The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius
translated by
Jean-Piene Mahe
Introduction
The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius have been mainly preserved in an Armenian translation which most likely dates to the second part of the sixth century AD.
Since some of the aphorisms contained in the Definitions seem to have been known to the author of Poimandres, we may assume that at least the main core of this collection was already extant in the first century AD.
Many other parallels with the Corpus Hermeticum, the Excerpts of Stobaeus and various hermetic fragments suggest that the Definitions either antedate most of the hermetic philosophical writings which have reached us or at least do not depend directly on them.
The main reason why we cannot possibly assume the is that most often one and the same sentence of the Definitions simultaneously appears in more than one hermetic text, which would be unlikely if each of these sentences had been borrowed separately from one particular writing.
An early date might also be assumed for our collection of aphorisms with regard to the. clarity of its style and the firmness of its thought. In our edition of the Coptic and Armenian translations of hermetic writings in 1982 several clues led us to suggest that the most ancient hermetic philosophical writings were collected aphorisms such as the 'Sayings of Agathos Daimon', of which only short fragments have been preserved (cf. CH 10.25;Beyond DH, one of these collections is still extant in SH 1 1 . As to the use of such colletions of aphorisms we quoted CH14. 1 and SH 11.1, which depict them as summaries (kephalaia) of
lectures delivered by Hermes and invite the disciple to reconstruct the whole teaching once he has learnt the sentences by heart (SH 1 1.3). Indeed we can easily show that many hermetic writings are made out of sentences, such as those of DH or SH 1 1 which ar
The Definitions either linked up one after another with conjunctions, or commented
upon or worked into a myth or a prayer.
Fifteen years after this edition, we would put the emphasis not only on the mnemonic role of the sentences and their impact on the formation of hermetic philosophical literature, but more than ever on their use as spiritual exercises aimed at developing the mental
faculties of the subject.
Since Hermetism is not a philosophical system but a spiritual way, the main purpose of hermetic literature is not to set out theoretical teaching but to bring about spiritual progress, to raise the individual from the realm of the material bodies made out of the four elements, beyond the intelligence of this visible world, the seven planets of error and the fiery astral gods, much above the eighth or even the ninth sphere, up to the supreme God, who is Mind and pure, endless and incorporeal light.
This goal· can be reached by successively developing three faculties: knowledge (gn6sis), reasonable speech (logos) and mind (nous).
Knowledge is basically a spiritual awakening and a conversion.
It consists in believing that the supreme God wants to be known and can indeed be known by those who are worthy of Him.
It is gained by paying heed to hermetic preaching and by living piously apart from the crowd.
Reasonable speech is a theoretical approach to the structure of the world and the different kinds of beings, from the supreme God down to the lowest corporeal things.
It is gained by reading hermetic textbooks such as the General Lectures and the Detailed Lectures (which are no longer extant),or by following a gradual course of hermetic education.
Mind is nothing like a faculty of abstract reasoning.
It is much akin to intuition or imagination.
It equates to sight, inasmuch as it encompasses everything at once, even God's infinite essence.
It is both spiritual light and enlightenment.
It can be realised by special philosophic disciplines and essentially through mystic initiation.
Now these disciplines necessarily demand the active co-operation of the disciple.
The master can set out an idea or point at a direction.
But the disciple will have to meditate by himself, to work on his own soul, and reveal his own Mind by availing himself of the teaching delivered to him as a plain instrment.
From Hermes Trismegistus to
Asclepius: Definitions
Book 1.
God: an intelligible world; one world: a sensible God; man: a destructible world; God: an immovable world; heaven: a movable world; man: a reasonable world. Then there are three worlds.
Now the immovable world God, and the reasonable world is man: for both of these units are one: God and man after the species.
2. Consequently three worlds on the whole: two units the sensible and one the intelligible; one after the species, and the third one after fullness. All of the multiple the three worlds: two of them visible: the sensible and man, destructible world; and the intelligible is this God: he is not visible, but evident within the visible.
3. Just as soul keeps up the figures within the body, which cannot possibly be constituted without a soul, likewise all of that visible cannot possibly be constituted without the invisible.
