The closing prayer — “your Man wishes to hallow with you”
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αἰτουμένῳ τὸ μὴ σφαλῆναι τῆς γνώσεως τῆς κατ' οὐσίαν ἡμῶν ἐπίνευσόν μοι, καὶ ἐνδυνάμωσόν με, καὶ τῆς χάριτος ταύτης φώτισον τοὺς ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ τοῦ γένους μοῦ ἀδελφούς, υἱοὺς δὲ σοῦ. διὸ πιστεύω σοι καὶ μαρτυρῶ, εἰς ζωὴν καὶ φῶς χωρῶ. εὐλογητὸς εἶ, πάτερ· ὁ σὸς ἄνθρωπος συναγιάζειν σοι βούλεται, καθὼς παρέδωκας αὐτῷ τὴν πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν.
To me asking not to fail of the knowledge that is according to our essence, grant assent, and empower me, and with this grace enlighten those of my race who are in ignorance — my brothers, but your sons. Therefore I believe in you and bear witness: I go into Life and Light. Blessed are you, Father; your Man wishes to hallow with you, as you gave over to him all authority.
The final words of the Poimandres. Hermes prays: as I ask not to fall from the knowledge that belongs to our essence, grant it, empower me, and by this grace enlighten those of my race who are in ignorance — my brothers, but your sons. Therefore I believe and bear witness: I go into Life and Light. Blessed are you, Father; your Man wishes to hallow together with you, as you gave over to him all authority.
The Poimandres ends not in solitary ascent but in intercession. Hermes prays first that he not 'fall from the knowledge (γνῶσις) that is according to our essence' — the saving knowledge is not a trophy kept but a state that can be lost, needing grace to hold. And at once his prayer turns outward, to 'those of my race who are in ignorance — my brothers, but your sons': the deified man begs light for the unawakened, exactly the commission of I.26 now made a prayer.
The last lines gather the whole book. 'I believe in you and bear witness (πιστεύω … μαρτυρῶ)' — faith and testimony, the language of the martyr-witness — 'I go into Life and Light,' the two divine names of I.9 now the seer's destination. And the closing sentence returns the first pillar to its source: 'your Man (ὁ σὸς ἄνθρωπος) wishes to hallow together with you, as you gave him all authority.' The Anthropos begotten equal to God in I.12, fallen through the reflection in I.14, is here at the end restored — not a suppliant merely but a fellow-sanctifier, the human being taking up the authority the Father handed over. The book closes the circle: Man, remembering what he is, joins God in making the world holy.
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