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(p. 119)
5. FRAGMENTS OF
THE BOOK OF HERMES
TO HIS SON TATIOS
PART I
Trismegistos: IT is for
the love of men and for the veneration of God, O my son, that
I begin to write this. For there is no other true religion than to meditate on
the universe and give thanks to the
(p. 120)
Creator;
and these things I shall not cease to do.
Tatios: O father, if
nothing here below be real, how can one wisely employ
one's life?
Trismegistos: Be
religious, my son; religion is lofty philosophy; without philosophy there is no
lofty religion. He who instructs himself concerning
the universe, its law, its principle, and its end, gives thanks for all things
to the Creator as to a gracious father, a good protector, a faithful teacher.
This is religion, and by means of it we know where truth is and what it is.
Knowledge increases religion. For when once the soul, imprisoned within the
body, has lifted herself to the perception of the real
Good and of Truth, she cannot again fall back. The might of Love, and the
oblivion of all evil things, forbid the soul who knows her Maker to separate
herself from the Good. Herein, my son, is the aim of religion; if thou canst
attain thereunto, thy life will be pure, thy death happy; thy soul will know
whither she ought to direct her flight. Herein is the only way which leads to
Truth, which, indeed, our ancestors trod, and by which they arrived at the
attainment of the Good. This way is beautiful and even; nevertheless, it is
difficult for the soul to walk therein so long as she is immured within the
prison of the body. For, first, she must contend against herself, and having
accomplished a division of herself,
(p. 121)
she must submit to that part of herself which is first in
dignity. For the one struggles against the two,
that would fain rise, but these would drag it downwards. (1) Nor is
victory the same to both sides; for the one
tends towards the Good, and the two
towards Evil; the one would
be free, the two cling
to servitude. If the two be
overcome, there remains a bulwark of defence for them
and for their master; but if the one
be the weaker, it is drawn away by the two,
and punished in this life here below. It is this one, my son, which ought to be thy guide. See that
thou anoint thyself with oil for the struggle, maintain the fight for life, and
remain victorious.
And now, my son, I am about to sum up our principles; thou wilt
understand my words by remembering that which thou hast learnt.
All beings are endowed with motion; non-being alone is motionless. All
bodies transform themselves; some only decompose. All creatures are not mortal;
nor are all immortal. That which is dissoluble is corruptible; that which is
permanent is immutable: that which is immutable is eternal; that which is
continually generated is continually corrupted, but that which is born but once
is not corrupted and is not changed into any other thing. First God, then the
Universe, and thirdly Man; the Universe for Man, and Man for God. The emotional
part of the Soul is mortal; her rational part is immortal; all substance is
immortal, all substance is subjected to change. All being is dual; no being is
(p. 122)
permanent.
All things are not animated by soul, but all that is being is animated by soul.
All that is passive is sentient; all that is sentient is transient. Everything
that suffers and enjoys is a mortal creature; all that enjoys and suffers not
is a being immortal. Not every body is subject to disease, but every body so
subject is destructible. In God is Intelligence; in Man is Reason. Reason is in
Intelligence, Intelligence is intransient. There is nothing real in the
corporeal; nothing false in the incorporeal. Everything that is born changes,
but not everything born corrupts. There is nothing perfect upon earth, nor
anything evil in heaven. God is perfect; man is evil. The good comes by will;
evil against will. The Gods chose the good as good. Time is divine; law is
human. Evil is the pabulum of the world; Time is the destruction of man. All
things in heaven are immutable; nothing is immutable on earth. In heaven, then,
is no servitude; on earth there is no freedom. Nothing in heaven is unknown; on
earth nothing is known. There is nothing in common between celestial things and
things terrestrial. All is irreproachable in heaven; on earth nothing is
without reproach. The immortal knows no mortality; nor does the mortal know
immortality. That which is sown does not always come up; but that which comes
up has always been sown. Corruptible bodies have two periods of existence: from
conception to birth, and from birth to death; but the eternal entity has one
period only from the moment of being. Dissoluble bodies increase and diminish.