4. Now man is a small world because of soul and breath, and a perfect world whose magnitude does not exceed the sensible god, the world. The world intelligible and God Mind; the truly uncreated, the intelligible; by essence, the uncreated and the ineffable, the intelligible good.
In a word, God is the intelligible world, the immovable Monad, the invisible world, the
intelligible, invisible and ineffable good.
5. God is eternal and uncreated; man is mortal he is ever-living.
Book 2
1. Mind is the invisible good; soul a necessary movement adjusted to every body.
A body is of the four qualities, a well-tempered composition of warm, cold, dry and wet: of warm of fire, of cold of air, of dry of earth, of wet of water.
Breath is the body of soul or the column of soul.
2. Heaven is an eternal body, an immutable body, unalterable and mixed up out of soul and Mind.
Air is the separation of heaven from the earth or the conjunction of heaven with earth. What is air? They call 'air' the interval between heaven and earth, by which they are not separated from each other, since heavens and earth are united by the air.
3. Earth is the support of the world, the basis of the elements, the nurse of the living, the receptacle of the dead; for last after fire and water, since it became what after fire and water.
What is the power of the world?
To keep up forever the immortal, such as they came into being, and to always change the mortal.
4. Water is a fecund essence, the support of earth, as a nutritive essence.
5. Fire is a sterile essence, the duration of the immortal bodies and the destruction of the mortal : an infertile substance, in as much the destructive fire which makes disappear;
and the perpetuatlon of the immortal, since what cannot be consumed by fire is immortal and indestructible, but the mortal can be destroyed by fire.
6. Light is a good, a clear vision, appear all of the visible.
The essence of fire is burning.
However, fire is one and light is another one.
For what fire has reached shall be destroyed, but light appears just as it is by itself.
Every move of soul is perceived by Mind; since it is some energy breath performs.
Book 3
1. Nothing is uninhabited by God, for where heaven is, God too, and where the world is, heaven too.
I think that God is in heaven, and heaven in the world.
2. Many are uninhabited by humans; for where the world is, the earth too, but man is not on every earth.
The sea is large as well as the earth, but heaven by itself both the sea and the earth.
3. Heaven is larger than everything, and the sun than earth and sea, for it extends beyond both of them.
However the earth is larger than the sea, because the sea from it.
And in heaven are all, for it contains the superior ones and it contains the inferior, enclosing them from every side.
4. God is the good previous to all the intelligible; God is the father of the intelligible;heaven is the maker of the body.
The magnitude of the light of the sun is earth and sea; the magnitude of heaven the world; the magnitude of the world is God.
Book 4
1. The living beings in heaven are constituted of fire and air, and those which are on earth of the four elements ."
Man is a reasonable living being, for he has Mind; but all of the other living beings which are endowed with voice have breath and soul, since all that decreases and increases is a living being.
2. And among the living beings, some are immortal and animated, some have Mind, soul and spirit, some have only spirit, some have soul and spirit, and others only life.
For life can acquire consistency without spirit, Mind, soul and immortality, but all of the others without life cannot possibly exist.
Book 5
1. Reasonable speech is the servant of Mind.
For what Mind wants, speech in turn interprets. Mind sees everything, and eyes all corporeal things.
And yet Mind does not become an observer for the eyes, but the eyes for Mind.
2. To Mind nothing is incomprehensible, to speech nothing ineffable: when you keep silent, you understand; when you talk, you just talk.
Since Mind conceives speech in silence, only speech from silence and Mind is salvation.
But that speech which comes from speech is only perdition; for by his body man is mortal, but by speech he is immortal.
3. Who does not understand speech has no Mind , who talks without Mind says nothing:since he understands nothing, he has no Mind and he talks, for his talk is a crowd and a crowd has neither Mind nor reasonable speech.
Speech endowed with Mind is a gift of God; speech without Mind is a finding of man. Nobody sees heaven and what is therein, but only man.
Only man has Mind and speech.
Book 6
1 . Just as the gods are God's possession, so is man too; and man's possession is the world:if there were nobody to see it, what would be seen would not even exist.
Only man understands the intelligible things and sees the visible, for they are no aliens to
him.
