the seed of genesis, did come [herself] to birth, and [so]
became subject to change, and, being shaped, took forms; for
she, contriving the forms of her [own] changing, presided over
her own changing self. The unborn state of Matter, then, was
formlessness; its genesis is its being brought into activity.

138

Excerpt VI

Of Time
Hermes to Tat.
[The title is Patrizis.
Stobus.]

It is identified as being from those to Tat by

1. Now to find out concerning the three times; for they are
neither by themselves, nor [yet] are they at-oned;1 and [yet]
again they are at-oned, and by themselves [as well]. For
shouldst thou think the present is without the past, it cant be
present unless it has become already past. For from the past
the present comes, and from the present future goes. But if we
have to scrutinize more closely, thus let us argue:
2. Past time doth pass into no longer being this, and future
[time] doth not exist, in its not being present; nay, present even
is not present, in its continuing. Time, then, which stands not
[steady] (sthke), but which is on the turn, without a central
point at which to stop,how can it be called in-stant (nestj),2
seeing even that it hath no power to stand (stnai)? Again,
past joining present, and present [joining] future, they [thus]
are one; for they are not without them in their, sameness, and
their oneness, and their continuity. Thus, [then], times both
continuous and discontinuous, though one and the same [time].

1 [Remember that Mead uses this abomination, either as an affected archaism

or deliberately misleadingly, for united.]
2 [Mead is attempting to reproduce a Greek word-play in the English; this word
would be conventionally translated present.]

139

Excerpt VII

Of Bodies Everlasting
[and Bodies Perishable]
Hermes to Tat.
[The first half of the title is Patrizis, Mead has interpolated the rest to fit
the actual contents of the excerpt. In the texts of Stobus this is identified
as being from those to Ammon to Tat; Mead considers to Tat to be a
scribal correction of an erroneous to Ammon since the hearer is named in
the text.]

1. The Lord and Demiurge of all eternal bodies, Tat, when He

had made them once for all, made them no more, nor doth He
make them [now]. Committing them unto themselves, and
couniting them with one another, He let them go, in want of
naught, as everlasting things. If they have want of any, it will
be want of one another and not of any increase to their number
from without, in that they are immortal. For that it needs
must be that bodies made by Him should have their nature of
this kind.
2. Our Demiurge,1 however, who is [himself already] in a body:
hath made us,he makes for ever, and will [ever] make, bodies
corruptible and under sway of death. For twere not law that
he should imitate the Maker of himself,all the more so as tis
impossible. For that the latter did create from the first essence
which is bodiless; the former made as from the bodying brought
into existence [by his Lord].
3. It follows, then, according to right reason, that while those
bodies, since they are brought into existence from incorporal
essence, are free from death, ours are corruptible and under
sway of death,in that our matter is composed of bodies: as
may be seen from their being weak and needing much
assistance. For how would it be possible our bodies continuity
should last, unless it had some nutriment imported [into it]
from similar elements, and [so] renewed our bodies day by day?
For that we have a stream of earth, and water, fire, and air,
[Contrasted with the demiurge of eternal bodies of 1; Mead suggests perhaps
the Sun, adducing C.H. XVI:18 and Excerpt III 6 and IV 2.]

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OF BODIES EVERLASTING AND PERISHABLE

141

flowing into us, which renovates our bodies, and keeps our tent1
together. We are too weak to bear the motions [of our frames],
enduring them not even for one single day. For know, [my] son,
that if our bodies did not rest at night, we should not last a
single day.
4. Wherefore, our Maker, being good, and with foreknowledge of
all things, in order that the animal may last, hath given sleep,
the greatest [calm] of the fatigue of notion, and hath appointed
equal time to each, or rather more, for rest. Ponder well, son,
the mightiest energy of sleep,the opposite to the souls
[energy], but, not inferior to it. For that just as the soul is
motion's energy, so bodies also cannot live without [the help of]
sleep. For tis the relaxation and the recreation of the jointed
limbs; it also operates within, converting into body the fresh
supply of matter that flows in, apportioning to each its proper
[kind],the water to the blood, the earth to bones and marrow,
the air to nerves and veins, the fire to sight. Wherefore the
body, too, feels keen delight in sleep, for it is sleep that brings
this [feeling of] delight into activity.

sknos again.

Excerpt VIII

Of Energy and Feeling

Hermes to Tat.
[The title is Patrizis. In the texts of Stobus this is identified as being
from those to Tat. This forms the Fourteenth Book in Everards Divine
Pymander. The opening indicates this has been extracted from a longer
discourse.]

1. Tat. Rightly hast thou explained these things, O father

[mine]. Now give me further teaching as to those. For thou
hast said somewhere that science and that art do constitute the
rationals energy.1 But now thou sayst that the irrational
lives, through deprivation of the rational, are and are called irrational. According to this reasoning, [therefore], it follows of
necessity that the irrational lives are without any share in
science or in art, through deprivation of the rational.
2. Her. [It follows] of necessity, [my] son.
Tat. How, then, O father, do we see some of irrational
[creatures] using [both] intelligence, and art?the ants, for
instance, storing their food for winter, and in like fashion, [too,]
the creatures of the air building their nests, and the four-footed
beasts [each] knowing their own holes.
Her. These things they do, O son, neither by science nor by
art, but by [the force of] nature. Science and art are teachable;
but none of these irrationals is taught a thing. Things done by
nature are [so] done by reason of the general energy of things.
Things [done] by art and science are achieved by those who
know, [and] not by all. Things done by all are brought into
activity by nature.
3. For instance, all look up [to heaven]; but all [are] not musicians, or [are] all archers, or hunters, or the rest. But some of
them have learned one thing, [others another thing], science
and art being active [in them]. In the same way, if some ants
only did this thing, and others not, thou wouldst have rightly
said they acted by [the light] of science, and stored their food by
means of art. But if they all without distinction are driven by
1

[Presumably refers to some now lost discourse.]

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OF ENERGY AND FEELING

143

their nature to [do] this, though [it may be] against their will,
tis plain they do not do it or by science or by art.
4. For Tat, these energies, though [in themselves] they are
incorporal, are [found] in bodies, and act through bodies.
Wherefore, O Tat, in that they are incorporal, thou sayest that
they are immortal; but, in so far as without bodies they cannot
manifest activity, I say that they are ever in a body. Things
once called into being for some purpose, or some cause, things
that come under Providence and Fate, can never stay inactive
of their proper energy. For that which is, shall ever be; for that
this [being] is [the very] body and the life of it.
5. It follows from this reason, [then,] that these are always
bodies. Wherefore I say that bodying itself is an eternal
[exercise of] energy. If bodies are on earth, theyre subject unto
dissolution; yet must these [ever] be [on earth to serve] as
places and as organs for the energies. The energies, however,
[are] immortal, and the immortal is eternally,[that is, that]
bodymaking, if it ever is, is energy.
6. [The energies] accompany the soul, though not appearing all
at once. Some of them energize the man the moment that hes
born, united with the soul round its irrational [parts]; whereas
the purer ones, with change of age, co-operate with the souls
rational part. But all these energies depend on bodies. From
godly bodies they descend to mortal [frames], these bodymaking [energies]; each one of them is [ever] active, either
around the body or the soul. Yea, they are active with the soul
itself without a body. They are for ever in activity. The soul,
however, is not for ever in a mortal body, for it can be without
the body; whereas the energies can never be without the bodies.
This is a sacred saying (logos), son: Body apart from soul
cannot persist; its being can.1
7. Tat. What dost thou mean, O father [mine]?
Her. Thus understand it, Tat! When soul leaves body, body
itself remains. But [even] the body so abandoned: as long as it
remains, is in activity, being broken up and made to disappear.
1 [Probably from some collection of sentences similar to those forming Excerpt
I 7-15.]

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

For body without [the exercise of] energy could not experience
these things. This energy, accordingly, continues with the body
when the soul has gone. This, therefore, is the difference of an
immortal body and a mortal one,that the immortal doth
consist of a one single matter, but this [body does] not. The
former's active, and the latters passive. For every thing that
maketh active is the stronger; and [every thing] that is made
active is the weaker. The stronger, too, being in authority and
free, doth lead; the [weaker] follows [as] a slave.
8. The energies, then, energize not only bodies that are
ensouled, but also [bodies] unensouled,stocks, stones, and all
such things;both making [them] to grow, and to bear fruits,
and ripening [them], dissolving, melting, rotting and crumbling
[them], and setting up [in them] all like activities which bodies
without souls can undergo. For energys the name, O son, for
just the thing thats going on,that is becoming. And many
things needs must for ever be becoming; nay, rather, all things
[must]. For never is Cosmos bereft of any of existent things,
but being borne for aye in its own self, it bears existent things,
[things] that shall never cease from being destroyed again.
9. Know, then, that energy of every kind is ever free from
death,no matter what it is, or in what body. And of the
energies, some are of godly bodies, and some of those which are
corruptible; some [are] general, and some special. Some [are] of
genera, and some are of the parts of every genus. The godly
ones, [accordingly], are those that exercise their energies
through everlasting bodies. And these are perfect [energies], in
that [they energize] through perfect bodies. But partial
[energies are] those [that energize] through each one of the
[single] living things. And special [energies are those that
energize] through each one of existent things.
10. This argument, accordingly, O son, deduces that all things
are full of energies. For though it needs must be that energies
should be in bodies,and there be many bodies in the Cosmos,
I say that energies are many more than bodies. For often in
one body there is [found] one, and a second and a third
[activity],not counting in the general ones that come with it.
By general ones I mean the purely corporal ones, that exercise

OF ENERGY AND FEELING

145

themselves through the sensations and the motions [of the

body]. For that without these energies the body [of an animal]
can not persist.
11. The souls of men, however, have a second class of energies,the special ones [that exercise themselves] through arts, and
sciences, and practices, and [purposed] doings. For that the
feelings a follow on the energies or rather are completions of
the energies. Know, then, O son, the difference of energy and
of sensation. [Thus] energy is sent down from above; whereas
sensation, being in the body and having its existence from it,
receives the energy and makes it manifest, as though it did
embody it. Wherefore I say sensations are both corporal and
mortal, and last as long as doth the body [only]. Nay, rather,
its sensations are born together with the body, and they die
with it.
12. But the immortal bodies in themselves have no sensation,[not even an] immortal [one], as though they were composed
out of some essence of some kind. For that sensation doth arise
entirely from naught else than either from the bad or else the
good thats added to the body, or that is, on the contrary, taken
[from it] again. But with eternal bodies there is no adding to
nor taking from. Wherefore, sensation doth not occur in them.
13. Tat. Is, then, sensation felt in every body?
Her. In every body, son; and energies are active in all
[bodies, too].
Tat. Even in bodies without souls, O father [mine]?
Her. Even in them, O son. There are, however, differences
in the sensations. The feelings of the rational occur with reason;
those of irrationals are simply corporal; as for the things that
have no soul, they [also] have sensations, but passive ones,
experience of increase [only] and decrease. Moreover, passion
and sensation depend from one [same] head, And they are
gathered up again into the same, and that, too, by the energies.
14. Of lives with souls there are two other energies which go
with the sensations and the passions,grief and joy. And
without these, an ensouled life, and most of all a rational one,
could not experience sensation. Wherefore, I say that there are

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

forms of passions,[and] forms that dominate the rational

lives more [than the rest]. The energies, then, are the active
forces [in sensations], while the sensations are the indications
of the energies.
15. Further, as these are corporal, theyre set in motion by the
irrational parts of [a mans] soul; wherefore, I say that both of
them are mischievous. For that both joy, though [for the moment] it provides sensation joined with pleasure, immediately
becomes a cause of many ills to him who feeleth it; while grief
[itself] provides [still] greater pains and suffering. Wherefore,
they both would seem [most] mischievous.
16. Tat. Can, then, sensation be the same in soul and body,
father [mine]?
Her. How dost thou mean,sensation in the soul, [my] son?
Tat. Surely it cannot be that souls incorporal, and that
sensation is a body, father,sensation which is sometimes in a
body and sometimes not, [just as the soul]?
Her. If we should put it in a body, son, we should [then]
represent it as like the soul or [like] the energies. For that we
say these are incorporals in bodies. But [as] sensations neither
energy nor soul, nor any other thing than body, according to
what has been said above, it cannot, therefore, be incorporal.
And if its not incorporal, it must be body. For of existing
things some must be bodies and the rest incorporal.

