Mead, GRS - Hermetica

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HERMETICA

Being English Translations of HermeticDiscourses and Fragments

by

G. R. S. Mead

ComprisingCorpus Hermeticum I-XIV, XVI-XVIII

The Perfect Sermon (Asclepius)Hermetic Excerpts from Stobus

Celephas PressUlthar - Sarkomand - Inquanok Leeds

2010


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The translations here collected were originally publishedin vols. 2and 3of 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 worldin the year 2010of the

common error.

This work is in the public domain.


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iii

CONTENTSpage

Editors introduction . . . . . . . . . . vBibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Corpus Hermeticum . . . . . . . . . .1

I. Poimandres . . . . . . . . . . . 3II. [To Asclepius] . . . . . . . . . . 12

III. A sacred sermon of Hermes . . . . . . . . 18IV. The Cup or Monad . . . . . . . . . . 20V. Though unmanifest God is Most Manifest . . . . . 24

VI. In God alone is Good and elsewhere nowhere . . . . 28VII. The greatest ill among men is ignorance of God . . . . 31

VIII. That no one of existing things doth perish . . . . . 32IX. On thought and sense . . . . . . . . . 34

X. The Key . . . . . . . . . . . . 38XI. Mind to Hermes . . . . . . . . . . 46

XII. About the Common Mind . . . . . . . . 54XIII. The Secret Sermon on the Mountain . . . . . . 61XIV. To Asclepius, health of soul . . . . . . . . 69XVI. Definitions of Asclepius to Ammon . . . . . . 72

XVII. [Asclepius to the King] . . . . . . . . . 77XVIII. [The Econium of Kings] . . . . . . . . . 78

The Perfect Sermon, or Asclepius . . . . . . . 83

Hermetic Excerpts from Stobus . . . . . . . 125I. Of piety and true philosophy . . . . . . . . 127

II. Of the ineffability of God . . . . . . . . 132III. Of truth . . . . . . . . . . . . 133IV. God, nature and the gods . . . . . . . . 137V. Of matter . . . . . . . . . . . 138

VI. Of time . . . . . . . . . . . . 139VII. Of bodies everlasting and bodies perishable . . . . . 140

VIII. Of energy and feeling . . . . . . . . . 142IX. Of the decans and the stars . . . . . . . . 147X. Of the rule of providence, necessity and fate . . . . 152

XI. Of justice . . . . . . . . . . . . 154XII. Of providence and fate . . . . . . . . . 155

XIII. Of the whole economy . . . . . . . . . 156


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CONTENTSiv

pageXIV. Of soul (i) . . . . . . . . . . . 157XV. Of soul (ii) . . . . . . . . . . . 158

XVI. Of soul (iii) . . . . . . . . . . . 160

XVII. Of soul (iv) . . . . . . . . . . . 162XVIII. Of soul (v) . . . . . . . . . . . 163

XIX. Of soul (vi) . . . . . . . . . . . 165XX. The power of choice . . . . . . . . . 167

XXI. Of Isis to Horus . . . . . . . . . . 168XXII. An Apophthegm . . . . . . . . . . 168

XXIII. From Aphrodit . . . . . . . . . . 169XXIV. A Hymn of the Gods . . . . . . . . . 170XXV. KorKosmou (i) . . . . . . . . . . 171

XXVI. KorKosmou (ii) . . . . . . . . . . 187XXVII. From the Sermon of Isis to Horus . . . . . . . 192


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v

EDITORS INTRODUCTION

THE writings of Hermes Trismegistus were one of a variety ofthings to emerge from the intellectual melting pot whichexisted across the Eastern Mediterranean in general and inparticular in Alexandria from around 300 B.C.E to 300 C.E.

While almost certainly written in Greek by various authorsunknown, mostly in the latter half of this period, their author-ship was traditionally ascribed to the syncretic figure of Thrice-Greatest Hermes, formed by identifying the Greek Hermeswith the Egyptian Thoth, but thought to have been a humansage roughly contemporary with Moses, who invented thehieroglyphic writing system and gave the Egyptians a code of

laws. This tradition continued to be believed in through theMiddle Ages and Renaissance, although most of these workswere lost to Western Europe through the medival period,known only in brief quotations or references by early Christianwriters such as Augustine of Hippo.

The translations of Hermetic literature here collected werepreviously published in 1906as part of a three-volume study byG.R.S. Mead titled Thrice-Greatest Hermes, issued by the Theo-

sophical Publishing Society.That last detail goes some way to explaining why Meads

translations lack academic respectability; criticisms are rarelyspecific, and the claim by Brian Copenhaver (in the intro-duction to his translation of the Hermetica for CambridgeUniversity Press) that Meads work must be watched for theo-sophical motivations seems strange when one considers thattheosophy (without the capital T) in the broad sense of divinewisdom was pretty much what the original authors of theseworks thought they were about; the general tone and style ofthe discourses following is, in general, more one of revelation-discourse or divinely-inspired authoritative teaching thanphilosophical argument in the sense generally understood,


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EDITORS INTRODUCTIONvi

indeed passages in some tractates are openly anti-rationalistand contemptuous of what was ordinarily called philosophy atthe time. Meads commentaries, interspersed between the

tractates, were indeed written from the point of view of theEuropean and American theosophical schools of the nineteenthcentury of the common error, and are here omitted, as is mostof his apparatus.

Meads translation was selected for the present edition asbeing the best of a not particularly great lot, i.e.public domainEnglish translations of the Hermetica. John Everards 1650edition has had many reprints and was still used in some

occultist circles in the nineteenth century (both HargraveJennings and W. Wynn Westcott edited reprints) but is ofdoubtful reliability and is liable to mislead owing to changes inEnglish usage. John Chambers The Theological and Philo-sophical Works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian Neoplatonist(1882) is frequently literal to the point of unreadability and isalso 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 theAsclepius, theKorKosmouand some other material as falseHermetica, as if the entire literature was not pseudoepigraphalin any case. Kingsford & Maitlands Virgin of the World(1885;comprising C.H. XVI-XVIII, the Asclepius and the Stobusexcerpts, produced as a companion to a re-issue of Everardstranslation) is on the other hand far too loose. Walter Scott's,

published in four volumes 1924-1936and repeatedly reprinted isregarded as unreliable largely because of liberties taken withthe Greek texts (characterised by Copenhaver as a jungle ofexcisions, interpolations and transpositions . . . Scotts trans-lation can be regarded only as a translation of Scott, not of theHermetic authors).

The modern English translations (Salaman et al. and Copen-haver the only ones of which I am aware) are have takenadvantage of a critical edition of the Greek and Latin texts by

A. D. Nock and A.-J. Festugire first published (with a Frenchtranslation) 1946-54.

The main difficulty with Meads rendering is, to be frank, oneof style. Mead has attempted to render the texts in the lan-


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EDITORS INTRODUCTION vii

guage of the King James Bible and a poetic prose style whichsacrifices the normal rules of English prose word-order, andoccasionally 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 inthe text nor needed for the translation to be intelligible, andcomplete inconsistency with regard to the use of definitearticles, are commonplace for no apparent reason other than tomaintain a prose rhythm.

A document containing Meads translations of CH I-XIII withan introduction by J.M. Greer has been in Internet circulation

since the late 1990s (although the introduction appears tobelong to an edition which included XIV, XVI-XVII and the

Asclepius). The following collection comprises all the CorpusHermeticumtexts, theAsclepiusand the Stobus excerpts.

