Poemandres

Poemandres
Ποιμάνδρης
(Myatt Translation)

Introduction
The Greek text of the tractate often referred to as the Pœmandres/Pymander part of the Corpus Hermeticum was first published by Turnebus in Paris in 1554 and of the origin of the knowledge expounded in the text, the author declares at v.2 that εἰμὶ ὁ Ποιμάνδρης ὁ τῆς αὐθεντίας νοῦς οἶδα ὃ βούλει καὶ σύνειμί σοι πανταχοῦ Which implies – qv. my translation, and notes and commentary on the text – that what Pœmandres is about to reveal is an authentic perceiveration, and this supernatural being [or archetype] knows what is desired/wanted because, like the guardian daemons of classical and Hellenic culture, Pœmandres is close by. What is revealed is a summary of that weltanschauung that has been termed hermetic philosophy; a summary widely regarded as an important hermetic text and as dating from the second or the third century CE; and a summary which contains many interesting notions and allusions, such as logos, physis/Physis, the septenary system, the gospel of John, the feminine character of Physis/Nature, the doxology Agios o Theos, and θεός as being both male and female in one person – that is, either ἀνδρόγυνος or (more controversially) bisexual.

°°° Translation

[1] Once, while concentrating on and pondering what is real, my intuitions freely flowed, and, my alertness dulled as from an excess of wearisome bodily toil or too much eating, it seemed as if a huge being – too large to measure – chanced by calling out my name and asking what it was I wanted to see and hear about and learn and have knowledge of.

[2] Who are you, I asked. I am Pœmandres, the perceiveration of authority, knowing your desires and eachwhere with you.

[3] I answered that I seek to learn what is real, to apprehend the physis of beings, and to have knowledge of theos. That is what I want to hear. So he said to me, remember all those things you wanted to learn, for I shall instruct you. [4] So saying, his form altered whereupon I at once sensed everything; an indefinity of inner sight, with everything suffused in phaos – bright and clear – so that from this seeing, a desire. But all too soon there came down upon it a heavy darkness – stygian, strange – and slithering until that darkness changed in physis: flowing, of an untellable disorder, with smoke as from a fire and an indescribable sound followed by some aphonous noise as if phaos was calling out.

[5] And then, from the phaos, a numinous logos came upon that physis with pure Fire going forth to the height of that physis; easily and effective and efficient. Since Air is agile, it followed the pnuema, up and above Earth and Water and as far as Fire, to be as if it were hanging from that, there. Earth and Water remained, coagulating together such that could not be seen apart from Water until they were stirred by the sound of the pneumal logos that came down upon them.

[6] Pœmandres asked, had I apprehended the sense of that inner seeing? And I said I shall have knowledge of it. I am, he said, that phaos; perceiveration, your theos, and prior to the flowing physis brought forth from darkness. [And] the phaomal logos, from perceiveration, is the child of theos. So I said for him to continue. Then know that within you – who hears and sees – is logos kyrios, although perceiveration is theos the father. They are not separated, one from the other, because their union is Life. Thank you, I said. Then discover phaos and become familiar with it.

[7] So saying, he stared at me for so long a duration that I shivered because of the way he looked. But, as he tilted his head back, I, observing, discovered the phaos of unmeasurable forces and an undefinable cosmic order cominginto-being. While the fire, embraced by a strong force, was subdued and kept in stasis. Such I observed and discovered because of those words of Pœmandres. But, since I was vexed, he spoke to me again. From your seeing, an awareness of the quidditas of semblance; of the primal before the origin without an end. This was what Pœmandres said to me, then.

[8] So I asked from what place, then, the parsements of physis? To which he answered, from the deliberations of theos, who, having comprehended the logos and having seen the beauty of the cosmic order, re-presented it, and so became a cosmic order from their own parsements and by the birth of Psyche.
[9] Theos, the perceiveration, male-and-female, being Life and phaos, whose logos brought forth another perceiveration, an artisan, who – theos of Fire and pnuema – fashioned seven viziers to surround the perceptible cosmic order in spheres and whose administration is described as fate.

[10] Directly, from the downward parsements, the logos of theos bounded to the fine artisements of Physis and joined with the perceiveration of that artisan, for it was of the same essence. Thus the descending parsements of Physis were left, devoid of logos, to be only substance.

[11] The perceiveration of that artisan, in combination with logos, surrounded the spheres, spinning them around, a twizzling of artisements of some indefinite origin and some undeterminable end, finishing where they began. Turning around and around as perceiveration decreed, the spheres produced, from those descending parsements, beings devoid of logos, for they were not given logos, while Air produced what flew, and Water what swam. Divided, one from the other, were Earth and Water, as perceiveration had decreed, with Earth delivering from within herself beings four-footed and crawling, and animals savage and benign.

[12] Perceiveration, as Life and phaos, father of all, brought forth in his own likeness a most beautiful mortal who, being his child, he loved. And theos, who loved his own image, bequeathed to him all his works of Art.

[13] Thus, having discovered what that artisan with that father’s assistance had wrought, he too determined on such artisements, which the father agreed to. Ingressing to the artisan’s realm, with full authority, he appreciated his brother’s artisements, and they – loving him – each shared with him their own function. Having fully learned their essence, and having partaken of their physis, he was determined to burst out past the limit of those spheres to discover the one who imposed their strength upon the Fire.

[14] With full authority over the ordered cosmos of humans and of beings devoid of logos, he burst through the strength of the spheres to thus reveal to those of downward physis the beautiful image of theos. When she beheld such unceasing beauty – he who possessed all the vigour of the viziers and was the image of theos – she lovingly smiled, for it was as if in that Water she had seen the semblance of that mortal’s beautiful image and, on Earth, his shadow. And as he himself beheld in that Water her image, so similar to his own, he desired her and wanted to be with her. Then, his want and his vigour realized, and he within that image devoid of logos, Physis grasped he whom she loved to entwine herself around him so that, as lovers, they were intimately joined together.

[15] Which is why, distinct among all other beings on Earth, mortals are jumelle; deathful of body yet deathless the inner mortal. Yet, although deathless and possessing full authority, the human is still subject to wyrd. Hence, although over the harmonious structure, when within become the slave. Male-and-female since of a male-and-female father, and wakeful since of a wakeful one.

[16] my perceiveration, for I also love the logos. Then Pœmandres said, this is a mysterium esoteric even to this day. For Physis, having intimately joined with the human, produced a most wondrous wonder possessed of the physis of the harmonious seven I mentioned before, of Fire and pneuma. Physis did not tarry, giving birth to seven male-and-female humans with the physis of those viziers, and ætherean. Pœmandres, I said, a great eagerness has now arrived in me so that I yearn to hear more. Do not go away. Then, Pœmandres replied, be silent for this primary explanation is not yet complete. I shall, I said, therefore, be silent.

[17] To continue, those seven came into being in this way. Earth was muliebral, Water was lustful, and Fire maturing. From Æther, the pnuema, and with Physis bringing forth human-shaped bodies. Of Life and phaos, the human came to be of psyche and perceiveration; from Life – psyche; from phaos – perceiveration; and with everything in the observable cosmic order cyclic until its completion.

[18] Now listen to the rest of the explanation you asked to hear. When the cycle was fulfilled, the connexions between all things were, by the deliberations of theos, unfastened. Living beings – all male-and-female then – were, including humans, rent asunder thus bringing into being portions that were masculous with the others muliebral. Directly, then, theos spoke a numinous logos: propagate by propagation and spawn by spawning, all you creations and artisements, and let the perceiver have the knowledge of being deathless and of Eros as responsible for death.
[19] Having so spoken, foreknowing – through wyrd and that harmonious structure – produced the coagulations and founded the generations with all beings spawning according to their kind. And they of self-knowledge attained a particular benefit while they who, misled by Eros, love the body, roamed around in the dark, to thus, perceptively, be afflicted by death.

[20] But why, I asked, do the unknowing err so much that they are robbed of immortality. You seem, he said, not to have understood what you heard, for did I not tell you to discover things? I said I do recall and am discovering, for which I am obliged. Then tell me, if you have discovered, why death is expected for those in death. Because originally the body began with that stygian darkness, from whence the flowing physis which formed the body within the perceptible cosmic order which nourishes death.

[21] Your apprehension is correct. Yet why, according to the logos of theos, does the one of self-discovery progress within themselves? To which I replied, phaos and Life formed the father of all beings, from whence that human came into being. You express yourself well. For phaos and Life are the theos and the father from whence the human came into being. Therefore if you learn to be of Life and phaos – and that you perchance are of them – then you progress to return to Life. Thus spoke Pœmandres. Can you – who are my perceiveration – therefore tell me how I may progress to Life? For does not theos say that the human of perceiveration should have self-knowledge?

[22] And do not all humans posses perceiveration? Again you express yourself well. I, perceiveration, attend to those of respectful deeds, the honourable, the refined, the compassionate, those aware of the numinous; to whom my being is a help so that they soon acquire knowledge of the whole and are affectionately gracious toward the father, fondly celebrating in song his position. Before they hand over their body to its death they loathe the influencing impressions, for they know their vigour. That is, I – perceiveration – do not allow what the vigour of the body embraces to be achieved. For, as guardian, I close the entrance to the bad and the dishonourably vigorful, preventing their procrastinations.

[23] I keep myself distant from the unreasonable, the rotten, the malicious, the jealous, the greedy, the bloodthirsty, the hubriatic, instead, giving them up to the avenging daemon, who assigns to them the sharpness of fire, who visibly assails them, and who equips them for more lawlessness so that they happen upon even more vengeance. For they cannot control their excessive yearnings, are always in the darkness – which tests them – and thus increase that fire even more.

[24] You, perceiveration, have instructed me well about all those things I saught. But could you tell me how the Anados will occur? To which Pœmandres replied, first, the dissolution of the physical body allows that body to be transformed with the semblance it had disappearing and its now non-functioning ethos handed over to the daimon, with the body’s perceptions returning to their origin, then becoming separated with their purpose, transplanted, and with desire and eagerness journeying toward the physis devoid of logos.

[25] Thus does the mortal hasten through the harmonious structure, offering up, in the first realm, that vigour which grows and which fades, and – in the second one – those dishonourable machinations, no longer functioning. In the third, that eagerness which deceives, no longer functioning; in the fourth, the arrogance of command, no longer insatiable; in the fifth, profane insolence and reckless haste; in the sixth, the bad inclinations occasioned by riches, no longer functioning; and in the seventh realm, the lies that lie in wait.

[26] Thus, stripped of the activities of that structure, they enter into the ogdoadic physis, and, with those there, celebrate the father in song for they, together, rejoice at this arrival who, now akin to them, hears those forces beyond the ogdoadic physis celebrating theos in melodious song. Then, in order, they move toward the father to hand themselves over to those forces, and, becoming those forces, they become united with theos. For to so become of theos is the noble goal of those who seek to acquire knowledge. Why, therefore, hesitate? Should it not be that, having received all these things, you should become a guide to those who are suitable so that, because of you, descendants of mortals may – through theos – escape?

[27] Having so spoken to me, Pœmandres joined with those forces, while I, having given thanks to and expressed my gratitude toward the father of all beings, went forth strengthened and informed regarding the physis of everything and with an insight of great importance. So it was that I began to tell mortals about how beautiful knowledge and an awareness of the numinous were. You earth-bound mortals, you who have embraced intoxicating liquor, sleepfulness, and are unknowing of theos: soberize, stop your drunkenness, for you are beguiled by irrational sleepfulness.

[28] Hearing this, they, with the same purpose, gathered round. And I said, you who are earth-bound, why do you embrace death when you have the means to partake of immortality? Change your ways, you who have accompanied deception and who have kinship with the unknowing ones. Leave the dark phaos, partake of immortality, move away from your destruction.

[29] Then some of them, having ridiculed, went away, embracing as they did the way of death; although some others, desirous of being informed, threw themselves down at my feet. I asked them to stand, and thus became a guide to those of my kind, informing them of the logoi – of the way and the means of rescue – and engendered in them the logoi of sapientia, with the celestial elixir to nurture them. And with the arrival of evening with the rays of Helios beginning to completely wane, I bid they express their gratitude to theos, after which – with that expression of gratitude completed – they each retired to their own bed.

[30] Commemorating within myself the noble service of Pœmandres – replete with what I had desired – I was most pleased, for the sleep of the body engendered temperance of psyche, the closing of the eyes a genuine insight, with my silence pregnant with the noble, and the expression of the logos breeding nobility. Such is what transpired for me, received from perceiveration – that is, Pœmandres; for it was by being theos-inspired that I came upon this revealing. Therefore, from my psyche and with all my strength, I offer benedictions to theos, the father.

[31] Agios o Theos, father of all beings. Agios o Theos, whose purpose is accomplished by his own arts. Agios o Theos, whose disposition is to be recognized and who is recognized by his own. Agios es, you who by logos form all being. Agios es, you who engender all physis as eikon. Agios es, you whom the Physis did not morph. Agios es, you who are mightier than all artifice. Agios es, you who surpass all excellence. Agios es, you who transcend all praise. You – ineffable, inexpressible, to whom silence gives voice – receive these respectful wordful offerings from a psyche and a heart that reach out to you.

[32] I ask of you to grant that I am not foiled in acquiring knowledge germane to our essence; to invigorate me, so that – by that favour – I may bring illumination to the unknowing who, kindred of my kind, are your children. Such I testify and believe; to advance to Life and phaos. For you, father, a benediction. Your mortal’s purpose is to share in your numinosity, for which you have provided every means.

°°° Notes and Commentary on the Text

The numbers refer to the sections of the Greek text, 1-32. 1. what is real. Regarding τῶν ὄντων cf. Plato, Republic, Book 7 (532c) – πρὸς δὲ τὰ ἐν ὕδασι φαντάσματα θεῖα καὶ σκιὰς τῶν ὄντων ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ εἰδώλων σκιὰς δι᾽ ἑτέρου τοιούτου φωτὸς ὡς πρὸς ἥλιον κρίνειν ἀποσκιαζομένας – where the φάντασμα (the appearance) of some-thing natural (god-given), such as the σκιὰ (image) that is reflected by water, is stated to be real, and contrasted with what is not considered to be real (what is an unsubstantial image) such as that cast by a fire rather than by the Sun.

intuition. For διανοίας. As with νοῦς (see 2. below) a term which deserves some scrutiny. Conventionally, it is translated as ‘thought’, or ‘thinking’, as if in reference to some sort of idealized faculty we human beings are said to possess and which faculty deals with ideations and their collocations and is considered as necessary to, or the foundation of, understanding and reason.

More accurately, in a classical context, διανοίας is (i) ‘intelligence’ (or intuition) in the sense of understanding some-thing or someone (i.e. in being able to perceive some-thing correctly or to correctly understand – to know – a person), or (ii) ‘intention’.

I have opted for ‘intuition’ as suggesting, and as manifesting, insight, often from contemplation, as the etymology, from the Latin intueri, suggests. For the English word ‘thought’ now conveys modern meanings which, in my view, are not relevant here. And an ‘intuition’ that is related to, but somewhat different from, the perceiveration that is νοῦς.

Alertness. αἴσθησις. Alertness here in the sense that the normal, alert, awareness of the physical senses is dulled by interior intuition, insight, or revelation. An appropriate alternative translation would thus be awareness, as in awareness of one’s surroundings.

Huge. ὑπερμεγέθη – qv Plutarch Romulus, 16.5 ἐπὶ στρατοπέδου δρῦν ἔτεμεν ὑπερμεγέθη – chopped down a huge tree there in that encampment.

Huge, and too large to measure by ordinary means. I do not see any need to exaggerate what is implied, as some other translations do.

Have knowledge of. In the tractate, γνῶναι is related to νοῦς and διανοίας as an expression of what is perceived, or one is aware of. Here, of what one discerns in the sense of distinguishing some-thing from something else and thus ‘knowing’ of and about that thing.

2. Pœmandres. Ποιμάνδρης. The older interpretation of ‘shepherd of men’ is unacceptable because speculative; the speculation being that it derives from ποιμήν, which has a variety of meanings other than shepherd, for example, chief, and owner.

A more recent etymology involves some ancient Egyptian term associated with the god Re. However, this etymology, first proposed by Francis Griffith in the 1920’s [qv. W. Scott and A. S. Ferguson: Hermetica: the ancient Greek and Latin writings which contain religious or philosophical teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924-1936] was based on a linguistic and stylistic analysis of Coptic sources dating well over a millennia after the god Re was worshipped in ancient Egypt.

Also, the book From Poimandres to Jacob Bohme: Hermetism, Gnosis and the Christian Tradition, edited by Roelof van den Broek and published in 2000 (Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica) which mentions this etymology by Griffiths and which is often cited as confirming this etymology, does not provide further context in the form of extant Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions or references to papyrus fragments from long before the Coptic period, but instead makes various conjectures, as for example in respect of an alternative Coptic form of the genitive n-re, and relies on other linguistic/stylistic analysis of much later texts.
Until a link can be established to such primary Egyptian sources, or to reliable sources much earlier than such Coptic texts, I remain unconvinced in respect of the ancient Egyptian origins of the name Ποιμάνδρης, and therefore am inclined to leave it as a personal name, transliterated Pœmandres.

perceiveration. νοῦς. The conventional interpretation here is ‘mind’, as if in contrast to ‘the body’ and/or as if some fixed philosophical and abstract principle is meant or implied.

This conventional interpretation is in my view incorrect, being another example of not only retrospective reinterpretation but of using a word which has acquired, over the past thousand years or more, certain meanings which detract from an understanding of the original text. Retrospective reinterpretation because the assumption is that what is being described is an axiomatic, reasoned, philosophy centred on ideations such as Thought, Mind, and Logos, rather than what it is: an attempt to describe, in fallible words, a personal intuition about our existence, our human nature, and which intuition is said to emanate from a supernatural being named Pœmandres.

In addition, one should ask what does a translation such as ‘I am Poimandres, mind of sovereignty’ [vide Copenhaver] actually mean? That there is a disembodied ‘mind’ which calls itself Pœmandres? That this disembodied ‘mind’ is also some gargantuan supernatural shapeshifting being possessed of the faculty of human speech? That some-thing called ‘sovereignty’ has a mind?

I incline toward the view that the sense of the word νοῦς here, as often in classical literature, is perceiverance; that is, a particular type of astute awareness, as of one’s surroundings, of one’s self, and as in understanding (‘reading’) a situation often in an instinctive way. Thus, what is not meant is some-thing termed ‘mind’ (or some faculty thereof), distinguished as this abstract ‘thing’ termed ‘mind’ has often been from another entity termed ‘the body’.

Perceiverance thus describes the ability to sense, to perceive, when something may be amiss; and hence also of the Greek word implying resolve, purpose, because one had decided on a particular course of action, or because one’s awareness of a situation impels or directs one to a particular course of action. Hence why, in the Oedipus Tyrannus, Sophocles has Creon voice his understanding of the incipient hubris of Oedipus, of his pride without a purpose, of his apparent inability to understand, to correctly perceive, the situation:

εἴ τοι νομίζεις κτῆμα τὴν αὐθαδίαν εἶναί τι τοῦ νοῦ χωρίς, οὐκ ὀρθῶς φρονεῖς. If you believe that what is valuable is pride, by itself, Without a purpose, then your judgement is not right. vv. 549-550

Translating νοῦς as perceiverance/perceiveration thus places it into the correct context, given αὐθεντίας – authority. For “I am Pœmandres, the perceiveration of authority” implies “What [knowledge] I reveal (or am about to reveal) is authentic,” so that an alternative translation, in keeping with the hermeticism of the text, would be “I am Pœmandres, the authentic perceiveration.” [ The English word authentic means ‘of authority, authoritative’ and is derived, via Latin, from the Greek αὐθεντία ]

eachwhere. An unusual but expressive (c.15th century) English word, suited to such an esoteric text. The meaning here is that, like a guardian δαίμων of classical and Hellenic culture, Pœmandres is always close by: eachwhere with you.

Apprehend. νοέω. To apprehend also in the sense of ‘discover’. Again, I have tried to make a subtle distinction here, as there is in the text between the related νοῦς, γνῶναι, and διανοίας.

physis. A transliteration, to suggest something more than what ‘nature’ or ‘character’ – of a thing or person – denotes. That is, to know what is real and apprehend the physis of those real things – νοῆσαι τὴν τού των φύσιν; to discern the physis, the true nature, of beings. That is, to have an understanding of ontology; for physis is a revealing, a manifestation, of not only the true nature of beings but also of the relationship between beings, and between beings and Being.