Man has at once the two natures, the mortal and the immortal one.
Man has the three essences, namely the intelligible, the animated and the material one.
2. Just as you went out of the womb, likewise you will go out of this body; just as you' will no longer enter the womb, likewise you will no longer enter this material body.
Just as, while being in the womb, you did not know the things which are in the world, likewise when you are outside the body, you will not know the beings that are outside the body.
Just as when you have gone out of the womb, you do not remember the things which are in the womb, likewise, when you have gone out of the body, you will be still more excellent.
3. The present things follow close upon the past, and the future close upon the present. Just as the body, once it has gained perfection in the womb, goes out, likewise the soul, once it has gained perfection, goes out of the body.
For just as a body, if it goes out of the womb imperfect can neither be fed nor grow up, likewise if soul goes out of the body without having gained perfection it is imperfect and lacks a body; but the perfection of soul is the knowledge of the beings.
Just as you will behave towards your soul when it is in this body, likewise it will behave towards you when it has gone out of the body.
Contain yourself,so 0 Trismegistus!
Book 7
1 But now, what is man? What else if neither body nor soul?
Yes, dear Asclepius, who ever is not soul, is neither Mind nor body.
For one thing is what becomes the body of man, and another thing what comes in addition to man.
Then, what should be called truly a man, Asclepius, and what is man?
The immortal species of every man.
2. And the species of every living being is only in one part of the world, but the sole species of man is at once in heaven, on earth, in the water and in the air.
Just as the body is marvellously moulded in the womb, likewise the soul in the body.
3. From the murk into light the body goes out of the womb, but soul enters the body from the light into darkness.
The sight of the body is the eye; but that of soul is Mind.
Just as a body which has no eyes sees nothing, likewise a soul which has no Mind is blind.
Whatever the babe in the womb will crave for, so will the pregnant woman desire the same; likewise whatever Mind in soul will crave for, so will man desire the same.
4. Soul enters the body by necessity, Mind enters soul by judgement.
While being outside the body, soul has neither quality nor quantity; once it is in the body it receives, as an accident, quality and quantity as well as good and evil: for matter brings about such things.
5. God is within himself, the world is in God, and man in the world.
His (i.e. man's) deficiency is ignorance, his plenitude is the knowledge of God.
He says that evil consists in ignorance and good in knowledge .
Book 8
1 . All beings cannot possibly exceed their own capacity.
Nature is everyone of the beings of this world; there is a law which is in heaven above destiny, and there is a destiny which has come into being according to a just necessity; there is a law which has come into being according to the necessity of humans, there is a
god who has come into being according to human opinion.
2. Divine bodies do not have access paths for sensations, for they have sensations within themselves, and they are themselves their own sensations.
What God does, man does not do it; and whatever God does, he does it for man; but what man does, he does it for soul.
3. Those who worship idols worship plain pictures.
For if they worshipped with knowledge, they would not have gone astray, but since they do not know how they should worship, they have gone astray, from piety.
Man has the faculty of killing, God of giving life.
4. The body increases and reaches perfection due to nature; and soul fills up with Mind. Every man has a body and a soul, but not every soul has Mind.
Consequently there are two types of Mind: the one is divine and the other soul.
Nevertheless there are certain men who do not have even that of soul.
Who ever understands the body, also understands soul; who ever understands soul, also understands Mind, because the admirable is a natural object of contemplation: each of the two is seen by means of the other.
5. Nature is the mirror of truth; the latter is at once the body of the incorporeal things and the light of the invisible.
The generous nature of this world teaches all the beings.
If it seems to you that nothing is a vain work, you will find the work and the craftsman, if it seems to you like a mockery, you will be mocked at.
6. You have the power of getting free since you have been given everything.
Nobody envies you.
Everything came into being for you, so that by means of either one being or of the whole, you may understand the craftsman.
For you have the power of not understanding with your will; you have the power of lacking
faith and being misled, so that you understand the contrary of the
real beings.
Man has as much power as the gods.
Only man is a free living being, only he has the power of good and evil.
7 . You do not have the power of becoming immortal ; neither does, indeed, the immortal have the power of dying.