What has been left out.

The following extant theoretical Hermetica are not includedin the present collection.

(i) Fragmenta Hermetica. Brief quotations in Greek and Latin from otherwiselost works found in writers of late antiquity through to the Middle Ages,including Tertullian (fl. ca 200-216C.E.), Lactantius (fl. early 4th cent. C.E.),and Cyril of Alexandria (fl. early 5th cent. C.E.). Vol. IIIof Thrice GreatestHermes included 28 of these; vol. IV of Nock and Festigures 1946-54edition of the Hermetica had 36. While probably genuinemany of theseauthors also quote from identifiable workswhen read in isolation theyadd little to our knowledge of the subject, and may in some instances havebeen misquoted, or quoted out of context, for polemical purposes.

(ii)Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius. A tract in ten chapters whichsurvives in an Armenian translation (dated to the sixth century C.E.) and aGreek MS. The Armenian version was first turned up in the 1950s, theGreek 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 thefamous Thunder: Perfect Mindand a garbled excerpt from Platos Republic,two variant excerpts from the Asclepius (21-29 and the concluding prayerfrom 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 nopublic domain English translation.

(iv) Vienna Fragments. Two Hermetic fragments found on separate papyri in aVienna museum (Papyri Vindobonense Grac 29456 r & 29828 r); firstdescribed by Jean-Pierre Mah in 1984. No English translation has beenpublished.


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EDITORS INTRODUCTIONviii

Also, as noted above, Meads commentaries and the bulk of histextual notes have also been omitted.

Ellipses (. . .) are used mainly by Mead to indicate lacun in

the source texts; square brackets, words interpolated for thesake of making more coherent English sentences, or in someinstances purely for the sake of scansion or other considera-tions of style. While punctuation from the original is retained,many redundant paragraph breaks have been removed; Meadin many places started a new paragraph with practically everysentence.

Footnotes in square brackets are due to the present editor,

though in many cases adapted or paraphrased from Meadsnotes. Those not in square brackets are verabatim or onlyslightly adapted from Meads notes.

Fra. Tripudians StellaLeeds, EnglandMarch 2010e.v.


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ix

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Betz, Hans Dieter (ed.): The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, includingthe Demotic Spells. University of Chicago Press, 1986, 1992.

Chambers, John (ed. / trans.): The Theological and Philosophical Works ofHermes Trismegistus, Christian Neoplatonist. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,1882; reprinted Kila, MT: Kessinger, 2003 (as Divine Pymander and OtherWritings of Hermes Trismegistus).

Copenhaver, Brian (trans.): Hermetica: the Greek Corpus Hermeticum andthe Latin Asclepius in a new English translation. Cambridge UniversityPress, 1992, reprinted 1994, 1995, 1997.

Everard, John (trans.): The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismeg-

istus, in XVII books. London: printed by R. White for T. Brewster and G.Moule, 1650, reprinted 1657and ca. 1850; reprinted with an introduction byHargrave Jennings, Bath: Robert Fryar and London: George Redway, 1884;this edition reprinted San Diego: Wizards Bookshelf, 1985, 2000. Reprintedwith an introduction by W. Wynn Westcott, London: TheosophicalPublishing Society, 1894(Collectanea Hermetica series, no. 2; included insubsequent collected reprints of that series).

Kingsford, Anna Bonus and Maitland, Edward (trans.): The Virgin of theWorld of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus. Bath: Robert Fryar & London:

George Redway, 1885; reprinted Minneapolis: Wizards Bookshelf, 1977andKila, 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 andScotts Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1889, manyreprints.

NHCNag Hammadi Codices; see Robinson (ed.), Nag Hammadi Library inEnglish.

Nock, Arthur Darby & Festugire, A.-J. (ed. / trans.): Corpus Hermeticum (4vols.). Paris: 1946-54, third edition 1972-3. Tome I: Poimandres, Traites I-XII.Tome II: Traites XIII-XVIII, Asclepius. Tome III: Fragments extraits deStobe 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.


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BIBLIOGRAPHYx

Salaman, Clement (trans.): Asclepius: a secret discourse of HermesTrismegistus(trans. Clement Saalman). London: Gerald Duckworth, 2007.

Salaman, Clement, van Oyen, Dorine and Mah, Jean-Paul (trans): The Wayof Hermes: new translations of the Corpus Hermeticum and Definitions

of Hermes Trismegistus to AsclepiusRochest, Vermont: Inner Traditionsand London: Duckworth, 1999, reprinted 2001.

Scott, Walter: Hermetica: the ancient Greek and Latin writings which containreligious or philosophic teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus (4vols.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924-36; reprinted London: Dawsons, 1968and Kila, Montana: Kessinger, 1995-2001. Vol. 1: texts and translations; vol.2: notes on the Corpus Hermeticum; vol. 3: notes on the Asclepius andStobus excerpts; vol. 4: Testimonia, i.e.quotations of and references toHermes and Hermetic writings in ancient and medival writers, anappendix 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 ChicagoPress, 1991.


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C O R P U SH E R M E T I C U M


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[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 logosbetween 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

Pimanderor 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

Lexiconof 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.


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3

CH. I: Hermes Trismegistus: Pmandres1

1. It chanced once upon a time my mind was meditating on thethings that are, my thought was raised to a great height, thesenses of my body being held backjust as men who areweighed down with sleep after a fill of food, or from fatigue ofbody. Methought a Being more than vast, in size beyond allbounds, called out my name and saith: What wouldst thou hearand 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 compre-hend their nature, and know God. This is, I said, what I desireto 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, inthe twinkling of an eye, all things were opened to me, and I seea Vision limitless, all things turned into Light,sweet, joyous[Light]. And I became transported as I gazed. But in a littlewhile Darkness came settling down on part [of it], awesome andgloomy, coiling in sinuous folds, so that methought it like unto

a snake. And then the Darkness changed into some sort of aMoist Nature, tossed about beyond all power of words, belchingout smoke as from a fire, and groaning forth a wailing soundthat beggards all description. [And] after that an outcry in-articulate came forth from it, as though it were a Voice of Fire.

1[Mead follows the widely accepted derivation of the name Poimandrhj andincludes the gloss shepherd of men as part of his title. A derivation from a

Coptic phrase roughly corresponding to the epiphet mind of sovereignty hasalso been suggested; see Copenhaver, Hermetica, note to title of C.H. I. In anycase, in C.H. XI, the only other place in C.H.where Hermes is the recipient of arevelation-discourse rather than a mystagogue instructing students, the divinefigure delivering the revelation is simply called Mind (nouj). In the text of thediscourse the narrator is unnamed; the name Hermes Trismegistus (in thegenetive case) appears only as a superscription to the title.]


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CORPUS HERMETICUM4

5. [Thereon] out of the Light . . . a Holy Word (logos)1descendedupon that Nature. And upwards to the height from the MoistNature leaped forth pure Fire; light was it, swift and active too.

The Air, too, being light, followed after the Fire; from out theEarth-and-Water rising up to Fire so that it seemed to hangtherefrom. But Earth-and-Water stayed so mingled each withother, that Earth from Water no one could discern. Yet werethey 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 shallI 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 Itrembled at the look of Him. But when He raised His head, Isee in Mind the Light, [but] now in Powers no man could

number, and Cosmos a grown beyond all bounds, and that theFire was compassed round about by a most mighty Power, and[now] subdued had come unto a stand. And when I saw thesethings 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 isbefore beginning without end. Thus spake to me Man-

Shepherd.And I say: Whence then have Natures elements their being?