γνῶναι τὸν θεόν. To have – to acquire – knowledge of θεός. Does θεός here mean God, a god, a deity, or the god? God, the supreme creator Being, the only real god, the father, as in Christianity? A deity, as in Hellenic and classical paganism? The god, as in an un-named deity – a god – who is above all other deities? Or possibly all of these? And if all, in equal measure, or otherwise?

The discourse of Pœmandres, as recounted in the tractate, suggests two things. First, that all are meant or suggested – for example, Τὸ φῶς ἐκεῖνο͵ ἔφη͵ ἐγὼ νοῦς ὁ σὸς θεός could be said of Pœmandres as a god, as a deity, as the god, and also possibly of God, although why God, the Father – as described in the Old and New Testaments – would call Himself Pœmandres, appear in such a vision, and declare what He declares about θεός being both male and female in one person, is interesting. Second, that the knowledge that is revealed is of a source, of a being, that encompasses, and explains, all three, and that it is this knowing of such a source, beyond those three conventional ones, that is the key to ‘what is real’ and to apprehending ‘the physis of beings’.

Hence, it is better to transliterate θεός – or leave it as θεός – than to use god; and a mistake to use God, as some older translations do.

remember all those things you want to learn. Ἔχε νῷ: ‘hold the awareness’ [be aware] of what you said you wanted to learn – that is, ‘remember’ them; which is better, and more expressive, than the somewhat colloquial and modern ‘keep in mind’.
4.

So saying, his form [ἰδέᾳ] altered. For τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἠλλάγη τῇ ἰδέᾳ. Or – more expressively – ‘he shapeshifted’. A common theme in Greek mythology and literature, as in the ancient Hymn to Demeter:

ὣς εἰποῦσα θεὰ μέγεθος καὶ εἶδος ἄμειψε γῆρας ἀπωσαμένη Having so spoken, the goddess changed in height and cast off that aged appearance

[An] indefinity of inner sight [inner seeing]. ὁρῶ θέαν ἀόριστον. The sense of ὁράω here is metaphorical, of an interior knowing or apprehension not occasioned by the faculty of sight; the inner knowing, for example, that the blind Tiresias has in respect of Oedipus in the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles – his apprehension of what Oedipus has done and what he will do. Such an ‘inner seeing’ includes the Tiresian kind a prophetic knowing as well as the ‘interior visions’ of a mystic.

In respect of ἀόριστος, I have opted for indefinity, an unusual [read obscure] English word derived c.1600 from indefinite.

phaos. A transliteration of φῶς – using the the Homeric φάος. Since φάος metaphorically (qv. Iliad, Odyssey, Hesiod, etcetera) implies the being, the life, ‘the spark’, of mortals, and, generally, either (i) the illumination, the light, that arises because of the Sun and distinguishes the day from the night, or (ii) any brightness that provides illumination and thus enables things to be seen, I am inclined to avoid the vague English word ‘light’ which other translations use, and which English word now implies many things which the Greek does not or may not; as for instance in the matter of over a thousand years of New Testament exegesis, especially in reference to the gospel of John. A transliteration requires the reader to pause and consider what phaos may, or may not, mean, suggest, or imply; and hopefully thus conveys something about the original text.

Also, φῶς δὲ πάντα γεγενημένα suggests ‘[with] everything suffused in phaos’ and not ‘everything became light’ as if to imply that suddenly everything was transformed into ‘light’.

clear and bright. εὔδιόν τε καὶ ἱλαρόν – if one accepts the emendation εὔδιόν [clear] then ἱλαρόν might suggest the metaphorical sense of ‘bright’ (rather than the descriptive ‘cheery’) which fits well with the contrasting and following φοβε ρόν τε καὶ στυγνόν.

Downward. κατωφερὲς – cf. Appian, The Civil Wars, Book 4, chapter 13 – κατωφερὲς δ᾽ ἐστὶ τὸ πεδίον.

stygian. For στυγνόν, for stygian is a word which in English imputes the sense of the original Greek, as both its common usage, and its literary usage (by Milton, Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, et al) testify. Some-thing dark, gloomy, disliked, abhorred. One might, for example, write that “that river looks as stygian”, and as unforgiving, as the water of Styx – ἀμείλικτον Στυγὸς ὕδωρ.
serpent. ὄφει is one of the emendations of Nock, for the meaning of the text here is difficult to discern. Given what follows – re the smoke and fire – it is tempting to agree with Reitzenstein that what may be meant is a not an ordinary serpent but a dragon, δράκοντι, qv. the Iliad (II, 308) and the seven-headed dragon of Revelation 12, 3-17.

flowing (as in fluidic). The sense of ὑγρός here, since what follows – ἀφάτως τεταραγμένην καὶ καπνὸν ἀποδι δοῦσαν – does not suggest either ‘watery’ or ‘moist’. Cf. Aristophanes, Clouds, 314 – ταῦτ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐποίουν ὑγρᾶν Νεφελᾶν στρεπταιγλᾶν δάιον ὁρμάν – where clouds are described as flowing and in their flowing-moving obscure the brightness (of the day).

aphonous … phaos calling out. I follow the MSS which have φωτὸς, which Nock emended to πυρός. While the emendation, given the foregoing mention of fire, makes some sense, it does render what follows, with the mention of φωτὸς, rather disjointed. However, if – as I suggested above – φῶς is not translated as ‘light’, but, as with physis and λόγος [qv. 5. below], is transliterated, then φωτὸς here is fine, for it is as if “phaos was calling out” in an aphonous – an un-human, animal-like, and thus wordless – way from beneath the covering of darkness that has descended down, and descended with an indescribable noise. And aphonous here because covered – smothered, obscured, muffled – by the indescribably noisy darkness. Which leads directly to the mention of φῶς and λόγος in the next part of the text; that is, to the ascension of φῶς and λόγος.

If one reads πυρός, then the interpretation would be that it is the fire which is calling out in an un-human, animal-like, and thus wordless way.

Logos. λόγος. A transliteration, which as with my other transliterations, requires the reader to pause and reflect upon what the term may, or may not, mean, suggest, or imply. The common translation as ‘Word’ does not express or even suggest all the meanings (possible or suggested) of the Greek, especially as Word – as in Word of God – now imputes so much (in so many different often doctrinal ways) after two thousand years of Christianity and thus tends to lead to a retrospective re-interpretation of the text.

Numinous. ἅγιος. Numinous is better – more accurate – than ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’, since these latter English words have been much overused in connexion with Christianity and are redolent with meanings supplied from over a thousand years of exegesis; meanings which may or may not be relevant here.

Correctly understood, numinous is the unity beyond our perception of its two apparent aspects; aspects expressed by the Greek usage of ἅγιος which could be understood in a good (light) way as ‘sacred’, revered, of astonishing beauty; and in a bad (dark) way as redolent of the gods/wyrd/the fates/morai in these sense of the retributive or (more often) their balancing power/powers and thus giving rise to mortal ‘awe’ since such a restoration of the natural balance often involved or required the death (and sometimes the ‘sacrifice’) of mortals. It is the numinous – in its apparent duality, and as a manifestation of a restoration of the natural, divine, balance – which is evident in much of Greek tragedy, from the Agamemnon of Aeschylus (and the Orestia in general) to the Antigone and the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles.

The two apparent aspects of the numinous are wonderfully expressed by Rilke:

Wer, wenn ich schrie, hörte mich denn aus der Engel
Ordnungen? und gesetzt selbst, es nähme
einer mich plötzlich ans Herz: ich verginge von seinem
stärkeren Dasein. Denn das Schöne ist nichts
als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen,
und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht,
uns zu zerstören. Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.

Who, were I to sigh aloud, of those angelic beings might hear me? And even if one of them deigned to take me to his heart
I would dissolve Into his very existence.
For beauty is nothing if not the genesis of that numen
Which we can only just survive
And which we so admire because it can so calmly disdain to betake us. Every angel is numinous

wenn ich schrie. ‘Were I to sigh aloud’ is far more poetically expressive, and more in tune with the metaphysical tone of the poem and the stress on schrie, than the simple, bland, ‘if I cried out’. A sighing aloud – not a shout or a scream – of the sometimes involuntary kind sometimes experienced by those engaged in contemplative prayer or in deep, personal, metaphysical musings.

der Engel Ordnungen. The poetic emphasis is on Engel, and the usual translation here of ‘orders’ – or something equally abstract and harsh (such as hierarchies) – does not in my view express the poetic beauty (and the almost supernatural sense of strangeness) of the original; hence my suggestion ‘angelic beings’ – of such a species of beings, so different from we mortals, who by virtue of their numinosity have the ability to both awe us and overpower us.

came upon that physis. Came upon that which had the physis of darkness and then changed to become fluidic.

Fire. A capitalization, since ‘fire’ here is suggestive of something possibly elemental.

Air. A capitalization, as with Fire; ditto with the following Water and Earth.

A possible alternative here might be to use the Homeric meaning of ἀὴρ – mist – since ‘air’ is just too general, does not describe what is happening, and thus is confusing.

pnuema. For πνεύματι/πνεῦμα. A transliteration, given that the English alternatives – such as ‘spirit’ or ‘breath’ – not only do not always describe what the Greek implies but also suggest things not always or not necessarily in keeping with the Hellenic nature of the text.

This particular transliteration has a long history in English, dating back to 1559 CE. In 1918, DeWitt Burton published a monograph – listing, with quotations, the various senses of πνεῦμα – entitled Spirit, Soul, and Flesh: The Usage of Πνεῦμα, Ψυχή, and Σάρξ in Greek Writings and Translated Works from the Earliest Period to 225 AD (University of Chicago Press, 1918)

I incline toward the view that πνεῦμα here – like λόγος – does not necessarily imply something theological (in the Christian sense or otherwise) but rather suggests an alternative, more personal, weltanschauung that, being a weltanschauung, is undoctrinal and subtle, and which weltanschauung is redolent of Hellenic culture. Subtle and undoctrinal in the way that early alchemical texts are subtle and undoctrinal and try to express, or hint at (however obscurely to us, now), a weltanschauung, and one which is more paganus than Christian.

coagulating. For συμμεμιγμένα, which suggests something more elemental – more actively joined – than just ‘mixed or mingled’ together.

pneumal logos. πνευματικὸν λόγον. The term pneumal logos is interesting and intended to be suggestive and thus open to and requiring interpretation. In contrast, the usual translation is verbo spirituali (spiritual word), as if what is meant or implied is some-thing theological and clearly distinct from the corporeal, as Thomas Aquinas wrote in Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate: Ex quo patet quod nomen verbi magis proprie dicitur de verbo spirituali quam de corporali. Sed omne illud quod magis proprie invenitur in spiritualibus quam in corporalibus, propriissime Deo competit. Ergo verbum propriissime in Deo dicitur. (De veritate, q. 4a. 1s. c2).

6.
apprehended the sense of that inner seeing. Given what follows, the English word ‘sense’ is perhaps appropriate here, rather than the inflexible word ‘meaning’.

phaomal logos. φωτεινὸς λόγος. As with pneumal logos, this is suggestive, and open to interpretation.

child of theos. υἱὸς θεοῦ. The scriptural sense – ‘son of god’, for example Mark 15.39, Ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἦν – is usually assumed; a sense which follows the general usage of υἱὸς (son) as in Homer et al. But the later (c.2nd/3rd century CE) usage ‘child’ is possible here, a usage known from some papyri (qv. Papiri Greci e Latini, edited by Girolamo Vitelli). This also has the advantage of being gender neutral, for which see the note under ἀναγνωρίσας ἑαυτὸν in section 19.

logos kyrios. λόγος κυρίου (cf. pneumal logos and phaomal logos). Invariably translated as ‘word of the lord’, echoing the formula found in LXX (qv. for example Jeremiah 1.4 ἐγένετο λόγος κυρίου πρός με) although, as attested by many papyri, kyrios was also used in the Hellenic world as an epithet both of a deity and of a powerful potentate [hence ‘logos kyrios’ rather than ‘kyrios logos’] implying respect and an acknowledgement of their authority and power.

duration. For reasons I outlined in the The Art of Translation, and A Question About Time section of Appendix I, I prefer to translate χρόνος as duration (or something akin) and not as ‘time’. Briefly explained, the English word ‘time’ now denotes what the term χρόνος did not.

tilted his head back. Perhaps suggestive of looking up toward the heavens, qv. the c. 2nd century CE writer Achilles Tatius (writing around the time the Corpus Hermeticum was written) who, in Leucippe and Clitophon, Book V, 3.3, wrote – ἀνανεύσας εἰς οὐρανὸν ‘ὦ Ζεῦ, τί τοῦτο’ ἔφην ‘φαίνεις ἡμῖν τέρας

unmeasurable. ἀπεριόριστον – beyond being countable, impossible to be counted; from ἀριθμητός – countable.

cosmic order. κόσμος. The word ‘cosmos’ by itself is probably insufficient here, for the Greek term κόσμος carries with it the suggestion that the cosmos is an ordered structure, an order evident in the observed regularity of heavenly bodies such as the moon, the constellations, and the planets.

undefinable. ἀπεριόριστον: A slightly different sense here to previously, and an interesting contrast with εὐπεριόριστον – well-defined – as used by Strabo when describing the process of measuring and defining, in geographical terms, a region of the Earth:

τὸ γὰρ σημειῶδες καὶ τὸ εὐπεριόριστον ἐκεῖθεν λαβεῖν ἔστιν, οὗ χρείαν ἔχει ὁ γεωγράφος: εὐπεριόριστον δέ, ὅταν ἢ ποταμοῖς ἢ ὄρεσιν ἢ θαλάττῃ δυνατὸν ᾖ (Geography, 2.1.30)

coming-into-being. γεγενημένον. The meaning here is somewhat obscure. Is what is described a discovery of how the already existing and known cosmic order came into being, or the apprehension of a – or some sort of – cosmic order coming-into-being? Or does γεγενημένον refer to phaos?

8. quidditas of semblance. ἀρχέτυπον εἶδος. The transliteration ‘archetype’ here is, unfortunately, unsuitable, given what the term archetype now suggests and implies (vide Jungian psychology, for example) beyond what the Greek of the text means. Appropriate words or terms such as ‘primal-pattern’ or ‘protoform’ are awkward, clumsy. Hence quidditas (11th/12th century Latin), from whence came ‘quiddity’, a term originally from medieval scholasticism which was then used to mean the natural (primal) nature or form of some-thing, and thus hints at the original sense of ἀρχέτυπον. As used here, quidditas means exactly what ἀρχέτυπον does in the text, sans Jungian psychology; sans modern ‘popular psychology’; sans expositions of hermetic/gnostic philosophy (or what is assumed to be a hermetic/gnostic philosophy) and sans expositions of Plato’s philosophy.

The whole passage – τὸ ἀρχέτυπον εἶδος͵ τὸ προάρχον τῆς ἀρχῆς τῆς ἀπεράντου – is concerned with various shades of ἀρχή, and is rather obscure. ἀρχή as the origin – ‘the beginning’ – of beings and thus of their εἶδος (the ἀρχέτυπον), of their semblance, their type; and ἀρχή – the primal before (προάρχον) that beginning, of beings – as that origin (that beginning) which has no end, no known limits, ἀπεράντου.

parsements. For στοιχεῖον, and thus avoiding the word ‘elements’ whose meanings, being now many and varied, somewhat detract from the meaning of the text. By a parsement – an unusual variant of partiment (from the Latin partimentum) – is meant the fundamental (the basic, elemental, primal) components or principles of ‘things’ as understood or as posited in Hellenic times; and whether or not these are undescribed or described in terms of a particular philosophy or weltanschauung (for example, as Air, Fire, and so on).

deliberations of theos. βουλῆς θεοῦ. ‘Deliberations’ is the sense here; as in theos – whomsoever or whatever theos is – having pondered upon, or considered, a particular matter or many matters. cf. Herodotus [Histories, 9.10] – ὃ μέν σφι ταῦτα συνεβούλευε: οἳ δὲ φρενὶ λαβόντες τὸν λόγον αὐτίκα – where a similar following expression (λαβόντες τὸν λόγον) occurs.

Translations such as ‘will/decree of god’ are, in my view, far too presumptive.

ἥτις λαβοῦσα τὸν λόγον. This is suggestive of theos having fully comprehended – completely understood – logos [qv. the passage from Herodotus, where the result of the deliberations was understood, approved of: ‘taken to heart’], rather than of God ‘taking in the Word’ or ‘receiving the Word’. A ‘taking in’ from whence to where? A ‘receiving’ from where?

re-presented. In the sense of a divine mimesis – μίμησις – which is the Greek word used here, and which mimesis is a important theme in ancient pagan culture, from Art to religion. It is tempting therefore to consider the suggestion that this mimesis by theos is akin to a masterful, a sublime, work of Art.

Psyche. For ψυχή, and leaving untranslated so as not to impose a particular meaning on the text. Whether what is meant is anima mundi – or some-thing else, such as the ‘soul’ of a human being – is therefore open to debate, although I have used a capital P to intimate that it is, in the text, an important, and primal, principle, and might imply here the original sense of ‘spark’ (or breath) of life; of that ‘thing’ [or being] which [or who] animates beings making them ‘alive’.

9.
male-and-female. ἀρρενόθηλυς. The theos – or deity/divinity/God – is both male and female, which can be interpreted as implying a bisexual nature, or androgyny, or hermaphroditism, or a being with the unique ability to both give birth and inseminate, or a being beyond all such mortal (causal) categories and assumptions.

whose logos brought forth another perceiveration. ἀπεκύησε λόγῳ ἕτερον Νοῦν δημιουργόν. An interesting phrase, possibly open to interpretation, for it might suggest ‘whose utterance [who by speaking] brought forth…’

Consider, for example, Psalms 33.6:

τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ κυρίου οἱ οὐρανοὶ ἐστερεώθησαν καὶ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ πᾶσα ἡ δύναμις αὐτῶν

ְצָבֽאָ ְבִּדבַ֣ר ֭יְהוָה ָשׁמַ֣יִם ֲנַע ֑שׂוּ ְוּב ֥רוּח ַ פִּ֗֝יו ָכּל־ ם

with the Greek of LXX, literally translated, meaning “By the logos of the master [κύριος] the heavens were established and, by the pnuema from his mouth, all their influence” [δύναμις], with the Hebrew stating it is הָהוְי֭] Yhvh – Jehovah] who has established םִיַ֣שׁמָ] shamayim, the heavens] and His ַוּח֥וּברְ] ruach, pneuma] their power.

Hence, Pœmandres might well be saying that is was by speaking, by the act of uttering or declaiming a logos, that this theos – whomsoever or whatever theos is – brought forth a[nother] perceiveration; that is, another way or means of apprehending – of knowing, understanding, and appreciating – the cosmic order.

artisan. δημιουργόν. It is tempting to transliterate – as demiourgos – so as not to impose a meaning on the text. Does the word here imply – as possibly with Fire, pneuma, etcetera – an assumed elemental force of principle? Or a demiurge who is a (or the) theos of Fire and pnuema? Or does it imply some creator, the Theos of Fire and Pnuema? Or is some sort of artisan meant? And is this an artisan who, possibly by memesis, can create/manufacture a sublime work of Art that at the very least enables us to perceive the cosmic order – the world – in a new way and who, being a theos, can also possibly create, perhaps as a work of Art, a new cosmic order?

However, I incline toward the view, given what follows – ἐδημιούργησε διοικητάς τινας ἑπτά [see below, fashioned seven viziers] – that what is meant here is artisan, rather than demiurge.

fashioned seven viziers. ἐδημιούργησε διοικητάς τινας ἑπτά. The word ἐδημιούργησε occurs in Diogenes Laertius [Lives of Eminent Philosophers 3.1 (71) – ὅτι καὶ τὸ ὑπόδειγμα ἓν ἦν ἀφ᾽ οὗ αὐτὸν ἐδημιούργησε] in the section concerned with Plato, where the meaning is what someone (such as a worker or artisan) has wrought, fashioned, or produced.

