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.He will turn away from this beautiful work, the most perfect alike in the present,the past, and the future.Nor will the languor and weariness of souls permit anything to remain save disdain of thewhole universe, this immutable work of God, this glorious and perfect edifice, this manifold synthesis of forms andimages, wherein the will of the Lord, lavish of marvels, has united all things in a harmonious and single whole,worthy for ever of veneration, of praise and love! Then darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be deemedbetter than life, nor will any man lift his eyes to heaven.In those days the religious man will be thought mad; the impious man will be hailed as a sage; savage men[willp.73will be deemed valiant; the evil-hearted will be applauded as the best of men.The Soul, and all that belongs thereto--whether born mortal or able to attain eternal life--all those things which I have herein expounded to thee, will be butmatters for ridicule, and will be esteemed foolishness.There will even be peril of death, believe me, for those whoremain faithful to religion and intelligence.New rights will be instituted, new laws, nor will there be left one holyword, one sacred belief, religious and worthy of heaven and of celestial things.O lamentable separation between theGods and men! Then there will remain only evil demons who will mingle themselves with the miserable humanrace, their hand will be upon it impelling to all kinds of wicked enterprise; to war, to rapine, to falsehood, toeverything contrary to the nature of the soul.The earth will no longer be in equilibrium, the sea will no longer benavigable, in the heavens the regular course of the stars will be troubled.Every holy voice will be condemned tosilence; the fruits of the earth will become corrupt, and she will be no more fertile; the very air will sink intolugubrious torpor.Such will be the old age of the world; irreligion and disorder, lawlessness, and the confusion ofgood men.When all these things shall be accomplished, O Asclepios, then the Lord and Father, the sovereign God who rulesthe wide world, beholding the evil ways and actions of men, will arrest these misfortunes by the exercise of Hisdivine will and goodness.And, in order to put an end to error and to the general corruption, He will drown the worldwith a deluge or consume it by fire, or destroy it by wars and epidemics, and thereafter He will restore to it itsprimitive beauty; so that once more it shall appear worthy of admiration and worship, and[againp.74again a chorus of praise and of blessing shall celebrate Him Who has created and redeemed so beautiful a work.Thisre-birth of the world, this restoration of all good things, this holy and sacred re-habilitation of Nature will take placewhen the time shall come which is appointed by the divine and ever-eternal will of God, without beginning andalways the same.Asclepios:Indeed, Trismegistos, the nature of God is Will reflected; that is, absolute goodness and wisdom.Hermes: O Asclepios, Will is the result of reflection, and to will is itself an act of willing.For He Who is the fulness of allthings and Who possesses all that He will, wills nothing by caprice.But everything He wills is good, and He has allthat He wills; all that is good He thinks and wills.Such is God, and the World is the image of His righteousness.Asclepios:Is the world then good, O Trismegistos?Hermes:Yes, the world is good, Asclepios, as I will inform thee.Even as God accords to all beings and to all orders in theworld benefits of divers kinds, such as thought, soul, and life, so likewise the world itself divides and distributesgood things among mortals, changing seasons, the fruits of the earth, birth, increase, maturity,[andp.75and other similar gifts.And thus God is above the summit of heaven, yet everywhere present and beholding allthings.For beyond the heavens is a sphere without stars, transcending all corporeal things.Between heaven andearth he reigns who is the dispenser of life, and whom we call Zeus (Jupiter).Over the earth and the sea he reignswho nourishes all mortal creatures, the plants and fruit-bearing trees, and whose name is Zeus Sarapis (JupiterPlutonius).And those to whom it shall be given to dominate the earth shall be sent forth and established at theextremity of Egypt, in a city built towards the west, whither, by sea and by land, shall flow all the race of mortals.Asclepios:But where are they now, Trismegistos?Hermes:They are established in a great city, upon the mountain of Lybia.Enough of this.1Footnotes70:1 Hermes speaks of the Stars, and of the Astral Powers, not of the Divine Intelligences.The whole of thisdiscourse has a hidden and profound meaning, relating to the human organism, and to the elemental genii, whichthrough man are individualised.A.K.75:1 By "Egypt" is denoted not only the country of that name, but the physical system generally of the world, andespecially--as in the Hebrew Scriptures--the human body.PART X.Hermes:LET us speak now of that which is immortal and of that which is mortal.The multitude, ignorant of the reason ofthings, is troubled