1[The Greek termlogojis used frequently in the Corpusand has many possibleEnglish renderings; Mead translates it variously according to context and hisown somewhat messed-up sense of style, but to indicate that it is the sameword in the original, gives it in brackets after the translation.]


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C.H. I: POIMANDRES 5

To this He answer gives: From Will of God. [Nature]received the Word (logos), and gazing on the Cosmos Beautifuldid 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 andLife subsisting, brought forth another Mind to give things form,who, God as he was of Fire and Spirit: formed Seven Rulerswho enclose the cosmos that the sense perceives. Men call theirruling Fate.

10. Straightway from out the downward elements Gods Reason

(logos) leaped up to Natures pure formation, and was at-oned2with the Formative Mind; for it was co-essential with it. AndNatures downward elements were thus left reason-less, so asto be pure matter.

11. Then the Formative Mind ([at-oned] with Reason), he whosurrounds the spheres and spins them with his whirl, setturning his formations, and let them turn from a beginning

boundless unto an endless end. For that the circulation ofthese [spheres] begins where it doth end, as Mind doth will.

And from the downward elements Nature brought forth livesreason-less; for He did not extend the Reason (logos) [to them].The Air brought forth things winged; the Water things thatswim, and Earth-and-Water one from another parted, as Mindwilled. And from her bosom Earth produced what lives shehad, four-footed things and reptiles, beasts wild and tame.

12. But All-Father Mind, being Life and Light, did bring forthMan co-equal to Himself, with whom He fell in love, as beingHis own child; for he was beautiful beyond compare, the Imageof 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 wasgiven him by the Father. Changing his state to the formativesphere, in that he was to have his whole authority, he gazed

1[9-15continue the utterence of Poimandres.]2[Here and elsewhere, united would be better. Modern useage of the Englishverb atone hardly carries the idea of unite, even if this is its etymology.]


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upon his Brothers creatures. They fell in love with him, andgave him each a share of his own ordering. And after that hehad well-learned their eseence and had become a sharer in

their nature, he had a mind to break right through theBoundary of their spheres, and to subdue the might of thatwhich pressed upon the Fire.

14. So he who hath the whole authority oer [all] the mortals inthe cosmos and oer its lives irrational, bent his face downwardsthrough the Harmony: breaking right through its strength, andshowed to downward Nature Gods fair Form. And when shesaw 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; fortwas as though shed seen the image of Mans fairest formupon her Water, his shadow on her Earth. He in his turnbeholding the form like to himself, existing in her, in herWater, loved it and willed to live in it; and with the will cameact, and [so] he vivified the form devoid of reaon. And Nature

took the object of her love and wound herself completely roundhim, and they were intermingled, for they were lovers.

15. And this is why beyond all creatures on the earth man istwofold; mortal because of body, but because of the essentialMan immortal. Though deathless and possessed of sway oerall, yet doth he suffer as a mortal death, subject to Fate. Thusthough above the Harmony, within the Harmony he hath be-

come a slave. Though male-female: as from a Father male-female, and though hes sleepless from a sleepless [Sire], yet ishe overcome [by sleep].

16. Thereon [I say: Teach on],1 O Mind of me, for I myself aswell am amorous of the Word (logos).

The Shepherd said: This is the mystery kept hid until thisday. Nature embraced by Man brought forth a wonder, oh sowonderful. For as he had the nature of the Concord of theSeven, who, as I said to thee, [were made] of Fire and Spirit Nature delayed not, but immediately brought forth sevenmen, in correspondence with the natures of the Seven, male-female and moving in the air.

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


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Thereon [I said]: O Shepherd, . . .;1 for now Im filled withgreat 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 theseseven came to pass. Earth was as woman, her Water filled withlonging; ripeness she took from Fire, spirit from ather. Naturethus brought forth frames to suit the form of Man. And Manfrom Life and Light changed into soul and mind,from Life to

soul, from Light to mind. And thus continued all the sense-worlds parts until the period of their end and new beginnings.

18. Now listen to the rest of the discourse (logos) which thoudost long to hear. The period being ended, the bond that boundthem all was loosened by Gods Will. For all the animals beingmale-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): Increaseye in increasing, and multiply in multitude, ye creatures andcreations all; and man that hath Mind in him, let him learn toknow that he himself is deathless, and that the cause of deathis love, though Love is all.

19. When He said this, His Forethought did by means of Fateand Harmony effect their couplings and their generationsfounded. And so all things were multiplied according to their

kind. And he who thus hath learned to know himself, hathreached that Good which doth transcend abundance; but hewho through a love that leads astray, expends his love upon hisbody,he stays in Darkness wandering, and suffering throughhis senses things of Death.

20. What is the so great fault, said I, the ignorant commit, thatthey should be deprived of deathlessenss ?

Thou seemst, he said, O thou, not to have given heed to whatthou heardest. Did not I bid thee think?

1[Lacuna.]2[A rather literal translation; do not digress or do not go too fast might bemore appropriate in the context.]3[Poimandres is thus the speaker again here, until the end of 19.]


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CORPUS HERMETICUM8

Yea do I think, and I remember, and therefore give Theethanks.

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 thematerial frame; from it came the Moist Nature; from this thebody in the sense-world was composed; and from this bodyDeath doth the Water drain.

21. Right was thy thought, O thou! But how doth he whoknows himself, go unto Him, as Gods Word (logos) hath

declared?And I reply: the Father of the universals doth consist ofLight and Life, and from Him Man was born.

Thou sayest well, [thus] speaking. Light and Life is Father-God, and from Him Man was born. If then thou learnest thatthou art thyself of Life and Light, and that thou [only] happenstto be out of them, thou shalt return again to Life. Thus didMan-Shepherd speak.

But tell me further, Mind of me, I cried, how shall Icome toLife again . . . for God doth say: The man who hath Mind inhim, 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 wholive piously. [To such] my presence doth become an aid, and

straightway they gain gnosis of all things, and win the Fatherslove by their pure lives, and give Him thanks, invoking on Himblessings, and chanting hymns, intent on Him with ardent love.

And ere they give the body up unto its proper death, they turnthem with disgust from its sensations, from knowledge of whatthings they operate. Nay, it is I, the Mind, that will not let theoperations 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, theenvious and covetous, and those who murder do and loveimpiety, I am far off, yielding my place to the Avenging


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Daimon, who sharpening the fire, tormenteth him and addethfire 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 tohave desire for appetites inordinate, insatiably striving in thedark.

24. Well hast thou taught me all, as I desired, O Mind. Andnow, pray, tell me further of the nature of the Way Above asnow 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 thework of change, and thus the form thou hadst doth vanish, andthou aurrenderest thy way of life: void of its energy, unto theDaimon. The bodys senses next pass back into their sources,becoming separate, and resurrect as energies; and passion anddesires withdraw unto that nature which is void of reason.

25. And thus it is that man doth speed his way thereafterupwards through the Harmony. To the first zone he gives theEnergy of Growth and Waning; unto the second [zone], Deviceof Evils [now] de-energized; unto the third, the Guile of theDesires de-energized; unto the fourth, his Domineering Arro-gance, [also] de-energized; unto the fifth, unholy Daring andthe Rashness of Audacity, de-energized; unto the sixth, Strivingfor Wealth by evil means, deprived of its aggrandisement; andto the seventh zone, Ensnaring Falsehood, de-energized.

