From one beginning all things hang — God, cosmos, man: son and grandson
Read the full text in our reader
Hermes — ἐκ μιᾶς δὲ ἀρχῆς τὰ πάντα ἤρτηται, ἡ δὲ ἀρχὴ ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς καὶ μόνου, καὶ ἡ μὲν ἀρχὴ κινεῖται, ἵνα πάλιν ἀρχὴ γένηται, τὸ δὲ ἓν μόνον ἕστηκεν, οὐ κινεῖται. καὶ τρία τοίνυν ταῦτα, ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ καὶ τὸ ἀγαθόν, καὶ ὁ κόσμος, καὶ ὁ ἄνθρωπος· καὶ τὸν μὲν κόσμον ὁ θεὸς ἔχει, τὸν δὲ ἄνθρωπον ὁ κόσμος· καὶ γίνεται ὁ μὲν κόσμος τοῦ θεοῦ υἱός, ὁ δὲ ἄνθρωπος τοῦ κόσμου, ὥσπερ ἔγγονος.
From one beginning all things hang, and the beginning is from the One and only; and the beginning is moved, so that it may become a beginning again, but the One alone stands still and is not moved. And three then are these: God and Father and the Good, and the cosmos, and man; and the cosmos God holds, and man the cosmos; and the cosmos becomes God's son, and man the cosmos's, as it were a grandson.
From one beginning all things hang, and the beginning is from the One and only; and the beginning is moved so that it may become a beginning again, but the One alone stands still, and is not moved. And so these three are: God and Father and the Good, and the cosmos, and man. God holds the cosmos, and the cosmos holds man; and the cosmos becomes God's son, and man the cosmos's, as it were a grandson.
The treatise gathers its cosmology into a single dependent chain: 'from one beginning all things hang (ἐκ μιᾶς… ἀρχῆς τὰ πάντα ἤρτηται).' The verb ἀρτάω — to hang, to be suspended from — is the exact image: reality is a hanging chain, each link bearing the ones below. And there is a subtle distinction at the top: the 'beginning (ἀρχή)' itself 'is moved, so that it may become a beginning again (κινεῖται, ἵνα πάλιν ἀρχὴ γένηται)' — the source is dynamic, endlessly re-originating — 'but the One alone stands still and is not moved (τὸ δὲ ἓν μόνον ἕστηκεν, οὐ κινεῖται).' Behind the active first-principle stands the utterly motionless One. This is the same στάσις/κίνησις distinction that has run through the whole treatise: the unmoved grounds the moving.
Then the famous triad, and the genealogy that has echoed through Western thought: 'three then are these — God and Father and the Good, and the cosmos, and man.' They are nested by holding: 'God holds the cosmos, and the cosmos holds man (τὸν μὲν κόσμον ὁ θεὸς ἔχει, τὸν δὲ ἄνθρωπον ὁ κόσμος).' And so a lineage: 'the cosmos becomes God's son (τοῦ θεοῦ υἱός), and man the cosmos's, as it were a grandson (ὥσπερ ἔγγονος).' The cosmos as 'son of God' is language the Hermetica shares with the Timaeus (the world as a 'blessed god') and, pointedly, with the Gospel of John — but here the Son is the world, and humankind its grandchild. Man is thus divine by descent, third in a holy line, which is exactly why (the next section will insist) God has not forgotten him.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Corpus Hermeticum CH10.14 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Corpus Hermeticum — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Corpus Hermeticum CH10.14 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/hermetica/CH10.14/