Viziers captures the meaning of διοικητάς (at the time the text was written) in a way that terms such as controllers, procurators, governors, do not, given the modern senses such terms now have and especially given the context, ἡ διοίκησις αὐτῶν εἱμαρμένη καλεῖται: that their administration – how these viziers discharge their duties; how they operate given their powers – “is described as fate.” That is, is understood, by we mortals, as fate or destiny.

Vizier is a term used in Persia (in its various older forms) and ancient Egypt (a transcription of a hieroglyph), and also later on in the Middle East and North Africa following the rise of Islam, to denote a person who governed or who ruled over – in the name of a higher authority – a particular region or territory or who had a particular sphere of influence; a role similar to the Viceroy of the British Empire.

The seven viziers are the seven classical planetary bodies, named Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn, and well-described in ancient texts, from ancient Persia onwards. Copenhaver [Hermetica, The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p.105] refers to some of the scholarly literature regarding these ‘seven’.

spheres. The context – the cosmic order, and especially the seven planetary viziers who surround or encompass – suggest the meaning of spheres (or orbs) rather than ‘circles’. Cf. Sophocles, Antigone, 415-6 where κύκλος could suggest sphere, or orb, or circle, but where circle seems apposite:

χρόνον τάδ᾽ ἦν τοσοῦτον, ἔστ᾽ ἐν αἰθέρι μέσῳ κατέστη λαμπρὸς ἡλίου κύκλος καὶ καῦμ᾽ ἔθαλπε

And long this continued until Helios with his radiant circle had established himself in middle-sky, burning us

10.

downward parsements … logos of theos. Given that the MSS have στοιχείων τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος the meaning here is conjectural.

‘Downward parsements’ implies that the fundamental (elemental, primal) components by their nature had a tendency to descend, rather as rain descends down by nature and not because it is ‘heavy’ [cf. Xenophon, On Hunting, 5.3: ἀφανίζει δὲ καὶ ἡ πολλὴ δρόσος καταφέρουσα αὐτά] Hence ‘descending parsements’ would also be an appropriate translation here.

Regarding θεοῦ λόγος, I have again opted for a transliteration since the common translation here of ‘word of God’ imposes a particular, Christian, interpretation on the text, (i) given that ‘word of god’ is most probably what Cyril of Alexandria meant by the phrase, since τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος interestingly occurs in Cyrilli Epistula Tertia ad Nestorium:

μονογενὴς τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος ὁ ἐξ αὐτῆς γεννηθεὶς τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός ὁ ἐκ θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ θεὸς ἀληθινός τὸ φῶς τὸ ἐκ τοῦ φωτός ὁ δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο τά τε ἐν τῶι οὐρανῶι καὶ τὰ ἐν τῆι γῆι

only-offspring of the logos of theos, born from the essence [οὐσία] of the father, genuine god from genuine god, the phaos from the phaos, by whom all things in heaven and on Earth came into being

and (ii) given that this paraphrases the Nicene creed of 325 CE, with the notable exception of μονογενὴς τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος instead of τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ, the latter conventionally translated as ‘only begotten Son of God’.

Thus, were the translation of ‘word of god’ to be accepted, with the implied meaning from the Epistula Tertia ad Nestorium, then Pœmandres is, apparently, here stating that ‘the Word of God’ – Jesus of Nazareth, true god from true god, Light from Light, and the only begotten son of God by whom all things in heaven and on Earth came into being – somehow bounded up to be reunited with the work of the artisan-creator (presumably, in this context, God) who is of the same essence [ὁμοούσιος].

While this is a possible interpretation of the text given that Pœmandres uses the same word, in reference to logos, as Cyril of Alexandria – οὐσία (which correctly understood means the very being – the essential nature/physis, or essence – of someone or some-thing) – it does seem somewhat restrictive, considering (i) the many possible meanings, and shades of meaning, of both λόγος and θεός (before and after the advent of Christianity and especially in the context of pagan, Hellenic, weltanschauungen) and (ii) how theos is described by Pœmandres (for example, as being both male and female).

fine artisements of Physis. Fine – καθαρός; clean and free of defects. Artisement – the product of the skilled work of the artisan and the artist; their artisanship (cf. the 16th century English verb artize) and which artisements include beings of various kinds (including living and/or ‘archetypal’ ones).

It thus becomes clear, especially given what follows, why transliterating φύσις is better than translating it always as ‘nature’, as if φύσις here implied what we now, after hundreds years of scientific observation and theories such as that of Darwin, understand as ‘the natural world’, as a ‘nature’ that we are or can be or should be masters of and can and do and should control, and which we can (or believe we can) understand.

Physis is capitalized here, as in section 14, to suggest the objectification that the text here implies; and objectified as possibly a being – whomsoever or whatever such a being is – or possibly as some apprehension/emanation of theos (whomsoever or whatever theos is), or some fundamental principle, or some form such as what we now understand as an archetype. This Physis, therefore, might or might not be Nature (as Nature was understood in Hellenic times) although, given what follows about Earth delivering (from her womb) living beings [ ἡ γῆ ἐξήνεγκεν ἀπ΄ αὐτῆς ἃ εἶχε ζῷα… ] it might be that it is not Nature but something else, for example what may have been understood as the genesis of what we now denote by Nature.

It is interesting that here it is “the descending parsements of physis” (not Physis) who were “left, devoid of logos” while in section 14 it is Physis that is, by implication, described as ‘devoid of logos’ – ᾤκησε τὴν ἄλογον μορφήν. This is often understood in the pejorative sense, as if this Physis, and the living beings devoid of logos – ζῷα ἤνεγκεν ἄλογα – in section 11, are somehow [to quote one translation] ‘unreasoning’ beings (or forms) – lacking in reason – and thus somehow [to quote another translation] ‘irrational’ compared to (and by extension somewhat inferior to) the ‘son of theos’, which mistaken and unnecessary value-judgements arise from interpreting and translating λόγος as ‘Word’ or as meaning/implying ‘reason’. However, logos is just logos, and devoid of (without) logos – ἄλογος – could be, depending on how logos is interpreted, akin to ἀθάνατος said in respect, for example, of theos [Θεὸν δ᾽ εἶναι ζῷον ἀθάνατον] or implying ‘cannot be reduced to something else’ and thus heterogeneous [αἱ δὲ ταύτῃ ἀσύμμετροι ἄλογοι καλείσθωσαν], or lacking the faculty of human speech (as in animals, who are not all ‘brutish’) or (more esoterically) suggestive of sans denotatum, of not denoting things or beings by assigning names or terms to them and thus not distinguishing them or marking them as separate from the whole, the unity, of which one type of wholeness is Physis understood as the goddess of Nature, as the creative force that is the genesis of, and which maintains the balance of, the life which inhabits the Earth.

Substance. ὕλη. Since the Greek term does not exactly mean ‘matter’ in the modern sense (qv. the science of Physics) it is better to find an alternative. Hence ‘substance’ – the materia of ‘things’ and living beings – contrasted with οὐσία, essence.

11.

the perceiveration of that artisan. As previously, and like physis, both νοῦς and λόγος are here objectified.

Spinning them around. δινῶν ῥοίζῳ.

12.

brought forth…a mortal. ἀπεκύησεν ἄνθρωπον. The word ἀπεκύησεν in relation to πατὴρ perhaps refers back to where theos, the perceiveration, is described as being both male and female [ἀρρενόθηλυς] although whether the meaning here is the literal ‘gave birth’ or the descriptive ‘brought forth’ is interesting, especially a different word, ἐξήνεγκεν [which the English word delivered – in the sense of giving birth, of ‘a woman having disburdened herself of a fœtus’ – usefully describes] is used in reference to the (female) Earth. This different usage, and the Epistle of James, written not long before the Pœmandres tractate where ‘brought forth’ is apposite [v.1.15 ἡ δὲ ἁμαρτία ἀποτελεσθεῖσα ἀποκύει θάνατον] incline me toward ‘brought forth’ here.

In respect of ἄνθρωπος (often emended to ῎Ανθρωπος) the sense here, as often, is the gender neutral ‘human being’ – a mortal – and not ‘a man’.

image. μορφή. Image in both senses of the English term – as outward physical appearance, and as the impression (or concept) that others may have of, or see in, a person.

Image plays an important part in what follows; the image that the son of theos has of himself and sees reflected back to him and which image he loves. The image Physis has of him and sees a reflection of, and the image which he has of her and which makes him desire her.

bequeathed to him all his works of Art. παρέδωκε τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πάντα δημιουργήματα. This is a very interesting phrase; theos as artisan, as artist, whose works – whose creations, whose artisements, whose divine re-presentations (μίμησις) – apparently include both the cosmic order, the artisan mentioned previously, and we mortals. Less suggestive of the meaning is ‘bequeathed to him all his (various) artisements’.

13.

that father. Reading πατρί, with the MSS, and not the emendation πυρί.

Ingressing to the artisan’s realm. γενόμενος ἐν τῇ δημιουργικῇ σφαίρᾳ. The realm of the artisan: where the artisan works, and produces artisements and divine works of art, and where someone – here, the mortal, son of theos – can learn and master that skill and produce his own works. This realm is that of the seven spheres, the seven viziers.

function. τάξεως. Cf. Plato, Laws, 809d – ἡμερῶν τάξεως εἰς μηνῶν περιόδους καὶ μηνῶν εἰς ἕκαστον τὸν ἐνιαυτόν ἵνα ὧραι καὶ θυσίαι καὶ ἑορταὶ τὰ προσήκοντ᾽ ἀπολαμβάνουσαι ἑαυταῖς ἕκασται τῷ κατὰ φύσιν ἄγεσθαι – where the sense is of the periodic, the orderly, functioning of things; of days into weeks, weeks into months, and of months into a year; and which functionality enables us to know when to celebrate and undertake the seasonal festivals and feasts.

limit. περιφέρεια. Not here the literal Euclidean meaning of circumference [for example, Euclid, Elements, Book 13, Proposition 10 – ἐπεὶ ἴση ἐστὶν ἡ ΑΒΓΗ περιφέρεια τῇ ΑΕΔΗ περιφερείᾳ] but rather of the limits, the boundary, set or marked by the seven spheres; a limit that the mortal, son of theos, is “determined to burst out past”.

imposed their strength upon the Fire. Cf. section 7 – περιίσχεσθαι τὸ πῦρ δυνάμει μεγίστῃ (the fire, embraced by a strong force).

14.

burst through the strength of the spheres. I follow the reading of the MSS, which have ἀναρρήξας τὸ κράτος τῶν κύκλων, amended by Scott and Nock to ἀναρρήξας τὸ κύτος [burst through the container].

harmonious structure. Here, ἁρμονία implies the ‘structure’ of the κόσμος, the cosmic order [qv. the note on κόσμος in section 7] and which structure is harmonious [qv. ἁρμονίας ἐναρμόνιος in section 15].

vigour. ἐνέργεια. The words ‘force’ and ‘energy’ bring too many irrelevant modern connotations to the text, and ‘vigour’ well expresses the meaning of ἐνέργεια here, with the suggestion, as often elsewhere, of ‘vigorous activity’.

When she beheld. This, as what follows suggests, is Physis, personified. In respect of beholding such beauty, cf. section 8 – having seen the beauty of the cosmic order.

on Earth, his shadow. τὸ σκίασμα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. Cf. Diogenes Laertius [Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.146, Zeno] not especially for the similarity – τὸ τῆς γῆς σκίασμα – but more for the interesting section, preceding this mention of the shadow of the moon on Earth during an eclipse, of how the cosmic order came into being [142] and for the equally interesting following discussion [147] which concerns the attributes and images of theos – the god – who is described as ‘the father of all’, who has both male and female aspects, and which aspects of the divinity are given their classical pagan names with their areas of authority specified. The interest lies in how the classical gods, and the creation of the cosmic order, and thus Hellenic paganism, were understood and remembered not long after the Hermetica was written, and thus how they echo in part some of the metaphysical themes in, and the cosmogony of, the Pœmandres tractate.

Physis grasped […] intimately joined together. ἡ δὲ φύσις λαβοῦσα τὸν ἐρώμενον περιεπλάκη ὅλη καὶ ἐμίγησαν ἐρώμενοι γὰρ ἦσαν. The sense of μίγνυμι here is that of a physical union, a sexual joining together – not of some ‘philosophical mingling’ of ‘forms’. Similarly, περιπλέκω is not some ordinary ’embrace’ but a sexual twinning (of limbs). Cf. Hesiod, Theogony, 375 – Κρίῳ δ᾽ Εὐρυβίν τέκεν ἐν φιλότητι μιγεῖσα Ἀστραῖόν.

jumelle. For διπλοῦς. The much underused and descriptive English word jumelle – from the Latin gemellus – describes some-thing made in, or composed of, two parts, and is therefore most suitable here, more so than common words such as ‘double’ or ‘twofold’.

deathful of body yet deathless the inner mortal. θνητὸς μὲν διὰ τὸ σῶμα͵ ἀθάνατος δὲ διὰ τὸν οὐσιώδη ἄνθρωπον. Here, in respect of my choice of English words, I must admit to being influenced by Chapman’s lovely poetic translation of the Hymn to Venus from the Homeric Hymns:

That with a deathless goddess lay a deathful man

In respect of οὐσιώδης, I prefer, given the context, ‘inner’ – suggestive of ‘real’ – rather than the conventional ‘essential’; although ‘vital’ is an alternative translation here, suggested by what Eusebius wrote (c.326 CE) about φῶς [phaos] pre-existing even before the cosmic order, with φῶς used by Eusebius to mean Light in the Christian sense:

τό τε φῶς τὸ προκόσμιον καὶ τὴν πρὸ αἰώνων νοερὰν καὶ οὐσιώδη σοφίαν τόν τε ζῶντα [Historia Ecclesiastica, Book 1, chapter 2]

The Light of the proto-cosmos, the comprehension and vital wisdom existing before the Aeons

wyrd. For ἡ εἱμαρμένη. A much better choice, here, than either ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’ given how overused both those words now are and how their interpretation is also now so varied. An overview of how the concept may have been understood in the late Hellenic period (around the time the Hermetica was probably written) is given in the 2nd century CE discourse De Fato, attributed to Plutarch, which begins by stating that εἱμαρμένη has been described in two ways, as ἐνέργεια (vigorous activity) and as οὐσία (essence) –

πρῶτον τοίνυν ἴσθι, ὅτι εἱμαρμένη διχῶς καὶ λέγεται καὶ νοεῖται: ἡ μὲν γάρ ἐστιν ἐνέργεια ἡ δ᾽ οὐσία

of a wakeful one <…> There is some text missing, indicated by <…>, for after ἄϋπνος ἀπὸ ἀΰπνου the MSS have κρατεῖται [mastered/ruled by – cf. 4 Maccabees 2.9 ᾖ ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου κρατεῖται διὰ τὸν λογισμὸν]. Although some suggestions have been made as to this missing text (such as “ruled by love and sleep” [ἔρωτος καὶ ΰπνου] – they are purely conjectural.

16.

my perceiveration. Again, the suggestions for the missing text are purely conjectural.

a mysterium esoteric. For κεκρυμμένον μυστήριον. The term mysterium – a truth or insight or knowledge about some-thing, which is considered religious and/or metaphysical (‘hermetic’) and which is unknown/unrevealed to or as yet undiscovered by others, and hence ‘mysterious’ to them – expresses the meaning of the Greek here (as the word mystery by itself does not). Likewise in respect of esoteric – kept concealed or which is concealed/hidden to most or which is revealed to an individual by someone who already ‘knows’ what the mysterium in question is.

Hence why I write a mysterium here rather than the mysterium, and why “a mysterium, esoteric even to this day”, is better than the rather bland “the mystery kept hidden until this very day”.

possessed the physis of the harmonious seven. The seven viziers. A more literal translation would be ‘possessed the physis of the [harmonious] structure of the seven’. Here, physis could mean ‘character’ (of a person) or some-thing more archetypal/elemental of which such character or personal characteristics are an outward manifestation.

seven male-and-female humans. These seven humans, born from Physis, are thus akin to both theos and the child of theos who also have a male (a masculous) and a female (a muliebral) aspect. That is, although mortal – having been brought forth by and from divinities – these humans are, in their very being, both male and female and thus, in their creation, dissimilar to ordinary mortals, for reasons which Pœmandres goes on to explain.

In addition, these seven mortals have the same or a similar physis as the ‘harmonious seven’.

ætherean. For μεταρσίους. Ætherean is the metaphorical sense of μεταρσίους here, not ‘exalted’ or ‘sublime’ (which imply some sort of human admiration or some sort of religious attitude/apprehension). For the sense is similar to what Dio Chrysostom wrote, in his tract on leadership, about the sons of Boreas, who – semi-divine – have the attributes of their father and who are depicted in and belonging to their natural realm:

ὁποίους τοὺς Βορεάδας ἐνεθυμήθησάν τε καὶ ἔγραψαν οἱ γραφεῖς ἐλαφρούς τε καὶ μεταρσίους ταῖς τοῦ πατρὸς αὔραις συνθέοντας [Orationes, 4.1]

Ætherean is used in the poetic sense – that is, ‘supernal’, meaning of the harmonious – the heavenly – cosmic order and also refined: of the essence, οὐσία, and thus not just ὕλη, substance (qv. section 10).

Primary explanation. πρῶτον λόγον [cf. Plato, Republic, Book 3 [395b] εἰ ἄρα τὸν πρῶτον λόγον διασώσομεν]. An explanation of our origins, as mortals, and thus of the ‘first principle’ that forms the basis of the ‘hermetic weltanschauung’.

17.

those seven came into being in this way. It is interesting to compare ‘these seven’ with ‘the ‘nine’ and the seven spheres (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, Moon) of the Somnium Scipionis described by Cicero:

Novem tibi orbibus vel potius globis conexa sunt omnia, quorum unus est caelestis, extimus, qui reliquos omnes complectitur, summus ipse deus arcens et continens ceteros; in quo sunt infixi illi, qui volvuntur, stellarum cursus sempiterni. Cui subiecti sunt septem, qui versantur retro contrario motu atque caelum. Ex quibus summum globum possidet illa, quam in terris Saturniam nominant. Deinde est hominum generi prosperus et salutaris ille fulgor, qui dicitur Iovis; tum rutilus horribilisque terris, quem Martium dicitis; deinde subter mediam fere regionem Sol obtinet, dux et princeps et moderator luminum reliquorum, mens mundi et temperatio, tanta magnitudine, ut cuncta sua luce lustret et compleat. Hunc ut comites consequuntur Veneris alter, alter Mercurii cursus, in infimoque orbe Luna radiis solis accensa convertitur. Infra autem iam nihil est nisi mortale et caducum praeter animos munere deorum hominum generi datos; supra Lunam sunt aeterna omnia. Nam ea, quae est media et nona, Tellus, neque movetur et infima est, et in eam feruntur omnia nutu suo pondera. [De Re Publica, Book VI, 17]

Nine orbs – more correctly, spheres – connect the whole cosmic order, of which one – beyond the others but enfolding them – is where the uppermost deity dwells, enclosing and containing all. There – embedded – are the constant stars with their sempiternal movement, while below are seven spheres whose cyclicity is different, and one of which is the sphere given the name on Earth of Saturn […]

Muliebral. For θηλυκὴ. The term muliebral derives from the classical Latin word muliebris, and is used here to refer to those positive traits, abilities, and qualities, that are conventionally and historically associated with women. Muliebral is more expressive – and more redolent of the meaning of the Greek – than ‘feminine’, especially given how the word ‘feminine’ is so often misused (sometimes in a pejorative way).

It should be noted that the older reading of θηλυκὴ γὰρ ὁ ἀὴρ makes Air – not Earth – the muliebral one.

Lustful. For ὀχευτικόν. The sense is similar to ἐπιθυμία as used, for example, in Romans 14.13 – τῆς σαρκὸς πρόνοιαν μὴ ποιεῖσθε εἰς ἐπιθυμίας [make no intention regarding the flesh, to gratify its carnal desires]

From Æther, the pnuema. ἐκ δὲ αἰθέρος τὸ πνεῦμα ἔλαβε. It is best to transliterate αἰθήρ – as Æther – given that it, like Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and pnuema, is an elemental principle, or a type of (or a particular) being, or some-thing archetypal.

cyclic until its completion. μέχρι περιόδου τέλους. I follow the reading of the Turnebus MS, taking περίοδος to refer to a posited cyclic – periodic – cosmic order, of Aeons, which periodicity continues until its purpose is achieved/fulfilled/completed.