26. And then, with all the energizings of the Harmony striptfrom him, clothed in his proper Power, he cometh to thatNature which belongs unto the Eighth,1and there with those-that-are hymneth the Father. They who are there welcome hiscoming there with joy; and he, made like to them that sojournthere, doth further hear the Powers who are above the Naturethat belongs unto the Eighth, singing their songs of praise to

God in language of their own. And then they, in a band, go tothe Father home; of their own selves they make surrender ofthemselves to Powers, and [thus] becoming Powers they are inGod. This the good end for those who have gained Gnosisto

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


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CORPUS HERMETICUM10

be made one with God. Why shouldst thou then delay? Must itnot be, since thou hast all received, that thou shouldst to theworthy 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 thePowers. But I, with thanks and blessings unto the Father ofthe universal [Powers], was freed, full of the power He hadpoured into me, and full of what Hed taught me of the natureof the All and of the loftiest Vision. And I began to preach tomen the Beauty of Devotion and of Gnosis: O ye people, earth-

born folk, ye who have given yourselves to drunkenness andsleep and ignorance of God, be sober now, cease from yoursurfeit, cease to be glamoured by irrational sleep !

28. And when they heard, they came with one accord. WhereonI say: Ye earth-born folk, why have ye given up yourselves toDeath, while yet ye have the power of sharing Deathlessness?Repent, O ye, who walk with Error arm in arm and make ofIgnorance the sharer of your board; get ye from out the light ofDarkness, and take your part in Deathlessness, forsakeDestruction!

29. And some of them with jests upon their lips departed [fromme], abandoning themselves unto the Way of Death; othersentreated to be taught, casting themselves before my feet. ButI made them arise, and I became a leader of the Race towardshome, teaching the words (logoi), how and in what way theyshall be saved. I sowed in them the words (logoi) of wisdom; ofDeathless Water were they given to drink. And when even wascome and all suns beams began to set, I bade them all givethanks to God. And when they had brought to an end thegiving of their thanks, each man returned to his own restingplace.

30. But I recorded in my heart Man-Shepherds benefaction, and

with my every hope fulfilled more than rejoiced. For bodyssleep became the soul's awakening, and closing of the eyestrue vision, pregnant with Good my silence, and the utteranceof my word (logos) begetting of good things. All this befell mefrom my Mind, that is Man-Shepherd, Word (logos) of all


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masterhood, by whom being God-inspired I came unto the Plainof Truth. Wherefore with all my soul and strength thanks-giving 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 anImage.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 foraye 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 withThy Power, and with this Grace [of Thine], that I may give theLight to those in ignorance of the Race, my Brethren, and ThySons. For this cause I believe, and I bear witness; I go to Lifeand 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].


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12

C.H. II: To Asclepius1

1. Hermes. All that is moved, Asclepius, is it not moved insomething and bysomething?

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 itthere 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 maybe able to find room for its continued course, so that the movedmay 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 thisdiscourse, a dialogue in which Asclepius is the interlocuter; several pagesincluding the title and possibly opening of the present work thus apparentlywent missing from the prototype MS. of the Corpus. The bulk of this discoursealso appears in the anthology of Stobus; the Stobus excerpt begins at thesame point as that in the C.H. MSS.]2[Space throughout renders the Greek topoj; Copenhaver has place.]


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C.H. II 13

4. Her. And of what nature? Must it not be, Asclepius, of justthe contrary? And is not contrary to body bodiless?

Asc. Agreed.

Her. Space, then, is bodiless. But bodiless must either besome godlike thing or God [Himself]. And by some godlikething I mean no more the generable but the ingenerable.

5. If, then, space be some godlike thing, it is substantial; but iftis God [Himself], it transcends substance. But it is to bethought of otherwise [than God], and in this way. God is firstthinkable for us, not for Himself, for that the thing thats

thought doth fall beneath the thinkers sense. God then cannot be thinkable unto Himself, in that Hes thought of byHimself as being nothing else than what He thinks. but He issomething else for us, and so Hes thought of by us.

6. If space is, therefore, to be thought, [it should] not, [then, bethought as] God, but space. If God is also to be thought, [Heshould] not [be conceived] as space, but energy that can contain[all space]. Further, all that is moved is moved is moved not inthe moved but in the stable. And that which moves [another] isof course stationary, for tis impossible that it should move withit.

Asc. How is it, then, that things down here, Thrice-greatestone, are moved withthose that are [already] moved? For thouhast 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 withone another, but one againstthe other.I is this contrariety which turneth the resistance of their motioninto rest. For that resistance is the rest of motion.

7. Hence, too, the errant spheres, being moved contrarily to theinerrant one, are moved by one another by mutual contrariety,[and also] by the stable one through contrariety itself. And thiscan 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 thelatitude of Egypt, some of the stars of the former do appear to set.]


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CORPUS HERMETICUM14

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 con-trary stands firm, being rendered ever stable by its contrariety.

8. Of this Ill give thee here on earth an instance, which the eyecan see. Regard the animals down here,a man, for instance,swimming! The water moves, yet the resistance of his handsand 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 clearinstance.Her. All motion, then, is caused in station and by station.

The motion, therefore, of the cosmos (and of every other hylicanimal) will not be caused by things exterior to the cosmos, butby things interior [outward] to the exteriorsuch [things] assoul, or spirit, or some such other thing incorporal. Tis not itsbody that doth move the living thing in it; nay, not even the

whole [body of the universe a lesser] body een though there beno life in it.

9.Asc. What meanest thou by this, Thrice-greatest one? Is itnot bodies, then, that move the stock and stone and all theother things inanimate?

Her. By no means, OAsclepius. 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 lifterand the lifted? So that a thing thats lifeless will not move alifeless thing. That which doth move [another thing] isanimate, in that it is the mover. Thou seest, then, how heavyladen is the soul, for it alone doth lift two bodies. That things,moreover, moved are moved in something as well as moved bysomething is clear.

10.Asc. Yea, O Thrice-greatest one, things moved must needsbe 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] strangerto subsistence. For that which is subsistent can never changeto void.


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C.H. II 15

Asc.Are there, then, O Thrice-greatest one, no such thingsas an empty cask, for instance, and an empty jar, a cup andvat, 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 callestvoid; and if of air, then of the four. Further, of this theconverse follows, that all thou callest full are voidof air; forthat 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, notvoid; for they not only are, but they are full of air and spirit.

12.Asc. Thy argument (logos),Thrice-greatest one, is not to begainsaid; air is a body. Further, it is this body which dothpervade 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 alikeness, are Good, Truth, Light beyond light, the Archetype ofsoul.

Asc. What, then, is God?

13. Her. Not any one of these is He; for He it is that causeththem 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 allfrom things-that-are and not from things-that-are-not. Forthat the things-that-are-not have naturally no power of beinganything, but rather have the nature of the inability-to-be.

And, conversely, the things-that-are have not the nature ofsome time not-being.


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CORPUS HERMETICUM16

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 withthese two names [the Good and Father]names which pertainto Him alone and no one else. For no one of the other so-calledgods, no one of men, or daimones, can be in any measure Good,but God alone; and He is Good alone and nothing else. The restof things are separable all from the Goods nature; for [all therest] are soul and body, which have no space that can containthe Good.

15. For that as mighty is the Greatness of the Good as is theBeing 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 atall at any time call God but Good alone, for so thou wouldstagain be impious.

