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(p. 149)
7. VARIOUS
HERMETIC FRAGMENTS
PART
I
THERE are, then, essential spirit, reason, intelligence,
perception. Opinion and sensation tend towards perception, reason towards the
essential spirit; thought advances independently. Thought is associated with
perception. Conjoined, all these become a single form, which is that of the
soul. Opinion and sensation tend also towards perfection, but they do not
continue in the same condition, they exhibit excess, failure, or variation.
Separated from perception, they deteriorate; approximating to and following it,
they participate in the intellectual reason through the sciences. We have the
power of choice; it depends on us to choose either the best or the worst by our
will. The choice of evil approximates us to the corporeal nature, and subjects
us
(p. 150)
to Destiny. The intellectual spirit which is in us,
being free, the intellectual reason is free also, always identical with itself,
and independent of Destiny. Therefore, in following this higher and intelligent
reason, ordained by the supreme God, the spirit is superior to the order of
Nature over creatures; but the soul which attaches herself
to these creatures participates in their destiny, though foreign to their
nature. (1)
PART II
THERE is, then, a state
of Being superior to all beings, and to all that actually
is. Being is that by which universal essentiality is common to all intelligible
entities actually existing. . . . Nature is sensible essentiality, including in
itself all sensible objects. Midway are the intellectual and sensible gods. The
concepts of intelligence are related to the intellectual gods, the concepts of
opinion to the sensible gods, which are reflexions of
the intelligences; as, for instance, the sun is the image of the
(p. 151)
creative and celestial God. For as God has created
the universe, so the sun creates animals, produces plants, and governs fluid
things.
[These
fragments are from Stobaeus' Eclogues, "Physical
and Moral."]
footnotes
(150:1) In the above fragment the power of the human will is dearly asserted
as the only instrument by which Destiny may be controlled. By continued and
ardent striving towards the purely spiritual and intelligent, the soul frees
herself from the power of Destiny (Karma), and at length passes into beatitude.
She transcends natural order, and enters into the divine. This is Saintship. Inversely, by attaching herself to sensible
things, and by suffering herself to be borne away by passion and desire towards
illusory existence, she becomes caught on the ever-rolling wheel of Destiny,
and made subject to the order of Nature, which is that of Metamorphosis.
Whereas her true duty and happiness are to aspire continually upwards,
addressing herself by means of purified passion and desire towards the One, and
away from the Manifold. A. K.
PART
III
WHEREFORE the incorporeal
vision comes forth from the body to contemplate beauty, lifting itself up and
adoring, not the form, nor the body, nor the appearance, but that which, behind
all, is calm, tranquil, substantial, immutable; that which is all, alone and
one, that which is by itself and in itself, similar to itself, and without
variation.
PART IV
IF thou understandest this one and only Good,
thou wilt find nothing impossible, for all virtue is therein. Think not that
this Good is in anyone, nor that it is outside of
anyone. It is without limit, being the limit of all. Nothing contains it, it
contains all in itself. For what distinction is there between the corporeal and
the incorporeal, the create and the uncreate; that which is subject to necessity and that which
is free; between terrestrial things and things celestial, corruptible things
and things eternal?
(p. 152)
Is it
not that these subsist freely, and that those are subject to the bondage of
necessity? That which is below is imperfect and perishable.
PART V
BENEATH nature and the
ideal world is placed the pyramid. Its corner stone, placed on its summit, is
the Creative Word of the universal Lord, which, after Him, is the first Power, uncreate, infinite, begotten of Him and antecedent to all
His creations. He is the offspring of the Most Perfect, the fruitful and true
Son. The nature of this intelligent Word is a generating and productive nature.
Call it as thou wilt – generation, or nature, or character. But think
this only, that he is perfect in the Perfect, and issued from the Perfect, that
all his works are perfectly good, and that he is the source of creation and of
life. Since such is his nature, he is well named.
*
*
*
*
* *
*
But for the providence of the Lord of the universe Who
causes me to reveal these words, you would not have so great a desire to seek
out such matters. Now, therefore, hear the end of this discourse. This Spirit of
whom I have so often spoken is necessary to all; for he maintains all, he gives
life to all, he nourishes all. He outflows from the
holy Source, and without ceasing comes to the aid of spirits and to all living
creatures.
[The foregoing are from Cyril.]
(p. 153)
part vi
“THUS the Ideal Light
was before the Ideal Light, and the luminous Intelligence of Intelligence was
always, and its unity was nothing else than the Spirit enveloping the universe.
Out of Whom is neither God, nor Angels, nor any other essentials,
for He is the Lord of all things and the power and the light; and all depends on Him and is in Him. His perfect
Word, generative and creative, descending into generative Nature and into
generating water, rendered the water fruitful." Having thus spoken, he
rose and said: – "I adjure thee, Heaven, holy work of the great God;
I adjure thee, Voice of the Father, uttered in the beginning when the universal
world was framed; I adjure thee by the Word, only Son of the Father Who upholds
all things: be favorable, be favorable!"
[The
above fragment is cited by Suidas.]
PART
VII
SEVEN Planets revolve
in the ways of Olympos, and by them Eternity is
measured: – The Moon which illumines the night, the gloomy Kronos, the gentle Sun. the Paphian
Goddess, protectress of marriage, the valiant Ares,
the fruitful Hermes, and Zeus the principle of birth and the fount of nature.
These, likewise, have received the human race in heritage; and there are,
within us, the Moon,
(p. 154)
Zeus,
Ares, Aphrodite, Kronos, Phoebus, Hermes. Moreover,
we draw from the etherial fluid our tears, our
laughter, our wrath, our speech, our generation, our sleep, our desire. Tears
are of Kronos, generation of Zeus, speech of Hermes, valour of Ares, sleep of Artemis, desire of Kytheraea (Aphrodite), laughter of Apollo, for he it is who
pours joy upon human thought
and on the infinite world.
[This
fragment, cited by Stobaeus, is in verse, and Heeren supposes it to be part of an Orphic hymn. It is
thoroughly Hermetic, and its recognition of Man as the epitome and reflex of
the universe is entirely in accord also with Kabbalistic
teaching. – A. K.]
PART
VIII
HERMES affirms that those who know God are preserved from assaults of the evil one, and are not even subject to Destiny. The knowledge of God is religion.
________________________________________
The End.
[Published under the auspices of the Hermetic Society.]
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