Corpus Hermeticum 4: The Epistles
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The collection opens with the narrator's vision of the Being Man-Shepherd (Poimandres), Mind of all-masterhood, who reveals the Light, the making of Man, the ascent through the Harmony to the Eighth, and sends the narrator to preach Gnosis. In the Serapeum, Hermes leads Asclepius to establish that the bodiless space containing all motion is God, Cause named Good and Father. The Sacred Sermon narrates cosmogony from Chaos, Darkness, and Water to men born for gnosis. Hermes then addresses Tat across several discourses: the Epistles, where Mind is set as a prize in a Cup; a discourse on the Unmanifest God who is all names and no name; the All-Father, locating Good in God alone; the Seven Powers, rebuking ignorance; and the Eight Sphere, denying true death. The Decalogue treats sense and thought and Cosmos as God's Son; the Sermon on the Mount describes souls' transformations and Gnosis as the Way Up. In the Hymn, Mind instructs Thrice-greatest Hermes on God, Aeon, Cosmos, Time, and Becoming; the Prayer teaches Mind as pilot against passion and Fate; the Discourse to Tat unfolds Rebirth, the twelve Tormentors driven out by ten Powers, and the Secret Hymnody. Hermes writes to Asclepius (to Ammon) on the One Maker who sows Immortality, Change, Life, and Motion. In the Definitions, Asclepius addresses King Ammon on God as All and One, the Sun as Demiurge, and Heimarmenē; a fragmentary discourse treats bodiless things in bodies and reflexions, the King postponing converse. The Encomium of Kings closes with musician analogies, ascending to God then descending to praise Kings, where Love works the harmony.
Hermes tells Tat that the World-maker made the World with Reason, not hands; His body is untouchable, neither Fire nor Water. Being Good, He sent down man, mortal yet immortal, excelling through Reason and Mind. He distributed Reason to all men but not Mind. Tat asks why; Hermes says Mind was set as a prize, placed in a Cup sent down with a Herald proclaiming baptism. Those who doused themselves in Mind became perfect men; others remain ignorant. Tat wishes to be baptized; Hermes says he must first hate his body. Hermes explains the choice between Body and Bodiless, that choosing the Better makes a man a God, and that men, not God, cause evil. He describes the Oneness as Source of all. He concludes that God's Image has been sketched and becomes a Guide, drawing men as a magnet draws iron.
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