16. Though, then, the Good is spoken of by all, it is not under-stood by all, what thing it is. Not only, then, is God notunderstood by all, but both unto the gods and some of men theyout of ignorance do give the name of Good, though they cannever either be or become Good. For they are very differentfrom God, while Good can never be distinguished from Him, forthat God is the same as Good. The rest of the immortal onesare natheless honoured with the name of God, and spoken of as

gods; but God is Good not out of courtesy but out of nature. Forthat Gods nature and the Good is one; one is the kind of both,from which all other kinds [proceed]. The Good is He who givesall things and naught receives. God, then, doth give all thingsand receive naught. God, then, is Good, and Good is God.

17. The other name of God is Father, again because He is thethat-which-maketh all. The part of father is to make. Where-

fore child-making is a very great and a most pious thing in lifefor them who think aright, and to leave life on earth without achild a very great misfortune and impiety; and he who hath nochild is punished by the daimons after death. And this thepunishment: that that mans soul who hath no child, shall becondemned unto a body with neither mans nor womans


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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, butrather pity his mishap, knowing what punishment abides for

him. Let all that has been said, then, be to thee, Asclepius, anintroduction 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 firsthalf 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 againstworld-denying Platonic asceticism. Mead in his commentary points out that inHinduism, adopting the ascetic life of a religious recluse or wanderer wouldonly normally be acceptable for one who has already lived the life of a house-holder and raised children to adulthood.

More generally, this tension has been taken by some commentators as indi-cating not simply diversity of authorship but the existence of rival Hermeticschools characterised as optimist on the one hand and pessimist or dualist

on the other. If, though, these works were indeed the production of a Mystery-Cult which recognised successive grades of initiation or stage of gnsis, it ispossible that the difference of attitude to the mani(n)fested kosmos ratherchanged according to what was felt appropriate to each stage, with optimistlogoi targetted at those less advanced students who were only beginning tosepearate themselves from the world and the dualist ones for those deemedcloser to final liberation (Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, cited by Cophenhaver,Hermetica, Introduction xxxix); Mead holds a similar position position in somerespects (e.g. in his commentary on C.H. VI) but argues in the oppositedirection, that the doctrine of hating the body &c. is more generally found in

the logoi addressed to Tat, who represents the lessadvanced student (see C.H.XIII:2-3and XIV:1) whereas the more advanced Asclepius gets the more positiveworld-affirming sermons (though V, one of the more optimistic tractsaccording to Festugire (cited by Copenhaver, note on C.H. V:3) is among theTat-discourses); and those where Hermes, rather than addressing a student isreceiving revelations direct from divine figures, include the mixed C.H. I andthe generally optimistic C.H. XI.]


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18

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 andNature,yea Matter, the Wisdom that reveals all things.Source [too] is Godhead,yea Nature, Energy, Necessity, andEnd, and Making-new-again. Darkness that knew no boundswas 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 EssenceElements; all all the Gods do separate things out from fecundNature.

2. All things being undefined and yet unwrought, the lightthings were assigned unto the height, the heavy ones had theirfoundations laid down underneath the moist part of Dry Space,the universal things being bounded off by Fire and hanged inBreath to keep them up. And Heaven was seen in seven circles;

its Gods were visible in forms of stars with all their signs; whileNature had her members made articulate together with theGods in her. And [Heavens] periphery revolved in cycliccourse, borne on by Breath of God.

3. And every God by his own proper power brought forth whatwas appointed him. Thus there arose four-footed beasts, andcreeping things, and those that in the water dwell, and things

with wings, and everything that beareth seed, and grass, andshoot of every flower, all having in themselves seed of again-becoming.1 And they selected out the births of men for gnosisof the works of God and attestation of the energy of Nature; themultitude of men for lordship over all beneath the Heaven andgnosis of its blessings, that they might increase in increasingand multiply in multitude, and every soul infleshed byrevolution of the Cyclic Gods, for observation of the marvels ofthe Heaven and Heavens Gods revolution, and of the works of

1[paliggenesiaj; used frequently in C.H. XIII whose main theme is a mysticalrebirth, but nowhere else in the Corpus; it is probably meant in a differentsense here, especially since this tract is on the face of it represents a far lesspessimist and dualist gnsis than XIII.]


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C.H. III: A SACRED SERMON OF HERMES 19

God and energy of Nature, for tokens of its blessings, for gnosisof the power of God, that they might know the fates that followgood 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 CyclicGods, and their deceasing for this end. And there shall bememorials mighty of their handiworks upon the earth, leavingdim trace behind when cycles are renewed. For every birth offlesh ensouled, and of the fruit of seed, and every handiwork,

though it decay, shall of necessity renew itself, both by therenovation of the Gods and by the turning-round of Naturesrhythmic wheel. For that whereas the Godhead is Naturesevermaking-new-again the cosmic mixture, Nature herself isalso co-established in that Godhead.


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20

C.H. IV: The Cup1or Monad

Hermes to Tat1. Hermes. With Reason (logos), not with hands, did the World-maker make the universal World; so that thou thus shouldstthink of Him as everywhere and ever-being, the Author of allthings, and One and Only, who by His Will all beings hathcreated. This Body of Him is a thing no man can touch, or see,or measure, a Body inextensible, like to no other frame. Tisneither Fire nor Water, Air nor Breath; yet all of them comefrom it. Now being Good He willed to consecrate this [Body] toHimself alone, and set its Earth in order and adorn it.

2. So down [to Earth] He sent the Cosmos of this FrameDivine,man, a life that cannot die, and yet a life that dies.

And oer [all other] lives and over Cosmos [too], did man excelby reason of the Reason (logos) and the Mind. For contem-plator 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 Hedistributed, but Mind not yet; not that He grudgeth any, forgrudging cometh not from Him, but hath its place below, withinthe souls of men who have no Mind.2

Tat. Why then did God, O father, not on all bestow a shareof Mind?

Her. He willed, my son, to have it set up in the midst forsouls, 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 makethis proclamation to the hearts of men: Baptize3 thyself withthis Cups baptism, what heart can do so, thou that hast faith

thou canst ascend to Him that hath sent down the Cup, thouthat dost know for what thou didst come into being! As many

1[Krathris perhaps better rendered mixing bowl.]2[This appears to refer to the doctrine of C.H. I 22-23.]3[The Greek literally means immerse.]


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C.H. IV: THE CUP, OR MONAD 21

then as understood the Heralds tidings and doused themselvesin Mind, became partakers in the Gnosis; and when they hadreceived the Mind they were made perfect men. But they

who do not understand the tidings, these, since they possessthe aid of Reason (logos) [only] and not Mind, are ignorantwherefor they have come into being and whereby.

5.The senses of such men are like irrational creatures; and astheir [whole] make-up is in their feelings and their impulses,they fail in all appreciation of those things which really areworth contemplation. These centre all their thought upon the

pleasures of the body and its appetites, in the belief that for itssake man hath come into being. But they who have receivedsome portion of Gods giftsthese, Tat, if we judge by theirdeeds, have from Deaths bonds won their release; for theyembrace in their own Mind all things, things on the earth,things in the heaven, and things above the heaven,if there beaught. And having raised themselves so far they sight theGood; and having sighted It, they look upon their sojourn here

as a mischance; and in disdain of all, both things in body andthe bodiless, they speed their way unto that One and Only One.

