--- title: "Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius" author: "Hermes Trismegistus (attributed)" translator: "G. R. S. Mead" languages: [en] shelf: "Hermetica & Gnostics" section: 2 of 45 url: https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/2/ cite: "Hermes Trismegistus (attributed), tr. G. R. S. Mead, Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius, section 2. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/2/" --- # 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. ## 2. I. Pœmandres, the Shepherd of Men · 2 of 3 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/2/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/2/#p-N [¶0] 16. Thereon [I say: Teach on], O Mind of me, for I myself as well am amorous of the Word (Logos). [¶1] The Shepherd said: This is the mystery kept hid until this day. [¶2] 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. [¶3] Thereon [I said]: O Shepherd, . . . ; for now I’m filled with great desire and long to hear; do not run off. [¶4] The Shepherd said: Keep silence, for not as yet have I unrolled for thee the first discourse (logos). [¶5] Lo! I am still, I said. [¶6] 17. In such wise then, 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 Æther. Nature thus brought forth frames to suit the form of Man. [¶7] And Man from Life and Light changed into soul and mind,—from Life to soul, from Light to mind. [¶8] And thus continued all the sense-world’s parts until the period of their end and new beginnings. [¶9] 18. Now listen to the rest of the discourse (logos) which thou dost long to hear. [¶10] 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): [¶11] “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.” [¶12] 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. [¶13] 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,— [¶14] he stays in Darkness wandering, and suffering through his senses things of Death. [¶15] 20. What is the so great fault, said I, the ignorant commit, that they should be deprived of deathlessness? [¶16] Thou seem’st, he said, O thou, not to have given heed to what thou heardest. Did not I bid thee think? [¶17] Yea do I think, and I remember, and therefore give Thee thanks. [¶18] If thou didst think [thereon], [said He], tell me: Why do they merit death who are in Death? [¶19] 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. [¶20] 21. Right was thy thought, O thou! But how doth “he who knows himself, go unto Him,” as God’s Word (Logos) hath declared? [¶21] And I reply: the Father of the universals doth consist of Light and Life, and from Him Man was born. [¶22] Thou sayest well, [thus] speaking. Light and Life is Father-God, and from Him Man was born. [¶23] If then thou learnest that thou art thyself of [¶24] Life and Light, and that thou [only] happen’st to be out of them, thou shalt return again to Life. Thus did Man-Shepherd speak. [¶25] 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].” [¶26] 22. Have not all men then Mind? [¶27] 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. [¶28] [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. [¶29] And ere they give the body up 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’ll close up [all] the entrances, and cut the mental actions off which base and evil energies induce. [¶30] 23. But to the Mind-less ones, the wicked and depraved, the envious and covetous, and those who murder 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 on him through his senses, thus rendering him the 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. [¶31] 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]. [¶32] To this Man-Shepherd said: When thy 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. [¶33] 25. And thus it is that man doth speed his way thereafter upwards through the Harmony. [¶34] 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 aggrandisement; and to the seventh zone, Ensnaring Falsehood, de-energized. [¶35] 26. And then, with all the energizings 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. [¶36] 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. [¶37] 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. [¶38] 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? [¶39] 27. This when He’d said, Man-Shepherd mingled with the Powers. [¶40] 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’d taught me of the nature of the All and of the loftiest Vision. [¶41] And I began to preach to men the Beauty of Devotion and of Gnosis: [¶42] 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 ! [¶43] 28. And when they heard, they came with one accord. Whereon I say: [¶44] Ye earth-born folk, why have ye given up yourselves 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 from out the light of Darkness, and take your part in Deathlessness, forsake Destruction!