Section 1a

p. 266 CORPUS HERMETICUM (XVI.) THE DEFINITIONS OF ASCLEPIUS UNTO KING AMMON THE PERFECT SERMON OF ASCLEPIUS UNTO THE KING (Text: R. 348-354; Pat. at end. 1 ) 1. Great is the sermon ( logos ) which I send to thee, O King—the summing up and digest, as it were, of all the rest. For it is not composed to suit the many’s prejudice, since it contains much that refuteth them. Nay, it will seem to thee as well to contradict sometimes my sermons too. Hermes, my master, in many a conversation, both when alone, and sometimes, too, when Tat was there, has said, that unto those who come across my books, their composition will seem most simple and [most] clear; but, on the contrary, as ’tis unclear, and has the [inner] p. 267 meaning of its words concealed, it will be still unclearer, when, afterwards, the Greeks will want to turn our tongue into their own,—for this will be a very great distorting and obscuring of [even] what has been [already] written. 2. Turned into our own native tongue, 1 the sermon ( logos ) keepeth clear the meaning 2 of the words ( logoi ) [at any rate]. For that its very quality of sound, the [very] power of the Egyptian names, have in themselves the bringing into act of what is said. As far as, then, thou canst, O King—(and thou canst [do] all things)—keep [this] our sermon from translation; in order that such mighty mysteries may not come to the Greeks, and the disdainful speech of Greece, with [all] its looseness, and its surface beauty, 3 so to speak, take all the strength out of 4 the solemn and the strong—the energetic 5 speech of Names. The Greeks, O King, have novel words, energic of “argumentation” [only]; and thus is the philosophizing of the Greeks—the noise of words. But we do not use words; but we use sounds full-filled with deeds. p. 268 3. Thus, then, will I begin the sermon by invocation unto God, the universals’ Lord and Maker, [their] Sire, and [their] Encompasser; who though being All is One, 1 and though being One is All; for that the Fullness of all things is One, and [is] in One, this latter One not coming as a second [One], but both being One. And this is the idea 2 that I would have thee keep, through the whole study of our sermon, Sire! For should one try to separate what seems to be both All and One and Same from One,—he will be found to take 3 his epithet of “All” from [the idea of] multitude, and not from [that of) fullness 4 —which is impossible; for if he part All from the One, he will destroy the All. 5 For all things must be One—if they indeed are One. Yea, they are One; and they shall never cease being One—in order that the Fullness may not be destroyed. * * * * * 4. See then in Earth a host of founts of Water and of Fire forth-spirting in its midmost parts; in one and the same [space all] the three p. 269 natures visible—of Fire, and Water, and of Earth, depending from one Root. 1 Whence, too, it 2 is believed to be the Treasury 3 of every matter.