The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius: 8 (with quoted footnotes)

1. All beings cannot possibly exceed their own capacity. (97) Nature is everyone of the beings of this world; (98) there is a law which is in heaven above destiny, and there is a destiny which has come into being according to a just necessity; there is a law which has come into being according to the necessity of humans, there is a god who has come into being according to human opinion. (99)

2. Divine bodies do not have access paths for sensations, for they have sensations within themselves, and what is more they are themselves their own sensations. (100) What God does, man does not do it; and whatever God does, he does it for man; but what man does, he does it for soul. (101)

3. Those who worship idols worship plain pictures. For if they worshipped with knowledge, they would not have gone astray, but since they do not know how they should worship, they have gone astray, far from piety. (102) Man has the faculty of killing, (103) God of giving life.

4. The body increases and reaches perfection (104) due to nature; and soul fills up with Nous. (105) Every man has a body and a soul, but not every soul has Nous. (106) Consequently there are two types of Nous: the one is divine (107) and the other belongs to soul. Nevertheless there are certain men who do not have even that of soul. (108) Whoever understands the body, also understands soul; whoever understands soul, also understands Nous, [109**] because the admirable is a natural object of contemplation: each of the two is seen by means of the other.

5. Nature is the mirror of truth; (110) the latter is at once the body of the incorporeal things (111) and the light of the invisible. (112) The generous nature of this world teaches all the beings. (113) If it seems to you that nothing is a vain work, you will find the work and the craftsman, (114) if it seems to you like a mockery, you will be mocked at. (115)

6. You have the power of getting free since you have been given everything. (116) Nobody envies you. (117) Everything came into being for you, so that by means ofeitherone (being) orofthe whole, you may understand the craftsman. (118) For you have the power (119) of not understanding with your own will; you have the power of lacking faith and being misled, so that you understand the contrary of the real beings. Man has as much power as the gods. Only man is a free living being, only he has the power of good and evil

7. You do not have the power of becoming immortal ; neither does, indeed, the immortal have the power of dying. (120) You can even become a god if you want, for it is possible. (121) Therefore want and understand and believe and love: then you have become it! (122)

**- Footnote (109) is omitted in Mahés translation so I placed [109**] into DH 8.4 where it seems the most appropriate.

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1. All beings cannot possibly exceed their own capacity. (97: CH 12.7 “Hermēs: ‘And what is fated affects all people. Yet those who possess reason, whom as we have said mind commands, are not affected as the others are. Since they have been freed from vice, they are not affected as a consequence of being evil.’ Tat: ‘Again, father, what do you mean? The adulterer is not evil? The murderer not evil? And all the rest of them?’ Hermēs: ‘One who has reason will not be affected because he has committed adultery, my child, but as if he had done so, nor will he be affected because he has murdered but as if he had murdered. It is not possible to escape the quality of change any more than of birth, though it is possible for one who has mind to escape vice.’”; SH 1.1 “…it is impossible to signify with a body what has no body. Likewise, the perfect cannot be comprehended by the imperfect… it is grievous for the eternal to have fellowship with the ephemeral. The former lasts forever, while the latter passes away. The one is in truth, while the other is shrouded by appearances. The weaker stands apart from the stronger and the lesser from the greater as. I have as the mortal is distant from the divine.”; SH 7.2 “For she [Justice] controls the order of existing beings inasmuch as they are divine, do not wish to err, and cannot. Indeed, it is impossible for the divine to go astray – hence its infallibility. Now Justice is appointed to be punisher of human being who err upon the earth.”) Nature is everyone of the beings of this world; (98: Or according to some manuscripts: ‘Every being in this world has nature’.) there is a law which is in heaven above destiny, and there is a destiny which has come into being according to a just necessity; there is a law which has come into being according to the necessity of humans, there is a god who has come into being according to human opinion. (99: OH 2.1 “In the eye is the power of seeing, in the ears the power of hearing, in the nostrils the power of smelling, and in the tongue the power of taste.”)

2. Divine bodies do not have access paths for sensations, for they have sensations within themselves, and what is more they are themselves their own sensations. (100: SH 4.9 “These energies are dependent upon bodies. The body-making energies come from divine bodies into mortal ones. Each of them energizes; CH 9.8 “…in all living things sensation and understanding enter from outside, breathed into things by the atmosphere, but the cosmos got them once and for all when it came to be, and, having got them, it keeps them by god’s agency.”) What God does, man does not do it; and whatever God does, he does it for man; but what man does, he does it for soul. (101: The Armenian ‘anjin’ [անձն] might also mean ‘for himself’.)

