The cosmos is a sphere, a head — nearness to mind is immortality, distance is death
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Hermes — ἡ δὲ νοητὴ στάσις κινεῖ τὴν ὑλικὴν κίνησιν τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον. ἐπεὶ ὁ κόσμος σφαῖρά ἐστι, τουτέστι κεφαλή, κεφαλῆς δὲ οὐδὲν ὑπεράνω ὑλικόν, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ ποδῶν οὐδὲν νοητὸν ὑποκάτω, πᾶν δὲ ὑλικόν, νοῦς δὲ κεφαλή, αὕτη σφαιρικῶς κινουμένη. τοῦτό ἐστι κεφαλικῶς, ὅσα οὗν προσήνωται τῷ ὑμένι τῆς κεφαλῆς ταύτης, ἐν ᾗ ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή, ἀθάνατα πέφυκεν, ὥσπερ ἐν ψυχῇ δὲ σώματος πεποιημένου καὶ πλείονα τοῦ σώματος τὴν ψυχὴν ἔχοντα· τὰ δὲ πόρρω τοῦ ὑμένος θνητά, πλέον ἔχοντα τῆς ψυχῆς τὸ σῶμα· πᾶν δὲ ζῷον, ὥσπερ οὖν τὸ πᾶν, ἔκ τε ὑλικοῦ καὶ νοητοῦ συνέστηκε.
And the intelligible rest moves the material motion in this way. Since the cosmos is a sphere — that is, a head — and above a head nothing is material, just as below the feet nothing is intelligible but all is material, and mind is the head, this being moved spherically: this is head-wise. Whatever then is united to the membrane of this head, in which the soul is, is by nature immortal, as made of body and yet having more soul than body; but the things far from the membrane are mortal, having more body than soul. And every living thing, just as the All itself, is composed of both material and intelligible.
The intelligible rest moves the material motion in this way. Since the cosmos is a sphere — that is, a head — and above a head nothing is material, just as below the feet nothing is intelligible but all is material, and mind is the head, moved spherically: this is head-wise. Whatever, then, is united to the membrane of this head, in which the soul is, is by nature immortal, made of body but having more soul than body; but the things far from the membrane are mortal, having more body than soul. And every living thing, just as the All itself, is composed of both material and intelligible.
How can the unmoved move? 'The intelligible rest moves the material motion (ἡ… νοητὴ στάσις κινεῖ τὴν ὑλικὴν κίνησιν)' — a paradox the treatise already prepared: the mind, itself at rest, is the cause of the cosmos's ceaseless turning, the still point around which the sphere revolves. The image that follows is one of the strangest and most vivid cosmic anatomies in the corpus: the cosmos is a sphere, and 'a sphere is a head (σφαῖρα… τουτέστι κεφαλή).' Above the head nothing is material; below the feet nothing is intelligible, all is matter; and 'mind is the head (νοῦς δὲ κεφαλή),' turning 'spherically (σφαιρικῶς).' Reality is imagined as a great body standing upright: pure mind at the crown, pure matter at the feet, and a graded mixture between.
The consequence is a topology of immortality. Around the mind-head runs a 'membrane (ὑμήν),' and 'whatever is united to the membrane (ὅσα προσήνωται τῷ ὑμένι)… in which the soul is, is by nature immortal (ἀθάνατα πέφυκεν)' — because there soul outweighs body. 'But the things far from the membrane (τὰ δὲ πόρρω τοῦ ὑμένος) are mortal, having more body than soul.' Immortality and death are here not two kinds of thing but two positions on a scale — a matter of proximity to mind, of the ratio of soul to body. It is a remarkably physical picture of a spiritual truth: to be near the mind is to be deathless; to sink toward the feet, toward matter, is to die. And the closing law binds every creature to the whole: 'every living thing, just as the All, is composed of both the material and the intelligible (ἔκ τε ὑλικοῦ καὶ νοητοῦ συνέστηκε)' — microcosm and macrocosm built of the same two ingredients, differing only in their mixture.
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