The enemy garment throttles you down — so that you neither hear nor see what you ought
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τοιοῦτός ἐστιν ὃν ἐνεδύσω ἐχθρὸν χιτῶνα, ἄγχων σε κάτω πρὸς αὐτὸν, ἵνα μὴ ἀναβλέψας καὶ θεασάμενος τὸ κάλλος τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ τὸ ἐγκείμενον ἀγαθόν, μισήσῃς τὴν τούτου κακίαν, νοήσας αὐτοῦ τὴν ἐπιβουλήν, ἣν ἐπεβούλευσέ σοι, τὰ δοκοῦντα καὶ μὴ νομιζόμενα αἰσθητήρια ἀναίσθητα ποιῶν, τῇ πολλῇ ὕλῃ αὐτὰ ἀποφράξας καὶ μυσαρᾶς ἡδονῆς ἐμπλήσας, ἵνα μήτε ἀκούῃς περὶ ὧν ἀκούειν σε δεῖ, μήτε βλέπῃς περὶ ὧν βλέπειν σε δεῖ.
Such is the hostile tunic you have put on: throttling you down toward itself, so that you may not, looking up and beholding the beauty of truth and the good that lies within, come to hate its vice — perceiving the plot it plotted against you, making the organs of sense that seem to be, yet are not truly reckoned, insensate, blocking them up with the great mass of matter and cramming them with foul pleasure, so that you neither hear what you ought to hear nor see what you ought to see.
Such is the hostile tunic you have put on: it throttles you down toward itself, so that you may not look up and behold the beauty of truth and the good that lies within it, and come to hate its vice — perceiving the plot it has plotted against you, making the organs of sense that seem to be, yet are not truly reckoned, insensate: stopping them up with the sheer mass of matter and cramming them with foul pleasure, so that you neither hear what you ought to hear nor see what you ought to see.
The final section explains why the body-garment is not just a weight but an active adversary: it has a strategy. It 'throttles you down toward itself (ἄγχων σε κάτω πρὸς αὐτόν)' — the verb ἄγχω is literal strangulation, and the direction is everything: down and inward, the opposite of the 'look up (ἀναβλέψατε)' that opened the sermon. The purpose clause lays out the enemy's whole plan: it chokes you 'so that you may not, looking up and beholding the beauty of truth (τὸ κάλλος τῆς ἀληθείας) and the good that lies within it, come to hate its vice.' The body's deepest interest is that you never see clearly enough to reject it — that you 'perceive its plot (νοήσας αὐτοῦ τὴν ἐπιβουλήν, ἣν ἐπεβούλευσέ σοι),' a figura etymologica (plot-it-plotted) that mimics the coiling of the scheme itself.
And the mechanism of the plot is a theory of perception. The body works 'by making the organs of sense (αἰσθητήρια) that seem to be, and are not truly reckoned, insensate (ἀναίσθητα).' The phrase is deliberately vertiginous: the eyes and ears we trust are 'seeming' organs, not the real instruments of knowing, and the body renders even these dead — 'insensate sense-organs,' a coined oxymoron. How? 'Blocking them up with the great mass of matter (τῇ πολλῇ ὕλῃ… ἀποφράξας) and cramming them with foul pleasure (μυσαρᾶς ἡδονῆς ἐμπλήσας).' Matter and pleasure are the two stoppers: one deadens by sheer density, the other by glut. The result is the exact inversion of the harbour-vision: there, all gaze with the heart at what is barely visible; here, the man 'neither hears what he ought to hear nor sees what he ought to see (μήτε ἀκούῃς… μήτε βλέπῃς).' The treatise ends not with the vision achieved but with the diagnosis complete — which is itself the first counter-current. To know that the tunic is an enemy, that its pleasures are its bars, is already to have begun tearing it off. CH VII is the Hermetica at its most ascetic and its most urgent: sober up, look up, and strip.
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