You can even become a god if you want, for it is possible.
Therefore want and understand and believe and love: then you have become it!
Book 9
1. Every man has a notion of God: for if he is a man, he also knows God.
Every man, by the very fact that he has got a notion of God, is a man, for it is not given to every man to have such a notion.
Man and the gods and all things exist by God and because of man.
God is everything and there is nothing outside God, even that which does not exist: since as to God, there is no such thing, even one single that he is not himself.
Man comes from another man, the gods exist because of God.
Man exists because of God; everything because of man.
God rules over man; man over the whole.
2. The exterior things are understood by the external organs: the eye sees the exterior thing, and Mind the interior.
The exterior things would not exist, if there were not the interior ones.
Wherever Mind is, there is light; for Mind is light and light is Mind.
Who ever has Mind is enlightened, and who ever has not Mind is deprived of light.
3. Whoever knows God, does not fear God; who ever does not know God fears God.
Who ever knows none of the beings fears everyone; who ever knows all of them fears none.
4. Soul's illness: sadness and joy; soul's passions: desire and opinion.
Bodies are similar to souls when they are seen: none is ugly if it is good, none is evil if it is honest.
Everything is visible to one who has Mind; who ever thinks of himself in Mind knows himself and who ever knows himself knows everything.
Everything is within man.
5. Whoever behaves well towards his body, behaves badly towards himself.
Just as the body, without a soul, is a corpse, likewise soul, without Mind, is inert.
Once a soul has entered the body, it will acquire Mind.
That which does not acquire it, goes out such as it had entered.
For every soul, before entering the body, is deprived of Mind; then Mind joins it from the body, so that eventually the soul becomes endowed with Mind.
That soul which has gone out of the human body has got an ill memory: for soul, covered with the body, is forced to remember its unforgetfulness.
One change is unforgetful and another change brings about forgetfulness.
6. Wherever man is, also is God.
God does not appear to anybody but man.
Because of man God changes and turns into the form of man.
God is man-loving and man is God-loving.
There is an affinity between God and man.
God listens only to man, and man to God.
God is worthy of worship, man is worthy of admiration.
God does not appear without man; man is desirable to God and God to man, because desire comes from nowhere, but from man and God.
7. Humans work;the land, and stars adorn heaven.
The gods have heaven; humans, earth and sea; but the air is common to gods and humans.
Book 10
1. What is good?
What bears no comparison.
Good is invisible, but evil is conspicuous.
What is a female? A receptive fluidity.
What is a male? A seminal fluidity.
2. Nature in man is omniform, and it is an energy endowed with all qualities whose force is invisible and effects are conspicuous.
An energy is a movement.
Matter is a wet essence; a body is a agglomoration of matter.
3. Mind in soul, and nature in the body.
Mind is the maker of soul, and soul, the maker of the body.
Mind is not in all soul, but nature is in all body.
4. The immortal nature the movement of the mortal nature, as to mortality, earth is its grave; and heaven is the place of the immortal.
The immortal came into being because of the mortal, but the mortal comes into being by means of the immortal.
Evil is a deficiency of good, good is fullness of itself.
5. Soul is bound to be born in this world, but Mind is superior to the world.
Just as Mind is unbegotten, so is matter too, although it can be divided.
Mind is unbegotten, and matter is divisible; soul is threefold, and matter has three parts; generation is in soul and matter, but Mind is in God for the generation of the immortal beings.
6. Providence and Necessity are, in the mortal, birth and death, and in God, unbegotten essence.
The immortal beings agree with one another and the mortal envy one another with jealousy, because evil envy arises due to knowing death in advance.
The immortal does what he always does, but the mortal does what he has never done. Death, if understood, is immortality; if not understood it is death.
They assume that the mortal beings of this world have fallen under the dominion of the
immortal, but in reality the immortal are servants of the mortal of this world.
7. Therefore soul is an immortal essence, eternal, intellective, having, as an intellectual thought, its reason endowed with Mind.
By understanding nature, it attracts to itself the intellect of the planetary harmony; then, once it is freed from this natural body, it remains alone with itself and is grieved, belonging only to itself in the intelligible world.