by the approach and the fear of death.Death occurs by the dissolution of the body, wearied withits toil.When the number which maintains unity is complete for the binding-power of the body is a number--thebody dies.And this happens when it can no longer support the burdens of life.Such, then, is death; the dissolution ofthe body, and the end of corporeal sensations.It is superfluous to trouble oneself about such a matter.But thereremains another necessary law which human ignorance and unbelief despise.Asclepios:What law is this which is thus ignored or unregarded?Hermes:Hearken, O Asclepios.When the soul is separated from the body, she passes under the supreme power of Deity, tobe judged according to her merits.If found pious and just she is allowed to dwell in the divine abodes, but if sheappears defiled with vice she is precipitated from height to depth, and delivered over to the tempests and adversehurricanes of the air, the fire, and the water.Ceaselessly tossed about between heaven and[earthp.77 earth by the billows of the universe, she is driven from side to side in eternal penance, her immortal nature givesendless duration to the judgment pronounced against her.1 How greatly must we fear so dreadful a fate! They whonow refuse to believe in such things will then be convinced against their will, not by words, but by beholding; not bymenaces, but by the pains they will endure.Asclepios:The faults of men, O Trismegistos, are not then punished only by human laws?Hermes:O Asclepios, all that is terrestrial is mortal.Those who live according to the corporeal state, and who fall shortduring their life of the laws imposed on this condition, are subjected after death to chastisement so much the moresevere as the faults committed by them have remained hidden; for the universal prescience of God will render thepunishment proportional to the transgression.2[Asclepios:p.78Asclepios:Who are they who deserve the greatest penalties, O Trismegistos?Hermes:Those who, condemned by human laws, die a violent death, in such wise that they appear not to have paid the debtthey owe to Nature, but to have received only the reward of their actions.1 The just man, on the contrary, finds inreligion and in piety a great help, and God protects him against all evils.The Father and Lord of all things, Whoalone is all, manifests Himself willingly to all; not that He shows any man His abode, nor His splendour, nor Hisgreatness, but He enlightens man by intelligence alone, whereby the darkness of error is dissipated, and the gloriesof the truth revealed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.He will turn away from this beautiful work, the most perfect alike in the present,the past, and the future.Nor will the languor and weariness of souls permit anything to remain save disdain of thewhole universe, this immutable work of God, this glorious and perfect edifice, this manifold synthesis of forms andimages, wherein the will of the Lord, lavish of marvels, has united all things in a harmonious and single whole,worthy for ever of veneration, of praise and love! Then darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be deemedbetter than life, nor will any man lift his eyes to heaven.In those days the religious man will be thought mad; the impious man will be hailed as a sage; savage men[willp.73will be deemed valiant; the evil-hearted will be applauded as the best of men.The Soul, and all that belongs thereto--whether born mortal or able to attain eternal life--all those things which I have herein expounded to thee, will be butmatters for ridicule, and will be esteemed foolishness.There will even be peril of death, believe me, for those whoremain faithful to religion and intelligence.New rights will be instituted, new laws, nor will there be left one holyword, one sacred belief, religious and worthy of heaven and of celestial things.O lamentable separation between theGods and men! Then there will remain only evil demons who will mingle themselves with the miserable humanrace, their hand will be upon it impelling to all kinds of wicked enterprise; to war, to rapine, to falsehood, toeverything contrary to the nature of the soul.The earth will no longer be in equilibrium, the sea will no longer benavigable, in the heavens the regular course of the stars will be troubled.Every holy voice will be condemned tosilence; the fruits of the earth will become corrupt, and she will be no more fertile; the very air will sink intolugubrious torpor.Such will be the old age of the world; irreligion and disorder, lawlessness, and the confusion ofgood men.When all these things shall be accomplished, O Asclepios, then the Lord and Father, the sovereign God who rulesthe wide world, beholding the evil ways and actions of men, will arrest these misfortunes by the exercise of Hisdivine will and goodness.And, in order to put an end to error and to the general corruption, He will drown the worldwith a deluge or consume it by fire, or destroy it by wars and epidemics, and thereafter He will restore to it itsprimitive beauty; so that once more it shall appear worthy of admiration and worship, and[againp.74again a chorus of praise and of