The bond loosed — “increase and multiply” — the cause of death
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ἄκουε λοιπόν, ὃν ποθεῖς λόγον ἀκοῦσαι. τῆς περιόδου πεπληρωμένης ἐλύθη ὁ πάντων σύνδεσμος ἐκ βουλῆς θεοῦ. πάντα γὰρ τὰ ζῷα ἀρρενοθήλεα ὄντα διελύετο ἅμα τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, καὶ ἐγένετο τὰ μὲν ἀρρενικὰ ἐν μέρει, τὰ δὲ θηλυκὰ ὁμοίως. ὁ δὲ θεὸς εὐθὺς εἶπεν ἁγίῳ λόγῳ, αὐξάνεσθε ἐν αὐξήσει καὶ πληθύνεσθε ἐν πλήθει, πάντα τὰ κτίσματα καὶ δημιουργήματα· καὶ ἀναγνωρισάτω ὁ ἔννους ἑαυτὸν ὄντα ἀθάνατον καὶ τὸν αἴτιον τοῦ θανάτου ἔρωτα σώματος, καὶ πάντα τὰ ὄντα.
Hear now the rest, the discourse you long to hear. When the period was fulfilled, the bond of all things was loosed by the will of God. For all the living beings, being androgynous, were parted asunder together with Man, and became, some male in part, and the female likewise. And God at once said with a holy word: Increase in increase and multiply in multitude, all you creatures and works; and let the mindful one recognize himself to be immortal, and that the cause of death is the love of the body — and all the things that are.
The age turns. When the cycle is fulfilled, God's will looses the bond of all things: the androgynous beings are split, together with Man, into male and female. Then God's blessing, spoken in the very words of Genesis 1:28 — 'increase and multiply' — and the double command of self-knowledge: let the mindful one know himself immortal, and know that the cause of death is the love of the body.
The androgynous age ends. When the cosmic period is complete, God looses 'the bond of all things,' and the double-sexed beings — Man among them — are split into male and female. Sexual reproduction begins here, as the resolution of a fullness that could no longer hold together.
Then two sentences the interlinear lets a reader recognize at sight. God's blessing — αὐξάνεσθε ... καὶ πληθύνεσθε, 'increase and multiply' — is word-for-word the command of Genesis 1:28 in the Greek Bible, spoken here 'with a holy word.' And immediately its shadow: the command of self-knowledge, that the mindful one 'recognize himself immortal, and that the cause of death is the love of the body.' Multiplication and death arrive in the same breath — the split that lets life reproduce is the same descent that binds the deathless self to a dying body, and the only way back is to know it.
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Corpus Hermeticum CH1.18 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/hermetica/CH1.18/