Corpus Hermeticum 12: The Prayer · 3 of 5 · tr. G.R.S. Mead
Section 1c
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.
Eckhart's signature doctrine that the Father eternally begets the Son in the ground of the soul; the human interior as the actual site of the divine generative act, distinct from inner_light's static indwelling.
Reason (Logos) is located within the Mind, which is within the Soul.
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.
Section 14 establishes that each level of being is an image of the one above it, reflecting cosmic structure.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
Freedom from passion is achieved by freeing oneself from the body.
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.
Section 14 explicitly lists Providence as an instrument of the Cosmos alongside Necessity and Nature.
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.
[auto] Section 14 explicitly outlines a descending chain of being from God to Mind, Soul, Air, and Matter.
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.
The human hierarchy of Mind, Soul, and Body mirrors the divine hierarchy of God, Mind, and Form.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
Section 12 states that one who uses Mind and Speech correctly will differ not a whit from the immortals.