Excerpt IX

Of [The Decans and] the Stars

Hermes to Tat.
[Patrizis, who omits 1-5 as numbered here, calls this simply Of the
Stars. Mead has amended the title to reflect the actual contents. In the
texts of Stobus this is identified as being from those to Tat.]

1. Tat. Since in thy former General Sermons (Logoi),1 [father,]

thou didst promise me an explanation of the Six-and-thirty
Decans? explain, I prithee, now concerning them and their
activity.
Her. Theres not the slightest wish in me not to do so, o Tat,
and this should prove the most authoritative sermon (logos)
and the chiefest of them all. So ponder on it well. We have
already spoken unto thee about the Circle of the Animals, or
the Life-giving one,2 of the Five Planets, and of Sun and Moon,
and of the Circle of each one of these.
2. Tat. Thou hast done so, Thrice-greatest one.3
Her. Thus would I have thee understand as well about the
Six-and-thirty Decans,calling the former things to mind, in
order that the sermon on the latter may also be well understood by thee.
Tat. I have recalled them, father, [to my mind].
Her. We said, [my] son, there is a Body which encompasses
all things. Conceive it, then, as being in itself a kind of figure
of a sphere-like shape; so is the universe conformed.
Tat. Ive thought of such a figure in my mind, just as thou
dost describe, O father [mine].
3. Her. Beneath the Circle of this [all-embracing] frame are
ranged tbe Six-and-thirty Decans, between this Circle of the
Universe and that one of the Animals, determining the
boundaries of both these Circles, and, as it were, holding that of
1 [The genikoi logoi addressed to Tat have been noticed in several other places,
e.g. C.H. X:1.]
2 [i.e., the Zodiac; zwofron, life-bearing being a gloss or word-play.]
3 [Probably in some lost discourse; though the Zodiacal circle is mentioned in
C.H. XIII and associated with various vices which need to be overcome in the
course of rebirth.]

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

the Animals aloft up in the air, and [so] defining it. They share
the motion of the Planetary Spheres, and [yet] have equal
powers with the [main] motion of the Whole: crosswise the
Seven. Theyre checked by nothing but the All-encircling Body,
for this must be the final thing in the [whole grades of] motion,
itself by its own self. But they speed on the Seven other
Circles, because they move with a less rapid motion than the
[Circle] of the All. Let us, then, think of them as though of
Watchers stationed round [and watching] over both the Seven
themselves and oer the Circle of the All,or rather over all
things in the World,holding together all, and keeping the
good order of all things.
4. Tat. Thus do I have it, father, in my mind, from what thou
sayst.
Her. Moreover, Tat, thou shouldst have in thy mind that
they are also free from the necessities laid on the other Stars.
They are not checked and settled in their course, nor are they
[further] hindered and made to tread in their own steps again;
nor are they kept away from the Suns light,[all of] which
things the other Stars endure. But free, above them all, as
though they were inerrant Guards and Overseers of the whole,
they night and day surround the universe.
5. Tat. Do these, then, also, further exercise an influence upon
us?
Her. The greatest, O [my] son. For if they act in them, how
should they fail to act on us as well,both on each one of us
and generally? Thus, O [my] son, of all those things that
happen generally, the bringing into action is from these; as for
example,and ponder what I say,downfalls of kingdoms,
states rebellions, plagues [and] famines, tidal waves [and]
quakings of the earth; no one of these, O son, takes place
without their action. Nay, further still, bear this in mind. If
they rule over them, and we are in our turn beneath the Seven,
dost thou not think that some of their activity extends to us as
well,[who are] assuredly their sons, or [come into existence]
by their means?
6. Tat. What, [then,] may be the type of body that they have, O
father [mine] ?

OF DECANS AND STARS

149

Her. The many call them daimones; but they are not some
special class of daimones, for they have not some other kind of
bodies made of some special kind of matter, nor are they moved
by means of soul, as we [are moved], but they are [simple]
operations of these Six-and-thirty Gods. Nay, further, still,
have in thy mind, O Tat, their operations,that they cast in
the earth the seed of those whom [men] call Tans,1 some playing the part of saviours, others being most destructive.
7. Further the Stars in heaven as well do in their several
[courses] bear them underworkers; and they have ministers and
warriors too. And they in [everlasting] congress with them
speed on their course in ther floating, fullfilling [all] its space,
so that there is no space above empty of stars. They are the
cosmic engine of the universe, having their own peculiar action,
which is subordinate, however, to the action of the Thirty-six,
from whom throughout [all] lands arise the deaths of [all] the
other lives with souls, and hosts of [lesser] lives that spoil the
fruit.
8. And under them is what is called the Bear,just in the
middle of the Circle of the Animals, composed of seven stars,2
and with another corresponding [Bear] above its head.3 Its
energy is as it were an axles, setting nowhere and nowhere
rising,4 but stopping [ever] in the self-same space, and turning
round the same, giving its proper motion to the Life-producing
Circle, and handing over this whole universe from night to day,
from day to night. And after this there is another choir of
stars, to which we have not thought it proper to give names;
but they who will come after us, in imitation, will give them
names themselves.
9. Again, below the Moon, are other stars,5 corruptible, deprived
of energy, which hold together for a little while, in that theyve
been exhaled out of the earth itself into the air above the
[Mead suggests that tnaj is a contraction of titnaj, Titans.]
[Ursa Major, the bear that chases its tail.]
3 [Ursa Minor, the bear swung round by its tail.]
4 [Again, the fact of Ursa Major being considered among the never-setting stars
gives a minimum possible latitude for the origin of the present logos.]
5 Referring, presumably, to the phenomena of shooting stars.
1
2

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

earth,which ever are being broken up, in that they have a

nature like unto [that of] useless lives on earth, which come
into existence for no other purpose than to die, such as the tribe
of flies, and fleas, and worms, and other things like them. For
these are useful, Tat, neither to us nor to the world; but, on the
contrary, they trouble and annoy, being nature's by-products,
which owe their birth to her extravagance. Just in the same
way, too, the stars exhaled from earth do not attain the upper
space. They cannot do so, since they are sent forth from below;
and, owing to the greatness of their weight, dragged down by
their own matter, they quickly are dispersed, and, breaking up,
fall back again on earth, affecting nothing but the mere disturbance of the air about the earth.
10. There is another class, O Tat, that of the so-called longhaired [stars],1 appearing at their proper times, and after a
short time, becoming once again invisible;they neither rise
nor set nor are they broken up. These are the brilliant
messengers and heralds of the general destinies of things that
are to be. They occupy the space below the Circle of the Sun.
When, then, some chance is going to happen to the world,
[comets] appear, and, shining for some days, again return
behind the Circle of the Sun, and stay invisible,some showing
in the east, some in the north, some in the west, and others in
the south. We call them Prophets.
11. Such is the nature of the stars. The stars, however, differ
from the star-groups. The stars2 are they which sail in heaven;
the star-groups, on the contrary, are fixed in heavens frame:
and they are borne along together with the heaven,Twelve
out of which we call the Zdia.3
He who knows these can form some notion clearly of [what]
God is; and, if one should dare say so, becoming [thus] a seer
for himself, [so] contemplate Him, and, contemplating Him, be
blessed.
[i.e., comets.]
[astrej here are more or less all heavenly bodies except those called stars in
modern astronomy (with the exception of our own sun); i.e. planets, meteors,
and comets.]
3 [Zwdia, the signs of the Zodiac, pl. of Zwdiwn, a small figure, dimin. of Zwon,
living creature, animal but also a figure, image (Middle Liddell, s.v.).]
1
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151

12. Tat. Blessd, in truth, is he, O father [mine], who contemplateth Him.
Her. But tis impossible, O son, that one in body should have
this good chance. Moreover, he should train his soul beforehand, here and now, that when it reacheth there, [the space]
where it is possible for it to contemplate, it may not miss its
way. But men who love their bodies,such men will never
contemplate the Vision of the Beautiful and Good. For what, O
son, is that [fair] Beauty which hath no form nor any colour,
nor any mass?
Tat. Can there be aught thats beautiful apart from these?
Her. God only, O [my] son; or rather that which is still
greater,the [proper] name of God.1

1 [The excerpt apparently breaks off some way prior to the end of the sermon;
the final sentence of 11 begins a new subject, which is hardly developed before
the text we have ends.]

Excerpt X

[Concerning the Rule of Providence,

Necessity and Fate]
Hermes to Tat.
[The title is Meads, drawn from the final sentence of the excerpt; Patrizi
calls it simply Of Fate. In the texts of Stobus this is identified as being
from those to Tat. C.H. XII:5-6 refers to a logos on Fate (heimarmen),
Hermes telling Tat that he has discoursed on the subject elsewhere and
would thus not address those topics there, but the references to Fate in the
present extract hardly answer, or even address, the questions raised by Tat
at C.H. XII:5.]

1. [Tat.] Rightly, O father, hast thou told me all; now further,

[pray,] recall unto my mind what are the things that
Providence doth rule, and what the things ruled by Necessity,
and in like fashion also [those] under Fate.
[Her.] I said there were in us, O Tat, three species of incorporals. The firsts a thing the mind alone can grasp; it thus is
colourless, figureless, massless, proceeding out of the First
Essence in itself, sensed by the mind alone. And there are also,
[secondly,] in us, opposed to this, configurings,of which this
serves as the receptacle. But what has once been set in motion
by the Primal Essence for some [set] purpose of the Reason
(logos), and that has been conceived [by it], straightway doth
change into another form of motion; this is the image of the
Demiurgic Thought.
2. And there is [also] a third species of incorporals, which doth
eventuate round bodies,space, time, [and] motion, figure,
surface, size, [and] species. Of these there are two [sets of]
differences. The first [lies] in the quality pertaining specially
unto themselves; the second [set is] of the body. The special
qualities are figure, colour, species, space, time, movement.
[The differences] peculiar to body are figure configured, and
colour coloured; theres also form conformed, surface and size.
The latter with the former have no part.
3. The Intelligible Essence, then, in company with God, has
power oer its own self, and [power] to keep another, in that it
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OF PROVIDENCE, NECESSITY AND FATE

153

keeps itself, since Essence in itself is not under Necessity. But

when tis left by God, it takes unto itself the corporal nature ;
its choice of it being ruled by Providence,that is, its choosing
of the world. All the irrational is moved to-wards some reason.
Reason [comes] under Providence; unreason [falls] under
Necessity; the things that happen in the corporal [fall] under
Fate. Such is the Sermon1 on the rule of Providence, Necessity
and Fate.

1 [Assuming Sermon translates logos, such is the teaching or such are my

words (lit. such is the word) would also be possible.]

Excerpt XI

[Of Justice]
[Hermes to Tat.]
[The title is Meads. In the texts of Stobus this is vaguely headed as being
of Hermes, although the hearer is addressed as son which is characteristic of the Tat-logoi.]

1. For there hath been appointed, O [my] son, a very mighty

Daimon turning in the universes midst, that sees all things
that men do on the earth. Just as Foreknowledge and Necessity have been set oer the Order of the gods, in the same way is
Justice set oer men, causing the same to act on them. For they
rule oer the order of the things existing as divine, which have
no will, nor any power, to err. For the Divine cannot be made
to wander; from which the incapacity to err accrues [to it]. But
Justice is appointed to correct the errors men commit on earth.
2. For, seeing that their race is under sway of death, and made
out of bad matter, [it naturally errs], and failure is the natural
thing, especially to those who are without the power of seeing
the Divine. Tis over these that Justice doth have special sway.
Theyre subject both to Fate through the activities of birth, and
unto Justice through the mistakes [they make] in life.

