--- title: "Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius" author: "Hermes Trismegistus (attributed)" translator: "G. R. S. Mead" languages: [en] shelf: "Hermetica & Gnostics" section: 15 of 45 url: https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/15/ cite: "Hermes Trismegistus (attributed), tr. G. R. S. Mead, Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius, section 15. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/15/" --- # Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius *Hermes Trismegistus (attributed), tr. G. R. S. Mead* Poimandres and the other Hermetic tractates, with the Latin Asclepius, in Mead's 1906 English. ## 15. X. (XI.) The Key · 2 of 3 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/15/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/15/#p-N [¶0] All then that are united to the “tissue” of this “head” (in which is soul) are in their nature free from death,—just as when body hath been made in soul, are things that have more soul than body. [¶1] Whereas those things which are at greater distance from this “tissue”—there, where are things which have a greater share of body than of soul—are by their nature subject unto death. [¶2] The whole, however, is a life; so that the universe consists of both the hylic and of the intelligible. [¶3] 12. Again, the Cosmos is the first of living things, while man is second after it, though first of things subject to death. [¶4] Man hath the same ensouling power in him as all the rest of living things ; yet is he not only not good, but even evil, for that he’s subject unto death. [¶5] For though the Cosmos also is not good in that it suffers motion, it is not evil, in that it is not subject unto death. But man, in that he’s subject both to motion and to death, is evil. [¶6] 13. Now then the principles of man are this-wise vehicled: mind in the reason (logos), the reason in the soul, soul in the spirit, [and] spirit in the body. [¶7] Spirit pervading [body] by means of veins and arteries and blood, bestows upon the living creature motion, and as it were doth bear it in a way. [¶8] For this cause some do think the soul is blood, in that they do mistake its nature, not knowing that [at death] it is the spirit that must first withdraw into the soul, whereon the blood congeals and veins and arteries are emptied, and then the living creature is withdrawn; and this is body’s death. [¶9] 14. Now from One Source all things depend; while Source [dependeth] from the One and Only [One]. Source is, moreover, moved to become Source again; whereas the One standeth perpetually and is not moved. [¶10] Three then are they: “God, the Father and the Good,” Cosmos and man. [¶11] God doth contain Cosmos; Cosmos [containeth] man. Cosmos is e’er God’s Son, man as it were Cosmos’s child. [¶12] 15. Not that, however, God ignoreth man; nay, right well doth He know him, and willeth to be known. [¶13] This is the sole salvation for a man—God’s Gnosis. This is the Way Up to the Mount. [¶14] By Him alone the soul becometh good, not whiles is good, whiles evil, but [good] out of necessity. [¶15] Tat. What dost thou mean, Thrice-greatest one? [¶16] Her. Behold an infant’s soul, my son, that is not yet cut off, because its body is still small and not as yet come unto its full bulk. [¶17] Tat. How? [¶18] Her. A thing of beauty altogether is [such a soul] to see, not yet befouled by body’s passions, still all but hanging from the Cosmic Soul! [¶19] But when the body grows in bulk and draweth down the soul into its mass, then doth the soul cut off itself and bring upon itself forgetfulness, and no more shareth in the Beautiful and Good. And this forgetfulness becometh vice. [¶20] 16. It is the same for them who go out from the body. [¶21] For when the soul withdraws into itself, the spirit doth contract itself within the blood, and soul within the spirit. And then the mind, stript of its wrappings, and naturally divine, taking unto itself a fiery body, doth traverse every space, after abandoning the soul unto its judgment and whatever chastisement it hath deserved. [¶22] Tat. What dost thou, father, mean by this? The mind is parted from the soul and soul from spirit? Whereas thou said’st the soul was the mind’s vesture, and the soul’s the spirit. [¶23] 17. Her. The hearer, son, should think with him who speaks and breathe with him ; nay, he should have a hearing subtler than the voice of him who speaks. [¶24] It is, son, in a body made of earth that this arrangement of the vestures comes to pass. For in a body made of earth it is impossible the mind should take its seat itself by its own self in nakedness. [¶25] For neither is it possible on the one hand the earthy body should contain such immortality, nor on the other that so great a virtue should endure a body passible in such close contact with it. It taketh, then, the soul for as it were an envelope. [¶26] And soul itself, being too a thing divine, doth use the spirit as its envelope, while spirit doth pervade the living creature. [¶27] 18. When then the mind doth free itself from the earth-body, it straightway putteth on its proper robe of fire, with which it could not dwell in an earth-body. [¶28] For earth doth not bear fire; for it is all set in a blaze even by a small spark. And for this cause is water poured round earth, to be a guard and wall, to keep the blazing of the fire away. [¶29] But mind, the swiftest thing of all divine out-thinkings, and swifter than all elements, hath for its body fire. [¶30] For mind being builder doth use the fire as tool for the construction of all things—the Mind of all [for the construction] of all things, but that of man only for things on earth. [¶31] Stript of its fire the mind on earth cannot make things divine, for it is human in its dispensation. [¶32] 19. The soul in man, however,—not every soul, but one that pious is—is a daimonic something and divine. [¶33] And such a soul when from the body freed, if it have fought the fight of piety—the fight of piety is to know God and to do wrong to no man—such soul becomes entirely mind. [¶34] Whereas the impious soul remains in its own essence, chastised by its own self, and seeking for an earthy body where to enter, if only it be human. [¶35] For that no other body can contain a human soul; nor is it right that any human soul should fall into the body of a thing that doth possess no reason. For that the law of God is this: to guard the human soul from such tremendous outrage. [¶36] 20. Tat. How father, then, is a man’s soul chastised? [¶37] Her. What greater chastisement of any human soul can there be, son, than lack of piety? What fire has so fierce flame as lack of piety? What ravenous beast so mauls the body as lack of piety the very soul? [¶38] Dost thou not see what hosts of ills the impious soul doth bear? [¶39] It shrieks and screams: I burn; I am ablaze; I know not what to cry or do; ah, wretched me, I am devoured by all the ills that compass me about; alack, poor me, I neither see nor hear! [¶40] Such are the cries wrung from a soul chastised; not, as the many think, and thou, son, dost suppose, that a [man’s] soul, passing from body, is changed into a beast. [¶41] Such is a very grave mistake, for that the way a soul doth suffer chastisement is this: [¶42] 21. When mind becomes a daimon, the law requires that it should take a fiery body to execute the services of God; and entering in the soul most impious it scourgeth it with whips made of its sins. [¶43] And then the impious soul, scourged with its sins, is plunged in murders, outrage, blasphemy, in violence of all kinds, and all the other things whereby mankind is wronged. [¶44] But on the pious soul the mind doth mount and guide it to the Gnosis’ Light. And such a soul doth never tire in songs of praise [to God] and pouring blessing on all men, and doing good in word and deed to all, in imitation of its Sire.