It rules on its reason.
translated by
Jean-Piene Mahe
Introduction
The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius have been mainly preserved in an Armenian translation which most likely dates to the second part of the sixth century AD.
Since some of the aphorisms contained in the Definitions seem to have been known to the author of Poimandres, we may assume that at least the main core of this collection was already extant in the first century AD.
Many other parallels with the Corpus Hermeticum, the Excerpts of Stobaeus and various hermetic fragments suggest that the Definitions either antedate most of the hermetic philosophical writings which have reached us or at least do not depend directly on them.
The main reason why we cannot possibly assume the is that most often one and the same sentence of the Definitions simultaneously appears in more than one hermetic text, which would be unlikely if each of these sentences had been borrowed separately from one particular writing.
An early date might also be assumed for our collection of aphorisms with regard to the. clarity of its style and the firmness of its thought. In our edition of the Coptic and Armenian translations of hermetic writings in 1982 several clues led us to suggest that the most ancient hermetic philosophical writings were collected aphorisms such as the 'Sayings of Agathos Daimon', of which only short fragments have been preserved (cf. CH 10.25;Beyond DH, one of these collections is still extant in SH 1 1 . As to the use of such colletions of aphorisms we quoted CH14. 1 and SH 11.1, which depict them as summaries (kephalaia) of
lectures delivered by Hermes and invite the disciple to reconstruct the whole teaching once he has learnt the sentences by heart (SH 1 1.3). Indeed we can easily show that many hermetic writings are made out of sentences, such as those of DH or SH 1 1 which ar
The Definitions either linked up one after another with conjunctions, or commented
upon or worked into a myth or a prayer.
Fifteen years after this edition, we would put the emphasis not only on the mnemonic role of the sentences and their impact on the formation of hermetic philosophical literature, but more than ever on their use as spiritual exercises aimed at developing the mental
faculties of the subject.
Since Hermetism is not a philosophical system but a spiritual way, the main purpose of hermetic literature is not to set out theoretical teaching but to bring about spiritual progress, to raise the individual from the realm of the material bodies made out of the four elements, beyond the intelligence of this visible world, the seven planets of error and the fiery astral gods, much above the eighth or even the ninth sphere, up to the supreme God, who is Mind and pure, endless and incorporeal light.
This goal· can be reached by successively developing three faculties: knowledge (gn6sis), reasonable speech (logos) and mind (nous).
Knowledge is basically a spiritual awakening and a conversion.
It consists in believing that the supreme God wants to be known and can indeed be known by those who are worthy of Him.
It is gained by paying heed to hermetic preaching and by living piously apart from the crowd.
Reasonable speech is a theoretical approach to the structure of the world and the different kinds of beings, from the supreme God down to the lowest corporeal things.
It is gained by reading hermetic textbooks such as the General Lectures and the Detailed Lectures (which are no longer extant),or by following a gradual course of hermetic education.
Mind is nothing like a faculty of abstract reasoning.
It is much akin to intuition or imagination.
It equates to sight, inasmuch as it encompasses everything at once, even God's infinite essence.
It is both spiritual light and enlightenment.
It can be realised by special philosophic disciplines and essentially through mystic initiation.
Now these disciplines necessarily demand the active co-operation of the disciple.
The master can set out an idea or point at a direction.
But the disciple will have to meditate by himself, to work on his own soul, and reveal his own Mind by availing himself of the teaching delivered to him as a plain instrment.
From Hermes Trismegistus to
Asclepius: Definitions
Book 1.
God: an intelligible world; one world: a sensible God; man: a destructible world; God: an immovable world; heaven: a movable world; man: a reasonable world. Then there are three worlds.
Now the immovable world God, and the reasonable world is man: for both of these units are one: God and man after the species.
2. Consequently three worlds on the whole: two units the sensible and one the intelligible; one after the species, and the third one after fullness. All of the multiple the three worlds: two of them visible: the sensible and man, destructible world; and the intelligible is this God: he is not visible, but evident within the visible.
3. Just as soul keeps up the figures within the body, which cannot possibly be constituted without a soul, likewise all of that visible cannot possibly be constituted without the invisible.
