<The "common mind" discussed in this dialogue is the same
Mind which appears as a divine power in other parts of the Hermetic
literature. It is identical, as well, with the "Good Daimon" whose words are
quoted at several points here and elsewhere.
<The Greek word
logos - which means both "word" and "reason", among other things - is
central to much of the argument, and it's unfortunate that English has no
way to express the same complex of meanings. The praise of reason in parts
13-14 is also, and equally, a praise of human language, and this sort of
double meaning plays a part elsewhere in this and other parts of the
Hermetic literature. - JMG>
1. Hermes: The Mind, O Tat, is of God's very essence - (if such a thing as
essence of God there be) - and what that is, it and it only knows precisely.
The Mind, then,
is not separated off from God's essentiality, but is united to it, as light
to sun.
This Mind in men is God, and for this cause some of mankind are gods, and
their humanity is nigh unto divinity.
For the Good
Daimon said: "Gods are immortal men, and men are mortal gods."
2. But in irrational lives Mind is their nature. For where is Soul, there
too is Mind; just as where Life, there is there also Soul.
But in
irrational lives their soul is life devoid of mind; for Mind is the
in-worker of the souls of men for good - He works on them for their own
good.
In lives
irrational He doth co-operate with each one's nature; but in the souls of
men He counteracteth them.
For every soul,
when it becomes embodied, is instantly depraved by pleasure and by pain.
For in a compound body, just like juices, pain and pleasure seethe, and into
them the soul, on entering in, is plunged.
3. O'er whatsoever souls the Mind doth, then, preside, to these it showeth
its own light, by acting counter to their prepossessions, just as a good
physician doth upon the body prepossessed by sickness, pain inflict, burning
or lancing it for sake of health.
In just the
selfsame way the Mind inflicteth pain on the soul, to rescue it from
pleasure, whence comes its every ill.
The great ill of
the soul is godlessness; then followeth fancy for all evil things and
nothing good.
So, then, Mind counteracting it doth work good on the soul, as the physician
health upon the body.
4. But whatsoever human souls have not the Mind as pilot, they share in the
same fate as souls of lives irrational.
For [Mind]
becomes co-worker with them, giving full play to the desires toward which
[such souls] are borne - [desires] that from the rush of lust strain after
the irrational; [so that such human souls,] just like irrational animals,
cease not irrationally to rage and lust, nor are they ever satiate of ills.
For passions and
irrational desires are ills exceeding great; and over these God hath set up
the Mind to play the part of judge and executioner.
5. Tat: In that case, father mine, the teaching (logos) as to Fate, which
previously thou didst explain to me, risks to be overset.
For that if it
be absolutely fated for a man to fornicate, or commit sacrilege, or do some
other evil deed, why is he punished - when he hath done the deed from Fate's
necessity?
Hermes: All
works, my son, are Fate's; and without Fate naught of things corporal - or
<i.e., either> good, or ill - can come to pass.
But it is fated,
too, that he who doeth ill, shall suffer. And for this cause he doth it -
that he may suffer what he suffereth, because he did it.
6. But for the moment, [Tat,] let be the teaching as to vice and Fate, for
we have spoken of these things in other [of our sermons]; but now our
teaching (logos) is about the Mind: - what Mind can do, and how it is [so]
different - in men being such and such, and in irrational lives [so]
changed; and [then] again that in irrational lives it is not of a beneficial
nature, while that in men it quencheth out the wrathful and the lustful
elements.
Of men, again,
we must class some as led by reason, and others as unreasoning.
7. But all men are subject to Fate, and genesis and change, for these are
the beginning and the end of Fate.
And though all
men do suffer fated things, those led by reason (those whom we said Mind
doth guide) do not endure <a> like suffering with the rest; but, since
they've freed themselves from viciousness, not being bad, they do not suffer
bad.
Tat: How meanest
thou again, my father? Is not the fornicator bad; the murderer bad; and [so
with] all the rest?
Hermes: [I meant
not that;] but that the Mind-led man, my son, though not a fornicator, will
suffer just as though he had committed fornication, and though he be no
murderer, as though he had committed murder.
The quality of
change he can no more escape than that of genesis.
But it is
possible for one who hath the Mind, to free himself from vice.
8. Wherefore I've ever heard, my son, Good Daimon also say - (and had He set
it down in written words, He would have greatly helped the race of men; for
He alone, my son, doth truly, as the Firstborn God, gazing on all things,
give voice to words (logoi) divine) - yea, once I heard Him say:
"All things are one, and most of all the bodies which the mind alone
perceives. Our life is owing to [God's] Energy and Power and Aeon. His Mind
is good, so is His Soul as well. And this being so, intelligible things know
naught of separation. So, then, Mind, being Ruler of all things, and being
Soul of God, can do whate'er it wills."
