HERMETICA

 

In the Hermetica, which was collected from the first to the second centuries CE we have a mixture of Greek thought including Jewish, Egyptian and Eastern ideas. The main theme of the Hermetica is an ascent, in mind, to the Knowledge of God. We read in the Hermetica;

“But He (God) illuminates man with that Knowledge alone which is the property of the mind; whereby the darkness of error is dispelled from the Soul, and Truth is seen in all its brightness, and so man’s consciousness is wholly absorbed in the Knowledge of God.”[1]

 

Who was Hermes Trismegistus?[2]

 

What sort of person was this Hermes Trismegistus thought to be? Was he a God or a man? If one of the Hermetic writers had been asked this question, he would, I think, have answered in some such way as this; ‘Hermes was a man like you and me - a man who lived in Egypt a very long time ago, in the time of king Ammon. But he was a man who attained to ‘Gnosis’ (that is to say, Knowledge of God, but a kind of “Knowledge” that involves union with God); and he was the first and greatest teacher of Gnosis. He died, as other men die; and after death he became a god - just as you and I also, if we attain to Gnosis, will become gods after our deaths. But in the dialogues which I and others like me write, and in which we make Hermes speak as a teacher, we represent him as talking to his pupils at the time when he was living on earth; and at that time he was a man.’

 

Comparing the Hermetica with other writings of the period on the same subjects, we find that there are two things that are ‘conspicuous by their absence’ in these documents. In the first place, the Hermetic writers recognize no inspired and infallible Scripture; and there is, for them, no written text with the words of which all that they say must be able to conform. They are therefore not obliged, as were the Jew Philo, and the Christians such as Clement and Origen, to connect their teaching at every step with documents written in other times and for other purposes, and to maintain, as Jews and Christians were driven to do, that when the inspired writer said one thing he meant another. Hence each of the Hermetists was free to start afresh, and think things out for himself - free in a sense which Jews and Christians were not free, and even the professional teachers of Pagan philosophy, much occupied in expounding and commenting on the writings of Plato or Aristotle or Chrysippus, made comparatively little use of such freedom as they had. Released from this subjection to the past, a Hermetist could go straight to the main point, unhampered by the accumulations of lumber by which others were impeded; and this made it possible for him to pack into the space of a few pages all that he found it needful to write. Hence there is in the Hermetica a directness and simplicity of statement such as is not to be found in other theological writings of the time, whether Pagan, Jewish, or Christian.

 

The external evidence (collected in the ‘Testimonia’) proves that in A.D. 207- 213 some Hermetica of the same character as ours were already in existence and accessible to Christian readers; and that in or about A.D. 310 most, if not all, of the extant ‘Hermetica’ were in existence, as well as many others that have perished.[3]

 

 

On Gnosis

 

The knowledge which corresponds to the character and extent of the human mind is based wholly on man’s memory of the past; it is retentiveness of his memory that has given him dominion over the earth. The Knowledge which corresponds to the nature and character of the cosmic mind is such as can be procured from all the sensible things in the Kosmos. But the Knowledge which corresponds to the character of the supreme God’s mind,...this Knowledge and this alone is Truth; and of this truth not the faintest outline or shadow is discernible in the Kosmos. For where things are discerned at intervals of time there is falsehood; and where things have an origin in time, there errors arise.[4]

 

Now piety is the Knowledge of God; and he who has come to Know God is filled with all things good; his thoughts are divine, and are not like. Hence it is that those who have attained to the Knowledge of God are not pleasing to the many nor the many to them, they are thought mad; and are laughed at; they are hated and despised and perhaps they may even be put to death. For evil, as I have told you before, must needs dwell here on earth, where it is at home; for the home of evil is the earth and not the whole universe as some will blasphemously say in days to come. But the pious man will endure all things, cleaving to his Knowledge of God. For to such a man all things are good even though they be evil to others. When men devise mischief against him, he sees all this in the light of his Knowledge of God; and he, and none but he, changes evil things into good.[5]

 

As then you apprehend God, even so you must apprehend the Beautiful and the Good. For they are communicable to all other things, because they are inseparable from God. If you seek the knowledge of God, you are also seeking Knowledge of the Beautiful and the Good, and that is piety joined with Knowledge of God.[6]

 

note: The term Knowledge is from ‘Gnosis’ in the Greek and ‘Intellectus’ in the Latin.

 

 

Poimander

 

‘I know what you wish, for indeed I am with you everywhere; keep in mind all that you desire to learn, and I will teach you.’

 

When he had thus spoken, forthwith all changed in aspect before me, and were opened out in a moment. And I beheld a boundless view. All was changed into light; and I marvelled when I saw it. And in a little while, there had come to be in one part a downward-tending darkness, terrible and grim. And thereafter I saw the darkness changing into a watery substance, which was unspeakably tossed about, and gave forth smoke as from fire; and I heard it making an indescribable sound of lamentation; for there was sent forth from it an inarticulate cry. But from the light there came forth a Holy Word, which took its stand upon the watery substance; and I thought this Word was the voice of the Light.