Dissoluble matter divides itself according to two contrary terms –
destruction and birth; immortal substance divides itself either into itself or
into its similars. The birth of man is a destruction;
the destruction of man is an
(p. 123)
element
of birth. That which ends begins; that which begins ends. Among beings, some
are in bodies, some in forms, some in energies. The body is in forms; form and
energy are in bodies. The immortal receives nothing from the mortal; but the
mortal receives from the immortal. The mortal enters not into an immortal form;
but the immortal enters into a mortal body. Energies tend not upward, but
downward. That which is on earth profits not that which is in heaven; but all
that is in heaven profits that which is on earth. Heaven contains immortal
entities; earth contains perishable bodies. Earth is irrational; heaven is
reasonable. Celestial things are under the power of heaven; terrestrial things
are upon earth. Heaven is the primordial element. Divine providence is order;
necessity is the, instrument with which providence works. Fortuity is the
vehicle of disorder, the false image of energy, a delusive seeming. What is God
but immutable Good, or man but continual evil?
In remembering these principles, thou wilt easily recollect the things I
have explained to thee more at length, and which are therein resumed. But avoid
speaking of them to the multitude; not that I desire to prohibit the multitude
from knowing these things, but that I would not have thee exposed to the
mockeries of the vulgar. Like attracts like; but between dissimilars
there is no fellowship. These discourses ought to have but a small number of
auditors, else before long they wilt have none at all. There is, moreover, a
special peril attaching to them, for by means of them the wicked may be
instigated to do worse. Keep thyself, therefore, from the crowd, which cannot
understand the virtue of these discourses.
(p. 124)
Tatios: What
meanest thou, my father?
Trismegistos: Hearken, my son.
The human race is drawn towards evil. Evil is its nature, and pleases it. If
men should learn that the world is created, that all is done according to
providence and necessity, and that by necessity and destiny all things are
governed, they would readily begin to despise all things because they are created;
to attribute vice to destiny, and to give the rein to all manner of iniquity.
Therefore, abstain from the crowd, so that by means of ignorance the vulgar may
be kept within bounds, even through fear of the unknown.
FOOTNOTES
(121:1) With Plato,
says Dr. Ménard, Trismegistos
here opposes Intelligence, the first
part of the Soul, to the two other parts, Passion and Desire. A. K.
PART
II
Tatios: THOU hast well explained to me these things, my father,
but instruct me yet again concerning this. Thou hast told me that knowledge and
art are activities of the reason; and now thou sayest
that brute animals are so called because they have no reason. Whence it must
necessarily follow that they have neither knowledge nor art.
(p. 125)
Trismegistos: It
necessarily so follows, my son.
Tatios: How
then is it, father, that we behold certain animals making use of scientific and
constructive knowledge; as, for instance, the ants who store up provisions for
the winter, the birds who devise nests, the cattle who know their stables and
return thither?
Trismegistos: It is neither
science nor art that directs them, my son, but nature. Science and art are
acquired, but these creatures have acquired nothing. That which is naturally
performed is the product of the universal activity; science and art belong only
to those who have acquired them. Functions which are the common heritage are
natural functions. Thus, all men can make use of their eyes, but not all are
musicians, archers, hunters, and so forth. Some only among the many learn a
science or an art, and exercise it. If in like manner certain ants only did
what other ants do not, then thou mightest say with
reason that they possess the science or the art of storing provisions. But all
act in the same way under the impulsion of Nature and without deliberate
intent; whence it is evident that neither science nor art directs them.
Activities, O Tatios, are incorporeal, and are
exercised in the body and by the body. Insomuch as they are incorporeal, thou mayest indeed call them immortal;
(p. 126)
insomuch
as they cannot be exercised but by means of a body, I say that they are always
in a body. That of which the end and cause are determined by providence and
necessity cannot remain inactive. That which is shall still be, therein is its
body and its life. For which reason there will always be bodies; wherefore the
creation of bodies is an eternal function. For terrestrial bodies are
corruptible; nevertheless, bodies are necessary as abodes and as instruments
for the energies. Now, the energies are immortal, and that which is immortal is
always active. The creation of bodies is, then, a function, and an eternal
function.
