Death is only a name — nothing in the cosmos perishes
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Hermes — Περὶ ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος, ὦ παῖ, νῦν λεκτέον, τρόπῳ μὲν ποιῷ ἀθάνατος ἡ ψυχή, ἐνέργεια δὲ ποταπή ἐστι συστάσεως σώματος καὶ διαλύσεως. περὶ οὐδὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν ὁ θάνατος, ἀλλὰ νόημά ἐστιν ἀθανάτου προσηγορίας, ἢ κενὸν ἔργον, ἢ κατὰ στέρησιν τοῦ πρώτου γράμματος ὁ λεγόμενος θάνατος ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀθάνατος· ὁ γὰρ θάνατος ἀπωλείας ἐστίν, οὐδὲν δὲ τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἀπόλλυται· εἰ γὰρ δεύτερος θεὸς ὁ κόσμος καὶ ζῶον ἀθάνατον, ἀδύνατόν ἐστι τοῦ ἀθανάτου ζώου μέρος τι ἀποθανεῖν· πάντα δὲ τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ μέρη ἐστὶ τοῦ κόσμου, μάλιστα δὲ ὁ ἄνθρωπος, τὸ λογικὸν ζῶον.
Concerning soul and body, O child, now must we speak — in what way and of what sort the soul is immortal, and of what nature is the activity of the composition of body and its dissolution. For concerning none of these is death; but it is a notion of an immortal appellation, or an empty word, or, by privation of the first letter, the so-called 'death' (θάνατος) instead of 'deathless' (ἀθάνατος). For death is of destruction, and nothing of the things in the cosmos perishes; for if the cosmos is a second god and an immortal living being, it is impossible for any part of the immortal living being to die — and all the things in the cosmos are parts of the cosmos, most of all man, the rational living being.
CH VIII (acquired by OCR from the Parthey scan; flagged for proof) opens the argument its title announces: that none of the beings perishes, but men in error call the changes destructions and deaths. Now, child, we must speak of soul and body — in what way the soul is immortal, and of what nature is the activity of the body's composition and dissolution. Death touches none of these: 'death' is either a mere notion attached to the word 'immortal,' or an empty word, or the so-called 'death' (θάνατος) got by taking the first letter from 'deathless' (ἀθάνατος). For death is destruction, and nothing in the cosmos is destroyed: if the cosmos is a second god and an immortal living being, no part of the immortal animal can die — and all things in the cosmos are parts of the cosmos, most of all man, the rational animal.
The eighth treatise is a metaphysics of death written to abolish it, and it opens by dissolving the very word. 'Death' names nothing real: it is 'a notion of an immortal appellation (νόημα… ἀθανάτου προσηγορίας),' or 'an empty word (κενὸν ἔργον),' or — the cleverest stroke — merely 'deathless' (ἀθάνατος) with 'the first letter (τοῦ πρώτου γράμματος)' knocked off: θάνατος is ἀ-θάνατος minus its alpha-privative. The Greek lets the point be made in spelling itself: death is a subtraction of a letter, a grammatical accident, not an event in being. (The play only works in Greek, which is exactly why the reveal layer keeps it visible.)
The argument underneath is a tight syllogism. 'Death is of destruction (ἀπωλείας)' — death just means annihilation. But 'nothing in the cosmos is destroyed (οὐδὲν… ἀπόλλυται),' because 'the cosmos is a second god (δεύτερος θεός) and an immortal living being,' and no part of an immortal animal can die. Since everything — 'most of all man, the rational animal (τὸ λογικὸν ζῶον)' — is a part of the cosmos, nothing that happens to us is destruction. The doctrine will be refined (the cosmos is deathless by the Father's gift, §2; what we call death is really privation of sense, §3), but the thesis is already whole: in a living, divine world, annihilation is impossible, and 'death' is a misnamed change. It is the Hermetic answer to the oldest fear, and it rests not on comfort but on the metaphysics of a cosmos that cannot lose any of itself.
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