 

I saw in my mind that the Light consisted of innumerable Powers, and had come to be an ordered world, but a world without bounds. This I perceived in thought, seeing it by reason of the word which Poimander had spoken to me. And when I was amazed he spoke again and said to me, ‘You have seen in your mind the archetypal form, which is prior to the beginning of things, and is limitless.’

 

But tell me, said I, whence did the elements of nature come into being? He answered, ‘They issued from God’s Purpose which beheld that intelligible beauteous world and copied it’. The watery substance, having received the Word, was fashioned into an ordered world, the elements being separated out from it; and from the elements came the brood of living creatures. But earth and water remained in their own place mingled together so as not to be distinguished, but they were kept in motion, by reason of the breath-like Word which moved upon the face of the water. And the first Mind - that Mind which is Life and Light - being bisexual gave birth to another Mind a Maker of things; and this second Mind made out of fire and air seven Administrators, the planets, who encompass with their orbits the world perceived by sense; and their administration is called Destiny.

 

And Mind the Maker worked together with the word, and encompassing the orbits of the Administrators, and whirling them around with a rushing movement set circling the bodies he had made and let them revolve travelling from no fixed starting point to no determined goal; for their revolution begins where it ends.

 

And Nature, even as Mind the Maker willed, brought forth from the downward tending elements animals devoid of reason; for she no longer had with her the Word. The air brought forth birds and the water fishes - earth and water had by this time been separated from one another, - and earth brought forth four-footed creatures and creeping things, beasts wild and tame. But Mind the father of all He who is Life and Light gave birth to Man a being like Himself. And He took delight in Man....[7]

 

 

Initiation Experience of Rebirth.

 

Hermes. Truth has come to us, and on it has followed the Good, with Life and Light. No longer has there come upon us any of the torments of darkness; they have flown away with rushing wings.

 

Thus, my son, has the intellectual being been made up in us; and by its coming to be, we have been made gods. Whoever then has by God’s mercy attained to this divine birth, abandons bodily sense; he knows himself to be composed of Powers [of the Planets] of God, and knowing this, is glad.

 

Tat. Father, God has made me a new being, and I perceive things now, not by bodily eyesight, but by the working of mind.

 

Hermes. Even so it is, my son, when a man is born again; it is no longer body of three dimensions that he perceives, but the incorporeal.

 

Tat. Father, now that I see in mind,

I see myself to be the All.

I am in heaven and earth, in water and air;

I am in beasts and plants;

I am a babe in the womb,

and one that is not yet conceived,

and one that has been born;

I am present everywhere.

 

Hermes. Now, my son you know what the Rebirth is.[8]... I rejoice, my son, that you are like to bring forth fruit. Out of the Truth will spring up in you the immortal brood of virtue; for by the working of mind you have come to Know Yourself and our Father.[9]

 

 

On Knowledge of God

 

Know then that God the Father is of one nature with the Good; or rather, the working of God the Father is one with the working of the Good. ‘Nature’ is a term applied to birth and growth, and birth and growth have to do with things subject to change and movement, that is, with things divine; and it is God’s will that what is human should be divine.

 

The force with which God works is his will; and his very being consists in willing the existence of all things.[10]

 

It is the Good that is the creative principle; and it is impossible that the creative principle should come to be in any save God alone -- God who receives nothing but wills the existence of all things I will not say ‘makes’ all things. But God makes by his will the very existence of all things; and it is in this sense that he is the Father of all things. For God wills things to be and in that way these things have existence But the Good itself, exists in the highest degree; for it is by reason of the Good that all other things exist.[11]

 

But in this life we are still too weak to see that sight; we have not the strength to open our mental eyes, and to behold the beauty of the Good, that incorruptible beaut which no tongue can tell. Then only will you see it when you cannot speak of it; for the Knowledge of it is in deep silence and the suppression of the senses. For it cannot be that a soul should become a god while it abides in a human body; it must be changed, and then behold the beauty of the Good and therewith become a god.[12]

 

And the vice of the soul is lack of Knowledge. A soul that has gained no knowledge of the things that are and has not come to know their nature, nor to know the Good, but is blind. On the other hand the virtue of the soul is knowledge. He who has got knowledge is good and pious; he is already divine. A soul then, when it has entered a body admits into itself both things of the mind and things material. It cannot be otherwise; for all things must needs be composed of opposites and contraries. This is so in all things that exist.[13]

 

The Kosmos is not indeed evil, but it is not good, as God is; for it is material and destined to suffer. It is first among things that are destined to suffer but second among things that are... That which is incorporeal and motionless works the material movement; and it does so in the following way. The Kosmos is a sphere, a head; and so all things are united to the cerebral membrane of the head -- the membrane in which the soul is chiefly seated.

