Corpus Hermeticum XVI: The Definitions of Asclepius unto King Ammon
§ 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.
Asclepius addresses King Ammon, calling the sermon he sends a summing-up of all the rest, not composed for the many but refuting them, and possibly seeming to contradict his own sermons. Hermes, his master, has said the books seem simple yet are unclear, and will become still unclearer when the Greeks translate the Egyptian tongue, distorting it. Asclepius urges Ammon to keep the sermon from translation, since Greek is mere noise of words while the Egyptians use sounds full of deeds. He begins by invocation to God, Lord and Maker, who being All is One and being One is All; separating All from One is impossible. He points to Earth's founts of Water and Fire, the three natures from one Root, and Earth as Treasury of matter; the Demiurge, the Sun, orders Heaven and Earth. The Essence grasped by mind is His Substance; the text is corrupt here. His rays shine on the Cosmos; established in the midst, wreathed with Cosmos, He drives the cosmic team like a charioteer, the reins being Life, Soul, Spirit, Deathlessness, Genesis. He gives immortals permanence and vivifies lower parts, transforming genus to genus. Choirs of daimons surround Him, working storms, fires, earthquakes, famines, and wars requiting impiety. The Gods give benefits, mankind gives worship, daimons give requital. The Sun preserves and nurses all. Daimons ranked under the Stars shape souls, obsessing the body; at birth they seize us, but the rational part, receptacle of God, stands above them. Those with a Ray through the Sun the daimons cannot touch. Hermes calls this economy Heimarmenē. The Intelligible depends from God, the Sensible from it; round the Sun are Eight Spheres. God is Sire, Sun Demiurge, Cosmos instrument; all are parts of God, and making all, He makes Himself, without end or beginning.
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