154

Excerpt XII

Of Providence and Fate

Hermes to Ammon.
[The title is Patrizis. In the texts of Stobus this is headed as being from
those to Ammon. Ammon appears as King Ammon as the recipient of the
discourse in C.H. XVI, and as one of the hearers in the Asclepius. In
classical times the Egyptian god Amun (imn) was identified with Zeus; an
Amun (the hidden) was among the Ogdoad of primal creative gods of
Khemnu (Hermopolis), one of the main cult-centres of Thth, but as the
main god of Thebes he became an important figure in the New Kingdom,
and through identification with the sun-god R became, as Amen-R, pretty
much the supreme God of Egyptat least until the New Kingdom collapsed
largely due to embezzlement and mismanagement by his priesthood who
had more or less taken over the running of the empire after the death of
Akhenaten and his successors. Be that as it may, Stobus apparently had
before him a group of logoi from Hermes to Ammon from which he took this
and the following seven excerpts.]

All things are born by Nature and by Fate, and there is not a
[single] space bereft of Providence. Now Providence is the Selfperfect Reason. And of this [Reason] there are two spontaneous
powers,Necessity and Fate. And Fate doth minister to Providence and to Necessity; while unto Fate the Stars do minister.
For Fate no one is able to escape, nor keep himself from their
shrewd scrutiny. For that the Stars are instruments of Fate; it
is at its behest that they effect all things for nature and for
men.

155

Excerpt XIII

Of The Whole Economy

Hermes to Ammon.
[The title is from the anthology of Stobus, where it is headed Of Hermes
from those to Amoun ('Amon) (this spelling appears only here in Stobus).]

Now what supporteth the whole World, is Providence; what

holdeth it together and encircleth it about, is [called] Necessity;
what drives all on and drives them round, is Fate, bringing
Necessity to bear on them (for that its nature is the bringing
into play of [this] Necessity); [it is] the cause of birth and death
of life. So, then, the Cosmos is beneath the sway of Providence
(for tis the first to meet with it); but Providence [itself] extends
itself to Heaven. For which cause, too, the Gods revolve, and
speed round [Heaven], possessed of tireless, never-ceasing
motion. But Fate [extends itself in Cosmos]; for which cause,
too, Necessity [encompasses the Cosmos].1 And Providence
foreknows; but Fates the reason of the disposition of the Stars.
Such is the law that no one can escape, by which all things are
ordered.

1 [Mead describes the text as hopeless and so has apparently made up what
he thought it should say.]

156

Excerpt XIV

Of Soul [i]
Hermes to Ammon.
[The title is Patrizis. In the Physica of Stobus, it is headed Of Hermes
from those to Ammon.]

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 be for
ever moving, according to its thought [to be] self-motive
[purely], not moved in something, nor towards something, nor
bet] 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 oher 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 thats 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, qu
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 its 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.
157

Excerpt XV

[Of Soul ii]

Hermes to Ammon.
[Patrizi has this as a continuation of the former, although there is something of a change of subject. In the Physica of Stobus, it is headed Of
Hermes from those to Ammon.]

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 Power, the other that according to [its]
Operation. 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. Now the
[Productive] Nature of all things supplies the things produced
with [power of re-] production, sowing the seeds of its own self,
[and] having its becomings by means of moving matter.
2. And Matter being moved was heated and did turn to Fire and
Water,the one [being] strong and active, and the other passive.
And Fire opposed by Water was dried up by it, and did become
Earth borne on Water. And when it was excessively dried up, a
vapour rose from out the three,from Water, Earth and Fire,
and became Air. The [Four] came into congress, [then,]
according to the reason of the Harmony,hot with cold, [and]
dry with moist. And from the union of these [four] is spirit
born, and seed proportionate to the surrounding Spirit. This
[spirit] falling in the womb does not remain inactive in the seed, but being active it transforms the seed, and [this] being
[thus] transformed, develops growth and size. And as it grows
in size, it draws unto itself a copy of a model, and is modelled.
3. And on the model is the form supported,by means of which
that which is represented by an image is so represented. Now,
since the spirit in the womb had not the motion that
maintaineth life, but that which causeth fermentation [only],
the Harmony composed the latter as the receptacle of rational
life. This [life] is indivisible and changeless ; it never changes
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OF SOUL

159

from its changelessness. It ruleth the conception of the thing

within the womb, by means of numbers, delivereth it, and
bringeth it into the outer air. The Soul dwells very near to it;
not owing to some common property, but under the constraint
of Fate; for that it has no love to be with body. Wherefore, [the
Harmony] according unto Fate doth furnish to the thing that's
born [its] rational motion, and the intellectual essence of the
life itself. For that [this] doth insinuate itself into the spirit,
and set it moving with the motion of the life.

Excerpt XVI

[Of Soul iii]

[Hermes to Ammon.]
[The title is Meads. In the Physica of Stobus, it is headed simply Of
Hermes but is immediately followed by the excerpt following which is
internally addressed to Ammon.]

1. The Soul is, then, incorporal essence; for if it should have

body, it would no longer have the power of being self-maintained. For every body needeth being; it needeth also ordered
life as well. For that for every thing that comes to birth, change
also must succeed. For that which doth become, becomes in
size; for in becoming it hath increase. Again, for every thing
that doth increase, decrease succeedeth; and on increase
destruction. For, sharing in the form of life, it lives; it shares,
also, in being through the Soul.
2. But that which is the cause of being to another, is being first
itself. And by [this] being I now mean becoming in reason,
and taking part in intellectual life. It is the Soul that doth
supply this intellectual life. It is called living through the life,
and rational through the intellect, and mortal through the
body. Soul is, accordingly, a thing incorporal, possessing [in
itself] the power of freedom from all change. For how would it
be possible to talk about an intellectual living thing, if that
there were no [living] essence to furnish life? Nor, any more,
would it be possible to say a rational [living] thing, were there
no ratiocinative essence to furnish intellectual life.
3. It is not to all [lives] that intellect extends; [it doth depend]
on the relationship of bodys composition to the Harmony. For
if the hot in the compost be in excess, hes light and fervid; but
if the cold, hes heavy and hes dull. For Nature makes the
composition fit the Harmony. There are three forms of the
becoming,the hot, the cold, and medium. It makes it fit
according to the ruling Star in the star-mixture. And Soul
receiving it, as Fate decrees, supplies this work of Nature with
[the proper kind of] life. Nature, accordingly, assimilates the
bodys harmony unto the mixture of the Stars, and counites its
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161

complex mixtures with their Harmony, so that they are in

mutual sympathy. For that the end of the Stars Harmony is to
give birth to sympathy according to their Fate.

Excerpt XVII

[Of Soul iv]

[Hermes to Ammon.]
[The title is Meads. In the Physica of Stobus, it is headed simply Of
Hermes but is internally addressed to Ammon.]

1. Soul, Ammon, then, is essence containing its, own end within

itself; in [its] beginning taking to itself the way of life allotted it
by Fate, it draws also unto itself a reason like to matter,
possessing heart and appetite.1 Heart, too, is matter; if it
doth make its state accordant with the Souls intelligence, it,
[then,] becometh courage, and is not led away by cowardice.
And appetite is matter, too; if it doth make its state accord
with the Souls rational power, it [then] becometh temperance,
and is not moved by pleasure, for reasoning fills up the appetites deficiency.
2. And when both [these] are harmonized, and equalized, and
both are made subordinate to the Souls rational power, justice
is born. For that their state of equilibrium doth take away the
hearts excess, and equalizes the deficiency of appetite. The
source of these, however, is the penetrating essence of all
thought, its self by its own self, [working] in its own reason that
doth think round everything, with its own reason as its rule. It
is the essence that doth lead and guide as ruler; its reason is as
twere its counsellor who thinks about all things.
3. The reason of the essence, then, is gnosis of those reasonings
which furnish the irrational [part] with reasonings conjecturing,a faint thing as compared with reasoning [itself], but
reasoning as compared with the irrational, as echo unto voice,
and moonlight to the sun. And heart and appetite are
harmonized upon a rational plan; they pull the one against the
other, and [so] they learn to know in their own selves a circular
intent.

[Mead uses Heart for thumos and Appetite for epithumos. See note to
excerpt I 5.]

162

Excerpt XVIII

[Of Soul v]
[Hermes to Ammon.]
[The title is Meads. In the Physica of Stobus, it is headed simply Of the
same (i.e. Hermes), immediately following the preceding.]

1. [Now], every Soul is free from death and in perpetual motion.

For in the General Sermons1 we have said some motions are by
means of the activities, others are owing to the bodies. We say,
moreover, that the Souls produced out of a certain essence,
not a matter,incorporal itself, just as its essence is. Now
every thing thats born, must of necessity be born from something. All things, moreover, in which destruction followeth on
birth, must of necessity have two kinds of motion with them:
the [motion] of the Soul, by which theyre moved; and bodys
[motion], by which they wax and wane. Moreover, also, on the
formers dissolution, the latter is dissolved. This I define,
[then,] as the motion of bodies corruptible.
2. The Soul, however, is in perpetual motion,in that perpetually it moves itself, and makes [its] motion active [too] in
other things. And so, according to this reason, every Soul is
free from death, having for motion the making active of itself.
The kinds of Souls are three:divine, [and] human, [and]
irrational. Now the divine [is that] of its divine body, in which
there is the making active of itself. For it is moved in it, and
moves itself. For when it is set free from mortal lives, it
separates itself from the irrational portions of itself, departs
unto the godlike body, and as tis in perpetual motion, is moved
in its own self, with the same motion as the universe.
3. The human [kind] has also something of the godlike [body],
but it has joined to it as well the [parts] irrational,the
appetite and heart.2 These latter also are immortal, in that
[The logoi genekoi are generally only mentioned in the Tat-discourses; Mead
decided on balance to group with with those to Ammon in accordance with
similarities of style and suject and their being grouped together in the
anthology of Stobus.]
2 [See note to previous excerpt for these.]
1

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

they happen also in themselves to be activities; but [they are]

the activities of mortal bodies. Wherefore, they are removed far
from the godlike portion of the Soul, when it is in its godlike
body; but when this enters in a mortal frame, they also cling to
it, and by the presence [of these elements] it keeps on being a
human Soul. But that of the irrationals consists of heart and
appetite. And for this cause these lives are also called
irrational, through deprivation of the reason of the Soul.
4. You may consider, too, as a fourth [kind] that of the soulless,
which from without the bodies operates in them, and sets them
moving. But this should [really] be the moving of itself within
its godlike body, and the moving of these [other] things as it
were by the way.

Excerpt XIX

[Of Soul vi]

[Hermes to Ammon.]
[The title is Meads. In the Physica of Stobus, it is headed simply Of the
same (i.e. Hermes), immediately following the preceding. It is indeed
possible that some or all of the six excerpts on the soul were drawn from
the same extended discourse.]

1. Soul, then, is an eternal intellectual essence, having for

purpose the reason of itself; and when it thinks with [it,] it doth
attract [unto itself] the Harmonys intention. But when it
leaves behind the body Nature makes, it bideth in and by
itself,the maker of itself in the notic world. It ruleth its own
reason, bearing in its own thought a motion (called by the name
of life) like unto [that of] that which cometh into life.1
2. For that the thing peculiar to the Soul [is this],to furnish
other things with what is like its own peculiarity. There are,
accordingly, two lives, two motions:one, that according to the
essence of the Soul; the other, that according to the nature of
the body. The former [is] more general, [the latter is more
partial]; the [life] that is according unto essence has no
authority but its own self, the other [is] under necessity. For
every thing thats moved, is under the necessity of that which
moveth [it]. The motion that doth move, however, is in close
union with the love of the notic essence. For Soul must be
incorporal,essence that hath no share in any body Nature
makes. For were it corporal, it would have neither reason nor
intelligence. For every body is without intelligence; but when it
doth receive of essence, it doth obtain the power of being a
breathing animal.
3. The spirit [hath the power to contemplate] the body; the
reason of the essence hath the power to contemplate the
Beautiful. The sensiblethe spiritis that which can discern
appearances. It is distributed into the various sense-organs; a
part of it becometh spirit by means of which we see, [a part] by
1 [This passage also appears as X:7 of the Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to
Asclepius (not in the present collection).]