The energies or faculties of the soul are not all at once manifest;
certain of them are manifest from the time of the birth of man, in the
non-rational part of his soul; and as the reasonable part develops itself with
age, the loftier faculties also lend their assistance. The faculties are
attached to bodies. They descend from divine forms into mortal forms, and by
them bodies are created. Each of the faculties exercises a function either of
the body or of the soul, but they subsist in the soul independently of the
body. For the energies are eternal, but the soul is not always imprisoned in a
mortal body. She can live without it, yet the faculties cannot manifest
themselves unless in a body. This, my son, is an arcane discourse. The body
cannot remain without the soul, but being can.
Tatios: What
meanest thou, my father?
Trismegistos: Understand
me, O Tatios. When the soul is separated
(p. 127)
from
the body, the body indeed remains, but it is undermined by interior
dissolution, and ends by disintegrating. Such an effect cannot be produced
without an active cause; therefore, there remains some energy in the body after
the withdrawal of the soul. Between an immortal entity and a mortal entity
there is this difference: that the first is formed of simple substance, but not
so the second. One is active, the other passive. All active being dominates,
all passive being obeys; one is free, and governs; the other is in servitude,
and subject to impulsion.
Now, the energies are not only in animate bodies, but in inanimate, such
as wood, stone, and other like things. By means of the energies these things
increase, fructify, ripen, decompose, dissolve, putrefy, disintegrate, and
undergo all those changes of which inanimate bodies are susceptible. For energy
is that which produces change, or becoming.
And becoming is multiple, or rather universal. Never will anything capable
of birth be wanting to the universe, because beings are continually brought
forth by it and continually destroyed. All energy is then indestructible, no
matter of what nature or in what body it is manifest. But among the energies, some
are exerted in divine entities, some in mortal entities; some are universal,
others special; some act upon species, others on individuals pertaining to
these. Divine energies are exerted in eternal entities, and are perfect as
these. Partial energies act by means of living beings; special energies in
everything which exists. Whence it results, my son, that the whole universe is
full of energies. For since energies necessarily manifest in bodies, there are
many bodies in the universe. Nevertheless, the energies are more numerous
(p. 128)
than
the bodies, for often there exist one, two, three energies in a body, without
counting those which are universally distributed. I call those universal
energies which are inseparable from bodies and which manifest themselves by
sensations and movements, and without which no body could exist. Far otherwise
are those special energies which manifest themselves in human minds by art,
science, and labour. The sensations accompany the
energies, or rather are; the consequence of these last.
Understand, O my son, the difference there is between the energies and
the sensations. Energy comes from above; sensation is of the body, and from the
body has its being. It is the seat of the energy, which manifests by means of
it, and from which it obtains, as it were, a vehicle. For this reason I say
that sensations are corporeal and mortal; their existence is bound up with that
of the body, they are born therewith, and therewith they die. Immortal energies
have not sensation, precisely because of the nature of their essence; for there
can be no other sensation than that of some good or some evil which happens to
a body or which departs therefrom, and immortal
entities are not subject to these accidents.
Tatios: Sensation,
then, is experienced by all bodies?
Trismegistos: Yes, my
son, and in all bodies the energies act.
Tatios: Even in
inanimate bodies, my father?
(p. 129)
Trismegistos: Even in inanimate
bodies. Sensations are of different kinds; those of reasonable beings are
accompanied by reason; those of beings without reason are purely corporeal;
those of inanimate beings are passive, and consist only in growth and decay.
Starting from one principle and arriving at one end, passion and sensation are
alike the product of the energies. In animate beings, there are two other
energies which accompany the passions and the sensations – to wit, joy
and sorrow. Without these, the animated being, and, above all, the reasonable
being, would feel nothing: they may then be considered as modes of the
affections in reasonable beings, or indeed in all living beings. They are
activities manifested by the sensations, corporeal movements produced by the
irrational parts of the soul. Joy and sorrow are alike evil; for joy –
that is, the sensation accompanied by pleasure – draws after it great
evils; sorrow, likewise, involves penalties and suffering, yet more severe.
