Become equal to God in thought: the measureless exercise
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Nous — ἐὰν οὖν μὴ σεαυτὸν ἐξισάσῃς τῷ θεῷ, τὸν θεὸν νοῆσαι οὐ δύνασαι· τὸ γὰρ ὅμοιον τῷ ὁμοίῳ νοητόν. συναύξησον σεαυτὸν τῷ ἀμετρήτῳ μεγέθει, παντὸς σώματος ἐκπηδήσας καὶ πάντα χρόνον ὑπεράρας αἰὼν γενοῦ, καὶ νοήσεις τὸν θεόν· μηδὲν ἀδύνατον ἐν σεαυτῷ ὑποστησάμενος σεαυτὸν ἥγησαι ἀθάνατον καὶ πάντα δυνάμενον νοῆσαι, πᾶσαν μὲν τέχνην, πᾶσαν δὲ ἐπιστήμην, παντὸς ζώου ἦθος. παντὸς δὲ ὕψους ὑψηλότερος γενοῦ καὶ παντὸς βάθους ταπεινότερος. πάσας δὲ τὰς αἰσθήσεις τῶν ποιητῶν σύλλαβε ἐν σεαυτῷ, πυρός, ὕδατος, ξηροῦ καὶ ὑγροῦ· καὶ ὁμοῦ πανταχῇ εἶναι, ἐν γῇ, ἐν θαλάττῃ, ἐν οὐρανῷ, μηδέπω γεγενῆσθαι, ἐν τῇ γαστρὶ εἶναι, νέος, γέρων, τεθνηκέναι, τὰ μετὰ τὸν θάνατον· καὶ ταῦτα πάντα ὁμοῦ νοήσας, χρόνους, τόπους, πράγματα, ποιότητας, ποσότητας, δύνασαι νοῆσαι τὸν θεόν. ἐὰν δὲ κατακλείσης σου τὴν ψυχὴν ἐν τῷ σώματι καὶ ταπεινώσῃς αὐτὴν καὶ εἴπῃς, οὐδὲν νοῶ, οὐδὲν δύναμαι, φοβοῦμαι τὴν θάλασσαν, εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀναβῆναι οὐ δύναμαι, οὐκ οἶδα τίς ἤμην, οὐκ οἶδα τίς ἔσομαι, τί σοὶ καὶ τῷ θεῷ;
If, then, you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot understand God; for like is intelligible to like. Enlarge yourself to immeasurable greatness; leap out of every body and surpass all time; become eternity, and you will understand God. Suppose nothing impossible in yourself. Consider yourself immortal and able to understand all things: every art, every science, every character of every living thing. Become higher than every height and lower than every depth. Grasp in yourself all the sensations of created things — of fire, water, dry and wet — and be, all at once, everywhere: on earth, in the sea, in heaven; not yet born, in the womb, young, old, dead, and beyond death. Having understood all these together — times, places, things, qualities, quantities — you can understand God. But if you shut your soul inside the body, lower it, and say, ‘I understand nothing, I can do nothing, I fear the sea, I cannot ascend to heaven, I do not know who I was, I do not know who I will be,’ what have you to do with God?
Nous tells Hermes that the like is intelligible to the like: unless he makes himself equal to God, he cannot understand God. He must enlarge himself to immeasurable greatness, leap out of every body, surpass all time, become eternity, and suppose nothing impossible in himself. He is to imagine himself immortal and able to understand every art, science, and character of living things; higher than every height and lower than every depth; present with the sensations of fire, water, dry and wet, simultaneously everywhere — earth, sea, heaven, womb, youth, old age, death, and what comes after death. If he understands times, places, things, qualities, and quantities all together, he can understand God. But if he shuts the soul inside the body and says, 'I understand nothing, I can do nothing, I fear the sea, I cannot ascend to heaven, I do not know who I was or will be,' then what has he to do with God?
This is the treatise's most audacious exercise. Nous does not tell Hermes to become God by force or by status; he tells him to make himself 'equal' in thought, because only like is known by like. The equality is noetic. To understand the measureless, the soul must stop imagining itself as a small object shut inside a body. It must practice thinking without spatial and temporal shrinkage: outside every body, above all time, 'become eternity.'
The catalogue is intentionally impossible if read as bodily travel. No human body can be higher than every height, lower than every depth, in earth, sea, heaven, womb, youth, age, death, and after death all at once. That is precisely the point. The mind can gather times, places, qualities, and quantities together in one act. If it accepts that capacity, it has an analogy for divine knowing. If it refuses and says only, 'I cannot, I fear, I do not know,' it has locked the soul into the body's littleness. The barrier to knowing God is not distance but self-contraction: the soul's decision to treat its bodily limits as the measure of reality.
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