Man an earthly mortal god, the heavenly god an immortal man — the Key's last word
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Hermes — οὐδεὶς μὲν γὰρ τῶν οὐρανίων θεῶν ἐπὶ γῆς κατελεύσεται, οὐρανοῦ τὸν ὅρον καταλιπών, ὁ δὲ ἄνθρωπος καὶ εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀναβαίνει καὶ μετρεῖ αὐτὸν καὶ οἶδε ποῖα μὲν αὐτοῦ ἐστιν ὑψηλά, ποῖα δὲ ταπεινά, καὶ τὰ ἄλλα πάντα ἀκριβῶς μανθάνει, καὶ τὸ πάντων μεῖζον, οὐδὲ τὴν γῆν καταλιπὼν ἄνω γίνεται· τοσοῦτον τὸ μέγεθός ἐστιν αὐτοῦ τῆς ἐκτάσεως· διὸ τολμητέον εἰπεῖν τὸν μὲν ἄνθρωπον ἐπίγειον εἶναι θεὸν θνητόν, τὸν δὲ οὐράνιον θεὸν ἀθάνατον ἄνθρωπον· διόπερ διὰ τούτων τὰ πάντα τῶν δύο, κόσμου καὶ ἀνθρώπου· ὑπὸ δὲ τοῦ ἑνὸς τὰ πάντα.
For none of the heavenly gods will come down to earth, leaving the bound of heaven; but man both ascends into heaven and measures it, and knows what of it is high and what low, and learns all the rest exactly — and, the greatest thing of all, without even leaving the earth he comes to be above: so great is the magnitude of his extension. Therefore one must dare to say that man is an earthly mortal god, and the heavenly god an immortal man. Wherefore through these two, cosmos and man, are all things; but under the One, all things.
For none of the heavenly gods will come down to earth, leaving the bound of heaven; but man both ascends into heaven and measures it, and knows what of it is high and what is low, and learns all the rest exactly — and, the greatest thing of all, without even leaving the earth he comes to be above: so great is the magnitude of his extension. Therefore one must dare to say that man is an earthly mortal god, and the heavenly god an immortal man. Wherefore through these two, cosmos and man, are all things; but under the One, all things.
'The Key' ends on the sentence for which the whole Hermetica is remembered, and it earns it by an argument, not a flourish. The proof of human greatness is comparative freedom of movement: 'none of the heavenly gods will come down to earth (οὐδεὶς… τῶν οὐρανίων θεῶν ἐπὶ γῆς κατελεύσεται), leaving the bound of heaven' — the gods are fixed to their spheres, bounded — 'but man ascends into heaven and measures it (εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀναβαίνει καὶ μετρεῖ αὐτόν).' The word μετρεῖ is precise and proud: astronomy, the human measuring of the heavens, is offered as evidence of the soul's reach. Man 'knows what is high and what is low' of heaven and 'learns all the rest exactly (ἀκριβῶς μανθάνει)' — the sciences of §22 cashed out as literal cosmic knowledge. And 'the greatest thing (τὸ πάντων μεῖζον)': he does all this 'without even leaving the earth (οὐδὲ τὴν γῆν καταλιπών) — he comes to be above.' The soul spans both realms at once: 'so great is the magnitude of his extension (τὸ μέγεθος… τῆς ἐκτάσεως),' body on earth, mind in heaven, a single being stretched across the whole of things.
Then the daring formula, twice flagged as daring (τολμητέον, 'one must dare'): 'man is an earthly mortal god (ἐπίγειον… θεὸν θνητόν), and the heavenly god an immortal man (οὐράνιον θεὸν ἀθάνατον ἄνθρωπον).' It is a perfect chiasmus, and its symmetry is the point — humanity and divinity are the same reality read in two directions, distinguished only by mortality and place. This single line, transmitted through Ficino's Renaissance Latin, became one of the seed-sentences of Renaissance humanism, the dignitas hominis that Pico would make a manifesto. And the treatise closes by folding even this exaltation back into unity: 'through these two, cosmos and man, are all things — but under the One, all things (ὑπὸ δὲ τοῦ ἑνὸς τὰ πάντα).' Man and cosmos are the two through which everything is administered; the One is that under which everything simply is. 'The Key' has run the whole scale — matter to mind, beast to god, punishment to blessedness — and it lays the last note exactly where it struck the first (§2): all things, at the end as at the beginning, under the One. The lock turns; the door is the same door; and the reader, if he has read as Hermes bade — thinking-along, breathing-with — stands, for a moment, on both sides of it.
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Corpus Hermeticum CH10.25 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/hermetica/CH10.25/