6. This is, O Tat, the Gnosis of the Mind, Vision of thingsDivine; 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 seeingthat existing things are twain, Body and Bodiless, in which theperishing and the divine are understood, the man who hath thewill to choose is left the choice of one or other; for it can neverbe the twain should meet. And in those souls to whom the

choice is left, the waning of the one causes the others growth toshow itself.

7. Now the choosing of the Better not only makes a lot most fairfor him who makes the choice, seeing it makes the man a God,but also shows his piety to God. Whereas the [choosing] of the


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CORPUS HERMETICUM22

Worse, although it doth destroy the man, it only doth disturbGods harmony to this extent, that as processions pass by in themiddle of the way, without being able to do anything but take

the road from others, so do such men move in processionthrough the world led by their bodies pleasures.

8. This being so, O Tat, what comes from God hath been andwill be ours; but that which is dependent on ourselves, let thispress onward and have no delay; for tis not God, tis we whoare the cause of evil things, preferring them to good. Thouseest, son, how many are the bodies through which we have to

pass, how many are the choirs of daimones, how vast thesystem of the star-courses [through which our Path doth lie], tohasten to the One and Only God. For to the Good there is noother shore; It hath no bounds; It is without an end, and forItself It is without beginning, too, though unto us it seemeth tohave onethe Gnosis.

9. Therefore to It Gnosis is no beginning; rather is it [thatGnosis doth afford] to us the first beginning of Its being known.Let us lay hold, therefore, of the beginning, and quickly speedthrough all [we have to pass]. Tis very hard, to leave thethings we have grown used to, which meet our gaze on everyside, and turn ourselves back to the Old Old [Path].

Appearances delight us, whereas things which appear notmake their believing hard. Now evils are the more apparentthings, whereas the Good can never show Itself unto the eyes,

for It hath neither form nor figure. Therefore the Good is likeItself alone, and unlike all things else; for tis impossible thatThat which hath no body should make Itself apparent to abody.

10. The Likes superiority to the Unlike and the Unlikesinferiority unto the Like consists in this:

The Oneness1being Source and Root of all, is in all things as

Root and Source. Without [this] Source is naught; whereas theSource [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 newsubject and it seems likely that the preceding sentence refers back to thepassage before and not forward to the discussion of the Monad, a conceptderived from Pythagoreanism.]


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C.H. IV: THE CUP, OR MONAD 23

the rest. It is Itself Its Source, since It may have no otherSource. The Oneness then being Source, containeth everynumber, 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, toincrease subject and to decrease; but with the Perfect [One]none of these things doth hold. Now that which is increasableincreases from the Oneness, but succumbs through its ownfeebleness when it no longer can contain the One. And now, OTat, Gods Image hath been sketched for thee, as far as it can

be; and if thou wilt attentively dwell on it and observe it withthy hearts eyes, believe me, son, thoult find the Path thatleads above; nay, that Image shall become thy Guide itself,because the Sight [Divine] hath this peculiar [charm], itholdeth fast and draweth unto it those who succeed in openingtheir eyes, just as, they say, the magnet [draweth] iron.


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24

C.H. V: Though Unmanifest

God is Most ManifestHermes to his son Tat1. I WILL recount for thee this sermon (logos) too, O Tat, thatthou mayst cease to be without the mysteries of the Godbeyond all name. And mark thou well how That which to themany 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 mademanifest.But the Unmanifest for ever is, for It doth not desire to bemade manifest. It ever is, and maketh manifest all otherthings. Being Himself unmanifest, as ever being and evermaking-maniest, Himself is not made manifest. God is notmade Himself; by thinking-manifest, He thinketh all thingsmanifest. Now, thinking-manifest deals with all things madealone, for thinking-manifest is nothing else than making.

2. He, then, alone who is not made, tis clear, is both beyond allpower of thinking-manifest, and is unmanifest. And as Hethinketh all things manifest, He manifests through all thingsand in all, and most of all in whatsoever things He wills tomanifest. Do thou, then, Tat, my son, pray first unto our Lordand Father, the One-and-Only One, from whom the One dothcome, to show His mercy unto thee, in order that thou mayest

have the power to catch a thought of this so mighty God, onesingle beam of Him to shine into thy thinking. For thoughtalone sees the Unmanifest, in that it is itself unmanifest. If,then, thou hast the power, He will, Tat, manifest to thy mind'seyes. The Lord begrudgeth not Himself to anything, butmanifests Himself through the whole world. Thou hast thepower of taking thought, of seeing it and grasping it in thy ownhands, and gazing face to face upon Gods Image. But if whatis within thee even is unmanifest to thee, how, then, shall HeHimself who is within thy self be manifest for thee by means of[outer] eyes?


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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 thestars. 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 theheavenly gods give place as unto king and master. And he, thisso-great one, he greater than the earth and sea, endures tohave above him circling smaller stars than him. Out of respectto 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 inheaven. 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 carriesround the whole cosmos with itWho is the owner of thisinstrument? Who He who hath set round the sea its bounds?Who He who hath set on its seat the earth? For, Tat, there issomeone who is the Maker and the Lord of all these things. Itcould not be that number, place and measure could be kept

without someone to make them. No order whatsoever could bemade by that which lacketh place and lacketh measure; nay,even this is not without a lord, my son. For if the orderlesslacks something, in that it is not lord of orders path, it also isbeneath a lord-the one who hath not yet ordained it order.

5. Would it were possible for thee to get thee wings, and soarinto the air, and, poised midway tween earth and heaven,

behold the earths solidity, the sea's fluidity (the flowings of itsstreams), the spaciousness of air, fires swiftness, [and] thecoursing of the stars, the swiftness of heavens circuit roundthem [all]! Most blessed sight were it, my son, to see all thesebeneath one swaythe motionless in motion, and theunmanifest made manifest; whereby is made this order of thecosmos 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 beingfashioned in the womb, my son, and strictly scrutinize the artof Him who fashions him, and learn who fashioneth this fairand godly image of the Man. Who [then] is He who traceth outthe circles of the eyes; who He who boreth out the nostrils and


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the ears; who He who openeth [the portal of] the mouth; whoHe who doth stretch out and tie the nerves; who He whochannels out the veins; who He who hardeneth the bones; who

He who covereth the flesh with skin; who He who separates thefingers and the joints; who He who widens out a treading forthe feet; who He who diggeth out the ducts; who He whospreadeth out the spleen; who He who shapeth heart like to apyramid; who He who setteth ribs together; who He who widen-eth the liver out; who He who maketh lungs like to a sponge;who He who maketh belly stretch so much; who He who dothmake 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, howmany labours on one single sketch; and all exceeding fair, andall in perfect measure, yet all diversified! Who made them all?What mother, or what sire, save God alone, unmanifest, whohath made all things by His Will?

8. And no one saith a statue or a picture comes to be without asculptor or [without] a painter; doth [then] such workmanshipas this exist without a Worker? What depth of blindness, whatdeep impiety, what depth of ignorance! See, [then] thou neer,son Tat, deprivest works of Worker! Nay, rather is He greaterthan all names, so great is He, the Father of them all. Forverily 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 beingis conceiving of all things and making [them]. And as withoutits maker it is impossible that anything should be, so ever is Henot 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 ofeverything. 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 themost manifest; He whom the mind [alone] can contemplate, Hevisible unto the eyes [as well]; He is the one of no body, the oneof many bodies, nay, rather He of every body. Naught is there


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which He is not. For all are He and He is all. And for thiscause hath He all names, in that they are one Fathers. And forthis 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 Thypraise; above, below, within, without? There is no way, noplace [is there] about Thee, nor any other thing of things thatare. All [are] in Thee; all [are] from Thee, O Thou who givestall and takest naught, for Thou hast all and naught is thereThou hast not.