4. Now man is a small world because of soul and breath, and a perfect world whose magnitude does not exceed the sensible god, the world. The world intelligible and God Mind; the truly uncreated, the intelligible; by essence, the uncreated and the ineffable, the intelligible good.
In a word, God is the intelligible world, the immovable Monad, the invisible world, the
intelligible, invisible and ineffable good.
5. God is eternal and uncreated; man is mortal he is ever-living.
Book 2
1. Mind is the invisible good; soul a necessary movement adjusted to every body.
A body is of the four qualities, a well-tempered composition of warm, cold, dry and wet: of warm of fire, of cold of air, of dry of earth, of wet of water.
Breath is the body of soul or the column of soul.
2. Heaven is an eternal body, an immutable body, unalterable and mixed up out of soul and Mind.
Air is the separation of heaven from the earth or the conjunction of heaven with earth. What is air? They call 'air' the interval between heaven and earth, by which they are not separated from each other, since heavens and earth are united by the air.
3. Earth is the support of the world, the basis of the elements, the nurse of the living, the receptacle of the dead; for last after fire and water, since it became what after fire and water.
What is the power of the world?
To keep up forever the immortal, such as they came into being, and to always change the mortal.
4. Water is a fecund essence, the support of earth, as a nutritive essence.
5. Fire is a sterile essence, the duration of the immortal bodies and the destruction of the mortal : an infertile substance, in as much the destructive fire which makes disappear;
and the perpetuatlon of the immortal, since what cannot be consumed by fire is immortal and indestructible, but the mortal can be destroyed by fire.
6. Light is a good, a clear vision, appear all of the visible.
The essence of fire is burning.
However, fire is one and light is another one.
For what fire has reached shall be destroyed, but light appears just as it is by itself.
Every move of soul is perceived by Mind; since it is some energy breath performs.
Book 3
1. Nothing is uninhabited by God, for where heaven is, God too, and where the world is, heaven too.
I think that God is in heaven, and heaven in the world.
2. Many are uninhabited by humans; for where the world is, the earth too, but man is not on every earth.
The sea is large as well as the earth, but heaven by itself both the sea and the earth.
3. Heaven is larger than everything, and the sun than earth and sea, for it extends beyond both of them.
However the earth is larger than the sea, because the sea from it.
And in heaven are all, for it contains the superior ones and it contains the inferior, enclosing them from every side.
4. God is the good previous to all the intelligible; God is the father of the intelligible;heaven is the maker of the body.
The magnitude of the light of the sun is earth and sea; the magnitude of heaven the world; the magnitude of the world is God.
Book 4
1. The living beings in heaven are constituted of fire and air, and those which are on earth of the four elements ."
Man is a reasonable living being, for he has Mind; but all of the other living beings which are endowed with voice have breath and soul, since all that decreases and increases is a living being.
2. And among the living beings, some are immortal and animated, some have Mind, soul and spirit, some have only spirit, some have soul and spirit, and others only life.
For life can acquire consistency without spirit, Mind, soul and immortality, but all of the others without life cannot possibly exist.
Book 5
1. Reasonable speech is the servant of Mind.
For what Mind wants, speech in turn interprets. Mind sees everything, and eyes all corporeal things.
And yet Mind does not become an observer for the eyes, but the eyes for Mind.
2. To Mind nothing is incomprehensible, to speech nothing ineffable: when you keep silent, you understand; when you talk, you just talk.
Since Mind conceives speech in silence, only speech from silence and Mind is salvation.
But that speech which comes from speech is only perdition; for by his body man is mortal, but by speech he is immortal.
3. Who does not understand speech has no Mind , who talks without Mind says nothing:since he understands nothing, he has no Mind and he talks, for his talk is a crowd and a crowd has neither Mind nor reasonable speech.
Speech endowed with Mind is a gift of God; speech without Mind is a finding of man. Nobody sees heaven and what is therein, but only man.
Only man has Mind and speech.
Book 6
1 . Just as the gods are God's possession, so is man too; and man's possession is the world:if there were nobody to see it, what would be seen would not even exist.
Only man understands the intelligible things and sees the visible, for they are no aliens to
him.
