HERMETICA
Walter Scott, translator
The ancient Greek and Latin writings which contain religious or philosophic teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus. From the Introduction: "If one were to try to sum up the Hermetic teaching in one sentence, I can think of none that would serve the purpose better than the sentence, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.'"
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1 |
"There is nothing that comes to be or has come to be, in which God is not."
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"The sky is moist and dry, cold and hot, bright and obscured by turns; these are the rapidly alternating forms included under the one ideal or universal form of the sky. The earth is ever passing through many changes of form; it generates produce, it nourishes the produce it has generated, it yields all manner of crops, with manifold differences of quality and quantity; and above all, it puts forth many sorts of trees, differing in the scent of their flowers and the taste of their fruits. Water takes different forms, now standing, and now running. Fire undergoes many changes, and assumes godlike forms;…they are like our mirrors, and reproduce the ideal or universal form in visible copies with rival brilliance."
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"All these souls which shift about from place to place throughout the Kosmos are, so to speak, parted off and portioned out from one soul, even the soul of the universe."
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"All individuals are united to the whole; so that we see that the whole is one, and of the one are all things."
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"From God and in God and through God are all things, - all the various and multiform qualities, the vast and measureless magnitudes, and the forms of every aspect."
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"For all things that exist are in God, and are made by God, and are dependent on him, whether they be things that put forth activity by means of their bodies, or things that effect movement by means of soul-stuff, or things that generate life by means of vital breath, or things that receive into themselves the bodies that life has quitted. And there will never come a time when anything that exists will cease to be; for God contains all things, and there is nothing which is not in God, and nothing in which God is not. Nay, I would rather say, not that God contains all things, but that, to speak the full truth, God is all things." Libellus IX:9
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"The Lord manifests himself ungrudgingly throughout the universe; and you can behold God's image with your eyes, and lay hold on it with your hands."
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"The ordered system in which each and all by the supreme Artist's skill are wrought together into a single whole yields a divinely musical harmony, sweet and true."
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"All things are linked together, and connected one with another in a chain extending from the lowest to the highest; so that we see that they are not many, or rather, that all are one. For inasmuch as all things hang on the One and flow from the One, we think indeed that they are many when we look at them apart, but when we regard them as united, we hold them to be one." Asclepius III:19c
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10 |
"The mind in us…penetrates all things."
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11 |
"The Good is the one thing which is the source of all things, and supplies all things at all times."
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12 |
"Man is a being of divine nature."
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"God is of one nature with the Good."
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"God does not ignore man, but acknowledges him to the full, and wills to be acknowledged by him. And this alone, even the knowledge of God, is man's salvation; this is the ascent to Olympus; and by this alone can a soul become good." Libellus X:15a
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"The Kosmos is made by God and contained in God….It is God that is the author of all, and encompasses all, and knits all things together."
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"God is the Maker of all things, and makes all things like to himself."
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"All things are full of God."
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"The Kosmos moves within the very life of eternity, and is contained in that very eternity whence all life issues."
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19 |
"There is not, and has never been, and never will be in the Kosmos anything that is dead. For it was the Father's will that the Kosmos, as long as it exists, should be a living being." Libellus XII:15b
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20 |
"Languages differ, but mankind is one."
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21 |
"There are two images of God; the Kosmos is one, and man is another, inasmuch as he, like the Kosmos, is a single whole built up of diverse parts."
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22 |
"God, the Master and Maker and Encompasser of all, is both One and all things;…for the whole which is made up of all things is one."
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23 |
"All things that come to pass by nature come to pass according to Providence, and there is no place destitute of Providence."
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"The Justice that rules on high knows how to assign to each his due
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"It is not difficult to contemplate God in thought, or even, if you will, to see him. Look at the order of the Kosmos; look at…the providence shown in things that have been, and in things that come to be; look at matter filled to the full with life, and see this great god in movement, with all things that are contained in him."
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