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

means of which we hear, [a part] by means of which we smell,

[a part] by means of which we taste, [a part] by means of which
we touch. This spirit, when it is led upwards by the understanding, discerns that which is sensible; but if tis not, it only
maketh pictures for itself. For it is of the body, and that, too,
receptible of all [impressions].
4. The reason of the essence, on the other hand, is that which is
possessed of judgement. The knowledge of things worthy [to be
known] is co-existent with the reason; [that which is coexistent]
with the spirit [is] opinion. The latter has its operation from
the surrounding world; the former, from itself.

Excerpt XX

[The Power of Choice]

[The title is Meads. In the Ethica of Stobus, it is headed simply Of
Hermes. There is no internal indication as to whom it was adressed;
Meads considers it was probably an extract from one of the Tat-logoi.]

1. There is, then, essence, reason, thought, perception. Opinion

and sensation move towards perception; reason directs itself
towards essence; and thought sends itself forth through its own
self. And thought is interwoven with perception, and entering
into one another they become one form,which is that of the
Soul [itself]. Opinion and sensation move towards the Souls
perception; but they do not remain in the same state. Hence is
there excess, and falling short, and difference with them.
When they are drawn away from the perception, they deteriorate; but when they follow it and are obedient, they share in the
perceptive reason through the sciences.
2. We have the power to choose; it is within our power to choose
the better, and in like way [to choose] the worse, according to
our will. And if [our] choice clings to the evil things, it doth
consort with the corporeal nature; [and] for this cause Fate
rules oer him who makes this choice. Since, then, the intellectual essence in us is absolutely free,[namely] the reason that
embraces all in thought,and that it ever is a law unto itself
and self-identical, on this account Fate does not reach it. Thus
furnishing it first from the First God, it sent forth the
perceptive reason, and the whole reason which Nature hath
appointed unto them that come to birth. With these the Soul
consorting, consorteth with their fates, though [in herself] she
hath no part [or lot] in their fates nature.
Patrizi adds the following to the preceding; it is not found in Stobus, and
appears to be a scholium.

What is necessitated by the interwoven harmony of [all] the

parts, in no way differs from that which is fated.

167

Excerpt XXI

Of Isis to Horus
[In Stobus, this brief fragment is headed simply Of Hermes from that of
Isis to Horus. Mead observes that the style is unlike the other Isis to
Horus Hermetica and suggests is it more likely from the Asclepius to
Ammon group such as C.H. XVI.]

A refutation, when it is recognized, O greatest King, carries the

man who is refuted towards the desire of things he did not
know before.

Excerpt XXII

[An Apophthegm]
Hermes on being asked, What is God?replied: The Demiurge
of wholes,the Mind most wise and everlasting.

168

Excerpt XXIII

From Aphrodit
[In the Physica of Stobus, this is headed Of Hermes from Aphrodit.
No other specimens of this Hermetic text or group of texts are known. The
interlocuter is unnamed.]

How, [then,] are offspring born like to their parents? Or how

are they returned to [their own] species?
[Aphrodit.] I will set forth the reason. When generation
stores up seed from the ripe blood being sweated forth, it comes
to pass that somehow theres exhaled from the whole mass of
limbs a certain essence, following the law of a divine activity,
as though the man himself were being born; the same thing
also in the womans case apparently takes place. When, then,
what floweth from the man hath the ascendancy, and keeps
intact, the young ones brought to light resembling its sire;
contrary wise, in the same way, [resembling] its dam. Moreover, if there should be ascendancy of any part, [then] the
resemblance [of the young] will favour that [especial] part. But
sometimes also for long generations the offspring favoureth the
husbands form, because his decan has the greater influence at
that [particular] moment when the wife conceives.

169

Excerpt XXIV

[A Hymn of the Gods]

[In the Physica of Stobus, this is headed simply Of Hermes.]

Seven Stars far varied in their course revolved upon the [wide]
Olympian plain; with them for ever will Eternity1 spin [fate]:
Mn2 that shine by night, [and] gloomy Kronos, [and] sweet
Hlios, and Paphi3 whos carried in the shrine, courageous
Ars, fair-winged Herms, and Zeus the primal source from
whom Nature doth come.
Now they themselves have had the race of men entrusted to
their care; so that in us there is a Mn, Zeus, an Ars, Paphi,
a Kronos, Hlios and Herms.
Wherefore we are divided up [so as] to draw from the
therial spirit, tears, laughter, anger, birth, reason, sleep,
desire.
Tears are Kronos, birth Zeus, reason [is] Herms, courage
Mars, and Mn sleep, in sooth, and Cytherea4 desire, and
Hlios [is] laughterfor tis because of him that justly every
mortal thinking thing doth laugh and the immortal world.

ain.
[Poetic name for the Moon.]
3 [Poetic name for Aphrodit from her cult-centre at Paphos, Cyrpus.]
4 [Kuqreia, another title of Aphrodit (probably from another one of her cultcentres).]
1
2

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KOR KOSMOU (i)

[Mead prefered the conventional English translation Virgin of the World.
Patrizi Latinised it as Minerva Mundi (Krh Dij being a title of Athen);
kor also has the secondary meaning of the pupil of the eye. In the Physica
of Stobus this excerpt is headed From Hermes Trismegistus Sacred Book
Kor Kosmou.]

1. So speaking Isis doth pour forth for Horus the sweet draught
(the first) of deathlessness which souls have custom to receive
from Gods, and thus begins her holiest discourse (logos):
Seeing that, Son Horus, Heaven, adorned with many a wreath
[of starry crowns], is set oer every nature of [all] things beneath,
and that nowhere it lacketh aught of anything which the whole
cosmos now doth hold,in every way it needs must be that every
nature which lies underneath, should be co-ordered and fullfilled by those that lie above; for things below cannot of course
give order to the ordering above. It needs must, therefore, be
the less should give place to the greater mysteries. The ordinance of the sublimer things transcends the lower; it is both
sure in every way and falleth neath no mortals thought.
Wherefore the [mysteries] below did sigh, fearing the wondrous
beauty and the everlasting durance of the ones above. Twas
worth the gazing and the pains to see Heavens beauty, beauty
that seemed like God,God who was yet unknown, and the
rich majesty of Night, who weaves her web with rapid light,
though it be less than Suns, and of the other mysteries in turn
that move in Heaven, with ordered motions and with periods of
times, with certain hidden influences bestowing order on the
things bXXV. Kor Kosmou (i)elow and co-increasing them.
2. Thus fear succeeded fear, and searching search incessant,
and for so long as the Creator of the universals willed, did
ignorance retain its grip on all. But when He judged it fit to
manifest Him who He is, He breathed into the Gods the Loves,
and freely poured the splendour which He had within His
heart, into their minds, in ever greater and still greater
measure; that they they might have the wish to seek, next they
might yearn to find, and finally have power to win success as
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well. But this, my Horus, wonder-worthy son, could never have

been done had that seed been subject to death, for that as yet
had no existence, but only with a soul that could vibrate
responsive to the mysteries of Heaven.
3. Such was all-knowing Hermes, who saw all things, and
seeing understood, and understanding had the power both to
disclose and to give explanation. For what he knew, he graved
on stone; yet though he graved them onto stone he hid them
mostly, keeping sure silence though in speech, that every
younger age of cosmic time might seek for them. And thus,
with charge unto his kinsmen of the Gods to keep sure watch,
he mounted to the Stars. To him succeeded Tat, who was at once
his son and heir unto these knowledges; and not long afterwards Asclepius-Imuth,1 according to the will of Ptah who is
Hephastus,2 and all the rest who were to make enquiry of the
faithful certitude of heavenly contemplation, as Foreknowledge
willed, Foreknowledge queen of all.
4. Hermes, however, made explanation to surrounding [space],
how that not even to his son (because of the yet newness of his
youth) had he been able to hand on the Perfect Vision. But
when the Sun did rise for me, and with all-seeing eyes I gazed
upon the hidden [mysteries] of that New Dawn, and contemplated them, slowly there came to mebut it was sure
conviction that the sacred symbols of the cosmic elements were
hid away hard by the secrets of Osiris.
5. [Hermes], ere he returned to Heaven, invoked a spell on
them, and spake these words. (For tis not meet, my son, that I
should leave this proclamation ineffectual, but [rather] should
speak forth what words [our] Hermes uttered when he hid his
books away.) Thus then he said:
O holy books, who have been made by my immortal hands,
by incorruptions magic spells, . . .3 free from decay throughout
eternity remain and incorrupt from time! Become unseeable,
unfindable, for every one whose foot shall tread the plains of
[Imuth is presumably a Greek contraction of Imhotep; see note to Asc. xxxvii.]
[The craftsman-creator god Ptah of Memphis was identified with the Greek
Hephaistos in classical times.]
3 [The text here is corrupt.]
1
2

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this [our] land, until old Heaven doth bring forth meet
instruments for you, whom the Creator shall call souls.
Thus spake he; and, laying spells on them by means of his
own works, he shuts them safe away in their own zones. And
long enough the time has been since they were hid away.1
6. And Nature, O my son, was barren, till they who then were
under orders to patrol the Heaven, approaching to the God of
all, their King, reported on the lethargy of things. The time
was come for cosmos to awake, and this was no ones task but
His alone. We pray Thee, then, they said, direct Thy thought
to things which now exist and to what things the future needs.
7. When they spake thus, God smiled and said: Nature, arise!
And from His word there came a marvel, feminine, possessed of
perfect beauty, gazing at which the Gods stood all-amazed.
And God the Fore-father, with name of Nature, honoured her,
and bade her be prolific. Then gazing fixedly on the surrounding space, He spake these words as well: Let Heaven be filled
with all things full, and Air , and ther too! God spake and it
was so. And Nature with herself communing knew she must
not disregard the Sires command; so with the help of Toil she
made a daughter fair, whom she did call Invention. And on her
God bestowed the gift of being, and with His gift He set apart
all them that had been so-far made, filled them with mysteries,
and to Invention gave the power of ruling them.
8. But He, no longer willing that the world above should be
inert, but thinking good to fill it full of breaths, so that its parts
should not remain immotive and inert, He thus began on these
with use of holy arts as proper for the bringing forth of His own
special work. For taking breath from His own Breath and blending this with knowing Fire, He mingled them with certain other
substances which have no power to know; and having made the
twoeither with other-one, with certain hidden words of
power, He thus set all the mixture going thoroughly; until out
of the compost smiled a substance, as it were, far subtler, purer
far, and more translucent than the things from which it came;
it was so clear that no one but the Artist could detect it.
1

This is purely conjectural; the text is utterly corrupt.

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9. And since it neither thawed when fire was set unto it (for it
was made of Fire), nor yet did freeze when it had once been
properly produced (for it was made of Breath), but kept its
mixtures composition a certain special kind, peculiar to itself,
of special type and special blend,(which composition, you
must know, God called Psychsis, after the more auspicious
meaning of the name1 and from the similarity of its behaviour)
it was from this coagulate He fashioned souls enough in
myriads, 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. And thus the total number of
degrees reached up to sixty. 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, that they might keep the cylinder
a-whirl in proper order and economy and [thus] might please
their Sire. And so in that all-fairest station of the ther He
summoned unto Him the natures of all things that had as yet
been made, and spake these words: O Souls, ye children fair of
Mine own Breath and My solicitude, whom I have now with My
own Hands 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
1 [The Greek word can have the signification either of giving soul or life to,
animating, quickening (LSJ, s.v.) or making cold.]