11. And when, O Father, shall I hymn Thee? For none can seizeThy hour or time. For what, again, shall I sing hymn? Forthings that Thou hast made, or things Thou hast not? Forthings Thou hast made manifest, or things Thou hast concealed?How, further, shall I hymn Thee? As being of myself? Ashaving something of mine own? As being other? For that Thouart whatever I may be; Thou art whatever I may do ; Thou artwhatever 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 dostenergize, 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:14and is probably a scribal gloss orcomment that got appended to the text in error.]


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

Elsewhere Nowhere1. GOOD, O Asclepius, is in none else save God alone; nay,rather, Good is God Himself eternally. If it be so, [Good] mustbe essence, from every kind of motion and becoming free(though naught is free from It), possessed of stable energyaround 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 isfor everGood. But this belongs to no one else save God alone.For He stands not in need of any thing, so that desiring it Heshould be bad; nor can a single thing of things that are be lostto Him, on losing which He should be pained; for pain is part ofbad. Nor is there aught superior to Him, that He should besubdued by it; nor any peer to Him to do Him wrong, or [sothat] 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 thereleft but Good alone? For just as naught of bad is to be found insuch transcendent Being, so too in no one of the rest will Goodbe found. For in them all are all the other thingsboth in thelittle and the great, both in each severally and in this living one

thats greater than them all and mightiest [of them]. Forthings subject to birth abound in passions, birth in itself beingpassible. 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 theingenerate. But seeing that the sharing in all things hath beenbestowed on matter, so doth it share in Good. In this way isthe Cosmos good ; that, in so far as it doth make all things, asfar as making goes its Good, but in all other things it is notGood. For its both passible and subject unto motion, andmaker of things passible.


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3. Whereas in man by greater or by less of bad is gooddetermined. For what is not too bad down here, is good; andgood down here is the least part of bad. It cannot, therefore, be

that good down here should be quite clean of bad, for down heregood is fouled with bad; and being fouled, it stays no longergood, 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 thingitself nowhere [in them], for this can never be. For no materialbody doth contain It,a thing bound on all sides by bad, bylabours, pains, desires and passions, by error and by foolish

thoughts. And greatest ill of all, Asclepius, is that each of thesethings that have been said above, is thought down here to bethe greatest good. And what is still an even greater ill, is belly-lust, the error that doth lead the band of all the other illsthething that makes us turn down here from Good.

4. And I, for my own part, give thanks to God, that He hath castit 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 fullness1ofthe bad, but God of Good, and Good of God. The excellencies ofthe Beautiful are round the very essence [of the Good]; nay,they do seem too pure, too unalloyed; perchance tis they thatare themselves Its essences. For one may dare to say,

Asclepius,if essence, sooth, He haveGods essence is theBeautiful; the Beautiful is further also Good. There is no Goodthat can be got from objects in the world. For all the thingsthat fall beneath the eye are imagethings and pictures as itwere; while those that do not meet [the eye are the realities],especially the [essence] of tbe Beautiful and Good.2 Just as theeye cannot see God, so can it not behold the Beautiful andGood. For that they are integral parts of God, wedded to Himalone, inseparate familiars, most beloved, with whom God isHimself in love, or they with God.

5. If thou canst God conceive, thou shalt conceive the Beautifuland God, transcending Light, made lighter than the Light byGod. That Beauty is beyond compare, inimitate that Good, een

1[plhrwma; a technical term in some Gnostic systems.]2[Mead has conjecturally restored a lacuna in the text.]


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as God is Himself. As, then, thou dost conceive of God, conceivethe Beautiful and Good. For they cannot be joined with aughtof other things that live, since they can never be divorced from

God. Seekst thou for God, thou seekest for the Beautiful. Oneis the Path that leadeth unto ItDevotion joined with Gnosis.

6. And thus it is that they who do not know and do not treadDevotions Path, do dare to call man beautiful and good, thoughhe have neer een in his visions seen a whit thats Good, but isenwrapped 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 topreserve but even to increase it. Such are the things that mencall good and beautiful, Asclepius,things which we cannotflee or hate; for hardest thing of all is that weve need of themand cannot live without them.


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C.H. VII: The Greatest Ill among Men

is Ignorance of God11. WHITHER stumble ye, sots, who have sopped up the wine ofignorance unmixed, and can so far not carry it that ye alreadyeven spew it forth? Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the[true] eyes of the heart! And if ye cannot all, yet ye at leastwho can! For that the ill of ignorance doth pour oer all the earthand 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 theshore-current, ye who can, make for Salvations port, and,harbouring there, seek ye for one to take you by the hand andlead you unto Gnosis gates. Where shines clear Light, of everydarkness clean; where not a single soul is drunk, but sober allthey gaze with their hearts eyes on Him who willeth to be

seen. No ear can hear Him, nor can eye see Him, nor tonguespeak of Him, but [only] mind and heart. But first thou musttear off from thee the cloak which thou dost wear,the web ofignorance, the ground of bad, corruptions chain, the carapaceof darkness, the living death, sensations corpse, the tomb thoucarriest with thee, the robber in thy house, who through thethings he loveth, hateth thee, and through the things hehateth, 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 gazeabove, and, having seen the Beauty of the Truth, and Good thatdwells therein, detest the bad of it; having found out the plotthat it hath schemed against thee, by making void of sensethose seeming things which men think senses. For that it hathwith mass of matter blocked them up and crammed them full of

loathsome lust, so that thou mayst not hear about the thingsthat thou shouldst hear, nor see the things that thou shouldstsee.

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


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

doth Perish, but Men in Error Speakof their Changes as Destructions andas Deaths

[Hermes to Tat.]1

1. [Hermes.] Concerning Soul and Body, son, we now mustspeak; in what way Soul is deathless, and whence comes the

activity in compoising and dissolving Body. For theres nodeath for aught of things [that are]; the thought [this] wordconveys, is either void of fact, or [simply] by the knocking off asyllable what is called death, doth stand for deathless. Fordeath is of destruction, and nothing in the Cosmos is destroyed.For if Cosmos is second God, a life that cannot die, it cannot bethat any part of this immortal life should die. All things inCosmos are part of Cosmos, and most of all is man, the rational

animal.2. For truly first of all, eternal and transcending birth, is Godthe universals Maker. Second is he after His image, Cosmos,brought into being by Him, sustained and fed by Him, madedeathless, as by his own Sire, living for aye, as ever free fromdeath. Now that which ever-liveth, differs from the Eternal; forHe hath not been brought to being by another, and even if He

have been brought to being, He hath not been brought intobeing by Himself, but ever is brought into being. For theEternal, in that It is eternal, is the all. The Father is Himselfeternal of Himself, but Cosmos hath become eternal andimmortal by the Father.

3. And of the matter stored beneath it, the Father made of it auniversal body, and packing it together made it spherical

wrapping it round the life[a sphere] which is immortal initself, and that doth make materiality eternal. But He, theFather, full-filled with His ideas, did sow the lives into the

1[An interpolation by Mead. The interlocuter is not named in the text ororiginal title; but the speaker addresses him as son which elsewhere in C.H. isrestricted to Tat.]


