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December 21 - December 26, 2018
The effect which writings such as this have had upon the entirety of Western civilization is vast- the philosophy, taken up and used by quasi-secular scribe and magi alike, had a profound effect upon what by that time had become the political movement of Christianity, which eventually grew to encompass and inform even the most secular or mundane aspects of Western rulership and political dominion.
Trismegistus insists that the singular God permeates all things and that, thus, even mortal, wicked man is utterly part of this same deity- a deity which holds all power, makes all existence, and is never bereft of motion (or as we may say, the presence of divine will and the action thereof derived from it.)
Trismegistus states that the best way to honor this God is through silence, and through this, silent praise.
70. That which is mortal comes not into a body immortal; but that which is immortal comes into that which is mortal.
83. Avoid all conversation with the multitude or common people; for I would not have you subject to envy, much less to be ridiculous unto the multitude. 84. For the like always takes to itself that which is like, but the unlike never agrees with the unlike. Such discourses as these have very few auditors, and peradventure very few will have, but they have something peculiar unto themselves.
87. This, Oh son: the whole nature and composition of those living things called men, is very prone to maliciousness, and is very familiar, and as it were nourished with it, and therefore is delighted with it; now this wight, if it shall come to learn or know that the world was once made, and all things are done according to Providence or necessity, destiny or fate, bearing rule over all, will he not be much worse than himself, despising the whole, because it was made? And if he may lay the cause of evil upon fate or destiny, he will never abstain from any evil work.
88. Wherefore we must look warily to such kind of people, that being in ignorance they may be less evil for fear of that which is hidden and kept secret.
9. How is that, I asked? Thus, he replied, understand it: That which in you sees and hears, the word of the Lord, and the mind the Father, God, differ not one from the other; and the union of these is Life. I said, I thank thee. He said, but first conceive well the light in your mind, and know it.
13. For the mind being God, male and female, life and light, brought forth by his word another mind or workman; which being God of the fire, and the spirit, fashioned and formed seven other governors, which in their circles contain the tangible world, whose government or disposition is called fate or destiny.
18. But the father of all things, the mind being life and light, brought forth man like unto himself, whom he loved as his proper birth; for he was all beauteous, having the image of his father.
28. After these things, I said, you are my mind, and I am in love with reason.
29. Then said Poemander, This is the mystery that to this day is hidden and kept secret; for nature being mingled with man, brought forth a wonder most great; for he having the nature of the harmony of the seven, from him who I told you, the fire and the spirit, nature continued not, but forthwith brought forth seven men, all hermaphrodites, and sublime, or on high, according to the natures of the seven governors.
38. And straightway God said to the holy word, increase in increasing and multiplying in multitude all you my creatures and creations. And let him that is imbued with a mind, know himself to be immortal; and that the cause of death is the love of the body, and let him learn all things that are.
50. He said, God and the father is light and life, of which man is made. If therefore you learn and believe yourself to be of the life and light, you will again pass into life. 51. I replied, But yet tell me more, Oh my mind, how I shall go into life. 52. He replied, God says, let man, imbued with a mind, take heed, consider, and know himself well. 53. I asked, Have not all men a mind? 54. He said, Take heed what you say, for I the mind come unto men that are holy and good, pure and merciful, and that live piously and religiously; and my presence is a help unto them. And forthwith they know
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75. Oh people, men, born and made of the earth, which have given yourselves over to drunkenness and sleep, and to the ignorance of God, be sober and cease your surfeit, by which you are allured and visited by brutish and unreasonable sleep. 76. And they that heard me come willingly and with one accord; and then I said further: 77. Why, Oh men of the offspring of Earth, why have you delivered yourselves over unto death, having power to partake of immortality? Repent and change your minds, you that have together walked in error, and have been darkened in ignorance.
79. And some of them that heard me, mocking and scorning went away, and delivered themselves up to the way of death. 80. But others casting themselves down before my feet, besought me that they might be taught; but I, causing them to rise up, became a guide of mankind, teaching them the reasons how, and by what means they may be saved. And I sowed in them the words of wisdom, and nourished them with ambrosia of immortality.
