For the Knowledge of it is a Divine Silence.

 

The Fourth Book
called
The Key.

1. Yesterday's speech, O Asclepius, I dedicated to thee. This day, it is fit to dedicate to Tat, because it is an epitome of those general speeches that were spoken to him.

2. God therefore, and the Father and the Good, O Tat, have the same Nature, or rather also the same act and operation. 

3. For there is one name or appellation of Nature and increase which concerns things changeable, and another about things unchangeable, and about things unmoveable, that is to say, things divine and humane, everyone of which himself will have so to be; but action or operation is of another thing, or elsewhere as we have taught in other things, divine and humane, which must here also be understood. 

4. For his operation or act is his Will, and his essence to will all things to be. 

5. For what is God and the Father and the Good, but the being of all things that yet are not, and the existence itself of those things that are?

6. This is God, this is the Father, this is the Good, whereunto no other thing is present or approaches. 

7. For the World and the Sun, which is also a Father by participation, is not for all that equally the cause of good and of life to living creatures. And if this be so, he is altogether constrained by the Will of the Good, without which it is not possible either to be or to be begotten or made. 

8. But the Father is the cause of his children, who has a will both to sow and nourish that which is good by the Sun. 

9. For Good is always active or busy in making, and this cannot be in any other but in him that takes nothing, and yet wills all things to be. For I will not say, O Tat, making them, for he that makes is defective in much time, as also of quantity and quality; for sometimes he makes those things that have quantity and quality, and sometimes the contrary. 

10. But God is the Father and the Good, in being all things, for he both will be this and is it, and yet all this for himself - as is true - in him that can see it.

11. For all things else are for this: it is the property of Good to be known. This is the Good, O Tat. 

12. Tat - Thou has, O father, with a sight both good and fair, and the eye of my mind is almost become more holy by the sight or spectacle. 

13. Trimegistus - I wonder not at it, for the sight of the Good is not like the beam of the Sun, which being of a fiery shining brightness makes the eye blind by his excessive light that gazes upon it; rather the contrary, for it enlightens and so much increases the sight of the eye as any man is able to recieve the influence of this intelligible clearness. 

14. For it is more swift and sharp to pierce, and innocent or harmless withal, and full of immortality, and they that are capable and can draw any store of this spectacle and sight do many times fall asleep from the body into this most fair and beuteous vision, which thing Celius and Saturn, our progenitors, obtained unto. 

15. Tat - I would we also, O father, could do so.

16. Trimegistus - I would we could, O son, but for the present we are less intent to the vision, and cannot yet open the eyes of our minds to behold the incorruptible and incomprehensible beauty of that Good. But then shall we see it, when we have nothing at all to say of it.

17. For the knowledge of it is a Divine Silence, and the rest of all the senses. For neither can he that understands that understand anything else, nor he that sees that see anything else, nor hear any other thing, nor in sum move the body. 

18. For shining steadfastly upon and round about the whole mind, it enlightens all the soul, and loosing it from the bodily senses and motions, it draws it from the body and changes it wholly into the essence of God. 

19. For it is possible for the soul, O son, to be deified while yet it lodges in the body of Man, if it contemplate the beauty of the Good. 

20. Tat - How does thou mean deifying, father?

21. Trismegistus - There are differences, O son, of every soul. 

22. Tat - But how does thou again divide the changes?

23. Trismegistus - Has thou not heard in the general speeches that from one Soul of the Universe are all those souls which in all the world are tossed up and down, as it were, and severally divided? Of these souls, there are many changes, some into a more fortunate estate, and some quite contrary, for they which are of creeping things are changed into those of watery things, and those of things living in the water to those things living upon the land, and airy ones are changed into men, and humane souls that lay hold of immortality are changed into demons. 

24. And so they go on into the Sphere or region of the fixed Gods, for there are two choirs or companies of Gods, one of them that wander, and another of them that are fixed. And this is the most perfect glory of the soul.

25. But the soul entering into the body of a man, if it continue evil shall neither taste of immortality nor is a partaker of the Good. 

26. But being drawn back the same way, it returns into creeping things. And this is the condemnation of an evil soul. 

27. And the wickedness of a soul is ignorance, for the soul that knows nothing of the things that are, neither the nature of them nor that which is good, but is blinded, rushes and dashes against the bodily passions, and unhappy as it is, not knowing itself, it serves strange bodies and evil ones, carrying the body as a burden, and not ruling but ruled. And this is the mischief of the soul.

28. On the contrary, the virtue of the soul is knowledge, for he that knows is both good and religious, and already divine.

29. Tat - But who is such a one, O father?

30. Trismegistus - He that neither speaks nor hears many things, for he, O son, that hears two speeches or hearings, fights in the shadow. 