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which I brought you into being, and by these Hands of Mine

which gave you life, that I will speedily devise for you a bond
and punishments.
12. And having said these words, the God, 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] animals
possessing forms like unto mens. 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 shall 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 the all-devising
powers and all-contriving procreative breath of all the things
which were for ever generally to be. And He withdrew, with
promises to join unto the visible productions of their hands
breath that cannot be seen, and essence of engendering its like
to each, so that they might give birth to others like themselves.
And these are under no necessity to do aught else than what
they did at first.
14. [And Horus asked:] What did the souls do, mother, then?
And Isis said: Taking the blend of matter, Horus, son, they
first looked at the Fathers mixture and adored it, and tried to
find out whence it was composed; but this was not an easy
thing for them to know. They then began to fear lest they
should fall beneath the Fathers wrath for trying to find out,
and so they set to work to do what they were bid. Thereon, out
of the upper stuff which had its topmost layer superfluously

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light, they formed the race of birds; while they were doing this
the mixture had become half-hardened, and by this time had
taken on a firm consistencythereon they fashioned out the
race of things which have four feet; [next they did fashion forth]
the race of fishless light and needing a moist substance of a
different kind to swim in; and as the residue was of a cold and
heavy nature, from it the souls devised the race of creeping
things.
15. They then, my son, as though they had done something
grand, with over-busy daring armed themselves, and acted contrary to the commands they had received; and forthwith they
began to overstep their proper limits and their reservations,
and would no longer stay in the same place, but were for ever
moving, and thought that being ever stationed in one place was
death. That they would do this thing, however, O my son (as
Hermes says when he speaks unto me), had not escaped the
Eye of Him who is the God and Lord of universal things; and
He searched out a punishment and bond, the which they now in
misery endure.1 Thus it was that the Sovereign King of all
resolved to fabricate with art the human frame, in order that in
it the race of Souls throughout might be chastised.
16. Then sending for me, Hermes says, He spake: Soul of My
Soul, and holy mind of My own Mind, up to what point, the
nature of the things beneath, shall it be seen in gloom? How
long shall what has up to now been made remain inactive and
be destitute of praise? Bring hither to Me now, My son, all of
the Gods in Heaven, said Godas Hermes saith.
And when they came obedient to His command,Look
down, said He, upon the Earth, and all beneath. And they
forthwith both looked and understood the Sovereigns will. And
when He spake to them on human kinds behalf, they [all]
agreed to furnish those who were to be, with whatsoever thing
they each could best provide.
1 [This almost suggests the passage in I Enoch (cap. XVIII) where Enoch sees
seven stars imprisoned who, he is informed transgressed the commandment
of the Lord in the beginning of their rising, because they did not come forth at
their appointed times (Charles trans.). This sequence is also the nearest we
get in the Hermetic literature to the Gnostic notion of the rebellious demiurge; even in the most dualistic Hermetica the demiurge is not evil.]

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17. Sun said: Ill shine unto my full. Moon promised to pour
light upon the after-the-sun course, and said she had already
given birth to Fear, and Silence, and also Sleep, and Memory
a thing that would turn out to be most useful for them.
Chronus announced himself already sire of Justice and
Necessity. Zeus said: So that the race which is to be may not
for ever fight, already for them have made Fortune, and Hope,
and Peace. Ars declared he had become already sire of
Struggle, Wrath, and Strife. Nor yet did Aphrodit hesitate;
she also said: Ill join to them Desire, my Lord, and Bliss, and
Laughter [too], so that our kindred souls, in working out their
very grievous condemnation, may not exhaust their punishment unto the full. Full pleased were all, my son, at Aphrodits words. And for my part, said Hermes, I will make
mens nature well endowed; I will devote to them Prudence and
Wisdom, Persuasiveness and Truth, and never will I cease from
congress with Invention, but ever will I benefit the mortal life
of men born underneath my types of life.1 For that the types
our Father and Creator hath set apart for me, are types of
wisdom and intelligence, and more than ever [is this so] what
time the motion of the Stars set over them doth have the
natural power of each consonant with itself.
18. And God, the Master of the universe, rejoiced on hearing
this, and ordered that the race of men should be. I, Hermes
says, was seeking for the stuff which had to be employed, and
calling on the Monarch for His aid. And He gave order to the
Souls to give the mixtures residue; and taking it I found it
utterly dried up. Thereon, in mixing it, I used more water far
than was required to bring the matter back unto its former
state, so that the plasm was in every way relaxable, and weak
and powerless, in order that it might not, in addition to its
natural sagacity, be full of power as well. I moulded it, and it
was fair; and I rejoiced at seeing mine own work, and from
below I called upon the Monarch to behold. And He did look on
it, and was rejoiced, and ordered that the Souls should be
enfleshed. Then were they first plunged in deep gloom, and,
1 [Again, Mead obfuscates the astrological reference by over-literal translation
of a reference to the signs of the Zodiac.]

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learning that they were condemned, began to wail.

myself amazed at the Souls utterances.

I was

19. Now give good heed, son Horus, for thou art being told the
Mystic Spectacle which Kamphis,1 our forefather, was privileged to hear from Hermes, record-writer of all deeds, and I
from Kamphis, most ancient of [us] all, when he did honour
me with the Black [Rite] that gives perfection;2 hear thou it
now from me! For when, O wondrous son of mighty fame, they
were about to be shut in their prisons, some simply uttered
wails and groansin just the self-same way as beasts that once
have been at liberty, when torn from their accustomed haunts
they love so well, will be bad slaves, will fight and make revolt,
and be in no agreement with their masters; nay more, if
circumstance should serve, will even do to death those that
oppress them. Others with louder outcry hissed like snakes;
another one shrieked shrilly, and ere he spake shed many
tears, and, turning up and down what things served him as
eyes, he said:
20. O Heaven, thou source of our begetting, O ther, Air, O
Hands and holy Breath of God our Monarch, O ye most brilliant
Stars, eyes of the Gods, O tireless light of Sun and Moon, conurslings of our origin,reft from [you] all we suffer piteously.
And this the more, in that from spacious realms of light, from
out [thy] holy envelope and wealthy dome, and from the blessed
government we shared with Gods, we shall be thus shut down
into these honourless and lowly quarters. What is the so unseemly thing we miserables have done? What [crime] deserves
these punishments? How many sins await us wretched ones?
How many are the things we have to do in this our hopeless
plight, necessities to furnish for this watery frame that is so
soon dissolved?
1 [Kamphis is probably Khnum (Kneph), depicted as ram-headed and shown
crafting humans on a potters wheel (connecting him with the iconography of
Ptah). Khnum is also thought to be the Agathodaimon who appears as the
third of the dynastic of divine kings of Egypt according to Manetho after
Hephaistos (Ptah) and Hlios (R). Khnum got assimilated to Amen-R under
Theban syncretism but so did most of the other major male gods of Egypt.]
2 [Mead speculates at length in his commentary about this Black Rite or
Dark Mystery.]

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21. For that no longer shall our eyes behold the souls of God;
when through such watery spheres as these we see our own
forefather Heaven grown small and tiny, we shall dissolve in
sighs,nay, therell be times we shall not see at all, for
sentence hath been passed on us poor things; the gift of real
sight hath not been given to us, in that it hath not been
permitted us to see without the light. Windows they are, not
eyes! How wretchedly shall we endure to hear our kindred
breaths breathe in the air, when we no longer shall be
breathing with them! For home, instead of this great world
high in the air, a hearts small mass awaits us. Set Thou us
free from bonds so base as these to which we have sunk down,
and end our grief! O Lord, and Father, and our Maker, if so it
be Thou hast thus quickly grown indifferent unto the works of
Thine own Hands, appoint for us some limits! Still deem us
worthy of some words, though they be few, while yet we can see
through the whole world-order bright on every side!
22. Thus speaking, Horus, son, the Souls gained their request;
for that the Monarch came; and sitting on the Throne of Truth
made answer to their prayers. O Souls, Love and Necessity
shall be your lords, they who are lords and marshals after Me
of all. Know, all of you who are set under My unageing rule,
that as long as ye keep you free of sin, ye shall dwell in the
fields of Heaven; but if some cause of blame for aught attach
itself to you, ye shall dwell in the place that Destiny allots,
condemned to mortal wombs. If, then, the things imputed to
your charge be slight, leaving the bond of fleshly frames subject
to death, ye shall again embrace your [father] Heaven, and sigh
no more; but if ye shall commit some greater sins, and with the
end appointed of your frames be not advanced, no longer shall
ye dwell in Heaven, nor even in the bodies of mankind, but
shall continue after that to wander round in lives irrational.
23. Thus speaking, Horus mine, He gave to all the gift of breath,
and thus continued: It is not without purpose or by chance I
have laid down the law of your transformings; but as [it will be]
for the worse if ye do aught unseemly, so for the better, if ye
shall will whats worthy of your birth. For I, and no one else,
will be the Witness and the Watcher. Know, then, it is for what

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ye have done heretofore, ye do endure this being shut in bodies

as a punishment. The difference in your rebirths, accordingly,
for you, shall be as I have said, a difference of bodies, and their
[find] dissolution [shall be] a benefit and a [return to] the fair
happiness of former days. But if ye think to do aught else
unworthy of Me, your mind shall lose its sight so as to think
the contrary [of what is true], and take the punishment for
benefit; the change to better things for infamous despite. But
the more righteous of you, who stand upon the threshold of the
change to the diviner state, shall among men be righteous
kings, and genuine philosophers, founders of states, and lawgivers, and real seers, and true herb-knowers, and prophets of
the Gods most excellent, skilful musicians, skilled astronomers,
and augurs wise, consummate sacrificers,as many of you as
are worthy of things fair and good.
24. Among winged tribes [they shall be] eagles, for these will
neither scare away their kind nor feed on them; nay more,
when they are by, no other weaker beast will be allowed by
them to suffer wrong, for what will be the eagles nature is too
just [to suffer it]. Among four-footed things [they will be] lions,
a life of strength and of a kind which in a measure needs no
sleep, in mortal body practising the exercises of immortal life
for they nor weary grow nor sleep. And among creeping things
[they will be] dragons, in that this animal will have great
strength and live for long, will do no harm, and in a way be
friends with man, and let itself be tamed; it will possess no
poison and will cast its skin, as is the nature of the Gods.
Among the things that swim [they will be] dolphins; for
dolphins will take pity upon those who fall into the sea, and if
they are still breathing bear them to the land, while if theyre
dead they will not ever even touch them, though they will be
the most voracious tribe that in the water dwells.
25. Thus speaking God became imperishable Mind. Thereon,
son Horus, from the Earth uprose a very Mighty Spirit which
no mass of body could contain, whose strength consisted in his
intellect. And though he knew full well the things on which he
questionedthe body with which man was clothed according to
his type, a body fair and dignified, yet savage overmuch and

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full of fearimmediately he saw the souls were entering the

plasms, he cried out: What are these called, O Hermes, Writer
of the Records of the Gods? And when he answered Men!
Hermes, he said, it is a daring work, this making man, with
eyes inquisitive, and talkative of tongue, with power henceforth
to hear things even which are no concern of his, dainty of smell,
who will use to its full his power of touch on every thing. Hast
thou, his generator, judged it good to leave him free from care,
who in the future daringly will gaze upon the fairest mysteries
which Nature hath? Wouldst thou leave him without a grief,
who in the days to come will make his thoughts reach unto
mysteries beyond the Earth?
26. Men will dig up the roots of plants, and will find out their
juices qualities. Men will observe the nature of the stones.
Men will dissect not only animals irrational, but theyll dissect
themselves, desiring to find out how they were made. They will
stretch out their daring hands een to the sea, and cutting selfgrown forests down will ferry one another oer to lands beyond.
[Men] will seek out as well the inner nature of the holy spaces
which no foot may tread, and will chase after them into the
height, desiring to observe the nature of the motion of the
Heaven. These are yet moderate things [which they will do].
For nothing more remains than Earths remotest realms; nay, in
their daring they will track out Night, the farthest Night of all.
27. Naught have they, then, to stop them from receiving their
initiation in the good of freedom from all pain, and, unconstrained by terrors grievous goads, from living softly out a life
free from all care. Then will they not gird on the armour of an
over-busy daring up to Heaven? Will they not, then, reach out
their souls freed from all care unto the [primal] elements
themselves? Teach them henceforth to long to plan out something, where they have as well to fear the danger of its illsuccess, in order that they may be tamed by the sharp tooth of
pain in failure of their hopes. Let the too busy nature of their
souls be balanced by desires, and fears, and griefs, and empty
hopes. Let loves in quick succession sway their souls, hopes,
manifold desires, sometimes fulfilled, and sometimes unfulfilled, that the sweet bait of their success may draw them into

