---
title: "Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius"
author: "Hermes Trismegistus (attributed)"
translator: "G. R. S. Mead"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Hermetica & Gnostics"
section: 18 of 45
url: https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/18/
cite: "Hermes Trismegistus (attributed), tr. G. R. S. Mead, Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius, section 18. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/18/"
---

# 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.

## 18. XI. (XII.) Mind Unto Hermes · 2 of 3

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/18/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/18/#p-N

[¶0] For that one single order is not kept among “the many”; but rivalry will follow of the weaker with the stronger, and they will strive.

[¶1] And if the maker of the lives that suffer change and death, should be another, he would desire to make the deathless ones as well; just as the maker of the deathless ones, [to make the lives] that suffer death.

[¶2] But come! if there be two, —if Matter’s one, and Soul is one, in whose hands would there be the distribution for the making? Again, if both of them have some of it, in whose hands may there be the greater part?

[¶3] 10. But thus conceive it, then; that every living body doth consist of soul and matter, whether [that body be] of an immortal, or a mortal, or an irrational [life].

[¶4] For that all living bodies are ensouled; whereas, upon the other hand, those that live not, are matter by itself.

[¶5] And, in like fashion, Soul when in its self is, after its own maker, cause of life; but the cause of all life is He who makes the things that cannot die.

[¶6] Her. How, then, is it that, first, lives subject unto death are other than the deathless ones? And, next, how is it that that Life which knows no death, and maketh deathlessness, doth not make animals immortal?

[¶7] 11. Mind. First, that there is some one who does these things, is clear; and, next, that He is also One, is very manifest. For, also, Soul is one, and Life is one, and Matter one.

[¶8] Her. But who is He?

[¶9] Mind. Who may it other be than the One God? Whom else should it beseem to put Soul into lives but God alone? One, then, is God.

[¶10] It would indeed be most ridiculous, if when thou dost confess the Cosmos to be one, Sun one, Moon one, and Godhead one, thou shouldst wish God Himself to be some one or other of a number!

[¶11] 12. All things, therefore, He makes, in many [ways]. And what great thing is it for God to make life, soul, and deathlessness, and change, when thou [thyself] dost do so many things?

[¶12] For thou dost see, and speak, and hear, and smell, and taste, and touch, and walk, and think, and breathe. And it is not one man who smells, a second one who speaks, a third who touches, another one who smells, another one who walks, another one who thinks, and [yet] another one who breathes. But one is he who doth all these.

[¶13] And yet no one of these could be apart from God. For just as, shouldst thou cease from these, thou wouldst no longer be a living thing, so also, should God cease from them (a thing not law to say), no longer is He God.

[¶14] 13. For if it hath been shown that no thing can inactive be, how much less God? For if there’s aught He doth not make (if it be law to say), He is imperfect. But if He is not only not inactive, but perfect [God], then He doth make all things.

[¶15] Give thou thyself to Me, My Hermes, for a little while, and thou shalt understand more easily how that God’s work is one, in order that all things may be—that are being made, or once have been, or that are going to be made. And this is, My belovèd, Life; this is the Beautiful; this is the Good; this, God.

[¶16] 14. And if them wouldst in practice understand [this work], behold what taketh place with thee desiring to beget. Yet this is not like unto that, for He doth not enjoy.

[¶17] For that indeed He hath no other one to share in what He works, for working by Himself, He ever is at work, Himself being what He doth. For did He separate Himself from it, all things would [then] collapse, and all must die, Life ceasing.

[¶18] But if all things are lives, and also Life is one; then, one is God. And, furthermore, if all are lives, both those in Heaven and those on Earth, and One Life in them all is made to be by God, and God is it —then, all are made by God.

[¶19] Life is the making-one of Mind and Soul; accordingly Death is not the destruction of those that are at-oned, but the dissolving of their union.

[¶20] 15. Æon, moreover, is God’s image; Cosmos [is] Æon’s; the Sun, of Cosmos; and Man, [the image] of the Sun.