31. For God and the Father and Good is neither spoken nor heard.

32. This being so in all things that are, are the senses, because they cannot be without them.

33. But knowledge differs much from sense, for sense is of things that surmount it, but knowledge is the end of sense.

34. Knowledge is the gift of God, for all knowledge is unbodily, but uses the mind as an instrument, as the mind uses the body.

35. Therefore both intelligible and material things go both of them into bodies for, of contraposition - that is, setting one against another - and contraiety all things must consist, and it is impossible it should be otherwise.

36. Tat - Who, therefore, is this material God?

37. Trismegistus - The fair and beautiful World, and yet it is not good, for it is material and easily passible, nay, it is the first of all passible things, and the second of the things that are and needy or wanting somewhat else. And it was once made, and is always, and is ever in generation and made and continually makes or generates things that have quantity and quality. 

38. For it is moveable, and every material motion is generation, but the intellectual stability moves the material motion after this manner.

39. Becuase the World is a sphere - that is, a head - and above the head there is nothing material, as beneath the feet there is nothing intellectual.

40. The whole Universe is material. The Mind is the head, and it is moved spherically - that is, like a head.

41. Whatsoever therefore is joined or united to the membrane or film of this head wherein the soul is, is immortal, and as in the soul of a made body, has its soul full of the body. But those that are further from that membrane have the body full of soul.

42. The whole is a living wight, and therefore consists of material and intellectual. 

43. And the World is the first, and Man the second living wight after the World, but the first of things that are mortal, and therefore has whatsoever benefit of the Soul all the other have. And yet for all this, he is not only not good, but flatly evil, as being mortal. 

44. For the World is not good, as it is moveable, nor evil, as it is immortal.

45. But Man is evil, both as he is moveable and as he is mortal.

46. But the Soul of Man is carried in this manner: the Mind is in Reason, Reason in the Soul, the Soul in the Spirit, the Spirit in the Body.

47. The Spirit being diffused and going through the veins and arteries and blood, bith moves the living creature, and after a certain manner bears it. 

48. Wherefore some also have thought the Soul to be blood, being deceived by Nature, not knowing that first the Spirit must return into the Soul, and then the blood is congealed, the veins and arteries emptied, and then the living thing dies. And this is the death of the body. 

49. All things depend of one beginning, and the beginning depends of that which is one and alone. 

50. And the beginning is moved, that it may again be a beginning, but that which is one, stands and abides and is not moved.

51. There are therefore these three: God the Father and the Good, the World and Man. God has the World, and the World has Man, and the World is the Son of God, and Man, as it were, the offspring of the World.

52. For God is not ignorant of Man, but knows him perfectly, and will be known by him. This only is healthful to Man, the Knowledge of God. This is the return of Olympus; by this only the Soul is made good, and not sometimes good and sometimes evil, but of necessity good.

53. Tat - What mean thou, O father?

54. Trismegistus - Consider, O son, the soul of a child when as yet is has received no dissolution of its body, which is not yet grown, but is very small; how then if it look upon itself, it sees itself beautiful, as not having been yet spotted with the passions of the body but, as it were, depending yet upn the Soul of the World. 

55. But when the body is grown and distracts, the Soul it engenders forgetfulness, and partakes no more of the fair and the Good. And forgetfulness is evilness. 

56. The like also happens to them that go out of the Body, for when the Soul runs back into itself, the Spirit is contracted into the blood, and the Soul into the Spirit. But the Mind being made pure and free from these clothings, and being divine by Nature taking a fiery body, ranges abroad in every place, leaving the Soul to judgement, and to the punishment it has deserved. 

57. Tat - Why do thou say so, O father, that the Mind is separated from the Soul, and the Soul from the Spirit? When even now thou said the Soul was the clothing or apparel of the Mind, and the Body of the Soul.

58. Trismegistus - O son, he that hears must co-understand and conspire in thought with him that speaks, yea, he must have his hearing swifter and sharper, then the voice of the speaker.

59. The disposition of these clothings or covers is done in the Earthly Body, for it is impossible that the Mind should establish or rest, itself naked and of itself in an Earthly Body; neither is the Earthly Body able to bear such immortality, and therefore that it might suffer so great virtue, the Mind compacted, as it were, and took to iself the passible Body of the Soul as a covering or a clothing. And the Soul being also in some sort divine uses the Spirit as her minister and servant, and the Spirit governs the living thing. 

60. When therefore the Mind is separated and departs from the Earthly Body, presently it puts on its fiery coat, which it could not do, having to dwell in an Earthly Body. 

