The mind as scourge or guide — driving the impious to crime, leading the pious to light
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Hermes — ψυχὴ γὰρ κολάζεται τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον. ὁ γὰρ νοῦς, ὅταν δαίμων γένηται, πυρίνου τυχεῖν σώματος τέτακται πρὸς τὰς τοῦ θεοῦ ὑπηρεσίας καὶ εἰσδύνας εἰς τὴν ἀσεβεστάτην ψυχὴν αἰκίζεται αὐτὴν ταῖς τῶν ἁμαρτανόντων μάστιξιν, ὑφ' ὧν μαστιζομένη ἀσεβὴς ψυχὴ τρέπεται ἐπὶ φόνους καὶ ὕβρεις καὶ βλασφημίας καὶ βίας ποικίλας, δι' ὧν ἄνθρωποι ἀδικοῦνται. εἰς δὲ τὴν εὐσεβῆ ψυχὴν ὁ νοῦς ἐμβὰς ὁδηγεῖ αὐτὴν ἐπὶ τὸ τῆς γνώσεως φῶς· ἡ δὲ τοιαύτη ψυχὴ κόρον οὐδέποτε ἔχει ὑμνοῦσα, εὐφημοῦσα δὲ πάντας ἀνθρώπους καὶ ἔργοις καὶ λόγοις πάντα εὖ ποιοῦσα, μιμουμένη αὐτῆς τὸν πατέρα.
For a soul is punished in this way. For the mind, when it becomes a daemon, is appointed to obtain a body of fire for the services of God; and having entered into the most impious soul, it torments it with the scourges of its sins, by which, being scourged, the impious soul turns to murders and outrages and blasphemies and violences of every kind, through which men are wronged. But into the pious soul the mind, having entered, leads it to the light of knowledge; and such a soul never has surfeit of hymning, and blessing all men, in both deeds and words doing all things well, imitating its own Father.
For a soul is punished in this way. The mind, when it becomes a daemon, is appointed to obtain a body of fire for the services of God; and entering into the most impious soul, it torments it with the scourges of its sins, by which the impious soul, being scourged, turns to murders and outrages and blasphemies and violences of every kind, through which men are wronged. But entering the pious soul, the mind leads it to the light of knowledge; and such a soul never has surfeit of hymning and blessing all people, doing all things well in deeds and words, imitating its own Father.
Now the mechanism, and it is startling: the punisher is the mind. The same νοῦς that in the pious soul 'becomes wholly mind' at death is, in its daemonic office, 'appointed to obtain a body of fire for the services of God (πρὸς τὰς τοῦ θεοῦ ὑπηρεσίας)' — a functionary of divine order. Entering 'the most impious soul (τὴν ἀσεβεστάτην ψυχήν),' it 'torments it with the scourges of its sins (ταῖς τῶν ἁμαρτανόντων μάστιξιν).' The whips are not external instruments; they are the soul's own sins turned back on it, and — the darkest turn — the scourging drives the soul to worse: 'murders and outrages and blasphemies and violences of every kind (φόνους καὶ ὕβρεις καὶ βλασφημίας καὶ βίας ποικίλας).' Punishment breeds crime; the lash of guilt, unhealed by knowledge, spills outward as harm to others. It is a grim, psychologically acute picture of how vice propagates.
And then the mirror image, the same power at its opposite pole. 'Into the pious soul the mind, having entered (ἐμβάς), leads it to the light of knowledge (ἐπὶ τὸ τῆς γνώσεως φῶς).' One faculty, two effects, decided entirely by what soul it enters — scourge to the impious, guide to the pious. The pious soul's life is then drawn in a single radiant sentence: it 'never has surfeit (κόρον οὐδέποτε ἔχει)' — is never sated, never done — 'hymning, and blessing all people (εὐφημοῦσα… πάντας ἀνθρώπους), doing all things well in deeds and words, imitating its own Father (μιμουμένη… τὸν πατέρα).' The whole ethic of the treatise lands here: to be good is to imitate God — inexhaustible praise turned upward, inexhaustible blessing turned toward every human being. The knower does not withdraw from the world; he blesses it, tirelessly, because that is what the Father does.
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