9. So do thou understand, and carry back this word (logos) unto the question
thou didst ask before - I mean about Mind's Fate.
For if thou dost
with accuracy, son, eliminate [all] captious arguments (logoi), thou wilt
discover that of very truth the Mind, the Soul of God, doth rule o'er all -
o'er Fate, and Law, and all things else; and nothing is impossible to it -
neither o'er Fate to set a human soul, nor under Fate to set [a soul]
neglectful of what comes to pass. Let this so far suffice from the Good
Daimon's most good [words].
Tat: Yea,
[words] divinely spoken, father mine, truly and helpfully. But further still
explain me this.
10. Thou said'st that Mind in lives irrational worked in them as [their]
nature, co-working with their impulses.
But impulses of
lives irrational, as I do think, are passions.
Now if the Mind
co-worketh with [these] impulses, and if the impulses of [lives] irrational
be passions, then is Mind also passion, taking its color from the passions.
Hermes: Well
put, my son! Thou questionest right nobly, and it is just that I as well
should answer [nobly].
11. All things incorporeal when in a body are subject unto passion, and in
the proper sense they are [themselves] all passions.
For every thing
that moves itself is incorporeal; while every thing that's moved is body.
Incorporeals are further moved by Mind, and movement's <i.e., movement is>
passion.
Both, then, are subject unto passion - both mover and the moved, the former
being ruler and the latter ruled.
But when a man
hath freed himself from body, then is he also freed from passion.
But, more precisely, son, naught is impassible, but all are passible.
Yet passion
differeth from passibility; for that the one is active, while the other's
passive.
Incorporeals moreover act upon themselves, for either they are motionless or
they are moved; but whichsoe'er it be, it's passion.
But bodies are
invaribly acted on, and therefore they are passible.
Do not, then,
let terms trouble thee; action and passion are both the selfsame thing. To
use the fairer sounding term, however, does no harm.
12. Tat: Most clearly hast thou, father mine, set forth the teaching
(logos).
Hermes: Consider
this as well, my son; that these two things God hath bestowed on man beyond
all mortal lives - both mind and speech (logos) equal to immortality. He
hath the mind for knowing God and uttered speech (logos) for eulogy of Him.
And if one useth
these for what he ought, he'll differ not a whit from the immortals. Nay,
rather, on departing from the body, he will be guided by the twain unto the
Choir of Gods and Blessed Ones.
13. Tat: Why, father mine! - do not the other lives make use of speech
(logos)?
Hermes: Nay,
son; but <i.e., only> use of voice; speech is far different from voice. For
speech is general among all men, while voice doth differ in each class of
living thing.
Tat: But with
men also, father mine, according to each race, speech differs.
Hermes: Yea,
son, but man is one; so also speech is one and is interpreted, and it is
found the same in Egypt, and in Persia, and in Greece.
Thou seemest,
son, to be in ignorance of Reason's (Logos) worth and greatness. For that
the Blessed God, Good Daimon, hath declared:
"Soul is in
Body, Mind in Soul; but Reason (Logos) is in Mind, and Mind in God; and God
is Father of [all] these."
14. The Reason, then, is the Mind's image, and Mind God's [image]; while
Body is [the image] of the Form; and Form [the image] of the Soul.
The subtlest
part of Matter is, then, Air <or vital spirit>; of Air, Soul; of Soul, Mind;
and of Mind, God.
And God
surroundeth all and permeateth all; while Mind Surroundeth Soul, Soul Air,
Air Matter.
Necessity and Providence and Nature are instruments of Cosmos and of
Matter's ordering; while of intelligible things each is Essence, and
Sameness is their Essence.
But of the
bodies of the Cosmos each is many; for through possessiong Sameness, [these]
composed bodies, though they do change from one into another of themselves,
do natheless keep the incorruption of their Sameness.
15. Whereas in all the rest of composed bodies, of each there is a certain
number; for without number structure cannot be, or composition, or
decomposition.
Now it is units
that give birth to number and increase it, and, being decomposed, are taken
back again into themselves.
Matter is one;
and this whole Cosmos - the mighty God and image of the mightier One, both
with Him unified, and the conserver of the Will and Order of the Father - is
filled full of Life.
Naught is there
in it throughout the whole of Aeon, the Father's [everlasting]
Re-establishment - nor of the whole, nor of the parts - which doth not live.
For not a single
thing that's dead, hath been, or is, or shall be in [this] Cosmos.