[¶21] The people call change death, because the body is dissolved, and life, when it’s dissolved, withdraws to the unmanifest. But in this sermon (logos), Hermes, my beloved, as thou dost hear, I say the Cosmos also suffers change,—for that a part of it each day is made to be in the unmanifest,—yet it is ne’er dissolved.

[¶22] These are the passions of the Cosmos—revolvings and concealments; revolving is conversion and concealment renovation.

[¶23] 16. The Cosmos is all-formed,—not having forms external to itself, but changing them itself within itself. Since, then, Cosmos is made to be all-formed, what may its maker be? For that, on the one hand, He should not be void of all form; and, on the other hand, if He’s all-formed, He will be like the Cosmos. Whereas, again, has He a single form, He will thereby be less than Cosmos.

[¶24] What, then, say we He is?—that we may not bring round our sermon (logos) into doubt; for naught that mind conceives of God is doubtful.

[¶25] He, then, hath one idea, which is His own alone, which doth not fall beneath the sight, being bodiless, and [yet] by means of bodies manifesteth all [ideas]. And marvel not that there’s a bodiless idea.

[¶26] 17. For it is like the form of reason (logos)

[¶27] and mountain-tops in pictures. For they appear to stand out strongly from the rest, but really are quite smooth and flat.

[¶28] And now consider what is said more boldly, but more truly!

[¶29] Just as man cannot live apart from Life, so neither can God live without [His] doing good. For this is as it were the life and motion as it were of God—to move all things and make them live.

[¶30] 18. Now some of the things said should bear a sense peculiar to themselves. So understand, for instance, what I’m going to say.

[¶31] All are in God, [but] not as lying in a place. For place is both a body and immovable, and things that lie do not have motion.

[¶32] Now things lie one way in the bodiless, another way in being made manifest.

[¶33] Think, [then,] of Him who doth contain them all; and think, that than the bodiless naught is more comprehensive, or swifter, or more potent, but it is the most comprehensive, the swiftest, and most potent of them all.

[¶34] 19. And, thus, think from thyself, and bid thy soul go unto any land; and there more quickly than thy bidding will it be. And bid it journey oceanwards; and there, again, immediately ’twill be, not as if passing on from place to place, but as if being there.

[¶35] And bid it also mount to heaven; and it will need no wings, nor will aught hinder it, nor fire of sun, nor æther, nor vortex-swirl, nor bodies of the other stars; but, cutting through them all, it will soar up to the last Body [of them all]. And shouldst thou will to break through this as well, and contemplate what is beyond—if there be aught beyond the Cosmos ; it is permitted thee.

[¶36] 20. Behold what power, what swiftness, thou dost have! And canst thou do all of these things, and God not [do them]?

[¶37] Then, in this way know God; as having all things in Himself as thoughts, the whole Cosmos itself.

[¶38] If, then, thou dost not make thyself like unto God, thou canst not know Him. For like is knowable to like [alone].

[¶39] Make, [then,] thyself to grow to the same stature as the Greatness which transcends all measure; leap forth from every body; transcend all Time; become Eternity ; and [thus] shalt thou know God.

[¶40] Conceiving nothing is impossible unto thyself, think thyself deathless and able to know all,—all arts, all sciences, the way of every life.

[¶41] Become more lofty than all height, and lower than all depth. Collect into thyself all senses of [all] creatures,—of fire, [and] water, dry and moist. Think that thou art at the same time in every place,—in earth, in sea, in sky; not yet begotten, in the womb, young, old, [and] dead, in after-death conditions.

[¶42] And if thou knowest all these things at once, —times, places, doings, qualities, and quantities; thou canst know God.

[¶43] 21. But if thou lockest up thy soul within thy body, and dost debase it, saying: I nothing know; I nothing can; I fear the sea; I cannot scale the sky; I know not who I was, who I shall be;—what is there [then] between [thy] God and thee?

[¶44] For thou canst know naught of things beautiful and good so long as thou dost love thy body and art bad.