The one who has seen can do nothing else — and the soul is changed into essence
Read the full text in our reader
Hermes — οὔτε γὰρ ἄλλο τι δύναται νοῆσαι ὁ τοῦτο νοήσας οὔτε ἄλλο τι θεάσασθαι ὁ τοῦτο θεασάμενος οὔτε περὶ ἄλλου τινὸς ἀκοῦσαι οὔτε τὸ σύνολον τὸ σῶμα κινῆσαι· πασῶν γὰρ τῶν σωματικῶν αἰσθήσεών τε καὶ κινήσεων ἐπιλαθόμενος ἀτρεμεῖ· περιλάμψαν δὲ πάντα τὸν νοῦν καὶ τὴν ὅλην ψυχὴν ἀναλάμπει καὶ ἀνέλκει διὰ τοῦ σώματος καὶ ὅλον. αὐτὸν εἰς οὐσίαν μεταβάλλει. ἀδύνατον γάρ, ὦ τέκνον, ψυχὴν ἀποθεωθῆναι ἐν σώματι ἀνθρώπου θεασαμένην τὸ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ κάλλος.
For neither can the one who has conceived this conceive anything else, nor behold anything else the one who has beheld this, nor hear about anything else, nor move the body at all; for, having forgotten all bodily sensations and motions, he stays motionless. But having shone around the whole mind and the whole soul, it blazes it up and draws it up through the body, and changes the whole of it into essence. For it is impossible, O child, for a soul to be deified while in the body of a man — once it has beheld the beauty of the Good.
For the one who has conceived this can conceive nothing else, nor behold anything else, nor hear of anything else, nor move his body at all; having forgotten all bodily sensations and motions, he stays utterly still. But the vision, shining around the whole mind and the whole soul, blazes it up and hauls it up through the body, changing the whole of it into essence (οὐσία). For it is impossible, child, for a soul to be deified while in the body of a man — but only once it has beheld the beauty of the Good.
The vision, once had, is totalizing — it leaves no room for anything else. The one who has 'conceived this (τοῦτο νοήσας)' can conceive nothing else; who has 'beheld this (τοῦτο θεασάμενος)' can behold, hear, and finally move nothing else. 'Having forgotten all bodily sensations and motions (πασῶν… τῶν σωματικῶν αἰσθήσεών τε καὶ κινήσεων ἐπιλαθόμενος), he stays motionless (ἀτρεμεῖ).' This is the outward face of the 'divine silence' of the previous section: the body goes still because the whole of the self has been claimed. It is a description of contemplative ecstasy precise enough to sit beside the mystics of any tradition.
And then the transformation. The Good's light, 'shining around the whole mind and the whole soul (περιλάμψαν… πάντα τὸν νοῦν καὶ τὴν ὅλην ψυχήν),' does not merely illuminate — it 'blazes it up (ἀναλάμπει) and hauls it up through the body (ἀνέλκει διὰ τοῦ σώματος), and changes the whole of it into essence (εἰς οὐσίαν μεταβάλλει).' The soul is not just enlightened but ontologically converted — turned into οὐσία, being itself, the very stuff of the divine. This is θέωσις, deification, the goal named already in CH I ('the good end: to be deified') and in CH IV (ἀποθεῶσαι). The section ends by fixing its one hard condition: 'it is impossible for a soul to be deified while in the body of a man (ψυχὴν ἀποθεωθῆναι ἐν σώματι ἀνθρώπου) — once it has beheld the beauty of the Good.' The Greek is compressed and much argued: the sense is that the vision begins a deification the body cannot complete — the seeing is the turning-point, but the full becoming-god waits on release from the body. 'The Key' thus holds its two truths together: the Good gives itself to be seen now, and yet the seeing points beyond this life to a transformation only the freed soul can finish.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Corpus Hermeticum CH10.6 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 CH10.6 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/hermetica/CH10.6/