Man has at once the two natures, the mortal and the immortal one.
Man has the three essences, namely the intelligible, the animated and the material one.
2. Just as you went out of the womb, likewise you will go out of this body; just as you' will no longer enter the womb, likewise you will no longer enter this material body.
Just as, while being in the womb, you did not know the things which are in the world, likewise when you are outside the body, you will not know the beings that are outside the body.
Just as when you have gone out of the womb, you do not remember the things which are in the womb, likewise, when you have gone out of the body, you will be still more excellent.
3. The present things follow close upon the past, and the future close upon the present. Just as the body, once it has gained perfection in the womb, goes out, likewise the soul, once it has gained perfection, goes out of the body.
For just as a body, if it goes out of the womb imperfect can neither be fed nor grow up, likewise if soul goes out of the body without having gained perfection it is imperfect and lacks a body; but the perfection of soul is the knowledge of the beings.
Just as you will behave towards your soul when it is in this body, likewise it will behave towards you when it has gone out of the body.
Contain yourself,so 0 Trismegistus!
Book 7
1 But now, what is man? What else if neither body nor soul?
Yes, dear Asclepius, who ever is not soul, is neither Mind nor body.
For one thing is what becomes the body of man, and another thing what comes in addition to man.
Then, what should be called truly a man, Asclepius, and what is man?
The immortal species of every man.
2. And the species of every living being is only in one part of the world, but the sole species of man is at once in heaven, on earth, in the water and in the air.
Just as the body is marvellously moulded in the womb, likewise the soul in the body.
3. From the murk into light the body goes out of the womb, but soul enters the body from the light into darkness.
The sight of the body is the eye; but that of soul is Mind.
Just as a body which has no eyes sees nothing, likewise a soul which has no Mind is blind.
Whatever the babe in the womb will crave for, so will the pregnant woman desire the same; likewise whatever Mind in soul will crave for, so will man desire the same.
4. Soul enters the body by necessity, Mind enters soul by judgement.
While being outside the body, soul has neither quality nor quantity; once it is in the body it receives, as an accident, quality and quantity as well as good and evil: for matter brings about such things.
5. God is within himself, the world is in God, and man in the world.
His (i.e. man's) deficiency is ignorance, his plenitude is the knowledge of God.
He says that evil consists in ignorance and good in knowledge .
Book 8
1 . All beings cannot possibly exceed their own capacity.
Nature is everyone of the beings of this world; there is a law which is in heaven above destiny, and there is a destiny which has come into being according to a just necessity; there is a law which has come into being according to the necessity of humans, there is a
god who has come into being according to human opinion.
2. Divine bodies do not have access paths for sensations, for they have sensations within themselves, and they are themselves their own sensations.
What God does, man does not do it; and whatever God does, he does it for man; but what man does, he does it for soul.
3. Those who worship idols worship plain pictures.
For if they worshipped with knowledge, they would not have gone astray, but since they do not know how they should worship, they have gone astray, from piety.
Man has the faculty of killing, God of giving life.
4. The body increases and reaches perfection due to nature; and soul fills up with Mind. Every man has a body and a soul, but not every soul has Mind.
Consequently there are two types of Mind: the one is divine and the other soul.
Nevertheless there are certain men who do not have even that of soul.
Who ever understands the body, also understands soul; who ever understands soul, also understands Mind, because the admirable is a natural object of contemplation: each of the two is seen by means of the other.
5. Nature is the mirror of truth; the latter is at once the body of the incorporeal things and the light of the invisible.
The generous nature of this world teaches all the beings.
If it seems to you that nothing is a vain work, you will find the work and the craftsman, if it seems to you like a mockery, you will be mocked at.
6. You have the power of getting free since you have been given everything.
Nobody envies you.
Everything came into being for you, so that by means of either one being or of the whole, you may understand the craftsman.
For you have the power of not understanding with your will; you have the power of lacking
faith and being misled, so that you understand the contrary of the
real beings.
Man has as much power as the gods.
Only man is a free living being, only he has the power of good and evil.
7 . You do not have the power of becoming immortal ; neither does, indeed, the immortal have the power of dying.