3. Those who worship idols worship plain pictures. For if they worshipped with knowledge, they would not have gone astray, but since they do not know how they should worship, they have gone astray, far from piety. (102: AH 37 “…Our ancestors once erred gravely on the theory of divinity; they were unbelieving and inattentive to worship and reverence for god. But then they discovered the art of making gods. To their discovery they added a conformable power arising from the nature of matter. Because they could not make souls, they mixed this power in and called up the souls of demons or angels and implanted them in likenesses through holy and divine mysteries, whence the idols could have the power to do good and evil…“; NH 6.69, 29-32 “(~) It is obvious to us, and we agree with everyone, that the generation of the gods has come into being out of pure matter, and they are endowed only with heads. But what people fashion is only an image of the gods. They are from the lowest part of matter, and what they fashion is from the external part of the image of people… earthly people create gods in their own image… idols…”) Man has the faculty of killing, (103): SH 23.53-63:

God of giving life.

4. The body increases and reaches perfection (104: So in Greek. Armenian ‘decreases’, which is identical to: SH 11.2 “Every body is changeable, but not every body can be broken down. [Some bodies can be broken down.]”; SH 11.23 “Time is divine; law is human”) due to nature; and soul fills up with Nous. (105: CH 10.23 “…Blessed is the soul completely full of mind, wretched the soul completely empty of it…“) Every man has a body and a soul, but not every soul has Nous. (106: CH 10.24 “…so great is the power of mind. But in a sluggish soul mind cannot endure; it leaves such a soul behind as clinging to the body, held down and smothered by it. Such a soul, my child, does not possess mind, and so one must not say that such a thing is human. For the human is a godlike living thing, not comparable to the other living things of the earth but to those in heaven above, who are called gods. Or better – if one dare tell the truth – the one who is really human is above these gods as well, or at least they are wholly equal in power to one another.“) Consequently there are two types of Nous: the one is divine (107: The Armenian ‘aržanawor’ should be corrected into ‘astucawor’ [աստվածային] in accordance with the Greek ‘theios’ [‘θεῖος’ = divine]) and the other belongs to soul. Nevertheless there are certain men who do not have even that of soul. (108: CH 10.23”…Blessed is the soul completely full of mind, wretched the soul completely empty of it… Do you suppose, my child, that every soul possesses the good mind? Our present discourse concerns this mind, not the servile mind of which we spoke earlier, the one sent below by justice…”) Whoever understands the body, also understands soul; whoever understands soul, also understands Nous, [109**: CH 12.2: “Now wherever there is soul, there also is Nous; likewise, wherever there is life, there also is soul However, in irrational creatures the soul is life devoid of Nous. Nous is the benefactor for human souls, for it moves them to the Supreme Good. In irrational creatures it works in the nature of each, whereas in men’s souls it counteracts that nature. For every soul on being born in a body is immediately corrupted by both pain and pleasure. Since the body is composed of different parts, both pleasure and pain seethe within it like juices in a stew, and the soul, when it enters into these, is drowned. “ -Salaman] because the admirable is a natural object of contemplation: each of the two is seen by means of the other.