Both joy and sorrow, then, are evil.
Tatios: Is sensation the same thing in the soul and in the body,
my father?
Trismegistos: What meanest thou,
my child, by the sensation of the soul?
Tatios: The soul is truly
incorporeal. But sensation is as a body, my father, for it exists in a body.
(p. 130)
Trismegistos: If we place it in the
body, my son, we indeed assimilate it either to the soul or to the energies,
which, although in the body, are incorporeal. But sensation is neither an
energy nor a soul, nor anything distinct from the body; it is not, therefore,
incorporeal. If it be not incorporeal, it must necessarily be corporeal, for
there is nothing which is neither corporeal nor incorporeal.
PART III
THE Lord, the Creator
of immortal forms, O Tatios, after having accomplished
His work, made nothing further, nor does He now make anything. Once consigned
to themselves and united to one another, these eternal forms move without
having need of anything, or if, indeed, they are necessary one to another, they
have at least no need of any extraneous impulsion, since they are immortal.
Such ought, indeed, to be the nature of the creations of the supreme God. But
our (immediate) maker has a body; he has brought us forth, and unceasingly he
brings forth, and will bring forth dissoluble and mortal bodies, for he ought
not to imitate his own Creator, and, moreover, he cannot. For the first
has evolved His
(p. 131)
creations
from His own essence, primordial and incorporeal; the second has formed us of
that which is corporeal and engendered. Whence it follows naturally, that
heavenly forms born of incorporeal essence are imperishable, while our bodies,
being constituted of corporeal matter, are consequently weak in themselves, and
need extraneous assistance.
For how, indeed, could the combination which composes our bodies be
sustained, if it were not continually fed and supported by elements of the same
nature? The earth, the water, the fire, and the air flow into us and renew our
covering. We are so weak that we cannot even endure a single day of movement.
Thou knowest well, my son, that without the repose of
the night our bodies would not resist the day's toil. For this reason our good
creator, in his universal providence, has ensured the continual life of
his creatures by devising sleep, the restorer of movement, and by assigning to
repose an equal or even longer time (than to labour).
Meditate, my son, on this virtue of sleep, opposed to that of the soul, and not
less energetic. For if the function of the soul be movement, bodies cannot live
without slumber, which loosens and unbinds the yoke of the organism, and by its
restoring action dispenses to it the matter which it needs, giving water to the
blood, earth to the bones, air to the nerves and vessels, fire to the eyes. And
hence the great pleasure which the body finds in sleep.
[Note – The opening passage of this fragmentary discourse will not
lead the reader into error if he bears in mind the pantheistic character of all
Hermetic teaching. The influx of the divine substance into the universe is
perpetual, but the channels or forms through which
(p. 132)
it
flows are immutable, unchangeable, and self-sustaining. The method of nature is
determined from the beginning, and is incapable of variation or of intermittance. But the descent of soul into generation is a
continual process, and will not cease until the creative period or "Day of
Manifestation" closes. There has never been any suspension of the divine
energies since the commencement of their primordial operation. The outflow of
Being into Existence is unending, otherwise natural generation would cease, and
evolution be arrested. The secondary creator mentioned in this fragment is the Demiourgos, the fabricator of the material universe. A. K.]
PART IV
A GREAT and divine power
is established, O my son, in the midst of the universe, beholding all that is
done by men upon earth. In the divine order all is governed by providential
Necessity; among men the same function belongs to Justice. The first of these
governments includes celestial things, for the Gods neither will, nor can,
transgress; not being subject to error, which is the source of sin, they are
sinless. The second, Justice, is charged to correct, upon earth, the evil which
happens among men. The human race, being mortal, and formed of corruptible
matter, is subject to fall away when the sight of divine things does not
sustain it (in virtue). Herein Justice exerts its action. By means of the
energies which he draws from Nature, man is subject to Destiny; by the errors
of his life, to Justice.