For that the
Father willed it should have Life as long as it should be. Wherefore it
needs must be a God.
16. How then, O son, could there be in the God, the image of the Father, in
the plenitude of Life - dead things?
For that death
is corruption, and corruption destruction.
How then could
any part of that which knoweth no corruption be corrupted, or any whit of
him the God destroyed?
Tat: Do they
not, then, my father, die - the lives in it, that are its parts?
Hermes: Hush,
son! - led into error by the term in use for what takes place.
They do not die,
my son, but are dissolved as compound bodies.
Now dissolution
is not death, but dissolution of a compound; it is dissolved not so that it
may be destroyed, but that it may become renewed.
For what is the
activity of life? Is it not motion? What then in Cosmos is there that hath
no motion? Naught is there, son!
17. Tat: Doth not Earth even, father, seem to thee to have no motion?
Hermes: Nay,
son; but rather that she is the only thing which, though in very rapid
motion, is also stable.
For how would it
not be a thing to laugh at, that the Nurse of all should have no motion,
when she engenders and brings forth all things?
For 'tis
impossible that without motion one who doth engender, should do so.
That thou should
ask if the fourth part <or element> is not inert, is most ridiculous; for
the body which doth have no motion, gives sign of nothing but inertia.
18. Know, therefore, generally, my son, that all that is in Cosmos is being
moved for increase or for decrease.
Now that which
is kept moving, also lives; but there is no necessity that that which lives,
should be all same.
For being
simultaneous, the Cosmos, as a whole, is not subject to change, my son, but
all its parts are subject unto it; yet naught [of it] is subject to
corruption, or destroyed.
It is the terms
employed that confuse men. For 'tis not genesis that constituteth life, but
'tis sensation; it is not change that constituteth death, but 'tis
forgetfulness.
Since, then,
these things are so, they are immortal all - Matter, [and] Life, [and]
Spirit, Mind [and] Soul, of which whatever liveth, is composed.
19. Whatever then doth live, oweth its immortality unto the Mind, and most
of all doth man, he who is both recipient of God, and co-essential with Him.
For with this
life alone doth God consort; by visions in the night, by tokens in the day,
and by all things doth He foretell the future unto him - by birds, by inward
parts, by wind, by tree.
Wherefore doth
man lay claim to know things past, things present and to come.
20. Observe this too, my son; that each one of the other lives inhabiteth
one portion of the Cosmos - aquatic creatures water, terrene earth, and aery
creatures air; while man doth use all these - earth, water air [and] fire;
he seeth Heaven, too, and doth contact it with [his] sense.
But God
surroundeth all, and permeateth all, for He is energy and power; and it is
nothing difficult, my son, to conceive God.
21. But if thou wouldst Him also contemplate, behold the ordering of the
Cosmos, and [see] the orderly behavior of its ordering <this is a play on
the word "cosmos", which means "order, arrangement">; behold thou the
Necessity of things made manifest, and [see] the Providence of things become
and things becoming; behold how Matter is all-full of Life; [behold] this so
great God in movement, with all the good and noble [ones] - gods, daimones
and men!
Tat: But these
are purely energies, O father mine!
Hermes: If,
then, they're purely energies, my son - by whom, then, are they energized
except by God?
Or art thou
ignorant, that just as Heaven, Earth, Water, Air, are parts of Cosmos, in
just the selfsame way God's parts are Life and Immortality, [and] Energy,
and Spirit, and Necessity, and Providence, and Nature, Soul, and Mind, and
the Duration <that is, Aeon or Eternity> of all these that is called Good?
And there are
naught of things that have become, or are becoming, in which God is not.
22. Tat: Is He in Matter, father, then?
Hermes: Matter,
my son, is separate from God, in order that thou may'st attribute to it the
quality of space. But what thing else than mass think'st thou it is, if it's
not energized? Whereas if it be energized, by whom is it made so? For
energies, we said, are parts of God.
By whom are,
then, all lives enlivened? By whom are things immortal made immortal? By
whom changed things made changeable?
And whether thou
dost speak of Matter, of Body, or of Essence, know that these too are
energies of God; and that materiality is Matter's energy, that corporeality
is Bodies' energy, and that essentiality doth constituteth the energy of
Essence; and this is God - the All.
23. And in the All is naught that is not God. Wherefore nor <i.e., neither>
size, nor space, nor quality, nor form, nor time, surroundeth God; for He is
All, and All surroundeth all, and permeateth all.
Unto this Reason
(Logos), son, thy adoration and thy worship pay. There is one way alone to
worship God; [it is] not to be bad.