5. Nature is the mirror of truth; (110: CH 17 “… if you think about it, O king, incorporeals also exist among the corporeals… Bodies that appear to be in mirrors seem incorporeal to you, do they not?… But there are also other incorporeals: doesn’t it seem to you, for example, that there are forms that appear in body even though they are incorporeal, in the bodies not only of ensouled beings but of the soulless also?… Thus, there are reflections of the incorporeals in corporeals and of corporeals in incorporeals – from the sensible to the intelligible cosmos, that is, and from the intelligible to the sensible. Therefore, my king, adore the statues, because they, too, possess forms from the intelligible cosmos.”) the latter is at once the body of the incorporeal things (111: SH 2A.1-2 “[1] Concerning truth, {‘Truth’ = [άλήθεια], which has the additional sense of ‘reality’} Tat, a human being dares not speak. For a human being is an imperfect animal composed of imperfect members, a tent made up of foreign and multiple bodies. Yet what is possible and correct, this I speak: the truth is in eternal bodies alone. [2] Among these eternal bodies, the bodies themselves are true… our bodies are constructed of all these elements… if our frame did not possess truth from the beginning, how can we see or speak the truth? It can understand only if God so wills.”; SH 2A.15 “‘What is the primal truth father?’ ‘It is singular and unique, Tat – not made from matter, not embodied, not qualified by color or shape, it is unshifting, unchanging, and ever existing. {CH 4.1 “you should conceive of him [the Craftsman] as present, as always existing, as having made all things”; CH 13.6 “What is true… is unlimited, colorless, figureless; SH 8.2 “[The] intelligible is without color, without shape, without body, and drawn from the primal and intelligible reality itself.”}) and the light of the invisible. (112: CH 7.2 “…seek a guide to take you by the hand and lead you to the portals of knowledge. There shines the light cleansed of darkness. There no one is drunk. All are sober and gaze with the heart toward one who wishes to be seen, who is neither heard nor spoken of, who is seen not with the eyes but with mind and heart. But first you must rip off the tunic that you wear, the garment of ignorance, the foundation of vice, the bonds of corruption, the dark cage, the living death, the sentient corpse, the portable tomb, the resident thief, the one who hates through what he loves and envies through what he hates.“; CH 10.21 “…But when mind has entered a reverent soul, it leads it to the light of knowledge. Such a soul as this never has its fill of hymning and praising, always blessing all people and doing them good in every deed and word, in memory of its father.”) The generous nature of this world teaches all the beings. (113: CH 1.27 “As he was saying this to me, Poimandres joined with the powers. Then he sent me forth, empowered and instructed on the nature of the universe and on the supreme vision, after I had given thanks to the father of all and praised him. And I began proclaiming to mankind the beauty of reverence and knowledge: ‘People, earthborn men, you who have surrendered yourselves to drunkenness and sleep and ignorance of god, make yourselves sober and end your drunken sickness, for you are bewitched in unreasoning sleep.’“; SH 1.29 [SH 1 has only 2 verses, thus I believe this footnote to be a typo and may be meant to read: ‘CH 1.29’: “Some of them, who had surrendered themselves to the way of death, resumed their mocking and withdrew, while those who desired to be taught cast themselves at my feet. Having made them rise, I became guide to my race, teaching them the words – how to be saved and in what manner – and I sowed the words of wisdom among them, and they were nourished from the ambrosial water. When evening came and the sun’s light began to disappear entirely, I commanded them to give thanks to god, and when each completed the thanksgiving, he turned to his own bed.” or it may be meant to read: ‘SH 11.29’: “Everything in heaven is blameless, everything on earth is blameworthy.”]) If it seems to you that nothing is a vain work, you will find the work and the craftsman, (114: CH 4.2 “…so he sent the man below, an adornment of the divine body, mortal life from life immortal. And if the cosmos prevailed over living things as something ever-living, the man prevailed even over the cosmos through reason and mind. The man became a spectator of god’s work. He looked at it in astonishment and recognized its maker.“) if it seems to you like a mockery, you will be mocked at. (115: AH 12 “…this is the payment for those who live faithfully under god, who live attentively with the world. For the unfaithful it goes differently: return to heaven is denied them, and a vile migration unworthy of a holy soul puts them in other bodies…“ [aliis forsitan videtur deridendum = (Latin) “To others, perhaps, it seems to be mocked”])