 

Translator’s note;

“The cerebral ‘membrane’ or ‘meninx’ of the Kosmos is the outermost sphere of heaven; and the ‘things which are united to it’ are the fixed stars and planets.”[14]

 

And by this alone, even the Knowledge of God, is man’s salvation; this is the ascent to Olympus; and by this alone can a soul become good.[15]

 

 

On Man [16]

 

Man is a marvel then, Asclepius; honour and reverence to such a being. Man takes on him the attributes of a god, as though he were himself a god; he is familiar with the daemon-kind, for he comes to know that he is sprung from the same source as they; and strong in the assurance of that in him which is divine, he scorns the merely human part of his own nature. How far more happily blended are the properties of man than those of other beings! He is linked to the gods, inasmuch as there is in him a divinity akin to theirs; he scorns that part of his own being which makes him a thing of earth; and all else with which he finds himself connected [Necessarius = ananke] by heaven’s ordering, he binds to himself by the tie of his affection. He raises reverent eyes to heaven above; he tends the earth below. Blest in his intermediate station, he is so placed that he loves all below him, and is loved by all above him. He has access to all; he descends to the depths of the sea by the keenness of his thought; and heaven is not too high for him, for he measures it by his sagacity, as though it were within his reach. With his quick wit he penetrates the elements; air cannot blind his mental vision with its thickest darkness dense earth cannot impede his work; the deepest water cannot blur his downward gaze. Man is all things; man is everywhere.

 

For man is a being of divine nature; he is comparable, not to the other living creatures upon the earth, but to the gods in heaven. Nay, if we are to speak the truth without fear, he who is indeed a Man is even above the gods of heaven, or at any rate he equals them in power. None of the gods of heaven will ever quit heaven, and pass its boundary, and come down to earth; but man ascends even to heaven, and measures it; and what is more than all beside, he mounts to heaven without quitting the earth; to so vast a distance can he put forth his power. We must not shrink then from saying that a man on earth is a mortal god, and that a god in heaven is an immortal man.

 

And that is why man, unlike all other living creatures upon earth, is twofold. He is mortal by reason of his body; he is immortal by reason of the Man of eternal substance. He is immortal, and has all things in his power; yet he suffers the lot of a mortal, being subject to destiny. He is exalted above the structure of the heavens; yet he is born a slave of Destiny.[17]

 

 

A Discourse of Mind to Hermes

 

If you boldly grasp this conception, you will get a truer notion of Him who contains all things. There are terms which must be taken in a sense peculiar to the thing spoken of; and of this, what I am now saying is an instance.

 

All things are in God; but things are not situated in God as in a place. A place is a body, (or is something which contains bodies), and all bodies are subject to movement; but that which is incorporeal is motionless, and things situated in it have no movement; for it is in a different sense that things ‘are situated in’ what is corporeal. And the incorporeal cannot be enclosed by anything; but by itself enclose all things; it is the quickest of all things, and is the mightiest.

 

Think of yourself, and you will see that it is so. Bid your soul travel to any land you choose, and sooner than you can bid it go, it will be there. Bid it pass on from land to ocean, and it will be there too no less quickly; it has not moved as one moves from place to place, but it IS there. Bid it fly up to heaven, and it will have no need of wings; nothing can bar its way, neither the fiery heat of the sun, nor the swirl of the planet-spheres cleaving its way through all, it will fly up till it reaches the outermost of all corporeal things. And should you wish to break forth from the universe itself, and gaze on the things outside the Kosmos (if indeed, there is anything outside the Kosmos), even that is permitted to you. See what power, what quickness is yours.

 

And when you yourself can do all this, cannot God do it? You must understand then that it is in this way that God contains within himself the Kosmos, and himself, and all that is; it is as thoughts which God thinks, that all things are contained in Him. If then you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot apprehend God; for like is known by like. Leap clear of all that is corporeal, and make yourself grow to a like expanse with that greatness which is beyond all measure; rise above all time, and become eternal; then you will apprehend God.

 

Think that for you too nothing is impossible; deem that you too are immortal, and that you are able to grasp all things in your thought, to know every craft and every science; find your home in the haunts of every living creature; make yourself higher than all heights, and lower than all depths; being together in yourself all opposites of quality, heat and cold, dryness and fluidity; think that you are everywhere at once, on land, at sea, in heaven; think that you are not yet begotten, that you are in the womb, that you are young, that you are old, that you have died, that you are in the world beyond the grave; grasp in your thought all this at once, all times and places, all substances and qualities and magnitudes together; then you can apprehend God.[18]

 

 

Knowledge of Cosmic Mind

 

Thought, however, differs from mind in this respect, that our thought attains by mental effort to the kind of knowledge which corresponds to the character of the cosmic mind, and having come to know cosmic things, it furthermore attains to a knowledge of eternity and the supra cosmic gods. And thus it comes to pass that we see, as through a dark mist, the things of heaven..[19].