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sphere, and shut them in as in a cave, willing to order forth thelife with every kind of living. So He with deathlessnessenclosed the universal body, that matter might not wish to

separate itself from bodys composition, and so dissolve into itsown [original] unorder. For matter, son, when it was yetincorporate, was in unorder. And it doth still retain down herethis [nature of unorder] enveloping the rest of the small livesthat increase-and-decrease which men call death.

4. It is round earthly lives that this unorder doth exist. Forthat the bodies of the heavenly ones preserve one order allotted

to them from the Father as their rule; and it is by therestoration of each one [of them] this order is preservedindissolute. The restoration then of bodies on the earth is[thus their] composition, whereas their dissolution restoresthem to those bodies which can never be dissolved, that is tosay, which know no death. Privation, thus, of sense is broughtabout, not loss of bodies.

5. Now the third lifeMan, after the image of the Cosmosmade, [and] having mind, after the Father's will, beyond allearthly livesnot only doth have feeling with the second God,but also hath conception of the first; for of the one tis sensibleas of a body, while of the other it conceives as bodiless and theGood 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 todissolution. Yea, understand the Cosmos is by God and in God;but Man by Cosmos and in Cosmos. The source and limit andthe constitution of all things is God.


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C.H. IX: On Thought and Sense

That the Beautiful and Good is in God onlyand Elsewhere Nowhere.1. I GAVEthe Perfect Sermon (logos), yesterday, Asclepius;1to-day I think it right, as sequel thereunto, to go through point bypoint the Sermon about Sense. Now sense and thought doseem to differ, in that the former has to do with matter, thelatter has to do with substance. But unto me both seem to beat-one and not to differin men I mean. In other lives sense isat-oned with nature, but in men thought. Now mind doth differ

just as much from thought as God doth from divinity. For thatdivinity by God doth come to be, and by mind thought, thesister of the word (logos) and instruments of one another. Forneither 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 sen-sing can one think, nor without thinking sense. But it is possible[they say] to think a thing apart from sense, as those who fancysights in dreams. But unto me it seems that both of theseactivities occur in dream-sight, and sense doth pass out of thesleeping to the waking state. For man is separated into soul andbody, 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 thoughtswhen it receives the seeds from God, their contraries when [itreceiveth them] from one of the daimonials; no part of Cosmosbeing free of daimon, who stealthily doth creep into the daimonwhos illumined by Gods Light: and sow in him the seed of itsown 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 thework of evil daimones.

1[Logos teleios is the probable original title of the long discourse more com-monly known as theAsclepius.]


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4. The seeds of God, tis true, are few, but vast and fair, andgood-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, northe many them. They are thought mad and laughed at; theyrehated and despised, and sometimes even put to death. For wedid say that bad must needs dwell here on earth, where tis inits own place. Its place is earth, and not Cosmos, as some willsometimes say with impious tongue. But he who is a devotee ofGod, will bear with allonce he has sensed the Gnosis. For

such an one all things, een though they be for others bad, arefor him good; deliberately he doth refer them all unto theGnosis. And, thing most marvellous, tis he alone who makethbad things good.

5. But I return once more to the Discourse (logos) on Sense.That sense doth share with thought in man, doth constitutehim 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 sub-stantial men [consorting] with the Good, are saved by God.Now God is Maker of all things, and in His making, He makethall [at last] like to Himself; but they, while theyre becominggood by exercise of their activity, are unproductive things. It isthe working of the Cosmic Course that maketh their becomingswhat they are, befouling some of them with bad and others ofthem making clean with good. For Cosmos, too, Asclepius,possesseth sense-and-thought peculiar to itself, not like to thatof man; tis not so manifold, but as it were a better and asimpler one.

6. The single sense-and-thought of Cosmos is to make allthings, and make them back into itself again, as Organ of the

Will of God, so organised that it, receiving all the seeds intoitself from God, and keeping them within itself, may make allmanifest, and [then] dissolving them, make them all new again;and thus, like a Good Gardener of Life, things that have beendissolved, it taketh to itself, and giveth them renewal once


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again. There is no thing to which it gives not life; but taking allunto itself it makes them live, and is at the same time thePlace of Life and its Creator.

7. Now bodies matter [-made] are in diversity. Some are ofearth, of water some, some are of air, and some of fire. Butthey are all composed; some are more [composite], and someare simpler. The heavier ones are more [composed], the lighterless so. It is the speed of Cosmos Course that works themanifoldness of the kinds of births. For being a most swiftBreath, 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. AndCosmos is Gods Son; but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos. Andproperly hath it been called Cosmos [Order]; for that it ordersall with their diversity of birth, with its not leaving aughtwithout its life, with the unweariedness of its activity, thespeed of its necessity, the composition of its elements, andorder of its creatures. The same, then, of necessity and ofpropriety should have the name of Order. The sense-and-thought, then, of all lives doth come into them from without,inbreathed by what contains [them all]; whereas Cosmosreceives 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 sense-and-thought. It is through superstition men thus impiously

speak. For all the things that are, Asclepius, all are in God, arebrought by God to be, and do depend on Himboth things thatact through bodies, and things that through soul-substancemake [other things] to move, and things that make things live bymeans of spirit, and things that take unto themselves the thingsthat are worn out. And rightly so; nay, I would rather say, Hedoth not have these things; but I speak forth the truth, He is

them all Himself. He doth not get them from without, but givesthem out [from Him]. This is Gods sense-and-thought, ever tomove all things. And never time shall be when een a whit ofthings that are shall cease; and when I say a whit of thingsthat are, I mean a whit of God. For things that are, God hath;nor aught [is there] without Him, nor [is] He without aught.


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10. These things should seem to thee, Asclepius, if thou dostunderstand them, true; but if thou dost not understand, thingsnot to be believed. To understand is to believe, to not believe is

not to understand. My word (logos) doth go before [thee] to thetruth. But mighty is the mind, and when it hath been led byword 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 beentranslated by the reason, it hath [een now] believed, and foundits rest in that Fair Faith. To those, then, who by God[s goodaid] do understand the things that have been said [by us]

above, theyre credible; but unto those who understand themnot, incredible. Let so much, then, suffice on thought-and-sense.


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C.H. X: The Key

Of Thrice-Greatest Hermes1. Hermes. My yesterdays discourse (logos) I did devote tothee, Asclepius, and so tis [only] right I should devote to-daysto Tat; and this the more because tis the abridgement of theGeneral 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, thatis to say, both human and divine, each one of which He willethinto being. But energyconsists in something else, as we haveshown in treating of the rest, both things divine and humanthings; which thing we ought to have in mind when treating ofthe Good.

2. Gods energy is then His Will; further His essence is to willthe 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 aself of everything that is;this, then, is God, this Father, thisthe Good; to Him is added naught of all the rest. And thoughthe Cosmos, that is to say the Sun, is also sire himself to themthat share in him; yet so far is be not the cause of good unto thelives, 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 fathersand the mothers side, only by sharing in the Goods desire[that doth pour] through the Sun. It is the Good which doeththe creating. And such a power can be possessed by no one elsethan Him alone who takethnaught, but willsall things to be; Iwill not, Tat, say makes. For that the maker is defective for longperiods (in which he sometimes makes, and sometimes doth notmake) both in the quality and in the quantity [of what hemakes]; in that he sometimes maketh them so many and suchlike, and sometimes the reverse. But God and Father and theGood is [cau

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