18.

the connexions between all things. Compare this unbinding of the cosmic bonds with the ‘connexions’ that make up the nine spheres in the Somnium Scipionis [qv. the quotation from Cicero, above].

bringing into being portions that were masculous with the others muliebral. ἐγένετο τὰ μὲν ἀρρενικὰ ἐν μέρει τὰ δὲ θηλυκὰ ὁμοίως. The meaning of ἀρρενικὰ and θηλυκὰ are not ‘male’ and ‘female’ but rather masculous (masculine) and muliebral (of or considered appropriate to women).

propagate by propagation and spawn by spawning. The same Greek words – αὐξάνεσθε and πληθύνεσθε – occur in LXX, Genesis 1.22: ηὐλόγησεν αὐτὰ ὁ θεὸς λέγων αὐξάνεσθε καὶ πληθύνεσθε [“Theos praised them, saying: propagate and spawn”; Tyndale – “God blessed them saying, grow and multiply”; KJV – “God blessed them saying, Be fruitful and multiply”]. creations and artisements. κτίσματα καὶ δημιουργήματα. Although κτίσμα is generally translated here as ‘creature’ (as also for example in most translations of Revelation 5.13) I incline toward the view, given the context, that the more general sense of a ‘creation’ (or ‘created thing’) is meant – cf. Strabo, Geography, Book 16. 1 [ἧς ἐστι κτίσμα ἡ Βαβυλών] where what is described is a construct, a creation – a work constructed by or on behalf of someone. Here, what is described are the creations of theos.

In respect of ‘artisements’, see section 10.

the perceiver. ὁ ἔννους.

Eros as responsible for death. τὸν αἴτιον τοῦ θανάτου ἔρωτα. The consensus is, and has been, that ἔρωτα here signifies ‘carnal desire’ – or something similar – so that it is assumed that what is meant is some sort of ascetic (or Gnostic or puritanical) statement about how sexual desire should be avoided or at the very least controlled. However, this seems rather at variance with the foregoing – regarding propagating and spawning – which inclines me to suggest that what is meant here is ‘eros’, not necessarily personified as the classical deity (ἠδ᾽ Ἔρος ὃς κάλλιστος ἐν ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι πάντων δὲ θεῶν πάντων τ᾽ ἀνθρώπων δάμναται ἐν στήθεσσι νόον καὶ ἐπίφρονα βουλήν), although the comparison is interesting, but rather as an elemental or archetypal principle, akin to νοῦς and λόγος. Consider, for example, the following from Daphnis and Chloe, written by Longus around the same time as the Corpus Hermeticum: πάντως γὰρ οὐδεὶς ἔρωτα ἔφυγεν ἢ φεύξεται µέχρις ἂν κάλλος ᾖ καὶ ὀφθαλµοὶ βλέπωσιν [Book 1, Proem, 4 – “no one can avoid or has ever been able to avoid Eros, while there is beauty and eyes which perceive”]. In modern terms, few – poetically, metaphorically, none – have avoided or could avoid, at some time in their life, the unconscious power of the anima/animus.

Eros – as some-thing similar to an archetypal principle, applicable to or of (existing in/part of) “all beings/creations/things” – might also go some way toward explaining the καὶ πάντα τὰ ὄντα that follows in the text (for example in the Turnebus MS) for which various emendations have been proposed, including omitting it altogether.

19.

foreknowing, through wyrd…..coagulations. The foreknowing of theos, which enabled theos through wyrd and the cosmic structure to ‘found the generations’. The coagulations, the copulation, of beings (created things). self-knowledge. ἀναγνωρίσας ἑαυτὸν. A pedantic aside: here, as often elsewhere, I have gone against convention (grammatical and otherwise) by, where possible, choosing neutral personal pronouns, thus avoiding sentences such as “And he who has self-knowledge…” This sometimes results in using third person plural pronouns – such as ‘their’ and ‘they’ – as if they were personal pronouns, or using constructs such as “the one of self-knowledge” or “whoever has self-knowledge”. In addition, it should be noted that the grammatical categorization of a word (male, female, gender neutral) is only a grammatical categorization and does not always reflect the nature of the being that that word denotes or refers to.

a particular benefit. τὸ περιούσιον ἀγαθόν. Literally, ‘the particular benefit’ [an alternative, possibly better, translation would be ‘the esoteric benefit’]. What the text refers to is not some abstract ‘good’ but rather what is good for, what benefits, the person. Thus, self-knowledge can lead to a particular, a specific, benefit.

perceptively. αἰσθητῶς – cf. Strabo, Geography, Book 3, chapter 5.1, a description of a high tide; of the sea, due to the moon, begin to perceptively/visibly both rise and go far onto the shore – ἄρχεσθαι διοιδεῖν τὴν θάλατταν καὶ ἐπιβαίνειν τῆς γῆς αἰσθητῶς μέχρι μεσουρανήσεως.

20.

to discover things. That is, discover/apprehend for yourself, to reveal (dis-cover) the nature of things, and thus fully understand them; qv. section 3 (‘apprehend the physis of beings’) and section 6 (‘then discover phaos and become familiar with it’) and section 7 (‘such I observed and discovered because of those words of Pœmandres’).

why death is expected for those who are in death. διὰ τί ἄξιοί εἰσι τοῦ θανάτου οἱ ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ ὄντες. Somewhat obscure, given the phrase ‘in death’ and given that what follows – “because originally…” – does not really offer an explanation of it.

I take the meaning of ἀξιόω here to be ‘expect’ rather than ‘worthy’ given (i) what the English phrase ‘they are worthy of death’ (or ‘they deserve death’) implies, an implication – a moralizing attitude – that is not justified by either the immediate context or the rest of the text, and (ii) usages such as (a) νῦν παρ᾽ ὑμῶν τὸ αὐτὸ ἀξιοῦμεν κομίζεσθαι [‘we now expect to receive the same from you’; Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, Book 1, chapter 43] and (b) ὥστε οὐκ οἴκτου οἱ τοιοῦτοι ἄξιοί εἰσιν, ἀλλὰ τιμωρίας [‘they are expected to be punished not pitied’, Hyperides, Orations Against Philippides, 2.12]

Nourishes. ἀρδεύεται here is obviously metaphorical, as it literally means “is irrigated/watered” as in Diodorus Siculus when he describes India – τὰ πολλὰ δὲ τῆς χώρας ἀρδεύεται καὶ διὰ τοῦτο διττοὺς ἔχει τοὺς κατ᾽ ἔτος καρπούς [‘much of the land is irrigated which is why there are two yields a year’; Bibliotheca Historica, Book 2, 35.3]

21.

progress within themselves. εἰς αὐτὸν χωρεῖ. Literally, ‘progress to (or proceed/advance toward) him’, with the usual assumption being that it is theos that is meant (hence, ‘proceed toward theos’), with the alternative translation, of ‘progress to themselves’, ignored. However, given the immediate context – of a self-discovery – and given examples such as Mark 7.15 (εἰσπορευόμενον εἰς αὐτὸν, entering into him) and given that (insofar as I understand it) the tractate concerns (i) self-knowing, (ii) a ‘mysterium’ that is esoteric, and (iii) a desire to know and to understand ‘the physis of beings’, rather than a religious ‘progressing toward god’ à la Thomas à Kempis, then I am inclined to favour the somewhat radical translation of ‘within themselves’.

the father of all beings. ὁ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων. The word ‘all’ by itself does not really capture the sense of ὅλων here, which is ‘all beings’. The phrase ὁ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων occurs in many other writings, some of which are Christian. For instance in the Τοῦ ἁγίου Ἰουστίνουv πρὸς Τρύφωνα Ἰουδαῖον Διάλογος [The Dialogue of Justinus with Trypho, a Jew] where it is said in the context of Christ being crucified, dying, and then being raised again by ‘the father of all’ for the benefit of all human beings – τὸν ἑαυτοῦ Χριστὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐκ παντὸς γένους ἀνθρώπων ὁ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων τὰς πάντων κατάρας ἀναδέξασθαι ἐβουλήθη (xcv, 2).

However, interestingly and relevant here, the phrase also occurs in the polemic by Irenaeus against the ‘heresy of gnosticism’ – the Adversus Haereses [ἔλεγχος και άνατροπή της ψευδωνύμου γνώσεω] – written not long before the Pœmandres tractate:

μεταδοῦναί σοι θέλω τῆς ἐμῆς χάριτος ἐπειδὴ ὁ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων τὸν ἄγγελόν σου διαπαντὸς βλέπει πρὸ προσώπου αὑτοῦ ὁ δὲ τόπος τοῦ μεγέθους ἐν ἡμῖν ἐστι δι’ ἡμᾶς ἐγκαταστῆσαι (Book I, Chapter 13, 3)

I desire to pass on to you my Charis because the father of all beings has observed that your angel is constantly before him

These are the words Irenaeus ascribes to a person called Marcus, ‘the heretic’; words used by this person skilled in the trickery of sorcery (μαγικῆς κυβείας ἐμπειρότατον) to, apparently, entice men and wealthy women to be his followers. Irenaeus then goes on, in a passage also quoted by Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica (4.11.5), to describe some of the rites – the ‘disgusting initiation into the mysteries’ – of these people, and which rites include a ‘mystical marriage’ (πνευματικὸν γάμον) as well as a doxology to ‘the father and the mother’, εἰς ὄνομα ἀγνώστου πατρὸς τῶν ὅλων εἰς ἀλήθειαν μητέρα τῶν πάντων, and which doxology, with its contrast between ὅλων (ascribed to the father) and πάντων (ascribed to the mother) may go some way toward explaining the meaning of ὅλων as used here, in the Pœmandres tractate, given that μητέρα πάντων – as Γαία, Earth Mother – is the subject of, among other things, one of the Homeric hymns, Εἲς Γῆν Μητέρα Πάντων, where She is described as πρέσβιστος, the elder among beings, and the mother of the gods, θεῶν μήτηρ.

Thus, πατρὸς τῶν ὅλων as the father of all beings, and μητέρα τῶν πάντων as the mother of being, of all Life, both mortal and immortal.

22. respectful deeds. ὁσίοις. A difficult word to translate, given that most of the English alternatives – such as religious, pious, holy, devout, blessed, sinless, saintly, humble – have acquired, over centuries, particular religious meanings, often associated with Christianity or types of asceticism; meanings which, in my view, are not or may not be relevant here, and whose use would distort one’s understanding of the text. The correct meaning is someone who, aware of or sensitive to the difference between the numinous and un-numinous [regarding ‘numinous’, see the note on ἅγιος in section 5], seeks to avoid, in their behaviour, what might cause them to hubriatically ‘overstep the limits’ and thus unbalance them, so taking them away from that natural balance and that respect for the numinous, which they personally, by their (or a particular) way of living (personal, religious, spiritual, mystical, or otherwise) seek or desire to cultivate, or which (and importantly) is a natural part of their admirable (and often admired) character. For example:

ἐκεῖνός γε μὴν ὑμνῶν οὔποτ᾽ ἔληγεν ὡς τοὺς θεοὺς οἴοιτο οὐδὲν ἧττον ὁσίοις ἔργοις ἢ ἁγνοῖς ἱεροῖς ἥδεσθαι ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ ὁπότε εὐτυχοίη οὐκ ἀνθρώπων ὑπερεφρόνει ἀλλὰ θεοῖς χάριν ᾔδει καὶ θαρρῶν πλείονα ἔθυεν ἢ ὀκνῶν ηὔχετο εἴθιστο δὲ φοβούμενος μὲν ἱλαρὸς φαίνεσθαι εὐτυχῶν δὲ πρᾷος εἶναι [Xenophon, Agesilaus, 11.2]

this person, whom I praise, never ceased to believe that the gods delight in respectful deeds just as much as in consecrated temples, and, when blessed with success, he was never prideful but rather gave thanks to the gods. He also made more offerings to them when he was confident than supplications when he felt hesitant, and, in appearance, it was his habit to be cheerful when doubtful and mild-mannered when successful.

For these reasons, I have translated not as one English word, but as the phrase ‘respectful deeds’. See also the note on εὐσεβέω below.

honourable. ἀγαθός. The sense is not of being ‘good’ in some moralistic, sanctimonious, superior, way, but rather of being of noble character, as for example described in the Corpus Aristotelicum:

τῆς δὲ φρονήσεώς ἐστι τὸ βουλεύσασθαι, τὸ κρῖναι τὰ ἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰ κακὰ καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν τῷ βίῳ αἱρετὰ καὶ φευκτά, τὸ χρῆσθαι πᾶσι καλῶς τοῖς ὑπάρχουσιν ἀγαθοῖς, τὸ ὁμιλῆσαι ὀρθῶς [De Virtutibus et Vitiis Libellus 1250a]

It is part of wisdom to accept advice, to distinguish the honourable, the dishonourable, and all that is, in life, acceptable or to be avoided; to fairly use all resources; to be genuine in company

refined. καθαροῖς. Literally it means ‘physically clean’, often in the sense of being in a state of ritual purification: qv. the inscription on one of the ancient tablets (totenpasse) found in Thurii – ἔρχομαι ἐκ καθαρῶν καθαρά χθονίων βασίλεια (in arrivance, purified from the purified, mistress of the chthonic).

Since the English word ‘pure’ is unsuitable given its connotations – religious, sanctimonious, political, and otherwise – I have opted for the not altogether satisfactory ‘refined’.

compassionate. ἐλεήμοσι. Those who undertake merciful, charitable, humane, deeds; qv. Luke 11.41 (πλὴν τὰ ἐνόντα δότε ἐλεημοσύνην, καὶ ἰδοὺ πάντα καθαρὰ ὑμῖν ἐστιν), Acts 10:2, κτλ.

aware of the numinous. εὐσεβοῦσι. As with ὁσίοις, εὐσεβέω is a difficult word to translate, given that most of the English alternatives – such as reverent, pious – have acquired, over centuries, particular religious meanings, often associated with Christianity or types of asceticism. The correct sense is ‘aware of the numinous’, and thus imbued with that sense of duty, that sense of humility – or rather, an awareness of their human limitations – which makes them appreciate and respect the numinous in whatever form, way, or manner they appreciate, feel, intuit, apprehend, or understand, the numinous, be it in terms of the gods, the god, Μοῖραι τρίμορφοι μνήμονές τ᾽ Ἐρινύες, God, or whatever. It is this awareness which inclines a person toward ‘respectful deeds’ [qv. ὁσίοις, above].

soon acquire knowledge of the whole. εὐθὺς τὰ πάντα γνωρίζουσι. Knowledge of ‘the whole picture’; of what has been and is being discussed: perceiveration; the cosmic structure; the nature of humans; the seven viziers; and so on. The sense is not “gnosis of all things”, which – in its hubris – is incompatible with the immediately proceeding mention of εὐσεβέω and ὁσίοις.

affectionately gracious toward. There are two ways of interpreting τὸν πατέρα ἱλάσκονται ἀγαπητικῶς and what follows. (i) As if it is some kind of Christian eulogy by the faithful, with mention of “lovingly propitiating the father” and the “singing of hymns” to him; and (ii) in a rather more religiously neutral way with phrases such as ἱλάσκονται ἀγαπητικῶς and words such as ὑμνεῦσιν suggesting the more Hellenic “affectionately gracious” and “celebrating in song”. I have chosen the latter, as it is, in my view, more in harmony with the rest of the text.

the influencing impressions. αἰσθήσεις. What is meant here is not simply ‘the [bodily] senses’ nor what is perceptible to or perceived by the senses, but rather those particular impressions, conveyed by the senses, which influence a person in a way which is disliked because they do or they can affect a person in a manner detrimental to their immortality. That is, not all ‘feelings’ nor all ‘sensations’ are meant but only those which impresses upon [cf. Circero, Academica, 2.6, impressum effictumque] a person in a certain way and thus affect that person also in a certain way, as ‘impressionable feelings’ do:

αὐτὸς δὲ διὰ ποιημάτων φιλοσοφεῖ, καθάπερ Ἡσίοδός τε καὶ Ξενοφάνης καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς κριτήριον δὲ τὸν λόγον εἶπε: τάς τε αἰσθήσεις μὴ ἀκριβεῖς ὑπάρχειν φησὶ γοῦν [Diogenes Laertius, Parmenides, 9.3]

he himself, through the form of verse, presented his knowledge, as did Hesiod, Xenophanes and Empedocles, stating that it was a way of judging what was reasonable since impressionable feelings were not an accurate enough starting point

This is the type of ‘impression’ – the type of influence – meant by some alchemical texts, for example, in the Compound of Alchymy, by Ripley, contained in the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum [‘the Body of the Spryte taketh impression’ (ix. xi)] and also, some centuries later, by Hume in his Treatise on Human Nature [‘those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may name impressions’ (I. i. 12)]. Cf. also Aristotle, Poetics 1451a – τοῦ δὲ μήκους ὅρος ὁ μὲν πρὸς τοὺς ἀγῶνας καὶ τὴν αἴσθησιν οὐ τῆς τέχνης ἐστίν – where what is meant is the ‘impression’ made upon an audience, which thus influences them.

the bad. The usual translation of κακός here, as often elsewhere, is ‘evil’. However, I regard such a translation as unhelpful, given that the English word ‘evil’ is (1) now often interpreted and understood in a moralistic, preconceived, way according to some theological dogma/criteria and/or according to some political/social doctrine, and (2) that it does not denote what the classical and the Hellenic term κακός does.

Classically understood κακός is what is bad in the sense of some-thing rotten or unhealthy, or – the opposite of κάλος – what is displeasing to see. κακός is also what is unlucky, a misfortune, and/or injurious, as for example in The Agamemnon

τὸ μὲν γυναῖκα πρῶτον ἄρσενος δίχα ἧσθαι δόμοις ἔρημον ἔκπαγλον κακόν (vv. 862-3)

Primarily, for a lady to be separate from her mate – To remain unprotected by family – is a harsh misfortune

When applied to a person, the sense is of a ‘rotten’ person; someone with bad, harmful, physis; a bad – dishonourable, weak, cowardly – personal character; someone whose nature, for examples, inclines them toward doing harm and doing what is generally considered to be wrong.

This sense is still appropriate to Hellenic usage. For example, in respect of Romans 12.17 with its contrast of κακός and κάλος:

μηδενὶ κακὸν ἀντὶ κακοῦ ἀποδιδόντες προνοούμενοι καλὰ ἐνώπιον πάντων ἀνθρώπων

Do not render what is bad with what is bad; rather, show concern for what all humans see is good

Similarly with the synonym σαπρός, as for example in Luke 6.43-5:

Οὐ γὰρ ἐστιν δένδρον καλὸν ποιοῦν καρπὸν σαπρόν, οὐδὲ πάλιν δένδρον σαπρὸν ποιοῦν καρπὸν καλόν, ἕκαστον γὰρ δένδρον ἐκ τοῦ ἰδίου καρποῦ γινώσκεται· ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θησαυροῦ τῆς καρδίας προφέρει τὸ ἀγαθόν, καὶ ὁ πονηρὸς ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ προφέρει τὸ πονηρόν· ἐκ γὰρ περισσεύματος καρδίας λαλεῖ τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ

For no healthy tree brings forth rotten fruit just as a rotten tree cannot bring forth healthy fruit. For each tree is judged by its fruit. A good person from the store of good in their heart brings forth what is good, and a bad person from their bad store brings forth what is bad; for it is because of an overflowing heart that the mouth speaks.

23.

hubriatic. ἀσεβέσι; someone lacking in or who is arrogantly disdainful of σέβομαι, of what is regarded as honourable, revered, respected. Someone who is thus ‘hubriatic’. It is the opposite of εὐσεβέω, that is, the opposite of someone who is aware of and respectful of the numinous.

the avenging daemon. τῷ τιμωρῷ δαίμον. Τιμωρῷ is an epithet of the god Mars, mentioned by Cassius Dio Cocceianus in his Historiae Romanae when he recounts how Caligula, celebrating the murder of someone, sent three daggers to the temple of Mars the Avenger, in Rome, as offerings to the god – ξιφίδια τρία τῷ Ἄρει τῷ Τιμωρῷ ἐς [Book 59, chapter 22 v.7].