61. For the Earth cannot suffer fire, for it is all burned of a small spark; therefore is the water poured round about the Earth as a wall or defence to withstand the flame of fire. 

62. But the Mind being the most sharp or swift of all the divine cogitations, and more swift than all the elements, has the fire for its body.

63. For the Mind, which is the Workman of all, uses the fire as his instrument in his workmanship, and he that is the Workman of all uses it to the making of all things, as it is used by Man to the making of Earthly Things only, for the Mind that is upon Earth, void or naked of fire, cannot do the business of Men, nor that which is otherwise the affairs of God. 

64. But the Soul of Man, and yet not every one but that which is pious and religious, is angelical and divine. And such a Soul, after it is departed from the body, having striven the strife of piety, becomes either Mind or God. 

65. And the strife of piety is to know God and to injure no man, and this way it becomes Mind. 

66. But an impious Soul abides in its own essence, punished of itself and seeking an earthly and humane body to enter into.

67. For no other body is capable of a humane soul, neither is it lawful for a man's soul to fall into the body of an unreasonable living thing, for it is the law or decree of God to preserve a humane soul from so great a contumely and reproach.

68. Tat - How then is the Soul of Man punished, O father, and what is its greatest torment?

69. Hermes - Impiety, O my son, for what fire has so great a flame as it? Or what biting beast does so tear the body as it does the soul?

70. Or do thou not see how many evils the wicked soul suffers, roaring and crying out, I am burned, I am consumed, I know not what to say or do. I am devoured, unhappy wretch, of the evils that compass and lay hold upon me, miserable that I am. I neither see nor hear anything. 

71. These are the voices of a punished and tormented soul, and not as many. And thou, O son, think that the soul going out of the body grows brutish, or enters into a beast, which is a very great error, for the soul punished after this manner. 

72. For the Mind, when it is ordered or appointed to get a fiery body for the services of God, coming down into the wicked soul, torments him with the whips of sins, wherewith the wicked soul being scourged, turns itself to murders and contumelies and blasphemies and divers violences, and other things by which men are injured. 

73. But into a pious soul, the Mind entering leads it into the Light of Knowledge. 

74. And such a soul is never satisfied with singing praise to God, and speaking well of all men, and both in words and deeds, always doing good in imitation of her Father. 

75. Therefore, O son, we must give thanks and pray that we may obtain a good mind. 

76. The Soul therefore may be altered or changed into the better, but into the worse, it is possible.

77. But there is a Communion of Souls, and those of God's communicate with those of men, and those of men with those of beasts.

78. And the better always take of the worse, Gods of Men, Men of brute beasts, but God of all, for he is the best of all, and all things are less than he. 

79. Therefore is the World subject unto the World, and unreasonable things to Man.

80. But God is above all and about all, and the beams of God are operations, and the beams of the World are natures, and the beams of Man are arts and sciences.

81. And operations act by the World, and upon Man by the natural beams of the World, but natures work by the Elements, and Man by arts and science. 

82. And this is the government of the whole, depending upon the nature of the One, and piercing or coming down by the One Mind than which nothing is more divine and more efficacious or operative, and nothing more uniting, the Communion of Gods to Men, and of Men to Gods.

83. This is the Bonus Genius, or Good Demon, blessed Soul that is fullest of it! and unhappy the Soul that is empty of it.

84. Tat - And wherefore, father?

85. Trismegistus - Know, son, that every Sould has the Good Mind, for of that it is we now speak, and not of that Minister of which we said before, that he was sent from the Judgement.

86. For the Soul without the Mind can neither do nor say anything, for many times the Mind flies away from the Soul, and in that hour the Soul neither sees nor hears, but is like an unreasonable thing, so great is the power of the Mind. 

87. But neither brooks it an idle or lazy soul, but leaves such a one fastened to the body and by it pressed down. 

88. And such a soul, O son, has no mind, wherefore neither must such a one be called a Man. 

89. For Man is a divine living thing, and is not to be compared to any brute beast that lives upon Earth, but to them that are above in Heaven that are called Gods.

90. Rather, if we shall be bold to speak the truth, he that is a Man indeed is above them, or at least they are equal in power, one to the other. For none of the things in Heaven will come down upon Earth, and leave the limits of Heaven, but a Man ascends up into Heaven and measures it. 

91. And he knows what things are on high, and what below, and learns all other things exactly.

92. And that which is the greatest of all, he leaves not the Earth and yet is above, so great is the greatness of his Nature. 

93. Wherefore we must be bold to say that an Earthly Man is a mortal God, and that the Heavenly God is an Immortal Man. 

94. Wherefore by these two are all things governed, the World and Man, but they and all things else of that which is One. 

The End of the Fourth Book.