84. And thus it came to pass, which I received from my mind, that is Poemander, the lord of the word; whereby I became inspired by God with the truth. 85. For which cause, with my soul and whole strength, I give praise and blessing unto God the father. 86. Holy is God, the father of all things. 87. Holy is God, whose will is performed and accomplished by his own powers. 88. Holy is God, that determines to be known, and is known by his own. 89. Holy art thou, that by your word has established all things. 90. Holy art thou, of whom all nature is the image. 91. Holy art thou, whom nature did not
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52. For God is not ignorant of man, but knows him perfectly, and will be known by him. This only is healthful to man, the knowledge of God: This is the return of Olympus; by this only the soul is made good, and not sometimes
good, and sometimes evil, but of necessity good.
89. For man is a divine living thing, and is not to be compared to any brute beast that lives upon Earth, but to them that are above in Heaven, that are called gods.
93. Wherefore we must be bold to say, that an earthly man is a mortal god, and that the Heavenly God is an immortal
man.
9. You, therefore, Oh Tat, my son, pray first to the Lord and father, and to the singular, and to the one, from whom is one to be merciful to thee, that you may know and understand so great a God; and that he would shine one of his beams upon you in your understanding. 10. For only the understanding see that which is not manifest, or apparent, as being itself not manifest or apparent; and if you are able, Oh Tat, it will appear to the eyes of your mind. 11. For the Lord, void of envy, appears through the whole world. You may see the intelligence, and take it into your hands, and contemplate
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32. This is God that is better than any name; this is he that is secret; this is he that is most manifest; this is he that is to be seen by the mind; this is he that is visible to the eye; this is he that has no body; and this is he that has many bodies; rather, there is nothing of any body which is not he.
33. For he alone is all things. 34. And for this cause he has many names, because he is the one father; and therefore he has no name, because he is the father of all. 35. Who therefore can bless you, or give thanks for you, or to you? 36. Which way shall I look when I praise you? upward? downward? outward? inward? 37. For about these there is no manner nor place, nor anything else of all things that are.
42. For you are what I am, you are what I do, you are what I say. 43. You are all things, and there is nothing else you are not. 44. You are you, all that is made, and all that is not made. 45. The mind that understands. 46. The father that makes and frames. 47. The good that works. 48. The good that does all things.
2. And if it be so, then must he be an essence or substance, void of all motion and generation; but nothing is void or empty of him. 3. And this essence has in itself a stable and firm operation, wanting nothing, most full and giving abundantly. 4. One thing is the beginning of all things, for it gives all things; and when I name the good, I mean that which is altogether and always good.
34. For the rest, Oh son, hold your peace, and praise God in silence, and by that means the mercy of God will not cease, or be wanting in us.
35. Therefore, rejoice, my son, from henceforward, being purged by the powers of God, to the knowledge of the truth. 36. For the revelation of God is come to us, and when that came, all ignorance was cast out.
47. Tat said, Oh father, I conceive and understand, not by the sight of my eyes, but by the intellectual operation, which is by the powers. I am in Heaven, in the Earth, in the water, in the air; I am in living creatures, in plants, in the womb, everywhere.
57. The sensible body of nature is far from the essential generation, for that is subject to dissolution, but this is not; and that is mortal, but this immortal. Do you not know that you are born a god, and the son of the one, as I am?
The Secret Song: 65. Let all the nature of the world entertain the hearing of this hymn. 66. Be opened, Oh Earth, and let all the treasure of the rain be opened. 67. You trees, tremble not, for I will sing and praise the Lord of the creation, and the all, and the one. 68. Be opened, you heavens; you winds, stand still, and let the immortal circle of God receive these words. 69. For I will sing and praise him that created all things, that fixed the earth, and hung up the heavens, and commanded the sweet water to come out of the ocean, into all the world, inhabited and not inhabited, to the uses
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words. 83. The powers that are in me cry these things, they praise the all, they fulfill your will; your will and counsel is form unto you. 84. Oh all, receive a spoken sacrifice from all things. 85. Oh life, save all that is in us; Oh light, enlighten, Oh God, the spirit; for the mind nourishes the word; Oh spiritbearing workman. 86. You are God, your servant cries these things unto you through, by the fire, by the air, by the earth, by the water, by the spirit, by your creatures. 87. From eternity I have found blessing and praise for you, and I have what I seek; for I rest in your will.