Correctly understood, a δαίμων (daemon) is neither a ‘demon’ nor one of the pantheon of major Greek gods – θεοί – but rather a lesser type of divinity who might be assigned by those gods to bring good fortune or misfortune to human beings and/or to watch over certain human beings and especially particular numinous (sacred) places.

which tests them. καὶ τοῦτον βασανίζει. The sense here is rather obscure, with some proposed emendations (for example, οὕτως, and τοῦτο for τοῦτον). I take the sense here of βασανίζω to be ‘tested’, as in being ‘put to the test’; a sense in accord with what precedes and with what follows.

24.

Anados. ἄνοδος. A transliteration, as the word has specific meanings in ancient Greek ‘mystery cults’ and in Hellenic ‘mysticism’, one of which meanings is the ascent, or progress, or journey, of the initiate/individual toward their goal, however that goal/ascent/progress/journey is described and/or understood, and/or represented (symbolically, mythologically, or otherwise). Quite often, the journey – the ‘way up’ – is described as the one between the living and the dead (the next life) or as one from the chthonic (the underworld) to our mortal world; which journey sometimes involves a symbolic/mythological death and then a rebirth.

the dissolution of the physical body allows that body to be transformed. ἐν τῇ ἀναλύσει τοῦ σώματος τοῦ ὑλικοῦ παραδίδως αὐτὸ τὸ σῶμα εἰς ἀλλοίωσιν. Literally, ‘in the dissolution of the material body it hands over that body to alteration’.

ethos. ἦθος. Here, ethos in the personal sense; the ‘spirit’ – the personality – of an individual: their traits, character, disposition, nature, temperament.

25.

in the first realm. The sphere of the Moon, the first of the seven planetary/alchemical/astrological spheres, realms, or emanations – the ἑβδομάς; hebdomad, septenary system – that, in respect of the journey (ἄνοδος) of the mortal toward immortality, form the basis of, are emanations of, the harmonious cosmic structure (qv. sections 9 and 14). On this journey, the mortal passes through each realm – sphere – in turn.

which grows and which fades. Cf. Sextus Empiricus – ταύτην δὲ ἤτοι αὐξητικὴν ἢ μειωτικήν [Adversus Mathematicos, IX, 393]

arrogance of command. Reading ὑπερηφανίαν not προφανίαν.

26.

ogdoadic physis. ὀγδοατικὴν φύσιν. An interesting and important term, often overlooked and often misinterpreted. What is meant is not a realm – ζώνῃ – or sphere, similar to but ‘beyond’ the seven realms, but rather ‘of what’ the mortal has become, is reborn as, at the end of the journey: partaking in and being of ‘the ogdoadic physis’, and thus sharing the being/existence of those who have, or who have attained, that particular type of being/existence/physis. The existence, that is, of an immortal beyond the seven emanations.

with the others there, celebrates the father in song. ὑμνεῖ σὺν τοῖς οὖσι τὸν πατέρα. Again – qv. section 22 – not ‘hymns’ in the Christian sense but rather celebrating in song/verse/chant; celebrating the father of this mortal, the parent of all mortals, and ὁ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων, the ‘grandfather’ of all beings (qv. section 21).
force. δύναμις. Cf. section 7. Those forces, those particular powers – or, more precisely, that type (or those types) of being(s) or existence – that are not only beyond the septenary system but beyond the ogdoadic physis of those mortals who have, because of their journey (ἄνοδος) through the septenary system, achieved immortality.

It is therefore easy to understand why some considered there were, or represented their understanding/insight by, ‘nine’ (seven plus two) fundamental cosmic emanations, or by nine realms or spheres [qv. the quote from Cicero in section 17] – the seven of the hebdomad, plus the one of the ‘ogdoadic physis’ mentioned here, plus the one (also mentioned here) of what is beyond even this ‘ogdoadic physis’. However, as this text describes, there are seven realms or spheres – a seven-fold path to immortality, accessible to living mortals – and then two types of existence (not spheres) beyond these, accessible only after the mortals has journeyed along that path and then, having ‘offered up’ certain things along the way (their mortal ethos), ‘handed over their body to its death’. Ontologically, therefore, the seven might somewhat simplistically be described as partaking of what is ‘causal’ (of what is mortal) and the two types of existence beyond the seven as partaking of – as being – ‘acausal’ (of what is immortal). Thus, Pœmandres goes on to say, the former mortal – now immortal – moves on (from this first type of ‘acausal existence’) to become these forces (beyond the ogdoadic physis) to thus finally ‘unite with theos’: αὐτοὶ εἰς δυνάμεις ἑαυ τοὺς παραδιδόασι καὶ δυνάμεις γενόμενοι ἐν θεῷ γίνονται.

26.

become united with theos. ἐν θεῷ γίνονται. Literally, ‘[they] become in theos’, or ‘[they] enter into theos’, although given what follows – θεωθῆναι – what is meant is ‘become of/be united with theos’, and thus ‘become-of’ what is no longer mortal but rather both immortal and ‘of theos’.

become of theos. θεωθῆναι. This does not mean ‘made divine/god’, or ‘achieve divinity’ or ‘become god/a god’, or deification, but rather, having become immortal, to be (re)united with theos and thus, by such a ‘becoming’, re-present (become-of) in that new (acausal) existence the numinosity of theos, and which return and re-presentation is the real aim of our mortal lives and the function of λόγος, and of the λόγοι (such as pneumal logos and the phaomal logos). That is, as explained in some of the rather neglected works of Maximus of Constantinople [qv. Migne Patrologiae Graeca, 90 and 91], Θεώσις in the sense of reunited with theos – ultimately because of ἀγάπη – without actually being or becoming ‘a divinity’ or ‘God’:

τῆς ἐπὶ τῷ θεωθῆναι τὸν ἄνθρωπον μυστικῆς ἐνεργείας λήψεται πέρας κατὰ πάντα τρόπον χωρὶς μόνης δηλονότι τῆς πρὸς αὐτὸν κατ οὐσίαν ταυτότητος. Quæstiones ad Thalassium de Scriptura Sacra, XXII [Patrologiae Graeca, 90, c.0318]

the end of the opus mysterium of human beings becoming of Theos can be in all ways except one, namely that of having the identity of His Essence

the noble goal. τὸ ἀγαθὸν τέλος. This might well be taken as an axiom of the ‘hermetic’ weltanschauung presented in this tractate. In respect of ἀγαθός as honourable/noble, see the note in section 22.

those who seek to acquire knowledge. Given the use here of the word γνῶσις, the sense could be interpreted, and has by others been interpreted, to mean ‘those who seek to acquire/attain gnosis’.

other mortals can – through theos – escape. I take the sense of σώζω here be to ‘escape’, for the English word ‘saved’ now imposes, after nearly two thousand years of scriptural exegesis and preaching, various religious preconceptions on the text. Also, the usual translation of ‘saved by god’ is somewhat at variance with the hermetic/gnostic weltanschauung which suggests a progression –

ἄνοδος – through the realms/spheres in order to attain immortality. For the ‘escape’ is from the mortal to the immortal, and therefore to be ‘saved’, because of theos, so that (qv. section 21) they can “progress to return to Life”

27.

joined with those forces. The meaning here is somewhat obscure, although it possibly signifies that Pœmandres leaves the mortal realm and rejoins – returns to – his existence, beyond the hebdomad, where those forces/powers exist.

an insight of great importance. μεγίστην θέαν. An important ‘insight into’ the workings of the cosmos, immortality, and the nature of mortals, rather than ‘a vision’ or a ‘revelation’.

awareness of the numinous. See the note on ‘aware of the numinous’/εὐσεβέω in section 22.

earth-bound mortals. ἄνδρες γηγενεῖς. The literal meaning is ‘earth-born mortals’, which is rather obscure here, although what is meant is probably not the somewhat pejorative ‘primordial/primitive’ type [qv. ἔστι ἐν τῇ ἀκροπόλι ταύτῃ Ἐρεχθέος τοῦ γηγενέος λεγομένου εἶναι νηός, Herodotus, 8.55; and ἄλλοι δὲ γηγενεῖς καὶ χαλκάσπιδας, Strabo, 10.3] nor even the ‘earthy/rural’ type [qv. μὴ μισήσῃς ἐπίπονον ἐργασίαν καὶ γεωργίαν ὑπὸ ῾Υψίστου ἐκτισμένην, LXX, Sirach 7.15] but rather the contrast, mentioned in section 15, between those ‘deathful of body’ and the ‘deathlessness of the inner mortal’; with a similar contrast occurring in Plato [οὐδὲν γὰρ γηγενὲς Ὀλυμπίων ἐντιμότερον ἀλλ᾽ ὁ περὶ ψυχῆς ἄλλως δοξάζων ἀγνοεῖ ὡς θαυμαστοῦ τούτου κτήματος ἀμελεῖ, Laws 727e]. Hence my suggestion of ‘earth-bound’, which is apposite considering what follows – οἱ μέθῃ καὶ ὕπνῳ ἑαυτοὺς ἐκδε δωκότες.

sleepfulness. To translate ὕπνος here as simply ‘sleep’ is not particularly helpful to the reader, as what seems to be implied is not normal everyday ‘sleep’ – a necessity for all humans – since such normal healthy sleep is a strange companion for ‘intoxicating liquor’. Regarding ὕπνος, Jebb in his commentary on Antigone in respect of ὕπνος ὁ παντογήρως (v.606) mentioned that “sleep, the renewer of vigour, could not be described as ‘bringing old age to all’. Nor can the epithet be explained as ‘enfeebling all’, in the sense of ‘subduing them’; nor, again, as ‘attending on all, even to old age’,” which led him to write that παντογήρως was probably corrupt and to suggest, as some others had done, an emendation.

The fact that sleep personified, as Hypnos/Somnus, is the brother of Death [qv. ἔνθ᾽ Ὕπνῳ ξύμβλητο κασιγνήτῳ Θανάτοιο, Iliad, 14.231] is also in favour of normal, healthy, sleep not being meant, as does what follows – θελγόμενοι ὕπνῳ ἀλόγῳ. Thus a possible alternative would be to interpret ὕπνος here somewhat metaphorically, either as a ‘state of mind’ (such as ‘sleepwalking through life’) or as something akin to soporation (an underused English word, from the Latin) with the meaning here of ‘an inclination or a tendency to sleep excessively or unnecessarily; to be inactive, drowsy, sleepful; disconnected from reality’. Hence my tentative interpretation – ‘sleepfulness’.

unknowing of theos. ἀγνωσίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ. Unknowing is a more suitable English word – given its meaning, usage (past and present) and given the context – than ‘ignorance’

stop your drunkenness. παύσασθε δὲ κραιπαλῶντες. Literally, ‘cease to be intoxicated’. It is interesting to compare this preaching to what Plutarch wrote about Demosthenes:

ὀδυρομένου δὲ τοῦ Δημοσθένους πρὸς αὐτόν ὅτι πάντων φιλοπονώτατος ὢν τῶν λεγόντων καὶ μικροῦ δέων καταναλωκέναι τὴν τοῦ σώματος ἀκμὴν εἰς τοῦτο χάριν οὐκ ἔχει πρὸς τὸν δῆμον, ἀλλὰ κραιπαλῶντες ἄνθρωποι ναῦται καὶ ἀμαθεῖς ἀκούονται καὶ κατέχουσι τὸ βῆμα, παρορᾶται δ᾽ αὐτός [Demosthenes, 7.1]

To him, Demosthenes complained that although he was an industrious orator and had expended much bodily vigour in pursuing that duty, he was not favoured by the people who ignored him but listened to those who were intoxicated, the ignorant, and sailors, when they and their like held the floor.

28.

change your ways. μετανοήσατε. Not ‘repent’, which imposes a particular religious interpretation upon the text.

have kinship with the unknowing ones. συγκοινωνήσαντες τῇ ἀγνοίᾳ. Kinship in the sense of being ‘kindred spirits’, or ‘fellow travellers’.

dark phaos. σκοτεινοῦ φωτός. An interesting phrase, lost in translation when φως is translated as ‘light’. See the note on phaos in section 4.

29.

threw themselves down at my feet. ἑαυτοὺς πρὸ ποδῶν μου ῥίψαντε. A literal translation, although, given what follows, it seems unlikely that this is a metaphorical expression of their eagerness to learn. Indeed, this whole section seems rather at variance with the rest of the text – especially considering the following καθοδηγὸς ἐγενόμην τοῦ γένους – although perhaps ‘the guide’, having only just been informed of certain esoteric matters by Pœmandres, is here in this section somewhat obliquely revealing that he himself has yet (qv. section 25) to offer up “that eagerness which deceives; the arrogance of command; profane insolence.”

became a guide to those of my kind. That is, not ‘a guide to my race/mankind’ but a guide to those who, seeking immortality, desire to undertake the journey through the seven spheres and thus are akin to – of the same type as – the guide.

informing them of the logoi. τοὺς λόγους διδάσκων. The logoi [plural of logos] are – qv. the note on θεωθῆναι in section 26 – the various apparent forms (or emanations) of the logos, and include the pneumal logos, the phaomal logos, and the logos kyrios, previously mentioned in the text. They are often considered to be how the logos is sometimes manifest to us, as mortals who are yet to begin or are yet to progress far along the septenary path toward immortality. Furthermore, those who are on the journey – following the way to theos – are also logoi.

logoi of sapientia. σοφίας λόγους. Something more than just ‘words of [the] wisdom’ is meant, especially as the English word ‘wisdom’ does not fully reflect the meaning (and the various shades) of σοφία, especially in a metaphysical (or esoteric) context, in this case of ‘the opus mysterium’. The use here, in my translation, of the terms logoi and sapientia is intended – as with transliterations such as phaos – to cause the reader to pause and perhaps engender in them a certain curiosity as to what the terms may, or may not, mean, suggest, or imply, and to thus (and hopefully) convey something about the original text.

celestial elixir. ἀμβροσίου ὕδατος. Literally, ‘ambrosial water’; the food/drink that, in mythology, confers and maintains the immortality of the gods and chosen mortals.

30.

temperance of [the] psyche. τῆς ψυχῆς νῆψις. Again transliterating ψυχῆς, since the English word ‘soul’ imposes particular – religious/philosophical, and/or modern – meanings on the text, whereas it may well be used here in its classical/Hellenic sense of ‘spark’ (or breath) of life; that is, as referring to that ‘thing’ (principle, or cause) which animates mortal beings making them ‘alive’, and which principle or cause was also personified as Psyche.

genuine insight. ἀληθινὴ ὅρασις. Cf. μεγίστην θέαν in section 27.

expression of the logos. It not clear how or in what form this manifestation of the logos occurs, although the context – of silence – might suggest that ‘utterance’ or ‘speech’ is not meant.

the logos of authority. τῆς αὐθεντίας λόγου. A similar expression occurs in section 3 also in reference to Pœmandres – τῆς αὐθεντίας νοῦς, the perceiveration of authority.

this revealing. I take the sense of ἀληθείας here to be not some abstract (undefined, probably contentious and thus possibly undefinable) ‘truth’ but rather as a revealing of what is ‘genuine’ as distinct from what is mere ‘appearance’. Here, literally, ‘the revealing’ – of the nature of mortals, of the way to immortality, of logos and of theos.

31.

Agios o theos, father of all beings. ἅγιος ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων. For πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων, see the note in section 22.

I have given, as an intimation, a transliteration of the first part, as these are doxologies, similar to the Kyrie eleison [Κύριε ἐλέησον], and much (if not all) of their numinous/sacred/mystical/esoteric quality and meaning are lost when they are translated into plain – or into archaic, KJV type – English. Although they are best read/recited in the original Greek, the Latin preserves much of the numinosity of these and other such doxologies. The Latin of the nine doxologies given here is:
Sanctus deus pater universorum.
Sanctus deus, cuius consilium ad finem deducitur a propriis potentiis. Sanctus deus, qui cognosci vult et cognoscitur a suis.
Sanctus es, qui verbo constituisti entia omnia.
Sanctus es, cuius universa natura imago nata est.
Sanctus es, quem natura non formavit.
Sanctus es, qui omni potentia es fortior.
Sanctus es, qui omni excellentia es maior.
Sanctus es, qui omnes superas laudes.

The Greek text is:
ἅγιος ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων.
ἅγιος ὁ θεὸς, οὗ ἡ βουλὴ τελεῖται ἀπὸ τῶν ἰδίων δυνάμεων.
ἅγιος ὁ θεός, ὃς γνωσθῆναι βούλεται καὶ γινώσκεται τοῖς ἰδίοις.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ λόγῳ συστησάμενος τὰ ὄντα.
ἅγιος εἶ, οὗ πᾶσα φύσις εἰκὼν ἔφυ. ἅγιος εἶ, ὃν ἡ φύσις οὐκ ἐμόρφωσεν. ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ πάσης δυνάμεως ἰσχυρότερος.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ πάσης ὑπεροχῆς μείζων.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ κρείττων τῶν ἐπαίνων.

ἅγιος ὁ approximates to ‘Numinous is’ [theos] – qv. the note on ἅγιος in section 5 – and ἅγιος εἶ to ‘Numinous are’ [you]. As to why there are nine doxologies, it may be (and probably is) just a coincidence, or it may reflect the 7+2 structure of the 7 causal aspects (the hebdomad) and the 2 ‘acausal’ modes of being beyond them (qv. the note on δύναμις in section 26).

his own arts. I take the sense of δυνάμεων here to be not ‘powers’, forces (or something similar) but ‘arts’; that is, those abilities, qualities, skills, and strengths – of the ‘artisan-creator’ – which are inherent in theos and express the very nature of theos. Abilities, qualities, skills, and strengths, which an artisan – with assistance and help and instruction from theos, the chief artisan – uses, for example, to ‘fashion seven viziers’ and the ‘fine artisements of physis’. See sections 9-13 and the notes thereon.

whose disposition is to be recognized. γνωσθῆναι here with γινώσκεται is not exactly the straightforward ‘[who] wills/desires to be known’ but rather the more subtle ‘[whose] disposition is to be recognized’, and (i) disposition/inclination as an expression of the nature, the very being, of theos, (ii) to be recognized in the sense of to be perceived for who and what theos is, in essence, in very being. Those who so recognize theos – who thus understand and ‘appreciate’ theos and are cognizant of the type of Being theos is – are those who partake in some way, or who re-present or emanate, or who ‘imitate’ [qv. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ] the nature of that Being; and which Being is therefore ‘recognized/understood by those who are of his [type of] being,’ although the Greek literally means “is recognized by his own”.

Agios es. For ἅγιος εἶ. Combining the Latin with the Greek, for readability and expressiveness.

form all being. In both senses of the term ‘form’ – constitute, and form being into beings and which beings are or can be re-united with Being (theos) by logos.

you who engender all physis as eikon. The meaning and significance of this are often overlooked and often lost in translation. I have transliterated εἰκὼν as here it does not only mean what the English words ‘image’ or ‘likeness’ suggest or imply, but rather it is similar to what Maximus of Constantinople in his Mystagogia [Patrologiae Graeca, 91, c.0658] explains. Which is of we humans, and the cosmos, and Nature, and psyche, as eikons, although according to Maximus it is the Christian church itself (as manifest and embodied in Jesus of Nazareth and the Apostles and their successors and in scripture) which, being the eikon of God, enables we humans to recognize this, recognize God, be in communion with God, return to God, and thus find and fulfil the meaning of our being, our existence.

According to the hermetic weltanschauung, as outlined by Pœmandres here, all physis – the being, nature, character, of beings – their essence beyond the form/appearence their being is or assumes or is perceived as – re-presents (manifests, is an eikon of) theos. That is, the physis of beings can be considered not only as an emanation of theos but as re-presenting his Being, his essence. To recognize this, to recognize theos, to be in communion with theos, to return to theos, and thus become immortal, there is the way up (anados) through the seven spheres:

Thus does the mortal hasten through the harmonious structure, offering up, in the first realm, that vigour which grows and which fades, and – in the second one – those dishonourable machinations, no longer functioning. In the third, that eagerness which deceives, no longer functioning; in the fourth, the arrogance of command, no longer insatiable; in the fifth, profane insolence and reckless haste; in the sixth, the bad inclinations occasioned by riches, no longer functioning; and in the seventh realm, the lies that lie in wait. [Section 25]

you whom the Physis did not morph. Given the construction – ὃν ἡ φύσις – I have capitalized Physis here (see sections 14 and 17]. By ‘morph’ is meant what the Greek term (ἐμόρφωσεν) implies, which is ‘shape or transform’ into some-thing-else, to give some-thing the ‘semblance’ of theos. That is, theos was, is, and remains, theos; there is no-thing resembling theos.

you who are mightier than all artifice. The artifice – the works, expedients, skill, manifestations, artisements, products, machinations, ingenuity, the ‘domination’, and the force – of others.

