Give thanks and pray for a good mind — the hierarchy of care, and the rays of God, cosmos, and man
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Hermes — διό, ὦ τέκνον, εὐχαριστοῦντα τῷ θεῷ δεῖ εὔχεσθαι καλοῦ τοῦ νοῦ τυχεῖν. εἰς μὲν οὖν τὸ κρεῖττον ψυχὴ μεταβαίνει, εἰς δὲ τὸ ἔλαττον ἀδύνατον· κοινωνία δέ ἐστι ψυχῶν, καὶ κοινωνοῦσι μὲν αἱ τῶν θεῶν ταῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, αἱ δὲ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ταῖς τῶν ἀλόγων. ἐπιμελοῦνται δὲ οἱ κρείττονες τῶν ἐλαττόνων, θεοὶ μὲν ἀνθρώπων, ἄνθρωποι δὲ τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων, ὁ δὲ θεὸς πάντων· πάντων γὰρ οὗτος κρείττων, καὶ πάντα αὐτοῦ ἐλάττονα. ὁ μὲν οὖν κόσμος ὑπόκειται τῷ θεῷ, ὁ δὲ ἄνθρωπος τῷ κόσμῳ, τὰ δὲ ἄλογα τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ· ὁ δὲ θεὸς ὑπὲρ πάντα καὶ περὶ πάντα· καὶ τοῦ μὲν θεοῦ καθάπερ ἀκτῖνες αἱ ἐνέργειαι, τοῦ δὲ κόσμου ἀκτῖνες αἱ φύσεις, τοῦ δὲ ἀνθρώπου, αἱ τέχναι καὶ ἐπιστῆμαι· καὶ αἱ μὲν ἐνέργειαι διὰ τοῦ κόσμου ἐνεργοῦσι καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον διὰ τῶν τοῦ κόσμου φυσικῶν ἀκτίνων, αἱ δὲ φύσεις διὰ τῶν στοιχείων, οἱ δὲ ἄνθρωποι διὰ τῶν τεχνῶν καὶ ἐπιστημῶν.
Therefore, O child, giving thanks to God, one must pray to obtain a good mind. Into the better the soul passes over, but into the worse it is impossible; and there is a communion of souls: the gods' souls commune with the men's, and the men's with the irrational. And the greater care for the lesser — gods for men, men for the irrational animals, and God for all; for he is greater than all, and all are less than him. So the cosmos is subject to God, man to the cosmos, the irrational to man; but God is over all and around all. And of God, as it were, the rays are the energies; of the cosmos, the rays are the natures; and of man, the arts and sciences. And the energies act through the cosmos, and upon man through the cosmos's natural rays; the natures act through the elements; and men through the arts and sciences.
Therefore, child, one must give thanks to God and pray to obtain a good mind. The soul passes over into the better, but into the worse it is impossible; and there is a communion of souls — the gods' commune with men's, men's with the irrational. The greater care for the lesser: gods for men, men for the irrational animals, and God for all; for he is greater than all, and all things are less than he. So the cosmos is subject to God, man to the cosmos, the irrational to man; but God is over all and around all. And of God the energies are, as it were, rays; of the cosmos, the natures; of man, the arts and sciences. The energies act through the cosmos and upon man through the cosmos's natural rays; the natures act through the elements; and men through the arts and sciences.
As the treatise turns toward its close it draws the whole order of being into one diagram, and prefaces it with a practical instruction — the only imperative in this stretch: 'giving thanks to God, pray to obtain a good mind (καλοῦ τοῦ νοῦ τυχεῖν).' The good mind is not achieved but received, asked for; thanksgiving and petition are the soul's proper posture toward the source of Nous. Then a law of the soul's motion, quietly momentous: 'into the better the soul passes over, but into the worse it is impossible (εἰς… τὸ κρεῖττον… μεταβαίνει, εἰς δὲ τὸ ἔλαττον ἀδύνατον).' The scale is a one-way stair; whatever the soul's failures, its structural drift is upward.
The rest is architecture. First a horizontal bond — 'a communion of souls (κοινωνία… ψυχῶν),' the ranks in fellowship — then a vertical one: 'the greater care for the lesser (ἐπιμελοῦνται οἱ κρείττονες τῶν ἐλαττόνων),' gods for men, men for beasts, God for all. Providence is stewardship running all the way down. The chain of subjection follows (cosmos under God, man under cosmos, beasts under man), capped by the double preposition that refuses to leave God merely at the top: 'God is over all and around all (ὑπὲρ πάντα καὶ περὶ πάντα)' — transcendent and encompassing at once. And the closing figure is the treatise's most elegant: each level radiates. 'Of God the rays (ἀκτῖνες) are the energies; of the cosmos, the natures; of man, the arts and sciences (αἱ τέχναι καὶ ἐπιστῆμαι).' Divine ἐνέργειαι shine down through the cosmos's φύσεις, through the elements, and human culture — art and science — is our own answering radiance, the beam a human being casts into the world. It is a strikingly generous valuation of knowledge and craft: they are man's participation in the light-giving of God.
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