The incorporeal form: God lives by doing the Good and contains all things
Read the full text in our reader
Nous — καὶ μὴ θαυμάσῃς, εἰ ἔστι τις ἀσώματος ἰδέα. ἔστι γὰρ ὥσπερ ἡ τοῦ λόγου, καὶ ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς ἀκρώρειαι. ὁρῶνται μὲν γὰρ πάνυ ἐξέχουσαι, λεῖαι δὲ τῇ φύσει καὶ ὁμαλαί εἰσι παντελῶς. ἐννόησον δὲ τὸ λεγόμενον τολμηρότερον, ἀληθέστερον δέ· ὥσπερ γὰρ ὁ ἄνθρωπος χωρὶς ζωῆς οὐ δύναται ζῆν, οὕτως οὐδὲ ὁ θεὸς δύναται ζῆν μὴ ποιῶν τὸ ἀγαθόν. τοῦτο γὰρ ὥσπερ ζωὴ καὶ ὥσπερ κίνησίς ἐστι τοῦ θεοῦ, κινεῖν τὰ πάντα καὶ ζωοποιεῖν. ἔνια δὲ τῶν λεγομένων ἰδίαν ἔννοιαν ἔχειν ὀφείλει· οἷον δ λέγω νόησον· πάντα ἐστὶν ἐν τῷ θεῷ, οὐχ ὡς ἐν τόπῳ κείμενα· ὁ μὲν γὰρ τόπος καὶ σῶμά ἐστι καὶ ἀκίνητον, καὶ τὰ κείμενα κίνησιν οὐκ ἔχει. κεῖται γὰρ ἄλλως ἐν ἀσωμάτῳ, ἄλλως ἐν φαντασίᾳ· νόησον τὸν περιέχοντα τὰ πάντα, καὶ νόησον, ὅτι τοῦ ἀσωμάτου οὐδέν ἐστι περιεκτικώτερον οὐδὲ ταχύτερον οὐδὲ δυνατώτερον, αὐτὸ δὲ πάντων περιεκτικώτατον καὶ ταχύτατον καὶ δυνατώτατον.
And do not wonder if there is some incorporeal form. For there is something like the form of reason itself: in drawings, the peaks are seen standing out very much, though by nature they are smooth and altogether even. Consider the statement more boldly — and more truly: just as a human being cannot live without life, so neither can God live without doing the Good. For this is, as it were, God's life and motion: to move all things and make them alive. Some things that are said must have their own proper sense; understand what I mean. All things are in God, not as lying in a place — for place is also a body and motionless, and the things lying there have no motion. A thing lies differently in the incorporeal, differently in imagination. Understand the one who contains all things, and understand that nothing is more encompassing than the incorporeal, nor swifter, nor more powerful; it is itself the most encompassing, swiftest, and most powerful of all.
Nous continues: do not wonder if there is an incorporeal form. There is a form as of reason itself, and in drawings the high ridges seem to stand out though by nature they are quite smooth and even. Consider the saying more boldly, and more truly: as a human being cannot live without life, neither can God live without doing the Good. This is God's life and motion — moving all things and making them alive. Some statements need their own meaning: all things are in God, not as things lying in a place, for place is body and motionless, and what lies there has no motion. Things lie differently in the incorporeal and differently in imagination. Understand the one who contains all things: nothing is more encompassing, swifter, or more powerful than the incorporeal; it is most encompassing, swiftest, and most powerful of all.
The previous section said God has 'one form' that is not visible to the eyes; this section defends the paradox. An incorporeal ἰδέα is not absurd, Nous says, because even ordinary seeing already depends on forms that are not simply physical bulges. The odd example of the γραφαί — drawings or written marks whose ἀκρώρειαι, 'peaks,' seem to project though the surface is smooth and level — is a miniature lesson in appearance. The visible line can make the mind see height where no bodily height is present. If such a quasi-form can be perceived in a flat drawing, the divine form can be thought without becoming a body.
Then the argument becomes deliberately daring: 'as a human being cannot live without life, so neither can God live without doing the Good.' This is not a limitation imposed on God from outside. It is a definition of divine life: God's ζωή and κίνησις are 'to move all things and make them alive.' The Good is not an occasional action God may or may not perform; doing the Good is what divine life is. The treatise thus refuses a static deity. God is not idle essence but inexhaustible activity — life expressed as enlivening, motion expressed as moving everything else.
The closing distinction protects the phrase 'all things are in God' from being imagined spatially. Things are not in God as objects are in a τόπος, because place itself is a kind of body, motionless, and the things that merely lie in place have no motion of their own. They are 'in' the incorporeal differently: contained by what is not itself a container among containers. That is why the final superlatives matter. The incorporeal is not empty or weak because it cannot be touched; it is the most περιεκτικόν, the most encompassing, and also the swiftest and most powerful. God contains all precisely by not being one more body inside the space he contains.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Corpus Hermeticum CH11.13 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 CH11.13 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/hermetica/CH11.13/