It is interesting to compare this might, the strength and power of theos, with what Epictetus writes about human strength in his Discourses:

οὔτε τύραννος κωλύσει με θέλοντα οὔτε δεσπότης οὔτε οἱ πολλοὶ τὸν ἕνα οὔθ᾽ ὁ ἰσχυρότερος τὸν ἀσθενέστερον: τοῦτο γὰρ ἀκώλυτον δέδοται ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ἑκάστῳ [4.5]

neither a tyrannos nor some Lord shall negate my intent; nor some crowd although I be just one; nor someone stronger although I be weaker, since such unhindrance is a gift, to everyone, from theos

wordful. The expressive term ‘wordful’ is more suitable here than ‘speech’, and also contrasts well with ‘ineffable’ and ‘inexpressible’.

32.

the knowledge. For τῆς γνώσεως, although ‘acquiring the knowledge’ and ‘the gnosis’ are alternatives, so that with the latter it reads “I ask of you to grant that I am not foiled in the gnosis germane to our essence”, with the phrase ‘our essence’ referring to the essence – οὐσία – of both mortals and theos.

favour. χάρις. A gift, favour, or kindness, here from theos [χάρις θεοῦ] and which type of gift is also mentioned in the New Testament (for example, Luke, 2.40). See also the quotation from Irenaeus in the note on the father of all beings in section 21.

the unknowing. In respect of ‘unknowing’ see the note in section 27.

who are your children. In respect of υἱὸς as the gender neutral ‘child’, rather than ‘son’, see the note on υἱὸς θεοῦ in section 6, and also the note on gender neutrality under ἀναγνωρίσας ἑαυτὸν in section 19.

share in [your] numinosity. For συναγιάζειν.

(Discourse) of Hermes Trismegistus:
Poimandres
(Copenhaver)

[1] Once, when thought came to me of the things that are and my
thinking soared high and my bodily senses were restrained, like someone
heavy with sleep from too much eating or toil of the body, an enormous
being completely unbounded in size seemed to appear to me and call
my name and say to me: “What do you want to hear and see; what do
you want to learn and know from your understanding?”

[2] “Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Poimandres,” he said, “mind of sovereignty; I know what you
want, and I am with you everywhere.”

[3] I said, “I wish to learn about the things that are, to understand
their nature and to know god. How much I want to hear!” I said.
Then he said to me: “Keep in mind all that you wish to learn, and I
will teach you.”

[4] Saying this, he changed his appearance, and in an instant everything
was immediately opened to me. I saw an endless vision in which everything became light – clear and joyful – and in seeing the vision I came to love it. After a little while, darkness arose separately and descended
– fearful and gloomy – coiling sinuously so that it looked to me like a
(snake). Then the darkness changed into something of a watery nature,
indescribably agitated and smoking like a fire; it produced an unspeakable
wailing roar. Then an inarticulate cry like the voice of fire came forth
from it.

[5] But from the light… a holy word mounted upon the (watery)
nature, and untempered fire leapt up from the watery nature to the
height above. The fire was nimble and piercing and active as well, and
because the air was light it followed after spirit and rose up to the fire
away from earth and water so that it seemed suspended from the fire.
Earth and water stayed behind, mixed with one another, so that (earth)
could not be distinguished from water, but they were stirred to hear by
the spiritual word that moved upon them.

[6] Poimandres said to me, “Have you understood what this vision
means?”
“I shall come to know,” said I.
“I am the light you saw, mind, your god,” he said, “who existed before
the watery nature that appeared out of darkness. The lightgiving word
who comes from mind is the son of god.”
“Go on,” I said.
“This is what you must know: that in you which sees and hears is the
word of the lord, but your mind is god the father; they are not divided
from one another for their union is life.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Understand the light, then, and recognize it.”

[7] After he said this,
he looked me in the face for such a long time that I trembled at his
appearance. But when he raised his head, I saw in my mind the light of
powers beyond number and a boundless cosmos that had come to be.
The fire, encompassed by great power and subdued, kept its place fixed.
In the vision I had because of the discourse of Poimandres, these were
my thoughts.

[8] Since I was terrified, out of my wits, he spoke to me
again. “In your mind you have seen the archetypal form, the preprinciple
that exists before a beginning without end.” This was what Poimandres
said to me. “The elements of nature – whence have they arisen?” I asked.
And he answered: “From the counsel of god which, having taken in
the word and having seen the beautiful cosmos, imitated it, having
become a cosmos through its own elements and its progeny of souls.

[9] The mind who is god, being androgyne and existing as life and light,
by speaking gave birth to a second mind, a craftsman, who, as god of
fire and spirit, crafted seven governors; they encompass the sensible
world in circles, and their government is called fate.”

[10] “From the elements [ ] that weigh downwards, the word of god
leapt straight up to the pure craftwork of nature and united with the
craftsman-mind (for the word was of the same substance). The weighty
elements of nature were left behind, bereft of reason, so as to be mere
matter.

[11] The craftsman-mind, together with the word, encompassing
the circles and whirling them about with a rush, turned his craftworks
about, letting them turn from an endless beginning to a limitless end,
for it starts where it stops. Revolving as mind wished them to, the circles
brought forth from the weighty elements living things without reason
(for they no longer kept the word with them); and the air brought forth
winged things; the water things that swim. Earth and water had been
separated from one another as mind wished, and (earth) brought forth
from herself the living things that she held within, four-footed beasts
(and) crawling things, wild animals and tame.”

[12] “Mind, the father of all, who is life and light, gave birth to a man
like himself whom he loved as his own child. The man was most fair:
he had the father’s image; and god, who was really in love with his own
form, bestowed on him all his craftworks.

[13] And after the man had observed what the craftsman had created with the father’s help, he also
wished to make some craftwork, and the father agreed to this. Entering
the craftsman’s sphere, where he was to have all authority, the man
observed his brother’s craftworks; the governors loved the man, and
each gave a share of his own order. Learning well their essence and
sharing in their nature, the man wished to break through the circumference of the circles to observe the rule of the one given power over the fire.”

[14] “Having all authority over the cosmos of mortals and unreasoning
animals, the man broke through the vault and stooped to look through
the cosmic framework, thus displaying to lower nature the fair form of
god. Nature smiled for love when she saw him whose fairness brings no
surfeit (and) who holds in himself all the energy of the governors and
the form of god, for in the water she saw the shape of the man’s fairest
form and upon the earth its shadow. When the man saw in the water
the form like himself as it was in nature, he loved it and wished to
inhabit it; wish and action came in the same moment, and he inhabited
the unreasoning form. Nature took hold of her beloved, hugged him all
about and embraced him, for they were lovers.”

[15] “Because of this, unlike any other living thing on earth, mankind
is twofold – in the body mortal but immortal in the essential man. Even
though he is immortal and has authority over all things, mankind is
affected by mortality because he is subject to fate; thus, although man
is above the cosmic framework, he became a slave within it. He is
androgyne because he comes from an androgyne father, and he never
sleeps because he comes from one who is sleepless. (Yet love and sleep
are his) masters.”

[16] And after this: “. . ., o my mind. I love the word also.”
Poimandres said: “This is the mystery that has been kept hidden until
this very day. When nature made love with the man, she bore a wonder
most wondrous. In him he had the nature of the cosmic framework of
the seven, who are made of fire and spirit, as I told you, and without
delay nature at once gave birth to seven men, androgyne and exalted,
whose natures were like those of the seven governors.”
And after this: “O Poimandres, now I have come into a great longing,
and I yearn to hear; so do not digress.”
And Poimandres said, “Be silent; I have not yet unfolded to you the
first discourse.” “As you see, I am silent,” said I.

[17] “As I said, then, the birth of the seven was as follows. (Earth)
was the female. Water did the fertilizing. Fire was the maturing force.
Nature took spirit from the ether and brought forth bodies in the shape
of the man. From life and light the man became soul and mind; from
life came soul, from light came mind, and all things in the cosmos of
the senses remained thus until a cycle ended (and) kinds of things began
to be.”

[18] “Hear the rest, the word you yearn to hear. When the cycle was
completed, the bond among all things was sundered by the counsel of
god. All living things, which had been androgyne, were sundered into
two parts – humans along with them – and part of them became male,
part likewise female. But god immediately spoke a holy speech: ‘Increase
in increasing and multiply in multitude, all you creatures and craftworks,
and let him (who) is mindful recognize that he is immortal, that desire
is the cause of death, and let him recognize all that exists.'”

[19] “After god said this, providence, through fate and through the
cosmic framework, caused acts of intercourse and set in train acts of
birth; and all things were multiplied according to kind. The one who
recognized himself attained the chosen good, but the one who loved the
body that came from the error of desire goes on in darkness, errant,
suffering sensibly the effects of death.”

[20] “Those who lack knowledge, what great wrong have they done,”
I asked, “that they should be deprived of immortality?”
“You behave like a person who has not given thought to what he has
heard. Did I not tell you to think?”
“I am thinking; I remember; and I am grateful as well.”
“If you have understood, tell me: why do they deserve death who are
in death?” “Because what first gives rise to each person’s body is the hateful
darkness, from which comes the watery nature, from which the body
was constituted in the sensible cosmos, from which death drinks.”

[21] “Truly you have understood. But why is it that ‘he who has
understood himself advances toward god,’ as god’s discourse has it?”
“Because,” I said, “the father of all things was constituted of light and
life, and from him the man came to be.”
“You say your speech well. Life and light are god and father, from
whom the man came to be. So if you learn that you are from light and
life and that you happen to come from them, you shall advance to life
once again.” This is what Poimandres said.
“But tell me again,” I asked, “how shall I advance to life, O my mind?
For god says, ‘Let the person who is mindful recognize himself.’

[22]All people have mind, do they not?”
“Hold your tongue, fellow. Enough talk. I myself, the mind, am
present to the blessed and good and pure and merciful – to the reverent
– and my presence becomes a help; they quickly recognize everything,
and they propitiate the father lovingly and give thanks, praising and
singing hymns affectionately and in the order appropriate to him. Before
giving up the body to its proper death, they loathe the senses for they
see their effects. Or rather I, the mind, will not permit the effects of the
body to strike and work their results on them. As gatekeeper, I will
refuse entry to the evil and shameful effects, cutting off the anxieties
that come from them.

[23] But from these I remain distant – the thoughtless and evil and
wicked and envious and greedy and violent and irreverent – giving
way to the avenging demon who {wounds the evil person},
assailing him sensibly with the piercing fire and thus arming
him the better for lawless deeds so that greater vengeance may befall
him. Such a person does not cease longing after insatiable appetites,
struggling in the darkness without satisfaction. {This} tortures him and
makes the fire grow upon him all the more.”

[24] “You have taught me all things well, o mind, just as I wanted.
But tell me again (about) the way up; tell me how it happens.”
To this Poimandres said: “First, in releasing the material body you
give the body itself over to alteration, and the form that you used to
have vanishes. To the demon you give over your temperament, now
inactive. The body’s senses rise up and flow back to their particular
sources, becoming separate parts and mingling again with the energies.
And feeling and longing go on toward irrational nature.
[25] Thence the human being rushes up through the cosmic framework, at the first
zone surrendering the energy of increase and decrease; at the second
evil machination, a device now inactive; at the third the illusion of
longing, now inactive; at the fourth the ruler’s arrogance, now freed of
excess; at the fifth unholy presumption and daring recklessness; at the
sixth the evil impulses that come from wealth, now inactive; and at the
seventh zone the deceit that lies in ambush.

[26] And then, stripped of the effects of the cosmic framework, the human enters the region of the
ogdoad; he has his own proper power, and along with the blessed he
hymns the father. Those present there rejoice together in his presence,
and, having become like his companions, he also hears certain powers
that exist beyond the ogdoadic region and hymn god with sweet voice.
They rise up to the father in order and surrender themselves to the
powers, and, having become powers, they enter into god. This is the
final good for those who have received knowledge: to be made god. Why
do you still delay? Having learned all this, should you not become guide
to the worthy so that through you the human race might be saved by god?”

[27] As he was saying this to me, Poimandres joined with the powers.
Then he sent me forth, empowered and instructed on the nature of the
universe and on the supreme vision, after I had given thanks to the
father of all and praised him. And I began proclaiming to mankind the
beauty of reverence and knowledge: “People, earthborn men, you who
have surrendered yourselves to drunkenness and sleep and ignorance of
god, make yourselves sober and end your drunken sickness, for you are
bewitched in unreasoning sleep.”

[28] When they heard, they gathered round with one accord. And I
said, “Why have you surrendered yourselves to death, earthborn men,
since you have the right to share in immortality? You who have journeyed
with error, who have partnered with ignorance, think again: escape the
shadowy light; leave corruption behind and take a share in immortality.”

[29] Some of them, who had surrendered themselves to the way of
death, resumed their mocking and withdrew, while those who desired
to be taught cast themselves at my feet. Having made them rise, I became
guide to my race, teaching them the words – how to be saved and in
what manner – and I sowed the words of wisdom among them, and they
were nourished from the ambrosial water. When evening came and the
sun’s light began to disappear entirely, I commanded them to give thanks
to god, and when each completed the thanksgiving, he turned to his
own bed.

[30] Within myself I recorded the kindness of Poimandres, and I was
deeply happy because I was filled with what I wished, for the sleep of
my body became sobriety of soul, the closing of my eyes became true
vision, my silence became pregnant with good, and the birthing of the
word became a progeny of goods. This happened to me because I was
receptive of mind – of Poimandres, that is, the word of sovereignty. I
have arrived, inspired with the divine breath of truth. Therefore, I give
praise to god the father from my soul and with all my might:

[31] Holy is god, the father of all;
Holy is god, whose counsel is done by his own powers;
Holy is god, who wishes to be known and is known by his own people;
Holy are you, who by the word have constituted all things that are;
Holy are you, from whom all nature was born as image;
Holy are you, of whom nature has not made a like figure;
Holy are you, who are stronger than every power;
Holy are you, who surpass every excellence;
Holy are you, mightier than praises.
You whom we address in silence, the unspeakable, the unsayable, accept
pure speech offerings from a heart and soul that reach up to you.

[32]
Grant my request not to fail in the knowledge that befits our essence;
give me power; and with this gift I shall enlighten those who are in
ignorance, brothers of my race, but your sons. Thus I believe and I bear
witness; I advance to life and light. Blessed are you, father. He who is
your man wishes to join you in the work of sanctification since you have
provided him all authority.

The Corpus Hermeticum
I. Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men
translated by G.R.S. Mead
Notes on the text: This is the most famous of the Hermetic documents, a revelation account describing a vision of the creation of the universe and the nature and fate of humanity. Authors from the Renaissance onward have been struck by the way in which its creation myth seems partly inspired by Genesis, partly reacting against it. The Fall has here become the descent of the Primal Man through the spheres of the planets to the world of Nature, a descent caused not by disobedience but by love, and done with the blessing of God.

The seven rulers of fate discussed in sections 9, 14 and 25 are the archons of the seven planets, which also appear in Plato’s Timaeus and in a number of the ancient writings usually lumped together as “Gnostic”. Their role here is an oddly ambivalent one, powers of Harmony who are nonetheless the sources of humanity’s tendencies to evil.

1. It chanced once on a time my mind was meditating on the things that are, my thought was raised to a great height, the senses of my body being held back – just as men who are weighed down with sleep after a fill of food, or from fatigue of body.

Methought a Being more than vast, in size beyond all bounds, called out my name and saith: What wouldst thou hear and see, and what hast thou in mind to learn and know?

2. And I do say: Who art thou?

He saith: I am Man-Shepherd (Poemandres), Mind of all-masterhood; I know what thou desirest and I am with thee everywhere.

3. [And] I reply: I long to learn the things that are, and comprehend their nature, and know God. This is, I said, what I desire to hear.

He answered back to me: Hold in thy mind all thou wouldst know, and I will teach thee.

4. Even with these words His aspect changed, and straightway, in the twinkling of an eye, all things were opened to me, and I see a Vision limitless, all things turned into Light – sweet, joyous [Light]. And I became transported as I gazed.

But in a little while Darkness came settling down on part [of it], awesome and gloomy, coiling in sinuous folds, so that methought it like unto a snake.

And then the Darkness changed into some sort of a Moist Nature, tossed about beyond all power of words, belching out smoke as from a fire, and groaning forth a wailing sound that beggars all description.

[And] after that an outcry inarticulate came forth from it, as though it were a Voice of Fire.

5. [Thereon] out of the Light […] a Holy Word (Logos) descended on that Nature. And upwards to the height from the Moist Nature leaped forth pure Fire; light was it, swift and active too.

The Air, too, being light, followed after the Fire; from out of the Earth-and-Water rising up to Fire so that it seemed to hang therefrom.

But Earth-and-Water stayed so mingled with each other, that Earth from Water no one could discern. Yet were they moved to hear by reason of the Spirit-Word (Logos) pervading them.

6. Then saith to me Man-Shepherd: Didst understand this Vision what it means?

Nay; that shall I know, said I.

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 Lord’s Word (Logos); but Mind is Father-God. Not separate are they the one from other; just in their union [rather] is it Life consists.

Thanks be to Thee, I said.

So, understand the Light [He answered], and make friends with it.

7. And speaking thus He gazed for long into my eyes, so that I trembled at the look of him.

But when He raised His head, I see in Mind the Light, [but] now in Powers no man could number, and Cosmos grown beyond all bounds, and that the Fire was compassed round about by a most mighty Power, and [now] subdued had come unto a stand.

And when I saw these things I understood by reason of Man-Shepherd’s Word (Logos).

8. But as I was in great astonishment, He saith to me again: Thou didst behold in Mind the Archetypal Form whose being is before beginning without end. Thus spake to me Man-Shepherd.

And I say: Whence then have Nature’s elements their being?

To this He answer gives: From Will of God. [Nature] received the Word (Logos), and gazing upon the Cosmos Beautiful did copy it, making herself into a cosmos, by means of her own elements and by the births of souls.

9. And God-the-Mind, being male and female both, as Light and Life subsisting, brought forth another Mind to give things form, who, God as he was of Fire and Spirit, formed Seven Rulers who enclose the cosmos that the sense perceives. Men call their ruling Fate.

10. Straightway from out the downward elements God’s Reason (Logos) leaped up to Nature’s pure formation, and was at-oned with the Formative Mind; for it was co-essential with it. And Nature’s downward elements were thus left reason-less, so as to be pure matter.

11. Then the Formative Mind ([at-oned] with Reason), he who surrounds the spheres and spins them with his whorl, set turning his formations, and let them turn from a beginning boundless unto an endless end. For that the circulation of these [spheres] begins where it doth end, as Mind doth will.

And from the downward elements Nature brought forth lives reason-less; for He did not extend the Reason (Logos) [to them]. The Air brought forth things winged; the Water things that swim, and Earth-and-Water one from another parted, as Mind willed. And from her bosom Earth produced what lives she had, four-footed things and reptiles, beasts wild and tame.

12. But All-Father Mind, being Life and Light, did bring forth Man co-equal to Himself, with whom He fell in love, as being His own child; for he was beautiful beyond compare, the Image of his Sire. In very truth, God fell in love with his own Form; and on him did bestow all of His own formations.

13. And when he gazed upon what the Enformer had created in the Father, [Man] too wished to enform; and [so] assent was given him by the Father.

Changing his state to the formative sphere, in that he was to have his whole authority, he gazed upon his Brother’s creatures. They fell in love with him, and gave him each a share of his own ordering.

And after that he had well learned their essence and had become a sharer in their nature, he had a mind to break right through the Boundary of their spheres, and to subdue the might of that which pressed upon the Fire.

14. So he who hath the whole authority over [all] the mortals in the cosmos and over its lives irrational, bent his face downwards through the Harmony, breaking right through its strength, and showed to downward Nature God’s fair form.