You can even become a god if you want, for it is possible.
Therefore want and understand and believe and love: then you have become it!
Book 9
1. Every man has a notion of God: for if he is a man, he also knows God.
Every man, by the very fact that he has got a notion of God, is a man, for it is not given to every man to have such a notion.
Man and the gods and all things exist by God and because of man.
God is everything and there is nothing outside God, even that which does not exist: since as to God, there is no such thing, even one single that he is not himself.
Man comes from another man, the gods exist because of God.
Man exists because of God; everything because of man.
God rules over man; man over the whole.
2. The exterior things are understood by the external organs: the eye sees the exterior thing, and Mind the interior.
The exterior things would not exist, if there were not the interior ones.
Wherever Mind is, there is light; for Mind is light and light is Mind.
Who ever has Mind is enlightened, and who ever has not Mind is deprived of light.
3. Whoever knows God, does not fear God; who ever does not know God fears God.
Who ever knows none of the beings fears everyone; who ever knows all of them fears none.
4. Soul's illness: sadness and joy; soul's passions: desire and opinion.
Bodies are similar to souls when they are seen: none is ugly if it is good, none is evil if it is honest.
Everything is visible to one who has Mind; who ever thinks of himself in Mind knows himself and who ever knows himself knows everything.
Everything is within man.
5. Whoever behaves well towards his body, behaves badly towards himself.
Just as the body, without a soul, is a corpse, likewise soul, without Mind, is inert.
Once a soul has entered the body, it will acquire Mind.
That which does not acquire it, goes out such as it had entered.
For every soul, before entering the body, is deprived of Mind; then Mind joins it from the body, so that eventually the soul becomes endowed with Mind.
That soul which has gone out of the human body has got an ill memory: for soul, covered with the body, is forced to remember its unforgetfulness.
One change is unforgetful and another change brings about forgetfulness.
6. Wherever man is, also is God.
God does not appear to anybody but man.
Because of man God changes and turns into the form of man.
God is man-loving and man is God-loving.
There is an affinity between God and man.
God listens only to man, and man to God.
God is worthy of worship, man is worthy of admiration.
God does not appear without man; man is desirable to God and God to man, because desire comes from nowhere, but from man and God.
7. Humans work;the land, and stars adorn heaven.
The gods have heaven; humans, earth and sea; but the air is common to gods and humans.
Book 10
1. What is good?
What bears no comparison.
Good is invisible, but evil is conspicuous.
What is a female? A receptive fluidity.
What is a male? A seminal fluidity.
2. Nature in man is omniform, and it is an energy endowed with all qualities whose force is invisible and effects are conspicuous.
An energy is a movement.
Matter is a wet essence; a body is a agglomoration of matter.
3. Mind in soul, and nature in the body.
Mind is the maker of soul, and soul, the maker of the body.
Mind is not in all soul, but nature is in all body.
4. The immortal nature the movement of the mortal nature, as to mortality, earth is its grave; and heaven is the place of the immortal.
The immortal came into being because of the mortal, but the mortal comes into being by means of the immortal.
Evil is a deficiency of good, good is fullness of itself.
5. Soul is bound to be born in this world, but Mind is superior to the world.
Just as Mind is unbegotten, so is matter too, although it can be divided.
Mind is unbegotten, and matter is divisible; soul is threefold, and matter has three parts; generation is in soul and matter, but Mind is in God for the generation of the immortal beings.
6. Providence and Necessity are, in the mortal, birth and death, and in God, unbegotten essence.
The immortal beings agree with one another and the mortal envy one another with jealousy, because evil envy arises due to knowing death in advance.
The immortal does what he always does, but the mortal does what he has never done. Death, if understood, is immortality; if not understood it is death.
They assume that the mortal beings of this world have fallen under the dominion of the
immortal, but in reality the immortal are servants of the mortal of this world.
7. Therefore soul is an immortal essence, eternal, intellective, having, as an intellectual thought, its reason endowed with Mind.
By understanding nature, it attracts to itself the intellect of the planetary harmony; then, once it is freed from this natural body, it remains alone with itself and is grieved, belonging only to itself in the intelligible world.
It rules on its reason.