One God does all — as your one self does all your senses
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Nous — τίνι γὰρ ἂν ἄλλῳ πρέποι ζῶα ἔμψυχα ποιεῖν, εἰ μὴ μόνῳ τῷ θεῷ; εἷς οὖν θεός. γελοιότατον δέ, εἰ τὸν μὲν κόσμον ὡμολόγησας ἕνα εἶναι καὶ τὸν ἥλιον ἕνα καὶ τὴν σελήνην μίαν καὶ θειότητα μίαν, αὐτὸν δὲ τὸν θεὸν πόστον εἶναι θέλεις; πάντα οὖν αὐτὸς ποιεῖ ἐν πολλοῖς· καὶ τί μέγα τῷ θεῷ, ζωὴν καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ ἀθανασίαν καὶ μεταβολὴν ποιεῖν, σοῦ τοσαῦτα ποιοῦντος; καὶ γὰρ βλέπεις καὶ λαλεῖς καὶ ἀκούεις καὶ ὀσφραίνῃ καὶ γεύεις καὶ ἅπτῃ καὶ περιπατεῖς καὶ νοεῖς καὶ πνεῖς· καὶ οὐχ ἕτερος μέν ἐστιν ὁ βλέπων, ἕτερος δὲ ὁ ἀκούων, ἕτερος δὲ ὁ λαλῶν, ἄλλος δὲ ὁ ἁπτόμενος, ἄλλος δὲ ὁ ὀσφραινόμενος, ἄλλος δὲ ὁ περιπατῶν, καὶ ἄλλος ὁ νοῶν καὶ ἄλλος ὁ ἀναπνέων· ἀλλὰ εἷς ὁ ταῦτα πάντα ποιῶν. ἀλλὰ οὐδὲ δυνατὰ ἐκεῖνα χωρὶς τοῦ θεοῦ εἶναι.
For to whom else would it befit to make ensouled living beings, if not to God alone? One, then, is God. And most ridiculous it would be, if you agreed the cosmos to be one, and the sun one and the moon one and divinity one, but wish God himself to be — which in number? All things, then, he himself makes in the many; and what great thing is it for God to make life and soul and immortality and change, when you are doing so many things? For you see and speak and hear and smell and taste and touch and walk and think and breathe; and it is not another who sees, another who hears, another who speaks, another who touches, another who smells, another who walks, and another who thinks and another who breathes — but one who does all these. But neither could those be without God.
Nous: for to whom else would it befit to make ensouled living beings, if not to God alone? One, then, is God. And it would be most ridiculous, if you agreed the cosmos is one, the sun one, the moon one, and divinity one, yet wish God himself to be — how many? So he himself makes all things in the many. And what great thing is it for God to make life and soul and immortality and change, when you yourself do so many things? For you see and speak and hear and smell and taste and touch and walk and think and breathe; and it is not one who sees, another who hears, another who speaks, another who touches, another who smells, another who walks, another who thinks, another who breathes — but one who does all these. And yet neither could those activities be without God.
The proof of one God narrows to a witty, almost teasing turn. First the reductio: 'most ridiculous (γελοιότατον) it would be' to concede that the cosmos is one, the sun one, the moon one, divinity one — 'but wish God himself to be — which in number (πόστον)?' The rare interrogative πόστος asks a thing's place in a series ('the how-many-eth?'), and its very absurdity is the point: to number God at all, after granting singleness to everything lesser, is a category mistake. If the copies are each one, the original cannot be many.
Then 'all things he himself makes in the many (ἐν πολλοῖς)' — the one God is not diminished by the multiplicity of his works but expressed through it. And here the treatise plays its most memorable card, an argument from the reader's own body. 'What great thing is it for God to make life and soul and immortality and change, when you yourself do so many things?' The catalogue of the senses follows — 'you see and speak and hear and smell and taste and touch and walk and think and breathe' — nine activities named in a rush. The rhetorical force is in the next line: 'it is not another who sees, another who hears, another who speaks…' — you do not become nine persons because you do nine things. 'But one who does all these (εἷς ὁ ταῦτα πάντα ποιῶν).'
The analogy is exact and disarming: as your single self performs its whole diversity of acts without splitting into many selves, so the one God performs the whole diversity of creation without splitting into many gods. Multiplicity of operation is no evidence of multiplicity of agent — in you, and therefore in God. It is a rare moment where the Hermetica proves the divine from the human, making the unity of the self the visible image of the unity of God. And the coda guards it from the opposite error: lest you think your powers your own, 'neither could those be without God (χωρὶς τοῦ θεοῦ)' — the very oneness by which you act is a gift of, and a share in, the One who acts in all.
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