 

 

Knowledge of God

 

Now piety is the knowledge of God; and he who has come to know God is filled with all things good; his thoughts are divine, and are not like those of the many.[20]

 

Hence it is that those who have attained to the knowledge of God are not pleasing to the many, nor the many to them. They are thought mad, and are laughed at; they are hated and despised, and perhaps they may even be put to death. [Socrates for one, but also the man who, in the Cave of Plato, tried to lead the others up into the Light!]...But the pious man will endure all things, cleaving to his knowledge of God. For to such a man all things are good, even though they may be evil to others. When men devise mischief against him, he sees all this in the light of his knowledge of God...[21]

 

These things are three then, God, Kosmos, Man. The Kosmos is contained by God; Man is son of the Kosmos, and grandson, so to speak, of God. God then does not ignore man, but acknowledges him to the full, and wills to be acknowledged by him. And this alone, even the knowledge of God, is man’s salvation; this is the ascent to Olympus; and by this alone can a soul become good.

 

Look at the soul of a child, my son, a soul that has not yet come to accept its separation from its source... But when the body has increased in bulk, and has drawn the soul down into its material mass, it generates oblivion; and so the soul separates itself from the Beautiful and Good...But when men quit the body, the process is reversed. The soul ascends to its own place...[22]

 

 

Genesis to Gnosis The Creation as Initiation.[23]

 

Ishtar in her descent to the land of the dead, and eventual ascent back to the ‘Real World’, reflects an archetype of the path of Initiation. The person is lead through the seven levels of soul to realize their origin, so as to be able to return to their source when this life is over. This symbol of the seven heavens or hells is repeated in the ‘Egyptian Book of the Dead’ and is found to be used in Egypt up to Roman times. The seven days of creation of the Jews are known to Philo Judaeus in the first century as an initiatory exposition, as he writes in his essay On the Creation, XXIII.

“Again, when [The Human Mind] on soaring wing it has contemplated the atmosphere and all its phases, it is borne yet higher to the ether and the circuit of heaven, and is whirled round with the dances of the planets and fixed stars, in accordance with the laws of perfect music, following that Love of Wisdom which guides its steps.”[24]

Thus, from Plato, Philo shows the ascent of the soul as a mystical journey, the image from the Phaedrus is mixed with the Mosaic tradition in this explanation:

“Let them,” said God, “go back in thought to the original creation of the universe when, before the sun or moon existed, and having contemplated this let them form in their minds the expectation that hereafter too shall it be so at the Father’s bidding, whensoever it may please Him.”[25]

 

This same thought is expressed in the Hermetica, Poimander bk. 1, where the initiate says:

“When he had thus spoken, forthwith all changed in aspect before me, and were opened out in a moment. And I beheld a boundless view. All was changed into light. But from the light there came forth a Holy Word, which took its stand upon the watery substance;... I saw in my mind that the Light consisted of innumerable powers and had become an ordered world.”[26]

 

The mental world of the initiate is hoped to have become ordered as well by the experience, a Mystical Experience. But going back to the primordial existence, before creation, is to see oneself as one was before birth. Again from the Hermetica; ‘A Secret Discourse Concerning Rebirth:’ bk. XIII 247

“Father, God has made me a new being, and I perceive things now, not with bodily eyesight, but by working of mind.... Father, now that I see in mind, I see myself to be the All. I am in heaven and in earth water, and air; I am in beasts and plants; I am a babe in the womb, and one that is not pre-conceived, and one that has been born...”[27]

 

When the Old Testament writers wished to express the Wisdom gained from the Religious Experience they often returned to Genesis. The Zohar in more modern times can devote several books to the exposition of the first four words of Genesis. However, we can read in the Book of Proverbs bk. 8: 22, 27

“Yahweh created me when his purpose first unfolded, before the oldest of his works. When He fixed the heavens firm, I was there, when he drew a ring on the surface of the deep, I was by His side, a master craftsman,..”[28]

 

This is Wisdom speaking, yet it is also the Experience of the author that is being described, and the result of deep contemplation on the works of God. This contemplation can take one back to before the creation of the elements, to the time or non-time, when the world was just an Idea in the mind of God. The identity of the individual soul and the universal soul allows the mind to witness ‘Creation’ through contemplation. Plutarch says in line 442a

“Plato, however, comprehended clearly, firmly, and without reservation both that the soul of this universe of ours is not simple nor uncompounded nor uniform: also that the soul of man, since it is a portion or a copy of the soul of the universe is joined together on principles and in proportions corresponding to those which govern the Universe,...”[29]