The better choice deifies; the worse only parades through the world
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Hermes — ἡ μὲν οὖν ἐνέργεια τοῦ κρείττονος αἵρεσις οὐ μόνον τῷ ἑλομένῳ καλλίστη τυγχάνει τῷ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἀποθεῶσαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν πρὸς θεὸν εὐσέβειαν ἐπιδείκνυσιν· ἡ δὲ τοῦ ἐλάττονος τὸν μὲν ἄνθρωπον ἀπώλεσεν, οὐδὲν δὲ εἰς τὸν θεὸν ἐπλημμέλησεν, ἢ τοῦτο μόνον ὅτι, καθάπερ αἱ πομπαὶ μέσον παρέρχονται, μήτε αὐταὶ ἐνεργῆσαί τι δυνάμεναι, τοὺς δὲ ἐμποδίζουσαι, τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον καὶ οὗτοι μόνον πομπεύουσιν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, παραγόμενοι ὑπὸ τῶν σωματικῶν ἡδονῶν.
The working of the better — the choice — is not only fairest for the one who chose it, in deifying the man, but it also displays piety toward God. The choice of the lesser destroyed the man, yet in nothing offended against God — except only this: that, just as processions pass through the middle, able to accomplish nothing themselves but only hindering the others, in the same way these too merely process in the cosmos, led astray by the bodily pleasures.
The working of the better choice is not only fairest for the one who chose it, in deifying the man, but it also displays piety toward God. The choice of the lesser destroyed the man, yet in nothing offended against God — except only this: that, just as processions pass through the middle, able to accomplish nothing themselves but only hindering the others, in the same way these too merely process in the cosmos, led astray by the bodily pleasures.
Hermes weighs the two choices by their outcomes, and the reward of the better is the boldest word in the treatise: 'in deifying the man (τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἀποθεῶσαι).' Choosing the divine does not merely improve a person — it makes him a god. The interlinear keeps ἀποθεῶσαι visible because deification is the Corpus's whole promised end (CH I.26 called it 'the good end, to be deified'), and English 'deify' has gone soft into metaphor. Here it is literal: the awakened human is raised to divinity, and this same choice 'displays piety toward God (τὴν πρὸς θεὸν εὐσέβειαν ἐπιδείκνυσιν)' — the ascent of the self and the honouring of God are one act.
The worse choice is measured with striking theological care. It 'destroyed the man (τὸν… ἄνθρωπον ἀπώλεσεν)' — the chooser ruins himself — 'yet in nothing offended against God.' Evil damages only the one who chooses it; it cannot wound the divine. This is the same conviction as IV.3 (envy forms below, never above): God is invulnerable to human wrong. The one qualification is delivered by a wry, almost sociological simile: the mindless are like the marchers in a festival 'procession (πομπή)' who merely 'pass through the middle,' accomplishing nothing of their own and only 'hindering the others (τοὺς… ἐμποδίζουσαι).' So the un-illumined 'merely process in the cosmos (μόνον πομπεύουσιν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ),' parading through a world whose meaning they never grasp, 'led astray by the bodily pleasures.' The image is deflating on purpose: without Mind, a human life is pageantry — motion and show that arrives nowhere and gets in the way of those who are actually going somewhere.
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