blessing shall celebrate Him Who has created and redeemed so beautiful a work.Thisre-birth of the world, this restoration of all good things, this holy and sacred re-habilitation of Nature will take placewhen the time shall come which is appointed by the divine and ever-eternal will of God, without beginning andalways the same.Asclepios:Indeed, Trismegistos, the nature of God is Will reflected; that is, absolute goodness and wisdom.Hermes: O Asclepios, Will is the result of reflection, and to will is itself an act of willing.For He Who is the fulness of allthings and Who possesses all that He will, wills nothing by caprice.But everything He wills is good, and He has allthat He wills; all that is good He thinks and wills.Such is God, and the World is the image of His righteousness.Asclepios:Is the world then good, O Trismegistos?Hermes:Yes, the world is good, Asclepios, as I will inform thee.Even as God accords to all beings and to all orders in theworld benefits of divers kinds, such as thought, soul, and life, so likewise the world itself divides and distributesgood things among mortals, changing seasons, the fruits of the earth, birth, increase, maturity,[andp.75and other similar gifts.And thus God is above the summit of heaven, yet everywhere present and beholding allthings.For beyond the heavens is a sphere without stars, transcending all corporeal things.Between heaven andearth he reigns who is the dispenser of life, and whom we call Zeus (Jupiter).Over the earth and the sea he reignswho nourishes all mortal creatures, the plants and fruit-bearing trees, and whose name is Zeus Sarapis (JupiterPlutonius).And those to whom it shall be given to dominate the earth shall be sent forth and established at theextremity of Egypt, in a city built towards the west, whither, by sea and by land, shall flow all the race of mortals.Asclepios:But where are they now, Trismegistos?Hermes:They are established in a great city, upon the mountain of Lybia.Enough of this.1Footnotes70:1 Hermes speaks of the Stars, and of the Astral Powers, not of the Divine Intelligences.The whole of thisdiscourse has a hidden and profound meaning, relating to the human organism, and to the elemental genii, whichthrough man are individualised.A.K.75:1 By "Egypt" is denoted not only the country of that name, but the physical system generally of the world, andespecially--as in the Hebrew Scriptures--the human body.PART X.Hermes:LET us speak now of that which is immortal and of that which is mortal.The multitude, ignorant of the reason ofthings, is troubled by the approach and the fear of death.Death occurs by the dissolution of the body, wearied withits toil.When the number which maintains unity is complete for the binding-power of the body is a number--thebody dies.And this happens when it can no longer support the burdens of life.Such, then, is death; the dissolution ofthe body, and the end of corporeal sensations.It is superfluous to trouble oneself about such a matter.But thereremains another necessary law which human ignorance and unbelief despise.Asclepios:What law is this which is thus ignored or unregarded?Hermes:Hearken, O Asclepios.When the soul is separated from the body, she passes under the supreme power of Deity, tobe judged according to her merits.If found pious and just she is allowed to dwell in the divine abodes, but if sheappears defiled with vice she is precipitated from height to depth, and delivered over to the tempests and adversehurricanes of the air, the fire, and the water.Ceaselessly tossed about between heaven and[earthp.77 earth by the billows of the universe, she is driven from side to side in eternal penance, her immortal nature givesendless duration to the judgment pronounced against her.1 How greatly must we fear so dreadful a fate! They whonow refuse to believe in such things will then be convinced against their will, not by words, but by beholding; not bymenaces, but by the pains they will endure.Asclepios:The faults of men, O Trismegistos, are not then punished only by human laws?Hermes:O Asclepios, all that is terrestrial is mortal.Those who live according to the corporeal state, and who fall shortduring their life of the laws imposed on this condition, are subjected after death to chastisement so much the moresevere as the faults committed by them have remained hidden; for the universal prescience of God will render thepunishment proportional to the transgression.2[Asclepios:p.78Asclepios:Who are they who deserve the greatest penalties, O Trismegistos?Hermes:Those who, condemned by human laws, die a violent death, in such wise that they appear not to have paid the debtthey owe to Nature, but to have received only the reward of their actions.1 The just man, on the contrary, finds inreligion and in piety a great help, and God protects him against all evils.The Father and Lord of all things, Whoalone is all, manifests Himself willingly to all; not that He shows any man His abode, nor His splendour, nor Hisgreatness, but He enlightens man by intelligence alone, whereby the darkness of error is dissipated, and the gloriesof the truth revealed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]