(p. 133)
PART V
HERE, then, is that
which can be said of the
three tenses. They are not by themselves, and they are not bound together;
again, they are bound together and are by themselves. Can the present be supposed
without the existence of the past? One cannot exist without another, for the
present is generated by the past, and from the present the future comes forth.
If we wish to go to the root of the matter, we must reason thus: – The
past tense is withdrawn into that which no longer is; the future is not so long
as it has not become present; the present, in its turn, ceases to be itself the
instant that it remains. Can that which does not endure for an instant and
which has no fixed centre be called present when it cannot even be said to
exist? Moreover, since the past is indistinguishable from the present, and the
present from the future, they become one. There is among them identity, unity,
continuity. Therefore time is continuous and divisible, even while it is one
and identical.
PART
VI
O MY son, matter
becomes; formerly it was, for matter is the vehicle of becoming. (1)
Becoming is the mode of activity of the uncreate and
foreseeing God. Having been
(p.134)
endowed
with the germ of becoming, matter is brought into birth, for the creative force
fashions it according to the ideal forms. Matter not yet engendered, had no
form; it becomes when it is put into operation.
FOOTNOTES
(133:1) Dr. Ménard observes that in Greek, the same word
signifies to be born and to
become. The idea here is that
the material of the world is in its essence eternal, but that before creation
or "becoming," it is in a passive and motionless condition. Thus it
"was" before being "put into operation;" now, it
"becomes," that is, it is mobile and progressive. Creation is thus
the period of activity of God, who, according to Hermetic thought, has two
modes – Activity, or existence, God evolved (Deus explicitus);
and Passivity of Being – God involved (Deus implicitus).
Both modes are perfect and complete, as are the waking and sleeping states of
man. Fichte, the German philosopher, distinguished
Being (Seyn) as One, which we know only through
existence (Daseyn) as the Manifold. This view is
thoroughly Hermetic. The "Ideal Forms," mentioned in the above
fragment, are the archetypal or formative ideas of the Neo-Platonists; the
eternal and subjective concepts of things subsisting in the Divine Mind prior
to "creation” or "becoming." A. K.
PART
VII
TO speak of the Real
with certainty, O Tatios, is an impossible thing to
man, himself an imperfect creature, composed of imperfect parts, and
constituted of an assemblage of foreign particles; nevertheless, as much as it
is possible and permissible to me, I affirm that Reality is only in eternal
beings, the forms of which also are real. Fire is but fire and no more; earth
is nothing else than earth; air
(p. 135)
is only
air. But our bodies are compounded of all these; we have in us fire, earth,
water, and air, which yet are neither fire, nor earth, nor water, nor air, nor
anything truly. If, then, from the beginning Reality is foreign to our
constitution, how shall we behold Reality, or speak thereof, or even understand
it, unless indeed by the Will of God? Mundane things, O Tatios,
are not then themselves real, but the simulacra of Reality, and not all are
even such; some are but illusion and error, O Tatios,
fantastic appearances, mere phantoms. When such an appearance receives an
influx from above, then, indeed, it becomes a similitude of the Real, but
without this superior influence it remains an illusion. In the same way a
portrait is a painted image of a body, but not the body it represents. It
appears to have eyes, but sees nothing; ears, but hears nothing; and so on of
the rest of it. It is an image which deceives the sight; it appears a reality,
and is but a shadow. Those who behold not the False behold the True; if, then,
we understand and see everything as it truly is, we see the Real; but if we see
that which is not, we can neither understand nor know anything of the Real.
Tatios: There
is, then, my father, a Real even upon earth?
Trismegistos:
Reality is not upon the earth, my son, and it cannot be thereon, but it can be
comprehended by a few men to whom God vouchsafes the divine vision. Nothing on
earth is real, there are only appearances and opinions on
(p. 136)
earth;
yet all is real for intelligence and reason. Wherefore to think and to speak
the truth this indeed may be called real.