99. And learn this from me: Above all other virtues entertain silence, and impart unto no man, Oh son, the tradition of regeneration, lest we be reputed as troublemakers; for we both have now sufficiently meditated, I in speaking, and you in listening. And now you do intellectually know yourself and our father.
1. Where are you carried, Oh men, drunken with the wine of ignorance? When you see that you cannot hold it down, why do you vomit it up again? 2. Stand, and be sober, and look up again with the eyes of your heart, and if you cannot all do so, yet do so as many as you can. 3. For the malice of ignorance surrounds all the Earth, and corrupts the soul, shut up in the body, not suffering it to arrive at the havens of salvation. 4. Suffer not yourselves to be carried with the great stream, but stem the tide you that can lay hold of the haven of safety, and make your full course towards it. 5. Seek
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6. For he cannot be heard with ears, nor seen with eyes, nor expressed in words; bu...
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7. But first you must tear to pieces, and break through the garment that you wear; the web of ignorance; the foundation of all mischief; the shackles of corruption; the cloak of darkness; the living death; the corruptible corpse; the sepulcher, carried about with u...
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8. Such is the hurtful apparel, with which you are now clothed, which draws and pulls you downward by its own self, lest looking upward and seeing the beauty of truth, and the good that is reposed therein, you would hate the wickedness of this garment and understand the traps and ambushes which it had laid for you. 9. Therefore it labors to make good those things that seem, and are by the senses, judged and determined; and the things that are true, it hides, and veils in much matter, fillin...
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44. Therefore, Oh Hermes, think none of these things below, or the things above, in any way is like unto God; for if you do, you err from the truth.
47. For God is not idle, for then all things would be idle; for all things are full of God.
77. For there is one soul, one life, and one matter. 78. Who is this? who can it be, other than the one God? 79. For who else can it benefit to make living things, save only God alone? 80. There is therefore one God.
81. For it is a ridiculous thing to confess the world to be one, one sun, one Moon, one divinity, and yet to have, I know not how many gods. 82. He therefore being one, does all things in many things.
132. For it is the greatest evil, not to know God.
133. But to be able to know, and to will, and to hope, is the straight way, and Divine way, proper to the good, and it will everywhere be with you, and everywhere be seen of you, plain and easy, when you do not expect or look for it; it will meet you waking, sleeping, sailing, traveling, by night, by day, when you speak, and when you are silent. 134. For there is nothing which is not the image of God. 135. And yet you say, God is invisible; but be advised, for who is more manifest than he? 136. For therefore has he made all things, that you by all things may see him. 137. This is the good of
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3. The mind therefore is not cut off, or divided from the essence of God, but united as the light of the sun. 4. And this mind in men, is God, and therefore are some men Divine, and their humanity is near Divinity. 5. For the good daemon are called the gods, immortal men, and men mortal gods.
7. For where there is a soul, there is the mind, as where there is life there is also a soul.
16. But the great disease of the soul is Atheism, because that opinion follows to all evil, and no good.
18. But as many souls of men, as do not admit or entertain the mind for their governor, do suffer the same thing that the soul of unreasonable living things does. 19. For the soul being a cooperator with them, permits or leaves them to their concupiscence, by which they are carried by the power of their appetite, and so tend to brutishness. 20. And as brute beasts, they are angry without reason, and they desire without reason, and never cease, nor are satisfied with evil.
21. For unreasonable angers and desires are the most exceeding evils. 22. And therefore God set the mind over there, to give revenge and reproach to them.