And when she saw that Form of beauty which can never satiate, and him who [now] possessed within himself each single energy of [all seven] Rulers as well as God’s own Form, she smiled with love; for it was as though she hadd seen the image of Man’s fairest form upon her Water, his shadow on her Earth.

He in turn beholding the form like to himself, existing in her, in her Water, loved it and willed to live in it; and with the will came act, and [so] he vivified the form devoid of reason.

And Nature took the object of her love and wound herself completely around him, and they were intermingled, for they were lovers.

15. And this is why beyond all creatures on the earth man is twofold; mortal because of body, but because of the essential man immortal.

Though deathless and possessed of sway over all, yet doth he suffer as a mortal doth, subject to Fate.

Thus though above the Harmony, within the Harmony he hath become a slave. Though male-female, as from a Father male-female, and though he is sleepless from a sleepless [Sire], yet is he overcome [by sleep].

16. Thereon [I say: Teach on], O Mind of me, for I myself as well am amorous of the Word (Logos).

The Shepherd said: This is the mystery kept hid until this day.

Nature embraced by Man brought forth a wonder, oh so wonderful. For as he had the nature of the Concord of the Seven, who, as I said to thee, [were made] of Fire and Spirit – Nature delayed not, but immediately brought forth seven “men”, in correspondence with the natures of the Seven, male-female and moving in the air.

Thereon [I said]: O Shepherd, …, for now I am filled with great desire and long to hear; do not run off.

The Shepherd said: Keep silence, for not as yet have I unrolled for thee the first discourse (logoi).

Lo! I am still, I said.

17. In such wise than, as I have said, the generation of these seven came to pass. Earth was as woman, her Water filled with longing; ripeness she took from Fire, spirit from Aether. Nature thus brought forth frames to suit the form of Man.

And Man from Light and Life changed into soul and mind – from Life to soul, from Light to mind.

And thus continued all the sense-world’s parts until the period of their end and new beginnings.

18. Now listen to the rest of the discourse (Logos) which thou dost long to hear.

The period being ended, the bond that bound them all was loosened by God’s Will. For all the animals being male-female, at the same time with Man were loosed apart; some became partly male, some in like fashion [partly] female. And straightway God spake by His Holy Word (Logos):

“Increase ye in increasing, and multiply in multitude, ye creatures and creations all; and man that hath Mind in him, let him learn to know that he himself is deathless, and that the cause of death is love, though Love is all.”

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

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

20. What is the so great fault, said I, the ignorant commit, that they should be deprived of deathlessness?

Thou seemest, He said, O thou, not to have given heed to what thou heardest. Did I not bid thee think?

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

If thou didst think [thereon], [said He], tell me: Why do they merit death who are in Death?

It is because the gloomy Darkness is the root and base of the material frame; from it came the Moist Nature; from this the body in the sense-world was composed; and from this [body] Death doth the Water drain.

21. Right was thy thought, O thou! But how doth “he who knows himself, go unto Him”, as God’s Word (Logos) hath declared?

And I reply: the Father of the universals doth consist of Light and Life, 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 that thou art thyself of Life and Light, and that thou [happenest] to be out of them, thou shalt return again to Life. Thus did Man-Shepherd speak.

But tell me further, Mind of me, I cried, how shall I come to Life again…for God doth say: “The man who hath Mind in him, let him learn to know that he himself [is deathless].”

22. Have not all men then Mind?

Thou sayest well, O thou, thus speaking. I, Mind, myself am present with holy men and good, the pure and merciful, men who live piously.

[To such] my presence doth become an aid, and straightway they gain gnosis of all things, and win the Father’s love by their pure lives, and give Him thanks, invoking on Him blessings, and chanting hymns, intent on Him with ardent love.

And ere they give up the body unto its proper death, they turn them with disgust from its sensations, from knowledge of what things they operate. Nay, it is I, the Mind, that will not let the operations which befall the body, work to their [natural] end. For being door-keeper I will close up [all] the entrances, and cut the mental actions off which base and evil energies induce.

23. But to the Mind-less ones, the wicked and depraved, the envious and covetous, and those who mured do and love impiety, I am far off, yielding my place to the Avenging Daimon, who sharpening the fire, tormenteth him and addeth fire to fire upon him, and rusheth upon him through his senses, thus rendering him readier for transgressions of the law, so that he meets with greater torment; nor doth he ever cease to have desire for appetites inordinate, insatiately striving in the dark.

24. Well hast thou taught me all, as I desired, O Mind. And now, pray, tell me further of the nature of the Way Above as now it is [for me].

To this Man-Shepherd said: When the material body is to be dissolved, first thou surrenderest the body by itself unto the work of change, and thus the form thou hadst doth vanish, and thou surrenderest thy way of life, void of its energy, unto the Daimon. The body’s senses next pass back into their sources, becoming separate, and resurrect as energies; and passion and desire withdraw unto that nature which is void of reason.

25. And thus it is that man doth speed his way thereafter upwards through the Harmony.

To the first zone he gives the Energy of Growth and Waning; unto the second [zone], Device of Evils [now] de-energized; unto the third, the Guile of the Desires de-energized; unto the fourth, his Domineering Arrogance, [also] de-energized; unto the fifth, unholy Daring and the Rashness of Audacity, de-energized; unto the sixth, Striving for Wealth by evil means, deprived of its aggrandizement; and to the seventh zone, Ensnaring Falsehood, de-energized.

26. And then, with all the energisings of the harmony stript from him, clothed in his proper Power, he cometh to that Nature which belongs unto the Eighth, and there with those-that-are hymneth the Father.

They who are there welcome his coming there with joy; and he, made like to them that sojourn there, doth further hear the Powers who are above the Nature that belongs unto the Eighth, singing their songs of praise to God in language of their own.

And then they, in a band, go to the Father home; of their own selves they make surrender of themselves to Powers, and [thus] becoming Powers they are in God. This the good end for those who have gained Gnosis – to be made one with God.

Why shouldst thou then delay? Must it not be, since thou hast all received, that thou shouldst to the worthy point the way, in order that through thee the race of mortal kind may by [thy] God be saved?

27. This when He had said, Man-Shepherd mingled with the Powers.

But I, with thanks and blessings unto the Father of the universal [Powers], was freed, full of the power he had poured into me, and full of what He had taught me of the nature of the All and of the loftiest Vision.

And I began to preach unto men the Beauty of Devotion and of Gnosis:

O ye people, earth-born folk, ye who have given yourselves to drunkenness and sleep and ignorance of God, be sober now, cease from your surfeit, cease to be glamoured by irrational sleep!

28. And when they heard, they came with one accord. Whereon I say:

Ye earth-born folk, why have ye given yourselves up to Death, while yet ye have the power of sharing Deathlessness? Repent, O ye, who walk with Error arm in arm and make of Ignorance the sharer of your board; get ye out from the light of Darkness, and take your part in Deathlessness, forsake Destruction!

29. And some of them with jests upon their lips departed [from me], abandoning themselves unto the Way of Death; others entreated to be taught, casting themselves before my feet.

But I made them arise, and I became a leader of the Race towards home, teaching the words (logoi), how and in what way they shall be saved. I sowed in them the words (logoi) of wisdom; of Deathless Water were they given to drink.

And when even was come and all sun’s beams began to set, I bade them all give thanks to God. And when they had brought to an end the giving of their thanks, each man returned to his own resting place.

30. But I recorded in my heart Man-Shepherd’s benefaction, and with my every hope fulfilled more than rejoiced. For body’s sleep became the soul’s awakening, and closing of the eyes – true vision, pregnant with Good my silence, and the utterance of my word (logos) begetting of good things.

All this befell me from my Mind, that is Man-Shepherd, Word (Logos) of all masterhood, by whom being God-inspired I came unto the Plain of Truth. Wherefore with all my soul and strength thanksgiving give I unto Father-God.

31. Holy art Thou, O God, the universals’ Father.

Holy art Thou, O God, whose Will perfects itself by means of its own Powers.

Holy art Thou, O God, who willeth to be known and art known by Thine own.

Holy art Thou,who didst by Word (Logos) make to consist the things that are.

Holy art Thou, of whom All-nature hath been made an image.

Holy art Thou, whose Form Nature hath never made.

Holy art Thou, more powerful than all power.

Holy art Thou, transcending all pre-eminence.

Holy Thou art, Thou better than all praise.

Accept my reason’s offerings pure, from soul and heart for aye stretched up to Thee, O Thou unutterable, unspeakable, Whose Name naught but the Silence can express.

32. Give ear to me who pray that I may never of Gnosis fail, [Gnosis] which is our common being’s nature; and fill me with Thy Power, and with this Grace [of Thine], that I may give the Light to those in ignorance of the Race, my Brethren, and Thy Sons.

For this cause I believe, and I bear witness; I go to Life and Light. Blessed art Thou, O Father. Thy Man would holy be as Thou art holy, even as Thou gave him Thy full authority [to be].

ἙΡΜΟΥ ΤΡΙΣΜΕΓΙΣΤΟΥ ΠΟΙΜΑΝΔΡΗΣ
Ἐννοίας μοί ποτε γενομένης περὶ τῶν ὄντων καὶ
μετεωρισθείσης μοι τῆς διανοίας σφόδρα, κατασχεθεισῶν
μου τῶν σωματικῶν αἰσθήσεων, καθάπερ οἱ ὕπνῳ βεβαρημένοι
ἐκ κόρου τροφῆς ἢ ἐκ κόπου σώματος, ἔδοξά τινα
1.5
ὑπερμεγέθη μέτρῳ ἀπεριορίστῳ τυγχάνοντα καλεῖν μου
τὸ ὄνομα καὶ λέγοντά μοι, Τί βούλει ἀκοῦσαι καὶ θεάσαςθαι,
καὶ νοήσας μαθεῖν καὶ γνῶναι;
2.1
— φημὶ ἐγώ, Σὺ γὰρ τίς εἶ;
— Ἐγὼ μέν, φησίν, εἰμὶ ὁ Ποιμάνδρης, ὁ τῆς
αὐθεντίας νοῦς· οἶδα ὃ βούλει, καὶ σύνειμί σοι πανταχοῦ.
3.1
— φημὶ ἐγώ, Μαθεῖν θέλω τὰ ὄντα καὶ νοῆσαι τὴν τούτων
φύσιν καὶ γνῶναι τὸν θεόν· πῶς, ἔφην, ἀκοῦσαι βούλομαι.
— φησὶν ἐμοὶ πάλιν, Ἔχε νῷ σῷ ὅσα θέλεις
μαθεῖν, κἀγώ σε διδάξω.
4.1
τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἠλλάγη τῇ ἰδέᾳ, καὶ εὐθέως πάντα μοι
ἤνοικτο ῥοπῇ, καὶ ὁρῶ θέαν ἀόριστον, φῶς δὲ πάντα γεγενημένα,
εὔδιόν τε καὶ ἱλαρόν, καὶ ἠράσθην ἰδών. καὶ μετ’
ὀλίγον σκότος κατωφερὲς ἦν, ἐν μέρει γεγενημένον,
4.5
φοβερόν τε καὶ στυγνόν, σκολιῶς ἐσπειραμένον, ὡς <ὄφει>
εἰκάσαι με· εἶτα μεταβαλλόμενον τὸ σκότος εἰς ὑγρᾶν
τινα φύσιν, ἀφάτως τεταραγμένην καὶ καπνὸν ἀποδιδοῦσαν,
ὡς ἀπὸ πυρός, καί τινα ἦχον ἀποτελοῦσαν
ἀνεκλάλητον γοώδη· εἶτα βοὴ ἐξ αὐτῆς ἀσυνάρθρως
4.10
ἐξεπέμπετο, ὡς εἰκάσαι φωνῇ πυρός,
5.1
ἐκ δὲ φωτὸς ….. λόγος
ἅγιος ἐπέβη τῇ φύσει, καὶ πῦρ ἄκρατον ἐξεπήδησεν ἐκ
τῆς ὑγρᾶς φύσεως ἄνω εἰς ὕψος· κοῦφον δὲ ἦν καὶ ὀξύ,
δραστικὸν δὲ ἅμα, καὶ ὁ ἀὴρ ἐλαφρὸς ὢν ἠκολούθησε τῷ
5.5
πνεύματι, ἀναβαίνοντος αὐτοῦ μέχρι τοῦ πυρὸς ἀπὸ γῆς
καὶ ὕδατος, ὡς δοκεῖν κρέμασθαι αὐτὸν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ· γῆ δὲ
καὶ ὕδωρ ἔμενε καθ’ ἑαυτὰ συμμεμιγμένα, ὡς μὴ θεωρεῖσθαι
<τὴν γῆν> ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος· κινούμενα δὲ ἦν διὰ τὸν
ἐπιφερόμενον πνευματικὸν λόγον εἰς ἀκοήν.