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struggle amid direr ills. Let fever lay its heavy hand on them,
that losing heart they may submit desire to discipline.
28. Thou grievest, dost thou, Horus, son, to hear thy mother put
these things in words? Art thou not struck with wonder, art
thou not terror-struck at how poor man was grievously oppressed? Hear what is sadder still! When Mmos1 said these
things Hermes was pleased, for what he said was said out of
affection for him; and so he did all that he recommended,
speaking thus: Mmos, the Nature of the Breath Divine which
doth surround [all things] shall not become inert. The Master
of the universe appointed me as steward and as manager.
Wherefore the overseer of His command will be the keen-eyed
Goddess of the all, Adrasteia;2 and I will skilfully devise an
instrument, mysterious, possessed of power of sight that cannot
err, and cannot be escaped, whereto all things on earth shall of
necessity be subject, from birth to final dissolution,an instrument which binds together all thats done. This instrument
shall rule all other things on Earth as well [as man].
29. These words, said Hermes, did I speak to Mmos, and forthwith the instrument was set a-going. When this was done, and
when the souls had entered in the bodies, and [Hermes] had
himself been praised for what was done, again the Monarch did
convoke the Gods in session. The Gods assembled, and once
more did He make proclamation, saying: Ye Gods, all ye who
have been made of chiefest Nature, free from all decay, who
have received as your appointed lot for ever more to order out
the mighty on, through whom all universal things will never
weary grow surrendering themselves in turn the one to other,
how long shall we be rulers of this sovereignty that none can
ever know? How long these things, shall they transcend the
power of sight of Sun and Moon? Let each of us bring forth
according to his power. Let Us by our own energy wipe out this
inert state of things; let chaos seem to be a myth incredible to
[Mmos in Greek mythology appears to be a personification of blame or
censure; he is a critic who finds fault with everything the gods do or propose
and is here identified as the speaker in 25-27. Hesiods theongony (213-4)
makes him one of many fatherless children of Night.]
2 [A periphrastic name of Nemesis, supposed to mean the inescapable.]
1

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future days. Set hand to mighty work; and I myself will first
begin.
30. He spake; straightway in cosmic order there began the
differentiation of the up-to-then black unity [of things]. And
Heaven shone forth above tricked out with all his mysteries;
Earth, still a-tremble, as the Sun shone forth grew harder, and
appeared with all the fair adornments that bedeck her round
on every side. For beautiful to God are even thihgs which men
think mean, in that in truth they have been made to serve the
laws of God. And God rejoiced when now He saw His works amoving; and filling full His Hands, which held as much as all
surrounding space, with all that Nature had produced, and
squeezing tight the handfuls mightily, He said: Take [these], O
holy Earth, take those, all honoured one, who art to be the
mother of all things, and henceforth lack thou naught!
31. God spake, and opening His Hands, such Hands as God
should have, He poured them all into the composition of the
world. And they in the beginnings were unknown in every way;
for that the Souls as newly shut in prison, not enduring their
disgrace, began to strive in emulation with the Gods in Heaven,
in full command of their high birth, and when held back, in
that they had the same Creator, made, revolt, and using
weaker men as instruments, began to make them set upon each
other, and range themselves in conflict, and make war among
themselves. Thus strength did mightily prevail oer weakness,
so that the strong did burn and massacre the weak, and from
the holy places down they cast the living and the dead down
from the holy shrines, until the Elements in their distress
resolved to go to God their Monarch [to complain] about the
savage state in which men lived. The evil now being very
great, the Elements approached the God who made them, and
formulated their complaint in some such words as these:
32. It was moreover Fire who first received authority to speak.
He said: O Lord, Artificer of this new World, thou Name
mysterious among the Gods, and up to now revered by all
mankind, how long hast Thou, O Daimon, judged it right to
leave the life of mortals without God? Show now Thyself unto
Thy World consulting Thee; initiate the savagery of life with

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peace; give laws to life; to right give oracles; fill with fair hopes
all things; and let men fear the vengeance of the Gods, and
none will sin. Should they receive due retribution for their
sins, they will refrain henceforth from doing wrong; they will
respect their oaths, and no one any more will ponder sacrilege.
Let them be taught to render thanks for benefits received, that
I, the Fire, may joyfully do service in the sacrificial rites, that
they may from the altar send sweet-smelling vapours forth.
For up to now I am polluted, Lord; and by the godless daring of
these men I am compelled to burn up flesh. They will not let
me be for what I was brought forth; but they adulterate with all
indecency my undecaying state.
33. And Air too said: I also, Master, am made turbid by the
vapours which the bodies of the dead exhale, and I am
pestilential, and, no longer filled with health, I gaze down from
above on things I ought not to behold.
Next Water, O my son of mighty soul, received authority to
speak, and spake and said: O Father, O wonderful Creator of
all things, Daimon self-born, and Natures Maker, who through
Thee doth conceive all things, now at this last, command the
rivers streams for ever to be pure, for that the rivers and the
seas or wash the murderers hands or else receive the
murdered.
34. After came Earth in bitter grief, and taking up the tale, O
son of high renown, thus she began to speak: O sovereign
Lord, Chief of the Heavenly Ones, and Master of the Wheels,
Thou Ruler of us Elements, O Sire of them who stand beside
Thee, from whom all things have the beginning of their
increase and of their decrease, and into whom they cease again
and have the end that is their due according to Necessitys
decree, O greatly honoured One, the godless rout of men doth
dance upon my bosom. I hold in my embrace as well the nature
of all things; for I, as Thou didst give command, not only bear
them all, but I receive them also when theyre killed. But now
am I dishonoured. The world upon the Earth though filled with
all things [else] hath not a God. For having naught to fear they
sin in everything, and from my heights, O Lord, down [dead]
they fall by every evil art. And soaking with the juices of their

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185

carcases Im all corrupt. Hence am I, Lord, compelled to hold in

me those of no worth. With all I bear I would hold God as well.
Bestow on Earth, if not Thyself, for I could not contain Thee,
yet some holy Emanation of Thyself. Make Thou the Earth
more honoured than the rest of Elements; for it is right that
she should boast of gifts from Thee, in that she giveth all.
35. Thus spake the Elements; and God, fullfilling all things
with the sound of His [most] holy Voice, spake thus: Depart, ye
Holy Ones, ye Children worthy of a mighty Sire, nor yet in any
way attempt to innovate, nor leave the whole of [this] My
World without your active service. For now another Efflux of
My Nature is among you, and he shall be a pious supervisor of
all deedsjudge incorruptible of living men and monarch
absolute of those beneath the earth, not only striking terror
[into them] but taking vengeance on them. And by his class of
birth the fate he hath deserved shall follow every man. And so
the Elements did cease from their complaint, upon the Masters
order, and they held their peace; and each of them continued in
the exercise of his authority and in his rule.
36. And Horus thereon said: How was it, mother, then, that
Earth received Gods Efflux?
And Isis said: I may not tell the story of [this] birth; for it is
not permitted to describe the origin of thy descent, O Horus,
[son] of mighty power, lest afterwards the way-of-birth of the
immortal Gods should be known unto men,except so far that
God the Monarch, the universal Orderer and Architect, sent for
a little while thy mighty sire Osiris, and the mightiest Goddess
Isis, that they might help the world, for all things needed them.
Tis they who filled life full of life. Tis they who caused the
savagery of mutual slaughtering of men to cease. Tis they who
hallowed precincts to the Gods their ancestors and spots for
holy rites. Tis they who gave to men laws, food, and shelter.
Tis they who will, says Hermes, learn to know the secrets of
my records all, and will make separation of them; and some
they will keep for themselves, while those that are best suited
for the benefit of mortal men, they will engrave on tablet and
on obelisk. Tis they who were the first to set up courts of law;
and filled the world with justice and fair rule. Tis they who

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were the authors of good pledges and of faith, and brought the
mighty witness of an oath into mens lives. Tis they who
taught men how to wrap up those who ceased to live, as they
should be. Tis they who searched into the cruelty of death, and
learned that though the spirit which goes out longs to return
into mens bodies, yet if it ever fail to have the power of getting
back again, then loss of life results. Tis they who learned from
Hermes that surrounding space was filled with daimons, and
graved on hidden stones [the hidden teaching]. Tis they alone
who, taught by Hermes in Gods hidden codes, became the
authors of the arts, and sciences, and all pursuits which men do
practise, and givers of their laws. Tis they who, taught by
Hermes that the things below have been disposed by God to be
in sympathy with things above,1 established on the earth the
sacred rites oer which the mysteries in Heaven preside. Tis
they who, knowing the destructibility of [mortal] frames,
devised the grade of prophets, in all things perfected, in order
that no prophet who stretched forth his hands unto the Gods,
should be in ignorance of anything, that magic and philosophy
should feed the soul, and medicine preserve the body when it
suffered pain.2
38. And having done all this, my son, Osiris and myself
perceiving that the world was [now] quite full, were thereupon
demanded back by those who dwell in Heaven, but could not go
above till we had made appeal unto the Monarch, that surrounding space might with this knowledge of the soul be filled as
well, and we ourselves succeed in making our ascent acceptable
[to Him]. . . . For that God doth in hymns rejoice.
Ay, mother, Horus said. On me as well bestow the knowledge of this hymn, that I may not remain in ignorance.
And Isis said: Give ear, O son!3
[Quod est inferius, est sicut id quod est superius?]
[This long list of the benefits bestowed on mankind by Isis and Osiris recalls
the briefer account in Plutarchs De Iside et Osiride (which probably contains
the exoteric teaching of the Grco-Egyptian Isis-cult of the 1st century C.E.) of
the earthly reign of Osiris.]
3 [The excerpt breaks off here. If this text really did originate in a Mysterycult, possibly a schism off the Grco-Egyptian Mysteries of Isis, then perhaps
the hymn was never written down but only communicated by the mystagogue
in oral instruction.]
1
2

Excerpt XXVI

KOR KOSMOU (ii)

[Mead continues the paragraph numberings from the first excerpt and
notes that in the edition of Patrizi there is no break between the excerpts.
It is not clear how much material Stobus skipped; Mead is of opinion that
the original text is broken only by the unforunate omission of the Hymn of
Osiris and Isis.]

39. Now if thou wouldst, O son of mighty soul, know aught

beside, ask on!
And Horus said: O mother of great honour, I would know
how royal souls are born?
And Isis said: Son Horus, the distinction which marks out
the royal souls is somewhat of this kind. Four regions are there
in the universe which fall beneath a law and leadership which
cannot be transgressedHeaven, and the ther, and the Air,
and the most holy Earth. Above in Heaven, son, the Gods do
dwell, oer whom with all the rest doth rule the Architect of all;
and in the Ether [dwell] the Stars, oer whom the mighty Lightgiver the Sun holds sway; but in the Air [live] only souls, oer
whom doth rule the Moon; and on the Earth [do dwell] men and
the rest of living things, oer whom he who doth happen to be
king holds sway.
40. The Gods engender, son, the kings it has deserved, to rule
[the race] that lives on Earth. The rulers are the emanations of
the king, of whom the nearer to him is more royal than the rest;
for that the Sun, in that tis nearer than the Moon to God, is far
more vast and potent, to whom the Moon comes second both in
rank and power. The king, then, is the last of all the other
Gods, but first of men;1 so long as he is upon the Earth, he is
divorced from his true godship, but hath something that doth
distinguish him from men and which is like to God. The soul
which is sent down to dwell in him, is from that space which is
above those regions whence [the souls] descend to other men.
Down from that space the souls are sent to rule for those two
reasons, son.
1 [This concept of divine kingship is probably genuinely Egyptian in origin,
even if overlayed by Hellenic metaphysics.]

