Corpus Hermeticum 5: The Discourse of Hermes to Asclepius
§ About this work
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 addresses Tat, promising a sermon on the God beyond all name, explaining that the Unmanifest ever is and makes all things manifest while remaining unmanifest. He urges Tat to pray to the Lord and Father for power to conceive God through thought. Hermes directs Tat to consider the sun, moon, and stars, asking who orders their courses; then the Bear, sea, and earth, affirming a Maker and Lord of all. He wishes Tat could gain wings to behold the cosmos beneath one sway. He describes the fashioning of a man in the womb, listing many bodily parts and asking who made them, answering: God alone. Using the statue and painter analogy, he insists works require a Worker. Hermes declares God is all names and no name, both things that are and are not, and closes questioning how he may hymn God.
Section 1aSection 1bSection 1c