--- title: "Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius" author: "Hermes Trismegistus (attributed)" translator: "G. R. S. Mead" languages: [en] shelf: "Hermetica & Gnostics" section: 6 of 45 url: https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/6/ cite: "Hermes Trismegistus (attributed), tr. G. R. S. Mead, Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius, section 6. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/6/" --- # 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. ## 6. II. (III.) To Asclepius · 2 of 2 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/6/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/corpus-hermeticum-mead/6/#p-N [¶0] Asc. Are there, then, O Thrice-greatest one, no such things as an empty cask, for instance, and an empty jar, a cup and vat, and other things like unto them? [¶1] Her. Alack, Asclepius, for thy far-wandering from the truth! Think’st thou that things most full and most replete are void? [¶2] 11. Asc. How meanest thou, Thrice-greatest one? [¶3] Her. Is not air body? [¶4] Asc. It is. [¶5] Her. And doth this body not pervade all things, and so, pervading, fill them? And “body”; doth body not consist from blending of the “four”? Full, then, of air are all thou callest void; and if of air, then of the “four.” [¶6] Further, of this the converse follows, that all thou callest full are void—of air; for that they have their space filled out with other bodies, and, therefore, are not able to receive the air therein. These, then, which thou dost say are void, they should be hollow named, not void; for they not only are, but they are full of air and spirit. [¶7] 12. Asc. Thy argument (logos), Thrice-greatest one, is not to be gainsaid; air is a body. Further, it is this body which doth pervade all things, and so, pervading, fill them. What are we, then, to call that space in which the all doth move? [¶8] Her. The Bodiless, Asclepius. [¶9] Asc. What, then, is Bodiless? [¶10] Her. ’Tis Mind and Reason (Logos), whole out of whole, all self-embracing, free from all body, from all error free, unsensible to body and untouchable, self stayed in self, containing all, preserving those that are, whose rays, to use a likeness, are Good, Truth, Light beyond light, the Archetype of soul. [¶11] Asc. What, then, is God? [¶12] 13. Her. Not any one of these is He; for He it is that causeth them to be, both all and each and every thing of all that are. Nor hath He left a thing beside that is-not; but they are all from things-that-are and not from things-that-are-not. For that the things-that-are-not have naturally no power of being anything, but rather have the nature of the inability-to-be. And, conversely, the things-that-are have not the nature of some time not-being. [¶13] 14. Asc. What say’st thou ever, then, God is? [¶14] Her. God, therefore, is not Mind, but Cause that the Mind is; God is not Spirit, but Cause that Spirit is; God is not Light, but Cause that the Light is. Hence should one honour God with these two names [the Good and Father]—names which pertain to Him alone and no one else. [¶15] For no one of the other so-called gods, no one of men, or daimones, can be in any measure Good, but God alone; and He is Good alone and nothing else. The rest of things are separable all from the Good’s nature; for [all the rest] are soul and body, which have no space that can contain the Good. [¶16] 15. For that as mighty is the Greatness of the Good as is the Being of all things that are—both bodies and things bodiless, things sensible and intelligible things. Call not thou, therefore, aught else Good, for thou would’st impious be; nor anything at all at any time call God but Good alone, for so thou would’st again be impious. [¶17] 16. Though, then, the Good is spoken of by all, it is not understood by all, what thing it is. Not only, then, is God not understood by all, but both unto the gods and some of men they out of ignorance do give the name of Good, though they can never either be or become Good. For they are very different from God, while Good can never be distinguished from Him, for that God is the same as Good. [¶18] The rest of the immortal ones are natheless honoured with the name of God, and spoken of as gods; but God is Good not out of courtesy but out of nature. For that God’s nature and the Good is one; one is the kind of both, from which all other kinds [proceed]. [¶19] The Good is He who gives all things and naught receives. God, then, doth give all things and receive naught. God, then, is Good, and Good is God. [¶20] 17. The other name of God is Father, again because He is the that-which-maketh all. The part of father is to make. [¶21] Wherefore child-making is a very great and a most pious thing in life for them who think aright, and to leave life on earth without a child a very great misfortune and impiety; and he who hath no child is punished by the daimons after death. [¶22] And this the punishment: that that man’s soul who hath no child, shall be condemned unto a body with neither man’s nor woman’s nature, a thing accurst beneath the sun. [¶23] Wherefore, Asclepius, let not your sympathies be with the man who hath no child, but rather pity his mishap, knowing what punishment abides for him. [¶24] Let all that has been said, then, be to thee, Asclepius, an introduction to the gnosis of the nature of all things.