Section 1a

The doctrine of the periodic restoration or recurrence of all things to their original state after vast cycles.

The text explicitly defines and centers on the concept of apocatastasis as the restoration or recurrence of all things.

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

Lives are described as being 'shut in as in a cave' by the universal body, suggesting material enclosure hinders the life.

The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.

The text implies a structural relationship where man is a part of the Cosmos which reflects the Father.

A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God.

The Cosmos is described as a 'Second God' brought into being by the Father, functioning as a secondary creator distinct from the supreme source.

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

The Father is described as 'willing to order forth the life' and sustaining the Cosmos, indicating active divine ordering.

The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.

The Father is described as 'eternal of Himself,' implying a lack of composite origin.

Fragments of divine light or spirit trapped inside material bodies, awaiting liberation and return to their source.

The description of the Soul as deathless within the context of a dissolving Body suggests the presence of an immortal divine fragment within matter.

A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.

The text outlines a clear chain from God the Father to the Cosmos (Second God) to Man as the rational animal.

Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.

Death and destruction are described as having no fact in the Cosmos, framing them as a lack of true being rather than positive realities.

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

The dialogue format ('son, we now must speak') indicates an instructional transmission of true knowledge regarding the nature of Soul and Body.

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

The Cosmos is explicitly described as a 'life' or 'living creature' that cannot die and lives for aye.

The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.

Man is identified as a part of the Cosmos which is itself an image of God, implying the human reflects the cosmic structure.

The dissolution of binary oppositions (male/female, inner/outer, above/below) as a mark of spiritual completion.

The text resolves the binary of death and life by stating 'death... doth stand for deathless' through a change of syllable.

The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.

The instruction to speak 'Concerning Soul and Body' aligns with the Hermetic imperative to know one's own true nature as a path to understanding.

The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.

Lives are sown into the sphere and shut in, retaining a nature of unorder that separates them from the Father's direct order.

The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.

The assertion that 'no death for aught of things [that are]' implies an underlying permanence and unity of existence despite apparent changes.

Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.

[auto] The passage explicitly contrasts the deathless Soul with the dissolving Body, establishing a fundamental ontological opposition between spirit and matter.

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

[auto] The text uses the linguistic paradox that 'death' stands for 'deathless' to destabilize ordinary understanding and reveal ontological truth.