6.1
ὁ δὲ Ποιμάνδρης ἐμοί, Ἐνόησας, φησί. τὴν θέαν
ταύτην ὅ τι καὶ βούλεται; καὶ, Γνώσομαι, ἔφην ἐγώ. – Τὸ
φῶς ἐκεῖνο, ἔφη, ἐγὼ Νοῦς ὁ σὸς θεός, ὁ πρὸ φύσεως ὑγρᾶς
τῆς ἐκ σκότους φανείσης· ὁ δὲ ἐκ Νοὸς φωτεινὸς Λόγος υἱὸς θεοῦ.
6.5
– Τί οὖν; φημί.
– Οὕτω γνῶθι· τὸ ἐν σοὶ
βλέπον καὶ ἀκοῦον, λόγος κυρίου, ὁ δὲ νοῦς πατὴρ θεός.
οὐ γὰρ διίστανται ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων· ἕνωσις γὰρ τούτων ἐστὶν
ἡ ζωή.
— Εὐχαριστῶ σοι, ἔφην ἔγω.
— Ἀλλὰ δὴ νόει τὸ φῶς καὶ γνώριζε τοῦτο.
7.1
εἰπόντος ταῦτα ἐπὶ πλείονα χρόνον ἀντώπησέ μοι,
ὥστε με τρέμειν αὐτοῦ τὴν ἰδέαν· ἀνανεύσαντος δέ, θεωρῶ
ἐν τῷ νοΐ μου τὸ φῶς ἐν δυνάμεσιν ἀναριθμήτοις ὄν, καὶ
κόσμον ἀπεριόριστον γεγενημένον, καὶ περιίσχεσθαι τὸ πῦρ
7.5
δυνάμει μεγίστῃ, καὶ στάσιν ἐσχηκέναι κρατούμενον· ταῦτα
δὲ ἐγὼ διενοήθην ὁρῶν διὰ τὸν τοῦ Ποιμάνδρου λόγον.
8.1
ὡς δὲ ἐν ἐκπλήξει μου ὄντος, φησὶ πάλιν ἐμοί,
Εἶδες ἐν τῷ νῷ τὸ ἀρχέτυπον εἶδος, τὸ προάρχον τῆς
ἀρχῆς τῆς ἀπεράντου· ταῦτα ὁ Ποιμάνδρης ἐμοί.
— Τὰ οὖν, ἐγώ φημι, στοιχεῖα τῆς φύσεως πόθεν ὑπέστη;
8.5
— πάλιν ἐκεῖνος πρὸς ταῦτα, Ἐκ βουλῆς θεοῦ, ἥτις λαβοῦσα τὸν
Λόγον καὶ ἰδοῦσα τὸν καλὸν κόσμον ἐμιμήσατο, κοσμοποιηθεῖσα
διὰ τῶν ἑαυτῆς στοιχείων καὶ γεννημάτων ψυχῶν.
9.1
ὁ δὲ Νοῦς ὁ θεός, ἀρρενόθηλυς ὤν, ζωὴ καὶ φῶς
ὑπάρχων, ἀπεκύησε λόγῳ ἕτερον Νοῦν δημιουργόν, ὃς θεὸς
τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ πνεύματος ὤν, ἐδημιούργησε διοικητάς τινας
ἑπτά, ἐν κύκλοις περιέχοντας τὸν αἰσθητὸν κόσμον, καὶ ἡ
9.5
διοίκησις αὐτῶν εἱμαρμένη καλεῖται.
10.1
ἐπήδησεν εὐθὺς ἐκ τῶν κατωφερῶν στοιχείων [τοῦ θεοῦ]
ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ Λόγος εἰς τὸ καθαρὸν τῆς φύσεως δημιούργημα,
καὶ ἡνώθη τῷ δημιουργῷ Νῷ (ὁμοούσιος γὰρ ἦν), καὶ
κατελείφθη [τὰ] ἄλογα τὰ κατωφερῆ τῆς φύσεως στοιχεῖα,
10.5
ὡς εἶναι ὕλην μόνην.
11.1
ὁ δὲ δημιουργὸς Νοῦς σὺν τῷ
Λόγῳ, ὁ περιίσχων τοὺς κύκλους καὶ δινῶν ῥοίζῳ, ἔστρεψε
τὰ ἑαυτοῦ δημιουργήματα καὶ εἴασε στρέφεσθαι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς
ἀορίστου εἰς ἀπέραντον τέλος· ἄρχεται γάρ, οὗ λήγει· ἡ δὲ
11.5
τούτων περιφορά, καθὼς ἠθέλησεν ὁ Νοῦς, ἐκ τῶν κατωφερῶν
στοιχείων ζῷα ἤνεγκεν ἄλογα (οὐ γὰρ ἐπεῖχε τὸν
Λόγον), ἀὴρ δὲ πετεινὰ ἤνεγκε, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ νηκτά·
διακεχώρισται δὲ ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων ἥ τε γῆ καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ, καθὼς
ἠθέλησεν ὁ Νοῦς, καὶ <ἡ γῆ> ἐξήνεγκεν ἀπ’ αὐτῆς ἃ εἶχε
11.10
ζῷα τετράποδα <καὶ> ἑρπετά, θηρία ἄγρια καὶ ἥμερα.
12.1
ὁ δὲ πάντων πατὴρ ὁ Νοῦς, ὢν ζωὴ καὶ φῶς,
ἀπεκύησεν Ἄνθρωπον αὐτῷ ἴσον, οὗ ἠράσθη ὡς ἰδίου τόκου·
περικαλλὴς γάρ, τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς εἰκόνα ἔχων· ὄντως γὰρ
καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἠράσθη τῆς ἰδίας μορφῆς, παρέδωκε τὰ ἑαυτοῦ
12.5
πάντα δημιουργήματα,
13.1
καὶ κατανοήσας δὲ τὴν τοῦ
Δημιουργοῦ κτίσιν ἐν τῷ πυρί, ἠβουλήθη καὶ αὐτὸς δημιουργεῖν,
καὶ συνεχωρήθη ἀπὸ τοῦ πατρός· γενόμενος ἐν τῇ
δημιουργικῇ σφαίρᾳ, ἕξων τὴν πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν, κατενόησε
13.5
τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ τὰ δημιουργήματα, οἱ δὲ ἠράσθησαν αὐτοῦ,
ἕκαστος δὲ μετεδίδου τῆς ἰδίας τάξεως· καὶ καταμαθὼν
τὴν τούτων οὐσίαν καὶ μεταλαβὼν τῆς αὐτῶν φύσεως
ἠβουλήθη ἀναρρῆξαι τὴν περιφέρειαν τῶν κύκλων, καὶ τὸ κράτος
τοῦ ἐπικειμένου ἐπὶ τοῦ πυρὸς κατανοῆσαι.
14.1
καὶ ὁ τοῦ τῶν θνητῶν κόσμου καὶ τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων
ἔχων πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν διὰ τῆς ἁρμονίας παρέκυψεν,
ἀναρρήξας τὸ κύτος, καὶ ἔδειξε τῇ κατωφερεῖ φύσει τὴν καλὴν
τοῦ θεοῦ μορφὴν, ὃν ἰδοῦσα ἀκόρεστον κάλλος <καὶ>
14.5
πᾶσαν ἐνέργειαν ἐν ἑαυτῷ ἔχοντα τῶν διοικητόρων τήν τε
μορφὴν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐμειδίασεν ἔρωτι, ὡς ἅτε τῆς καλλίστης
μορφῆς τοῦ Ἀνθρώπου τὸ εἶδος ἐν τῷ ὕδατι ἰδοῦσα καὶ τὸ
σκίασμα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. ὁ δὲ ἰδὼν τὴν ὁμοίαν αὐτῷ μορφὴν ἐν
αὐτῇ οὖσαν ἐν τῷ ὕδατι, ἐφίλησε καὶ ἠβουλήθη αὐτοῦ
14.10
οἰκεῖν· ἅμα δὲ τῇ βουλῇ ἐγένετο ἐνέργεια, καὶ ᾤκησε τὴν
ἄλογον μορφήν· ἡ δὲ φύσις λαβοῦσα τὸν ἐρώμενον
περιεπλάκη ὅλη καὶ ἐμίγησαν· ἐρώμενοι γὰρ ἦσαν.
15.1
καὶ διὰ τοῦτο παρὰ πάντα τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς ζῷα διπλοῦς
ἐστιν ὁ ἄνθρωπος, θνητὸς μὲν διὰ τὸ σῶμα, ἀθάνατος δὲ
διὰ τὸν οὐσιώδη ἄνθρωπον· ἀθάνατος γὰρ ὢν καὶ πάντων
τὴν ἐξουσίαν ἔχων, τὰ θνητὰ πάσχει ὑποκείμενος τῇ εἱμαρμένῃ.
15.5
ὑπεράνω οὖν ὢν τῆς ἁρμονίας ἐναρμόνιος γέγονε
δοῦλος ἀρρενόθηλυς δὲ ὤν, ἐξ ἀρρενοθήλεος ὢν πατρὸς
καὶ ἄϋπνος ἀπὸ ἀΰπνου ….. κρατεῖται.
16.1
καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα, Νοῦς ὁ ἐμός· καὶ αὐτὸς γὰρ
ἐρῶ τοῦ λόγου. ὁ δὲ Ποιμάνδρης εἶπε, Τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ
κεκρυμμένον μυστήριον μέχρι τῆσδε τῆς ἡμέρας. ἡ γὰρ
φύσις ἐπιμιγεῖσα τῷ Ἀνθρώπῳ ἤνεγκέ τι θαῦμα
16.5
θαυμασιώτατον· ἔχοντος γὰρ αὐτοῦ τῆς ἁρμονίας τῶν ἑπτὰ τὴν
φύσιν, οὓς ἔφην σοι ἐκ πυρὸς καὶ πνεύματος, οὐκ ἀνέμενεν
ἡ φύσις, ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς ἀπεκύησεν ἑπτὰ ἀνθρώπους, πρὸς
τὰς φύσεις τῶν ἑπτὰ διοκητόρων, ἀρρενοθήλεας καὶ μεταρσίους.
16.10
καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα, Ὦ Ποιμάνδρη, εἰς μεγάλην γὰρ νῦν
ἐπιθυμίαν ἦλθον καὶ ποθῶ ἀκοῦσαι· μὴ ἔκτρεχε. καὶ ὁ
Ποιμάνδρης εἶπεν, Ἀλλὰ σιώπα. οὔπω γάρ σοι ἀνήπλωσα
τὸν πρῶτον λόγον. — Ἰδοὺ σιωπῶ, ἔφην ἐγώ.
17.1
Ἐγένετο οὖν, ὡς ἔφην, τῶν ἑπτὰ τούτων ἡ γένεσις
τοιῷδε τρόπῳ· θηλυκὴ γὰρ <γῆ> ἦν καὶ ὕδωρ ὀχευτικόν,
τὸ δὲ ἐκ πυρὸς πέπειρον. ἐκ δὲ αἰθέρος τὸ πνεῦμα ἔλαβε
καὶ ἐξήνεγκεν ἡ φύσις τὰ σώματα πρὸς τὸ εἶδος τοῦ
17.5
Ἀνθρώπου. ὁ δὲ Ἄνθρωπος ἐκ ζωῆς καὶ φωτὸς ἐγένετο εἰς
ψυχὴν καὶ νοῦν, ἐκ μὲν ζωῆς ψυχήν, ἐκ δὲ φωτὸς νοῦν,
καὶ ἔμεινεν οὕτω τὰ πάντα τοῦ αἰσθητοῦ κόσμου μέχρι
περιόδου τέλους <καὶ> ἀρχῶν γενῶν.
18.1
ἄκουε λοιπόν, ὃν ποθεῖς λόγον ἀκοῦσαι. τῆς περιόδου
πεπληρωμένης ἐλύθη ὁ πάντων σύνδεσμος ἐκ βουλῆς
θεοῦ· πάντα γὰρ ζῷα ἀρρενοθήλεα ὄντα διελύετο ἅμα τῷ
ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ἐγένετο τὰ μὲν ἀρρενικὰ ἐν μέρει, τὰ δὲ
18.5
θηλυκὰ ὁμοίως. ὁ δὲ θεὸς εὐθὺς εἶπεν ἁγίῳ λόγῳ,
Αὐξάνεσθε ἐν αὐξήσει καὶ πληθύνεσθε ἐν πλήθει πάντα τὰ
κτίσματα καὶ δημιουργήματα, καὶ ἀναγνωρισάτω <ὁ>
ἔννους ἑαυτὸν ὄντα ἀθάνατον, καὶ τὸν αἴτιον τοῦ θανάτου
ἔρωτα, καὶ πάντα τὰ ὄντα.
19.1
τοῦτο εἰπόντος, ἡ πρόνοια διὰ τῆς εἱμαρμένης καὶ
ἁρμονίας τὰς μίξεις ἐποιήσατο, καὶ τὰς γενέσεις κατέστησε,
καὶ ἐπληθύνθη κατὰ γένος τὰ πάντα καὶ ὁ ἀναγνωρίσας
ἑαυτὸν ἐλήλυθεν εἰς τὸ περιούσιον ἀγαθόν, ὁ δὲ
19.5
ἀγαπήσας τὸ ἐκ πλάνης ἔρωτος σῶμα, οὗτος μένει ἐν τῷ
σκότει πλανώμενος, αἰσθητῶς πάσχων τὰ τοῦ θανάτου.
20.1
— Τί τοσοῦτον ἁμαρτάνουσιν, ἔφην ἐγώ, οἱ ἀγνοοῦντες,
ἵνα στερηθῶσι τῆς ἀθανασίας; — Ἔοικας, ὦ οὗτος, τούτων
μὴ πεφροντικέναι ὧν ἤκουσας. οὐκ ἔφην σοι νοεῖν;
—Νοῶ καὶ μιμνήσκομαι, εὐχαριστῶ δὲ ἅμα. — Εἰ ἐνόησας,
20.5
εἰπέ μοι, διὰ τί ἄξιοί εἰσι τοῦ θανάτου οἱ ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ
ὄντες; — Ὅτι προκατάρχεται τοῦ οἰκείου σώματος τὸ
στυγνὸν σκότος, ἐξ οὗ ἡ ὑγρὰ φύσις, ἐξ ἧς τὸ σῶμα συνέστηκεν
ἐν τῷ αἰσθητῷ κόσμῳ, ἐξ οὗ θάνατος ἀρδεύεται.
21.1
— Ἐνόησας ὀρθῶς, ὦ οὗτος. κατὰ τί δὲ «ὁ νοήσας
ἑαυτὸν εἰς αὐτὸν χωρεῖ», ὅπερ ἔχει ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος;
— φημὶ ἐγώ, Ὅτι ἐκ φωτὸς καὶ ζωῆς συνέστηκεν ὁ πατὴρ
τῶν ὅλων, ἐξ οὗ γέγονεν ὁ Ἄνθρωπος. — Εὖ φῂς λαλῶν·
21.5
φῶς καὶ ζωή ἐστιν ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατήρ, ἐξ οὗ ἐγένετο ὁ
Ἄνθρωπος. ἐὰν οὖν μάθῃς αὐτὸν ἐκ ζωῆς καὶ φωτὸς ὄντα
καὶ ὅτι ἐκ τούτων τυγχάνεις, εἰς ζωὴν πάλιν χωρήσεις.
ταῦτα ὁ Ποιμάνδρης εἶπεν. – Ἀλλ’ ἔτι μοι εἰπέ, πῶς εἰς
ζωὴν χωρήσω ἐγώ, ἔφην, ὦ Νοῦς ἐμός; φησὶ γὰρ ὁ θεός·
21.10
»ὁ ἔννους ἄνθρωπος ἀναγνωρισάτω ἑαυτόν».
22.1
οὐ
πάντες γὰρ ἄνθρωποι νοῦν ἔχουσιν; – Εὐφήμει, ὦ οὗτος,
λαλῶν· παραγίνομαι αὐτὸς ἐγὼ ὁ Νοῦς τοῖς ὁσίοις καὶ ἀγαθοῖς
καὶ καθαροῖς καὶ ἐλεήμοσι, τοῖς εὐσεβοῦσι, καὶ ἡ παρουσία
22.5
μου γίνεται βοήθεια, καὶ εὐθὺς τὰ πάντα γνωρίζουσι
καὶ τὸν πατέρα ἱλάσκονται ἀγαπητικῶς καὶ εὐχαριστοῦσιν
εὐλογοῦντες καὶ ὑμνοῦντες τεταγμένως πρὸς αὐτὸν τῇ
στοργῇ, καὶ πρὸ τοῦ παραδοῦναι τὸ σῶμα ἰδίῳ θανάτῳ
μυσάττονται τὰς αἰσθήσεις, εἰδότες αὐτῶν τὰ ἐνεργήματα·
22.10
μᾶλλον δὲ οὐκ ἐάσω αὐτὸς ὁ Νοῦς τὰ προσπίπτοντα ἐνεργήματα
τοῦ σώματος ἐκτελεσθῆναι. πυλωρὸς ὢν ἀποκλείσω
τὰς εἰσόδους τῶν κακῶν καὶ αἰσχρῶν ἐνεργημάτων, τὰς
ἐνθυμήσεις ἐκκόπτων.
23.1
τοῖς δὲ ἀνοήτοις καὶ κακοῖς
καὶ πονηροῖς καὶ φθονεροῖς καὶ πλεονέκταις καὶ φονεῦσι
καὶ ἀσεβέσι πόρρωθέν εἰμι, τῷ τιμωρῷ ἐκχωρήσας δαίμονι,
ὅστις τὴν ὀξύτητα τοῦ πυρὸς προσβάλλων † θρώσκει αὐτὸν †
23.5
αἰσθητικῶς καὶ μᾶλλον ἐπὶ τὰς ἀνομίας αὐτὸν ὁπλίζει, ἵνα
τύχῃ πλείονος τιμωρίας, καὶ οὐ παύεται ἐπ’ ὀρέξεις ἀπλέτους
τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν ἔχων, ἀκορέστως σκοτομαχῶν, καὶ † τοῦτον †
βασανίζει, καὶ ἐπ’ αὐτὸν πῦρ ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖον αὐξάνει.
24.1
– Εὖ μοι πάντα, ὡς ἐβουλόμην, ἐδίδαξας, ὦ Νοῦς,
ἔτι δέ μοι εἰπὲ <περὶ> τῆς ἀνόδου τῆς γινομένης. – πρὸς
ταῦτα ὁ Ποιμάνδρης εἷπε, Πρῶτον μὲν ἐν τῇ ἀναλύσει τοῦ
σώματος τοῦ ὑλικοῦ παραδίδως αὐτὸ τὸ σῶμα εἰς ἀλλοίωσιν,
24.5
καὶ τὸ εἶδος ὃ εἶχες ἀφανὲς γίνεται, καὶ τὸ ἦθος τῷ δαίμονι
ἀνενέργητον παραδίδως, καὶ αἱ αἰσθήσεις τοῦ σώματος
εἰς τὰς ἑαυτῶν πηγὰς ἐπανέρχονται, μέρη γινόμεναι καὶ
πάλιν συνανιστάμεναι εἰς τὰς ἐνεργείας. καὶ ὁ θυμὸς καὶ ἡ
ἐπιθυμία εἰς τὴν ἄλογον φύσιν χωρεῖ.
25.1
καὶ οὕτως
ὁρμᾷ λοιπὸν ἄνω διὰ τῆς ἁρμονίας, καὶ τῇ πρώτῃ ζώνῃ
δίδωσι τὴν αὐξητικὴν ἐνέργειαν καὶ τὴν μειωτικήν, καὶ τῇ
δευτέρᾳ τὴν μηχανὴν τῶν κακῶν, δόλον ἀνενέργητον, καὶ τῇ
25.5
τρίτῃ τὴν ἐπιθυμητικὴν ἀπάτην ἀνενέργητον, καὶ τῇ
τετάρτῃ τὴν ἀρχοντικὴν προφανίαν ἀπλεονέκτητον, καὶ τῇ
πέμπτῃ τὸ θράσος τὸ ἀνόσιον καὶ τῆς τόλμης τὴν προπέτειαν,
καὶ τῇ ἕκτῃ τὰς ἀφορμὰς τὰς κακὰς τοῦ πλούτου
ἀνενεργήτους, καὶ τῇ ἑβδόμῃ ζώνῃ τὸ ἐνεδρεῦον ψεῦδος.
25.10
26.1
καὶ τότε γυμνωθεὶς ἀπὸ τῶν τῆς ἁρμονίας
ἐνεργημάτων γίνεται ἐπὶ τὴν ὀγδοατικὴν φύσιν, τὴν ἰδίαν
δύναμιν ἔχων, καὶ ὑμνεῖ σὺν τοῖς οὖσι τὸν πατέρα· συγχαίρουσι
δὲ οἱ παρόντες τῇ τούτου παρουσίᾳ, καὶ ὁμοιωθεὶς τοῖς
26.5
συνοῦσιν ἀκούει καί τινων δυνάμεων ὑπὲρ τὴν ὀγδοατικὴν
φύσιν φωνῇ τινι ἡδείᾳ ὑμνουσῶν τὸν θεόν· καὶ τότε τάξει
ἀνέρχονται πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, καὶ αὐτοὶ εἰς δυνάμεις
ἑαυτοὺς παραδιδόασι, καὶ δυνάμεις γενόμενοι ἐν θεῷ γίνονται.
τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ ἀγαθὸν τέλος τοῖς γνῶσιν ἐσχηκόσι,
26.10
θεωθῆναι. λοιπόν, τί μέλλεις; οὐχ ὡς πάντα παραλαβὼν
καθοδηγὸς γίνῃ τοῖς ἀξίοις, ὅπως τὸ γένος τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος
διὰ σοῦ ὑπὸ θεοῦ σωθῇ;
27.1
ταῦτα εἰπὼν ὁ Ποιμάνδρης ἐμοὶ ἐμίγη ταῖς δυνάμεσιν.
ἐγὼ δὲ εὐχαριστήσας καὶ εὐλογήσας τὸν πατέρα τῶν
ὅλων ἀνείθην ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ δυναμωθεὶς καὶ διδαχθεὶς τοῦ
παντὸς τὴν φύσιν καὶ τὴν μεγίστην θέαν, καὶ ἦργμαι κηρύσσειν
27.5
τοῖς ἀνθρώποις τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας καὶ γνώσεως κάλλος,
Ὦ λαοί, ἄνδρες γηγενεῖς, οἱ μέθῃ καὶ ὕπνῳ ἑαυτοὺς
ἐκδεδωκότες καὶ τῇ ἀγνωσίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ, νήψατε, παύσασθε δὲ
κραιπαλῶντες, θελγόμενοι ὕπνῳ ἀλόγῳ.
28.1
Οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες παρεγένοντο ὁμοθυμαδόν. ἐγὼ δέ
φημι, Τί ἑαυτούς, ὦ ἄνδρες γηγενεῖς, εἰς θάνατον ἐκδεδώκατε,
ἔχοντες ἐξουσίαν τῆς ἀθανασίας μεταλαβεῖν; μετανοήσατε,
οἱ συνοδεύσαντες τῇ πλάνῃ καὶ συγκοινωνήσαντες
28.5
τῇ ἀγνοίᾳ· ἀπαλλάγητε τοῦ σκοτεινοῦ φωτός, μεταλάβετε
τῆς ἀθανασίας, καταλείψαντες τὴν φθοράν.
29.1
καὶ οἱ μὲν αὐτῶν καταφλυαρήσαντες ἀπέστησαν, τῇ
τοῦ θανάτου ὁδῷ ἑαυτοὺς ἐκδεδωκότες, οἱ δὲ παρεκάλουν
διδαχθῆναι, ἑαυτοὺς πρὸ ποδῶν μου ῥίψαντες. ἐγὼ δὲ
ἀναστήσας αὐτοὺς καθοδηγὸς ἐγενόμην τοῦ γένους, τοὺς λόγους
29.5
διδάσκων, πῶς καὶ τίνι τρόπῳ σωθήσονται, καὶ ἔσπειρα
αὐτοῖς τοὺς τῆς σοφίας λόγους καὶ ἐτράφησαν ἐκ τοῦ
ἀμβροσίου ὕδατος. ὀψίας δὲ γενομένης καὶ τῆς τοῦ ἡλίου
αὐγῆς ἀρχομένης δύεσθαι ὅλης, ἐκέλευσα αὐτοῖς εὐχαριστεῖν
τῷ θεῷ καὶ ἀναπληρώσαντες τὴν εὐχαριστίαν ἕκαστος
29.10
ἐτράπη εἰς τὴν ἰδίαν κοίτην.
30.1
ἐγὼ δὲ τὴν εὐεργεσίαν τοῦ Ποιμάνδρου ἀνεγραψάμην
εἰς ἐμαυτόν, καὶ πληρωθεὶς ὧν ἤθελον ἐξηυφράνθην.
ἐγένετο γὰρ ὁ τοῦ σώματος ὕπνος τῆς ψυχῆς νῆψις, καὶ
ἡ κάμμυσις τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ἀληθινὴ ὅρασις, καὶ ἡ σιωπή
30.5
μου ἐγκύμων τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, καὶ ἡ τοῦ λόγου ἐκφορὰ γεννήματα
ἀγαθῶν. τοῦτο δὲ συνέβη μοι λαβόντι ἀπὸ τοῦ νοός μου,
τουτέστι τοῦ Ποιμάνδρου, τοῦ τῆς αὐθεντίας λόγου.
θεόπνους γενόμενος τῆς ἀληθείας ἦλθον. διὸ δίδωμι ἐκ ψυχῆς
καὶ ἰσχύος ὅλης εὐλογίαν τῷ πατρὶ θεῷ.
31.1
ἅγιος ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων.
ἅγιος ὁ θεὸς, οὗ ἡ βουλὴ τελεῖται ἀπὸ τῶν ἰδίων δυνάμεων.
ἅγιος ὁ θεός, ὃς γνωσθῆναι βούλεται καὶ γινώσκεται τοῖς
31.5
ἰδίοις.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ λόγῳ συστησάμενος τὰ ὄντα.
ἅγιος εἶ, οὗ πᾶσα φύσις εἰκὼν ἔφυ.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὃν ἡ φύσις οὐκ ἐμόρφωσεν.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ πάσης δυνάμεως ἰσχυρότερος.
31.10
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ πάσης ὑπεροχῆς μείζων.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ κρείττων τῶν ἐπαίνων.
δέξαι λογικὰς θυσίας ἁγνὰς ἀπὸ ψυχῆς καὶ καρδίας
πρὸς σὲ ἀνατεταμένης, ἀνεκλάλητε, ἄρρητε, σιωπῇ φωνούμενε.
32.1
αἰτουμένῳ τὸ μὴ σφαλῆναι τῆς γνώσεως τῆς
κατ’ οὐσίαν ἡμῶν ἐπίνευσόν μοι καὶ ἐνδυνάμωσόν με,
καὶ τῆς χάριτος ταύτης φωτίσω τοὺς ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ τοῦ γένους,
μοῦ ἀδελφούς, υἱοὺς δὲ σοῦ. διὸ πιστεύω καὶ μαρτυρῶ· εἰς
32.5
ζωὴν καὶ φῶς χωρῶ. εὐλογητὸς εἶ, πάτερ. ὁ σὸς ἄνθρωπος
συναγιάζειν σοι βούλεται, καθὼς παρέδωκας αὐτῷ τὴν
πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν.
===============
“Corpus Hermeticum, vol. 1”, Ed. Nock, A.D., Festugière, A.–J.
Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1946, Repr. 1972.