187

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41. They who have run a noble, blameless race throughout the
cycle of their lives, and are about to be changed into Gods, [are
born as kings,] in order that by exercise of kingship they may
train themselves to use the power the Gods enjoy; while certain
souls who are already Gods, but have in some slight way
infringed the rule of life which God inspired, are born as kings,
in order that they may not, in being clothed in bodies, undergo
the punishment of loss of dignity as well as nature, and that
they may not, when they are enfleshed, have the same lot as
other men, but have when bound what they enjoyed when free.
42. The differences which are, however, in the dispositions
shown by those who play the part of kings, are not determined
by distinguishing their souls, for these are all divine, but by the
constitution of the angels and the daimons who attend on them.
For that such souls as these descending for such purposes do
not come down without a guard and escort; for Justice up above
knows how to give to each what is its due estate een though
they be made exiles from their country ever fair. When, then,
my son, the angels and the daimons who bring down the soul
are of a warlike kind, it has to keep firm hold of their
proclivities, forgetting its own proper deeds, but all the more
remembering the doings of the other host attached to it. When
they are peaceful, then the soul as well doth order its own
course in peace. When they love justice, then it too defends the
right. When they are music-lovers, then it also sings. And
when they are truth-lovers, then it also doth philosophize. For
as it were out of necessity these souls keep a firm hold of the
proclivities of those that bring them here; for they are falling
down to mans estate, forgetting their own nature, and the
farther they depart from it, the more they have in memory the
disposition of those [powers] which shut them [into bodies].
43. Well hast thou, mother, all explained, said Horus. But noble
souls,how they are born, thou hast not told me yet.
As on the Earth, son Horus, there are states which differ one
from other, so also is it in the case of souls. For they have
regions whence they start; and that which starts from a more
glorious place, hath nobler birth than one which doth not so.
For just as among men the free is thought more noble than the

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189

slave(for that which is superior in souls and of a ruling

nature of necessity subjects what is inferior)so also, son, . . .1
44. And how are male and female souls produced?
Souls, Horus, son, are of the self-same nature in themselves,
in that they are from one and the same place where the Creator
modelled them; nor male nor female are they. Sex is a thing of
bodies, not of souls. That which brings it about that some of
them are stouter, some more delicate, is, son, that [cosmic] air
in which all things are made. Air for the soul is nothing but
the body which envelopes it, an element which is composed of
earth and water, air and fire. As, then, the composition of the
female ones has more of wet and cold, but less of dry and warm,
accordingly the soul which is shut in a plasm of this kind,
becomes relaxed and delicate, just as the contrary is found to be
in case of males. For in their case theres more of dry and
warm, and less of cold and wet; wherefore the souls in bodies
such as these are sturdy and more active.
45. And how do souls become intelligent, O mother mine? And
Isis answered: The organ of the sight, my son, is swathed in
wrappings. When these are dense and thick, the eye is dim;
but when theyre thin and light, then is the sight most keen.
So is it also for the soul. For it as well has envelopes incorporal
appropriate to it, just as it is itself incorporal. These envelopes
are airs which are in us. When these are light and thin and
clear, then is the soul intelligent; but, on the contrary, when
they are dense and thick and turbid, then [the soul], as in bad
weather, sees not at distance but only things which lie about its
feet.
46. And Horus said: What is the reason, mother, that the men
outside our holiest land are not so wise of mind as our
compatriots?
And Isis said: The Earth lies in the middle of the universe
upon her back, like to a human being, with eyes turned up to
heaven, and portioned out into asmany regions as there are
limbs in man. She turns her eyes to Heaven as though to her
own Sire, that with his changes she may also bring about her
1 [A lacuna occurs in the text, and the rest of the answer to Horus question is
missing.]

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own. She hath her head set to the south of all, right shoulder
to south-east, left shoulder to south-west; her feet below the
Bear, right foot beneath its tail, left under its head; her thighs
beneath those that succeed the Bear; her waist beneath the
middle [Stars].
47. A sign of this is that men in the south, who dwell upon her
head, are fine about the head and have good hair. Those in the
east are ready for a fight and archer folkfor this pertains to
the right hand. Those in the west are steadier and for the most
part fight with the left hand, and what is done by others with
the right, they for their part attribute to the left. Those underneath the Bear excel in feet and have especially good legs.
Those who come after them a little way, about the zone which
is our present Italy and Greece, they all have well-made thighs
and backs. . . .
Moreover, all these [northern] parts being whiter than the
rest bear whiter men upon them. But since the holiest land of
our forebears lies in the midst of Earth, and that the midst of a
mans body serves as the precinct of the heart alone, and
hearts the spot from which the soul doth start, the men of it
not only have no less the other things which all the rest possess,
but as a special thing are gifted with intelligence beyond all
men and filled with wisdom, in that they are begotten and
brought up above her heart.
48. Further, my son, the south being the receiver of the clouds
which mass themselves together from the atmosphere . . .1
For instance, it is just because there is this concentration of
them in the south, that it is said our river doth flow thence,
upon the breaking up of the frost there. For whensoeer a cloud
descends, it turns the air about it into mist, and sends it
downward in a kind of fog; and fog or mist is an impediment
not only to the eyes, but also to the mind. Whereas the east, O
Horus, great in glory, in that tis thrown into confusion and
made overhot by the continual risings of the sun, and in like
fashion too, the west, its opposite, in that it suffers the same
things through its descents, afford the men born in them no
conditions for clear observation. And Boreas with his con1

Something has evidently fallen out here, as the sentence is nowhere completed.

KOR KOSMOU

191

cordant cold, together with their bodies doth congeal the minds
of men as well. Whereas the centre of all these being pure and
undisturbed, foreknows both for itself and all that are in it.
For, free from trouble, ever it brings forth, adorns and
educates, and only with such weapons wars [on men], and wins
the victory, and with consummate skill, like a good satrap,
bestows the fruit of its own victory upon the vanquished.
49. This too expound, O lady, mother mine! For what cause is it
that when men still keep alive in long disease, their rational
parttheir very reason and their very soulat times becomes
disabled?
And Isis answer made: Of living things, my son, some are
made friends with fire, and some with water, some with air,
and some with earth, and some with two or three of these, and
some with all. And, on the contrary, again some are made
enemies of fire, and some of water, some of earth, and some of
air, and some of two of them, and some of three, and some of
all. For instance, son, the locust and all flies flee fire; the eagle
and the hawk and all high-flying birds flee water; fish, air and
earth; the snake avoids the open air. Whereas snakes and all
creeping things love earth; all swimming things [love] water;
winged things, air, of which they are the citizens; while those
that fly still higher [love] the fire and have their habitat near
it. Not that some of the animals as well do not love fir; for
instance salamanders, for they even have their homes in it. It
is because one or another of the elements doth form their
bodies outer envelope.
50. Each soul, accordingly, while it is in its body is weighted
and constricted by these four. Moreover it is natural it also
should be pleased with some of them and pained with others.
For this cause, then, it doth not reach the height of its
prosperity; still, as it is divine by nature, een while [wrapped
up] in them, it struggles and it thinks, though not such
thoughts as it would think were it set free from being bound in
bodies. Moreover if these [frames] are swept with storm and
stress, or of disease or fear, then is the soul itself tossed on the
waves, as man upon the deep with nothing steady under him.1
1

[The excerpt breaks off abruptly here.]

Excerpt XXVII

From the Sermon of Isis to Horus

[In the Physica of Stobus this excerpt is headed Of Hermes: A Sermon of
Isis to Horus. Patrizi runs this on from the end of the second Kor Kosmou
excerpt without a break; Kingsford and Maitland represented it as a third
part of the Virgin of the World. The figure of Isis as mystagogue was
likely suggested by Egyptian traditions representing her as possessing
great magical powers, knowing the true name of R, &c. This tract clearly
belongs to the same tradition as the Kor Kosmou, not merely on grounds of
style or the dramatis person, but in terms of the subjects of concern and of
the various doctrines about souls inculcated; Mead considers that the first
paragraph specifically refers back to the teaching of the K. K.]

1. In wondrous fashion(Horus said)has thou explained to

me, most mighty mother Isis, the details of Gods wondrous
soul-making, and I remain in wonder; but not as yet hast thou
told me whereto the souls when freed from body go. I would
then thank thee for being made initiate by word of mouth, into
this vision of the soul, O only mother, deathless one!
2. And Isis said: Give ear, my son; most indispensable is this
research. That which doth hold together, doth also have a
place which doth not disappear. For this is what my sermon
will set forth. O wondrous, mighty son of mighty sire Osiris,
[the souls] when they go forth from bodies, are not confusedly
and in a rush dissolved into the air, and scattered in the rest of
boundless Breath, so that they cannot any more as the same
[souls] return again to bodies; nor is it possible, again, to turn
them back unto that place from which they came at firstno
more than water taken from the bottom of a jar can be poured
[back again] into the self-same place whence it was taken; nor
does the same when taken take a place peculiar to it, but is
mixed up with the whole mass of water. Not thus is it [with
souls], high-minded Horus!
3. Now as I chance myself to be as though initiate into the
nature which transcendeth death, and that my feet have
crossed the Plain of Truth, I will explain to thee in detail how it
is; and preface this by telling thee that water is a body void of
reason condensed from many compound things into a fluid
mass, whereas the souls a thing of individual nature, son, and
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FROM THE SERMON OF ISIS TO HORUS

193

of a royal kind, a work of Gods [own] hands and mind, and of

itself led by itself to mind. What then doth come from one
and not from other, cannot be mingled with a different thing;
wherefore it needs must be that the souls congress with the
body is a concord wrought by Gods necessity. But that they
are not [all] confusedly and [all] at random and by chance sent
up again to one and the same place, but each to its own proper
region, is clear from what [the soul] doth suffer while still it is
in body and in plasm, when it has been made dense against its
proper nature. Now give good heed to the similitude recounted,
Horus well-beloved!
4. Suppose in one and the same cage have been shut up both
men and eagles, doves and swans, and swallows, hawks and
sparrows, flies, and snakes, and lions, leopards, wolves, and
dogs, and hares, and kine and sheep, and some amphibious
animals, as seals and others, tortoises and our own crocodiles;
then, that, my son, at one [and the same] moment they are [all]
let out. They [all] will turn instinctivelyman to his gathering
spots and roofs; the eagle to the ether, in which its nature is to
spend its life; the doves into the neighbouring air; the hawks
[to that] above [the doves]; the swallows where men dwell; the
sparrows round the fruit-trees; the swans where they may sing;
the flies about the earth, [but only] so far from it as they can
with [-out their losing] smell of man (for that the fly, my son, is
fond of man especially and tends to earth); the lions and the
leopards towards the hills; the wolves towards desert spots; the
dogs after mens tracks; the kine to stalls and fields; the sheep
to pastures; the snakes to earths recesses; the seals and
tortoises, with [all] their kind, unto the deeps and streams, so
that they neither should be robbed of the dry land nor taken
from their cognate watereach one returning to its proper
place by means of its internal means of judgment. So every
soul, both in a human form and otherwise incarnate on the
earth, knows where it has to go,unless some foolish1 person
come and say, my son, that it is possible a bull should live in
water and a tortoise up in air!
[The epiphet in the Greek is specifically Tufwnwn; Kingsford & Maitland have
some son of Typhon.]

