Corpus Hermeticum 14: The Discourse of Hermes to Ammon · 2 of 3 · tr. G.R.S. Mead
Section 1b
Now if the Maker is naught else but That which makes, Alone, Simple, Uncompound, it needs must do this [making] to Itself,—to Which its Maker’s making is “its being made.” 2 And as to all that’s being made,—it cannot be p.
261 [paragraph continues] [so made] by being made by its own self; but it must needs be made by being made by other.
Without the “Maker” “made” is neither made nor is; for that the one without the other doth lose its proper nature by deprivation of that other.
If, 1 then, all things have been admitted to be two,—the “that which is being made” and “that which makes,”—[all then] are one in union of these,—the “that which leadeth” and the “that which followeth.” The making God is “that which leadeth”; the “that which is being made,” whatever it be, the “that which followeth.” 7.
And do not thou be chary of things made because of their variety, from fear of attribution of a low estate and lack of glory unto God.
For that His Glory’s one,—to make all things; and this is as it were God’s Body, the making [of them].
2 But by the Maker’s self naught is there thought or bad or base.
These things are passions which accompany the making process, as rust doth brass and filth doth body; but neither doth the brass-smith p.
262 make the rust, nor the begetters of the body filth, nor God [make] evil.
It is continuance in the state of being made 1 that makes them lose, as though it were, their bloom; and ’tis because of this God hath made change, as though it were the making clean of genesis.
8.
Is it, then, possible for one and the same painter man to make both heaven, and gods, and earth, and sea, and men, and all the animals, and lifeless things, and trees, and yet impossible for God to make all things?
What monstraus lack of understanding; what want of knowledge as to God!
1 For such the strangest lot of all do suffer; for though they say they worship piously and sing the praise of God, yet by their not ascribing unto Him the making of all things, they know not God; and, added unto this not-knowing, they’re guilty even of the worst impiety to Him—passions to Him attributing, or arrogance, or impotency.
For if He doth not make all things, from arrogance He doth not make, or not being able,—which is impiety [to think].
9.
One Passion hath God only—Good; and He who’s Good, is neither arrogant nor impotent.
For this is God—the Good, which hath all power of making all.
p.
263 And all that can be made is made by God,—that is, by [Him who is] the Good and who can make all things.
1 But would’st thou learn how He doth make, and how things made are made, thou may’st do so.
10.
Behold a very fair and most resemblant image—a husbandman casting the seed into the ground; here wheat, there barley, and there [again] some other of the seeds!
Behold one and the same man planting the vine, the apple, and [all] other trees!
In just the selfsame way doth God sow Immortality in Heaven, and Change on Earth, and Life and Motion in the universe.
These are not many, but few and easy to be numbered; for four in all are they,—and God Himself and Genesis, in whom are all that are.
Themes
◆Active Contemplationpraxis
A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.
The reader is invited to behold the image of a husbandman casting seed as a means to understand divine making.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The analogy of rust on brass and the 'making clean of genesis' mirrors alchemical themes of purification and transformation.
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 text describes God making change to cleanse genesis, implying an active ordering of the cosmos toward intelligible ends.
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.
[auto] Evil is described as a passion accompanying the making process like rust on brass, explicitly stating God does not make evil.