Wisdom is the Aeon; the twofold world; soul upon soul, all through the Aeon
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Hermes — Ἡ δὲ τοῦ θεοῦ σοφία τίς ἐστι;
Nous — Τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ καλὸν καὶ ἡ εὐδαιμονία καὶ ἡ πᾶσα ἀρετὴ καὶ ὁ αἰών. κοσμεῖ οὖν τὴν ἀθανασίαν καὶ διαμονὴν ἐνθεὶς ὁ αἰὼν τῇ ὕλῃ. ἡ γὰρ ἐκείνης γένεσις ἤρτηται ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος, καθάπερ καὶ ὁ αἰὼν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ. ἡ γὰρ γένεσις καὶ ὁ χρόνος ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐν γῇ εἰσιν ὄντες διφυεῖς. ἐν μὲν οὐρανῷ ἀμετάβλητοι καὶ ἄφθαρτοι, ἐν δὲ γῇ μεταβλητοὶ καὶ φθαρτοί. καὶ τοῦ μὲν αἰῶνος ἡ ψυχὴ ὁ θεός, τοῦ δὲ κόσμου ἡ ψυχή ὁ αἰών, τῆς δὲ γῆς ὁ οὐρανός. καὶ ὁ μὲν θεὸς ἐν τῷ νῷ, ὁ δὲ νοῦς ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ ἐν τῇ ὕλῃ, πάντα δὲ ταῦτα διὰ τοῦ αἰῶνος. τὸ δὲ πᾶν τοῦτο σῶμα, ἐν ᾧ τὰ πάντα ἐστὶ σώματα, ψυχῆς πλῆρές ἐστιν, ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ πλήρης τοῦ νοῦ καὶ τοῦ θεοῦ·
— And the wisdom of God, what is it? — The good and the beautiful and blessedness and every virtue — and the Aeon. It orders, then, immortality and permanence, the Aeon having implanted them in the matter. For its becoming depends from the Aeon, just as the Aeon also from God. For becoming and time are in heaven and on earth, being twofold: in heaven unchangeable and imperishable, but on earth changeable and perishable. And the soul of the Aeon is God, and of the cosmos the soul is the Aeon, and of the earth, heaven. And God is in Mind, and Mind in soul, and soul in matter, and all these things through the Aeon. And this whole body, in which all bodies are, is full of soul, and the soul is full of Mind and of God.
Hermes asks what the wisdom of God is. Nous: the good and the beautiful and blessedness and every virtue — and the Aeon. The Aeon orders matter, having implanted immortality and permanence in it; for matter's becoming depends on the Aeon, just as the Aeon depends on God. Becoming and time are twofold, being both in heaven and on earth: in heaven unchangeable and imperishable, on earth changeable and perishable. And the soul of the Aeon is God, the soul of the cosmos is the Aeon, and of the earth, heaven. God is in Mind, Mind in soul, soul in matter — all these through the Aeon. And this whole body, in which all bodies are, is full of soul, and the soul is full of Mind and of God.
Hermes' one-line question — 'the wisdom of God, what is it?' — draws the passage's boldest identification. Nous answers with the familiar cluster, 'the good and the beautiful and blessedness and every virtue,' and then adds the term that ties this treatise together: 'and the Aeon.' Wisdom is Eternity. To know God's wisdom is to grasp the everlasting order by which he works — and that order is a living thing, the Aeon, which now takes over as the active power in the passage. 'It orders (κοσμεῖ) matter, having implanted (ἐνθείς) immortality and permanence in it': eternity is set into the world's very stuff, so that matter is not inert but carries an everlasting principle within.
The chain of dependence is then run downward and made vivid with a single verb: 'its becoming depends (ἤρτηται) from the Aeon, just as the Aeon from God' — ἀρτάω, to hang suspended, the same image CH IX used for all things 'hanging' from God. Reality is a hanging chain, each link bearing the one below. And the doubleness the treatise keeps circling gets its name here: becoming and time are 'twofold (διφυεῖς),' wearing one nature in heaven — 'unchangeable and imperishable' — and the opposite on earth — 'changeable and perishable.' The same reality is eternal above and mortal below; the boundary between the deathless and the dying runs through the middle of things, not around them.
The close stacks two ladders that make the whole cosmos a single ensouled, minded body. First souls: 'the soul of the Aeon is God, the soul of the cosmos is the Aeon, and of the earth, heaven' — each level animated by the one above it. Then the indwelling: 'God is in Mind, Mind in soul, soul in matter, and all these through the Aeon (διὰ τοῦ αἰῶνος).' Eternity is the medium in which the whole nesting happens. And the final image gathers it: 'this whole body, in which all bodies are, is full of soul, and the soul is full of Mind and of God.' The universe is not dead extension but a body brimming with soul, and that soul brimming with the divine — plenitude all the way up, and God at the top of the fullness.
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