The image of God — gaze with the eyes of the heart, and be drawn up like iron to the magnet
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Hermes — πᾶν δὲ τὸ γεννώμενον ἀτελὲς καὶ διαιρετόν, καὶ αὐξητὸν καὶ μειωτόν, τῷ δὲ τελείῳ οὐδὲν τούτων γίνεται. καὶ τὸ μὲν αὐξητὸν αὐξάνεται ἀπὸ τῆς μονάδος, ἁλίσκεται δὲ ὑπὸ τῆς αὐτοῦ ἀσθενείας, μηκέτι δυνάμενον τὴν μονάδα χωρῆσαι. αὕτη οὖν, ὦ Τάτ. κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν σοι ὑπογέγραπται τοῦ θεοῦ εἰκών· ἣν ἀκριβῶς εἰ θεάσῃ καὶ νοήσεις τοῖς τῆς καρδίας ὀφθαλμοῖς, πίστευσόν μοι, τέκνον, εὑρήσεις τὴν πρὸς τὰ ἄνω ὁδόν. μᾶλλον δὲ αὐτή σε ἡ εἰκὼν ὁδηγήσει. ἔχει γάρ τι ἴδιον ἡ θέα· τοὺς φθάσαντας θεάσασθαι κατέχει καὶ ἀνέλκει, καθάπερ φασὶν ἡ μαγνῆτις λίθος τὸν σίδηρον.
Everything generated is imperfect and divisible, able to grow and to decrease; but to the perfect none of these happens. And the growing grows from the Monad, but is caught by its own weakness, no longer able to contain the Monad. This, then, O Tat, as far as possible, has been sketched for you: the image of God. If you gaze on it accurately and perceive it with the eyes of the heart, believe me, child, you will find the way to the things above; rather, the image itself will guide you. For the sight has something peculiar to it: it holds fast and draws upward those who have attained to behold it, just as they say the magnet-stone draws the iron.
Everything generated is imperfect and divisible, able to grow and to decrease; but to the perfect none of these happens. And the growing grows from the Monad, but is caught by its own weakness, no longer able to contain the Monad. This, then, O Tat, as far as possible, has been sketched for you: the image of God. If you gaze on it accurately and perceive it with the eyes of the heart, believe me, child, you will find the way to the things above; rather, the image itself will guide you. For the sight has something peculiar to it: it holds fast and draws upward those who have attained to behold it, just as they say the magnet-stone draws the iron.
The arithmology completes its lesson: 'everything generated is imperfect and divisible, able to grow and decrease (ἀτελὲς καὶ διαιρετόν, καὶ αὐξητὸν καὶ μειωτόν),' while 'to the perfect none of these happens.' Change is the mark of the begotten; the Monad, ungenerated, is beyond it. And a poignant image of the creature's limit: the growing thing 'grows from the Monad but is caught by its own weakness (ἁλίσκεται… ὑπὸ τῆς αὐτοῦ ἀσθενείας), no longer able to contain the Monad.' We stretch toward the One and are overtaken by our own finitude — the vessel too small for what fills it, exactly the 'no room to contain the Good' of II.14.
Then the treatise closes on its most beautiful note, and the interlinear is built for it. What Hermes has drawn is 'the image of God (τοῦ θεοῦ εἰκών)' — εἰκών, the Genesis word, here the sketch of the divine the whole discourse has been. It is to be seen not with the eyes but 'with the eyes of the heart (τοῖς τῆς καρδίας ὀφθαλμοῖς)' — a phrase that would echo through Christian mysticism (Eph. 1:18). Gaze rightly and 'the image itself will guide you (αὐτή σε ἡ εἰκὼν ὁδηγήσει)' to 'the way to the things above.' And the final simile answers IV.9's problem — how can the invisible draw us? — with a marvel from physics: contemplation 'holds fast and draws up those who have attained to behold it, as they say the magnet-stone draws the iron (ἡ μαγνῆτις λίθος τὸν σίδηρον).' The Good cannot be seen by the body, but once glimpsed by the heart it exerts a pull like magnetism, hauling the soul upward. So the Mixing-Bowl ends: baptized in Mind, the soul gazes on God's image and is drawn, like iron to the lodestone, toward the One.
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Corpus Hermeticum CH4.11 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/hermetica/CH4.11/