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5. And if this be the case when they are plunged in flesh and
bloodthat they do nothing contrary to whats appointed them,
een though they are being punished (for being put in body is a
punishment for them)how much the more [is it the case] when
they possess their proper liberty [and are set free] from punishment and being plunged [in body]? Now the most holy ordering
of souls is on this wise. Turn thou thy gaze above, most noble
natured son, upon their orders. The space from height of heaven
to the moon devotes itself unto the gods and stars and to the rest
of providence; the space, my son, from moon to us is dwelling
place of souls. This so great air, however, has in it a belt to
which it is our use to give the name of wind, a definite expanse
in which it is kept moving to refresh the things on earth, and
which I will hereafter tell about. Yet in no manner by its motion
on itself does it become an obstacle to souls; for though it keeps
on moving, souls can dart up or dart down, just as the case may
be, free from all let and hindrance. For they pass through without immixture or adhesion as water flows through oil.
6. Now of this interval, Horus, my son, there are four main
divisions and sixty special spaces. Of these [divisions] the first
one upwards from the earth is of four spaces, so that the earth
in certain of its mountain heights and peaks extends and comes
so far, but beyond these it cannot in its nature go in height.
The second after this is of eight spaces, in which the motions of
the winds take place. Give heed, O son, for thou art hearing
mysteries that must not be disclosedof earth and heaven and
all the holy air which lies between, in which there is the motion
of the wind and flight of birds. For above this the air doth have
no motion and sustains no life. This [moving] air moreover hath
of its own nature this authoritythat it can circulate in its own
spaces and also in the four of earth with all the lives which it
contains, while earth cannot ascend into its [realm]. The third
consists of sixteen spaces filled with subtle air and pure. The
fourth consists of two and thirty [spaces], in which there is the
subtlest and the finest air; it is by means of this that [air] shuts
from itself the heavens above which are by nature fiery.
7. This ordering is up and down in a straight line and has no
overlapping; so that there are four main divisions, twelve inter-

FROM THE SERMON OF ISIS TO HORUS

195

vallic ones and sixty spaces. And in these sixty spaces dwell
the souls, each one according to its nature, for though they are
of one and the same substance, theyre not of the same dignity.
For by so much as any space is higher from the earth than any
other, by so much do the souls in them, my son, surpass in
eminence the one the other. What souls, however, go to each of
them, I will accordingly begin again to tell thee, Horus, [son] of
great renown, taking their order from above down to the earth.
CONCERNING THE INBREATHING AND
THE TRANSMIGRATION OF THE SOUL.1

8. The [air] between the earth and heavens, Horus, is spaced

out by measure and by harmony. These spaces have been
named by some of our forefathers zones, by others firmaments,
by others layers. And in them dwell both souls which have
been set free from their bodies, and also those which have as
yet been never shut in body. And each of them, my son, hath
just the place it doth deserve; so that the godly and the kingly
ones dwell in the highest space of all, those least in honour and
the rest of the decadent ones [dwell] in the lowest space of all,
while middling souls dwell in the middle space. Accordingly,
those souls which are sent down to rule, are sent down, Horus,
from the upper zones; and when they are set free [again] they
go back to the same or even still more lofty ones, unless it be
they still have acted contrary to their own natures dignity and
the pronouncement of the Law of God. Such souls as these the
Providence above, according to the measure of their sins, doth
banish down to lower spaces; just as with those which are
inferior in dignity and power, it leads them up from lower
[realms] to vaster and more lofty ones.
9. For up above [them all] there are two ministers of universal
Providence, of whom one is the warder of the souls, the other
their conductor. The warder [watches oer the souls when out of
body], while the conductor is dispatcher and distributor of souls
into their bodies. The former keeps them, while the latter sends
them forth according to the Will of God. For this cause (logos)
then, my son, nature on earth according to the change of deeds
This appears to be a heading inserted by Stobus (Phys., xli. 64) or some scribe;
there seems to be no break in the text.

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above doth model out the vessels and shape out the tents in
which the souls are cast. Two energies, experience and memory,
assist her. And this is memorys task, [to see] that nature
guards the type of every thing sent down out of its source and
keeps its mixture as it is above; while of experience [the work is
this, to see] conformably to every one of the descending souls it
may have its embodiment, and that the plasms may be made
effectivethat for the swift ones of the souls the bodies also
may be swift, for slow ones slow, for active active ones, for
sluggish sluggish ones, for powerful powerful, and for crafty
crafty ones, and in a word for every one of them as it is fit.1
10. For not without intention hath she clad winged things with
plumage; and tricked out with senses more than ordinary and
more exact those which have reason; and some of the fourfooted things made strong with horns, some strong with teeth,
some strong with claws and hoofs; while creeping things she
hath made supple with bodies clad in easy-moving scales,
which easily can glide away. And that the watery nature of
their body may not remain entirely weak, she doth provide the
sharpened fangs of some of them with power; so that by reason
of the fear of death [they cause] theyre stronger than the rest.
The swimming things being timorous, she gives to dwell within
an element where light can exercise nor one nor other of its
powers, for fire in water gives nor light nor heat. But each of
them, swimming in water clad in scales or spines, flees from
what frightens it whereer it will, using the water as a means of
hiding it from sight.
11. For souls are shut in each class of these bodies according to
their similarity [to them]. Those which have power of judgment go down into men; and those that lack it into quadrupeds,
whose [only] law is force; the crafty ones [go] into reptiles, for
none of them attack a man in front, but lie in wait and strike
him down; and into swimming things the timid ones or those
which are not worthy to enjoy the other elements. In every
class, however, there are found some which no longer use their
proper nature.
1 [Mead regards the text at various points in this section to be highly corrupt;
much of this translation must thus be regarded as conjectural.]

FROM THE SERMON OF ISIS TO HORUS

197

How [meanest thou] again, my mother? Horus said.

And Isis answered: A man, for instance, son, oersteps his
power of judgment; a quadruped avoids the use of force; and
reptiles lose their craftiness; and birds their fear of men. So
much [then] for the ordering of [souls] above and their descent,
and for the making of their bodies.
12. In every class and kind of the above, my son, there may be
found some regal souls; others also descend with various
natures, some fiery, and some cold, some overbearing, and some
mild, some skilled, some unskilled, some idle, some industrious,
some one thing, some another. And this results from the
arrangement of the regions whence the souls leap down to their
embodiment. For from the regal zone they leap down [into
birth], the soul of the like nature ruling them; for there are
many sovereignties. Some are of souls, and some of bodies, and
some of arts, and some of sciences, and some are of ourselves.
How [meanest thou] again, my mother, of ourselves?
For instance, son, it is thy sire Osiris who is [the ruler] of the
souls of them born after us up to this time; whereas the prince
of every race [is ruler] of their bodies; [the king] of counsel is
the father and the guide of all, Thrice-greatest Hermes; of
medicine Asclepius, Hephstus son;1 of power and might again
Osiris, and after him thyself, my son; and of philosophy Arnebeschnis;2 of poetry again Asclepius-Imuth.3
13. For generally, my son, thoult find, if thou inquirest, that
there are many ruling many things and many holding sway o'er
many. And he who rules them all, my son, is from the highest
space; while he who rules some part of them, doth have the
rank of that particulax realm from which he is. Those who
come from the regal zone, [have] a more ruling [part to play;
those from the zone of fire] become fire-workers and fire-tenders;
[The Greek Asklpios, as a divine figure, was more usually the son of Apollo;
his Egyptian analogue Imhotep, after his deification, was represented as the
son of Ptah and depicted with some of his attributes.]
2 [Mead in his commentary identifies this little-known figure as Har-nebeschnis, i.e. Heru-neb-Sekhem (or-nb-sxm), Horus of Letopolis, a genuine if
somewhat obscure Egyptian god; this very obscurity increases the likelihood
that the Isis to Horus Hermetica were actually composed in Egypt rather
than simply using Egyptian tropes as window-dressing.]
3 [See note to Excerpt XXV 3.]
1

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

those from the watery one live out their life in waters; those
from the [zone] of science and of art are occupied with arts and
sciences; those from the [zone] of inactivity inactively and
heedlessly live out their lives. For that the sources of all things
wrought on the earth by word or deed, are up above, and they
dispense for us their essences by weight and measure; and
there is naught which hath not come down from above, and will
return again to re-descend.
14. What dost thou mean again by this, my mother? Tell me!
And Isis once again did make reply: Most holy Nature hath
set in living creatures the clear sign of this return. For that
this breath which we breathe from above out of the air, we send
out up again, to take it in [once more]. And we have in us
organs, son, to do this work, and when they close their mouths
whereby the breaths received, then we no longer are as now we
are, but we depart. Moreover, son of high renown, there are
some other things which we have added to us outside the
weighed-out mixture [of the body].
15. What, then (said Horus), is this mixture, mother?
It is a union and a blend of the four elements; and from this
blend and union a certain vapour rises, which is enveloped by
the soul, but circulates within the body, sharing with each, with
body and with soul, its nature. And thus the differences of
changes are effected both in soul and body. For if there be in the
corporeal make-up more of fire, thereon the soul, which is by
nature hot, taking unto itself another thing thats hot, and [so]
being made more fiery, makes the life more energetic and more
passionate, and the body quick and active. If [there be] more of
air, thereon the life becomes both light and springy and unsteady
hoth in the soul and body. And if theres more of water, then
the creature also doth become of supple soul and easy disposition, and ready of embrace, and able easily to meet and join
with others, through waters power of union and communion
with the rest of things; for that it finds a place in all, and when
it is abundant, doth dissolve what it surrounds, while if [theres]
little [of it], it sinks into and doth become what it is mingled
with. As for their bodies, by dampness and by sponginess they
are not made compact, but by a slight attack of sickness are

FROM THE SERMON OF ISIS TO HORUS

199

dissolved, and fall away by little and by little from the bond
which holds them severally together. And if the earthy
[element] is in excess, the creatures soul is dull, for it has not
its body-texture loosely knit, or space for it to leap through, the
organs of sensation being dense; but by itself it stays within,
bound down by weight and density. As for its body, it is firm,
but heavy and inert, and only moved of choice by [exercise of]
strength. But if there is a balanced state of all [the elements],
then is the animal made hot for doing, light for moving, wellmixed for contact, and excellent for holding things together.1
16. Accordingly those which have more in them of fire and air,
these are made into birds, and have their state above hard by
those elements from which they came. While those which have
more fire, less air, and earth and water equal, these are made
into men, and for the creature the excess of heat is turned into
sagacity; for that the mind in us is a hot thing which knows not
how to burn, but has intelligence to penetrate all things. And
those which have in them more water and more earth, but
moderate air and little fire, these are turned into quadrupeds,
and those which have more heat are stronger than the rest.
Those which have equal earth and water, are made into reptiles.
These through their lack of fire lack courage and straightforwardness; while through their having water in them they
are cold; and through their having earth they heavy are and
torpid; yet through their having air, they can move easily if they
should choose to do so. Those which have in them more of wet,
and less of dry, these are made into fish. These through their
lack of heat and air are timorous and try to hide themselves,
and through excess of wet and earthy elements, they find their
home, through their affinity, in fluid earth and water.
17. It is according to the share [they have] in every element and
to the compass of that share, that bodies reach full growth [in
man]; according to the smallness of their share the other
animals have been proportionedaccording to the energy
which is in every element. Moreover, O my well-beloved, I say,
1 [Mead comments (it is not clear if this applies to just the last sentence or the
whole of this section): The text is faulty, the language artificial, the analogy
strained, and the sense accordingly obscure.]

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STOBAEI HERMETICA

that when, out of this state [of things], the blend based on the
first commixture [of the elements in any case], and the
resultant vapour from it, so far preserve their own peculiarity,
that neither the hot part takes on another heat, nor [does] the
aery [take] another air, nor [does] the watery part another
wetness, nor [yet] the earthy [take] another density, then doth
the animal remain in health.
18. But if they do not, son, remain in the proportions which they
had from the beginning, but are too much increased(I do not
mean in energy according to their compass or in the change of
sex and body brought about by growth, but in the blend, as we
have said before, of the component elements, so that the hot,
for instance, is increased too much or too much lessened, and so
for all the rest)then will the animal be sick.
19. And if this [increase] doth take place in both the elements of
heat and air, the souls tent-fellows, then doth the creature fall
into symbolic dreams and ecstasies; for that a concentration of
the elements whereby the bodies are dissolved has taken place.
For tis the earthy element itself which is the condensation of
the body; the watery element in it as well is a fluidity to make
it dense. Whereas the aery element is that in us which has the
power of motion, and fire is that which makes an end of all of
them.
20. Just then as is the vapour which ariseth from the first
conjunction and co-blending of the elements, as though it were
a kindling or an exhalation,whatever it may be, it mingles
with the soul and draws it to itself, so that it shares its nature
good or bad. And if the soul remains in its original relationship
and common life with it, it keeps its rank. But when theres
added from without some larger share than what was first laid
down for it,either to the whole mixture, or to its parts, or to
one part of it,then the resulting change effected in the vapour
doth bring about a change or in the disposition of the soul or of
the body. The fire and air, as tending upward, hasten upward
to the soul, which dwells in the same regions as themselves; the
watery and the earthy elements, as tending down, sink down
upon the body, which doth possess the self-same seat.

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