6. You have the power of getting free since you have been given everything. (116: CH 11.20 “See what power you have, what quickness! If you can do these things, can god not do them? So you must think of god in this way, as having everything – the cosmos, himself, the universe – like thoughts within himself. Thus, unless you make yourself equal to god, you cannot understand god; like is understood by like. Make yourself grow to immeasurable immensity, outleap all body, outstrip all time, become eternity and you will understand god…“) Nobody envies you. (117: CH 4.3 “…Grudging envy comes not from on high; it forms below in the souls of people who do not possess mind…“; CH 5.2 “Clearly, the one who alone is unbegotten is also unimagined and invisible, but in presenting images of all things he is seen through all of them and in all of them; he is seen especially by those whom he wished to see him. You then, Tat, my child, pray first to the lord, the father, the only, who is not one but from whom the one comes; ask him the grace to enable you to understand so great a god, to permit even one ray of his to illuminate your thinking. Only understanding, because it, too, is invisible, sees the invisible, and if you have the strength, Tat, your mind’s eye will see it. For the lord, who is ungrudging, is seen through the entire cosmos. Can you see understanding and hold it in your hands? Can you have a vision of the image of god? If what is in you is also invisible to you, how will god reveal his inner self to you through the eyes? “; CH 16.5 “In this way, the craftsman, I mean the sun, binds heaven to earth, sending essence below and raising matter above, attracting every- thing toward the sun and around it, offering everything from himself to everything, as he gives freely of the ungrudging light. For it is the sun whence good energies reach not only through sky and air but even to earth and down to the nethermost deep and abyss.“; SH 6.1 “Tat: ‘Since in previous General Discourses you promised to explain to me about the thirty-six decans, explain them now, along with their energies.’ Hermēs: ‘I do not begrudge you this, Tat. This may indeed be my principal teaching, the crown of them all…’”) Everything came into being for you, so that by means of either one being or of the whole, you may understand the craftsman.(118: CH 5.9 “…it is his essence to be pregnant with all things and to make them. As it is impossible for anything to be produced without a maker, so also is it impossible for this maker not to exist always unless he is always making everything in heaven, in the air, on earth, in the deep, in every part of the cosmos, in every part of the universe, in what is and in what is not. For there is nothing in all the cosmos that he is not. He is himself the things that are and those that are not. Those that are he has made visible; those that are not he holds within him.“; CH 12.8 “I have always heard the good demon [Agathos Daimon] say, ‘it would have been most useful to humankind if he had given it out in writing; he alone, my child, because he looked down on everything as the firstborn god, has truly given voice to divine discourses’, once, at any rate, I heard him say that all things are one, especially the intellectual bodies; that we live in power and in energy and in eternity; also, that the mind of eternity is good and that its soul is good as well. This being so, there is nothing dimensional among intellectual beings, and thus, since mind rules all and is the soul of god, mind can do as it wishes.“; CH 16.3 “I shall open the discourse by invoking god, the master, maker, father and container of the whole universe, the all who is one and the one who is all. For the plenitude of all things is one and is in one, not because the one duplicates itself but because both are one. Keep to this meaning carefully, my king, through the whole length of my discourse. If anyone sets his hand against what seems to be all and one and identical and tries to part it from the one – taking the term ‘all’ to mean ‘multitude’ rather than ‘plenitude’ – he will be doing the impossible, breaking the all apart from the one and destroying the all. For all must be one, if in fact one exists as it does and never ceases to be one so that the plenitude is not broken apart.“; AH 12 “…For in this bodily life the pleasure one takes from possessions is a delight, but this delight, as they say, is a noose round the soul’s neck that keeps mankind tied to the part that makes him mortal, nor does the malice that begrudges immortality let him acknowl- edge the part of divinity in him…“) For you have the power(119: SH 18.3 “We have the power to choose. To choose the better is up to us. By the same principle, choosing the worse is unwilled {The choice of evil is involuntary because it is dictated by the body and Fate.} Choosing, when dictated by vices, draws near to bodily nature. For this reason , Fate still dominates the one who chooses.” {When one chooses according to bodily desires, one remains under the power of Fate}) of not understanding with your own will; you have the power of lacking faith and being misled, so that you understand the contrary of the real beings. Man has as much power as the gods. Only man is a free living being, only he has the power of good and evil.

7. You do not have the power of becoming immortal; neither does, indeed, the immortal have the power of dying. (120: SH 11.2 “Not everything that undergoes experience has sensation; everything that has sensation undergoes experience” {Cf. SH 4.9: [immortal bodies do not have sensation]}; SH 11.30 “The immortal is not mortal, the mortal is not immortal.”) You can even become a god if you want, for it is possible. (121: AH 6 “…a human being is a great wonder, a living thing to be worshipped and honored: for he changes his nature into a god’s, as if he were a god; …He is everything, and he is everywhere.”) Therefore want and understand and believe and love: then you have become it! (122: CH 11.20 “…unless you make yourself equal to god, you cannot understand god; like is understood by like. Make yourself grow to immeasurable immensity, outleap all body, outstrip all time, become eternity and you will understand god. Having conceived that nothing is impossible to you, consider yourself immortal and able to understand everything, all art, all learning, the temper of every living thing. Go higher than every height and lower than every depth. Collect in yourself all the sensations of what has been made, of fire and water, dry and wet; be everywhere at once, on land, in the sea, in heaven; be not yet born, be in the womb, be young, old, dead, beyond death. And when you have understood all these at once – times, places, things, qualities, quantities – then you can understand god.“)

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-Footnoted quotes from the CH, AH, SH, OH and NH are by Copenhaver, Litwa, and Meyer unless specified.

{Abc} – indicates a footnoted verse or a translator’s note contained within the citation being quoted.

(~) – indicates that I am quoting from NH 6.67, but I don’t have numbered verses so I can only make a guess based on content and context