Tatios: What sayest thou? It is right to think and speak that which
truly is, and yet nothing is true upon earth?
Trismegistos: This
certainly is true, that we know nothing of Truth. How should it be otherwise,
my son? Truth is the supreme virtue, the sovereign Good which is not obscured
by matter, nor circumscribed by the body; the naked Good, evident, unalterable,
august, immutable. Now, the things which are here below thou seest, my son, are incompatible with the Good; they are
perishable, changing, various, passing from form to form. That which is not
even identical with itself, how can it be real? All that transforms itself is
illusive, not only in itself, but by the appearances which it presents to us
one after another.
Tatios: Is not even man real, my father?
Trismegistos: He is not real, my
son, as man. The real consists solely in itself, and remains what it is. Man is
composed of manifold elements, and does not continue identical
(p. 137)
with
himself. So long as he inhabits
a body he passes from one age to another, and from one form to another. Often,
after but a short interval of time, parents no longer are able to recognize
their children, nor children their parents. That which changes in such wise as
to be no longer recognizable as itself, can it be a real thing, Tatios? Should we not rather think this succession of
diverse appearances an illusion? Look only on the eternal and the Good as the
Real. Man is transient, therefore he is not real; he is but appearance, and
appearance is the supreme illusion.
Tatios: Then the celestial bodies themselves are
not real, my father, since they also vary.
Trismegistos: That
which is subject to birth and to change is not real, but the works of the great
Father may receive from Him a real substance. Nevertheless, there is in them a
certain falsity, seeing that they too are variable, for nothing is real save
that which is identical with itself.
Tatios: What, then, may we
call indeed real, my father?
Trismegistos: The sun, the only
one of all creatures that changes not, and which remains the same. For this
reason is confided to him alone the ordinance of the universe; he
(p.138)
is the
chief and the maker of everything; I venerate him and prostrate myself before
his truth, and after the first Unity, I recognize in him the creator.
Tatios: And
what, then, is the primordial Reality, O my father?
Trismegistos: He Who is One and
alone, O Tatios; He Who is not made of matter, nor in
any body, Who has neither colour nor form, Who
changes not, nor is transmuted, but who always Is.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
That which is illusion is perishable, my son. The providence of the Real
has limited and will limit by dissolution all mundane things, for dissolution
is the condition of all births; all that is brought forth dissolves in order to
be again brought forth. It is necessary that out of dissolution life should
come into existence, and that life in its turn should decay, in order that the
generation of creatures should never cease. Behold, then, in this perpetual
birth, the Creator before all! Creatures born of dissolution are but shadows,
they become at one time this, at another that; for they cannot be the same, and
how is it possible for that which is not identical with itself, to be a real
thing? Such must then, my son, be called appearances, and man must be regarded
as an appearance of Humanity; as, also, a child is an appearance of childhood,
a young man of adolescence, an adult of manhood, an old man of
(p. 139)
senility.
For how shall it be said that a man is a man, a child a child, a youth a youth,
a grown man a grown man, an old man an old man, since by incessant
transformations they deceive us both as to what they were, and what they have
become? Behold, then, in all these things, my son, only the illusive
appearances of a superior Reality; and since, indeed, this is the case, I
define Illusion as the expression of the Real.
PART VIII
TO understand God is
difficult; to speak of God, impossible. For the corporeal cannot express the
incorporeal; the imperfect cannot comprehend the perfect. How is the eternal to
be associated with the transient? The first abides for ever, the other is
fleeting; the first is the Real, the other is a reflected shadow. As much as
weakness differs from strength, or smallness from greatness, so much the mortal
differs from the divine. The distance which divides them one from the other
obscures the vision of the beautiful. Bodies are visible to sight, and that
which the eye beholds the tongue is able to express. But that which has not any
body, nor appearance, nor form, nor matter, cannot be apprehended by sense.
(p. 140)
I understand, O Tatios, I understand that
which it is impossible to define – that is God.
[The above fragments are from the "Physical Eclogues" and “Florilegium" of Stobaeus.]
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