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Wisdom and teachings of
Gnostics

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T AT: Is God then in matter, 0 father?

HERMES: Where could matter be placed if it existed apart from God [who is infinite]? Would it not be but a confused mass, unless it were ordered? And if it is ordered, by whom is it ordered? The energies which operate in it are parts of God. Whether you speak of matter or bodies or substance, know that all these are the energy of God, of the God who is all. In the All there is nothing which is not God. Adore this teaching, my child, and hold it sacred.

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quote 3653 | The Corpus Hermetica
Poimander, 1.12, based on translation by Yates, F., 1964, pp. 33-34

T AT: Do not the living beings in the world die, 0 father, although they are parts of the world?

HERMES: Hush, my child, for you are led into error by the appearance of the phenomenon. Living beings do not die, but, being composite bodies, they are dissolved; this is not death but the dissolution of a mixture. If they are dissolved, it is not to be destroyed but to be renewed... Contemplate then the beautiful arrangement of the world and see that it is alive, and that all matter is full of life.

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quote 3652 | The Corpus Hermetica
Poimander, 1.12, based on translation by Yates, F., 1964, pp. 33-34

T he world, too, is a god, image of a greater God. United to Him and performing the order and will of the Father, it is the totality of life. There is nothing in it, through all the duration of the cyclic return willed by the Father, which is not alive. The Father has willed that the world should be living so long as it keeps its cohesion; hence the world is necessarily God.

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quote 3651 | The Corpus Hermetica
Poimander, 1.12, based on translation by Yates, F., 1964, pp. 33-34

H ERMES: The intellect, 0 Tat, is drawn from the very substance of God. In men, this intellect is God; and so some men are gods and their humanity is near to the Divine. When man is not guided by intellect, he falls below himself into an animal state. All men are subject to Destiny, but those in possession of the Logos, which commands the intellect from within, are not under it in the same manner as others. God's two gifts to man of intellect and the Logos have the same value as immortality. If man makes right use of these, he differs in no way from the immortals.

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quote 3650 | The Corpus Hermetica
Poimander, 1.12, based on translation by Yates, F., 1964, pp. 33-34

S ay no longer that God is invisible. Do not speak thus, for what is more manifest than God? He has created all only that you may see it through the beings. For that is the miraculous power of God, to show Himself through all beings. For nothing is invisible, not even the incorporeal. The intellect makes itself visible in the act of thinking; God makes Himself visible in the act of creating.

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quote 3649 | The Corpus Hermetica
Poimander, 1.11, based on translation by Yates, F., 1964, pp. 31-32

A ll that is, He contains within Himself like thoughts: the world, Himself, the All. Therefore, unless you make yourself equal to God, you cannot understand God; for like is not intelligible save to the like. Make yourself grow to a greatness beyond measure; by a leap [of intellect], free yourself from the body; raise yourself above all time, become Eternity; then you will understand God.

Believe that nothing is impossible for you; think yourself immortal and capable of understanding all, all arts, all sciences, the nature of every living being. Mount higher than the highest height; descend lower than the lowest depth. Draw into yourself all sensations of everything created, fire and water, the dry and the moist, imagining that you are everywhere, on earth, in the sea, in the sky; that you are not yet born, in the maternal womb, adolescent, old, dead, beyond death. If you embrace in your thought all things at once-all times, places, substances, qualities, quantities-you may understand God.

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quote 3648 | The Corpus Hermetica
Poimander, 1.11, based on translation by Yates, F., 1964, pp. 31-32

T he eternal [Logos] is the Power of God, and the work, of the -eternal [Logos] is the world, which has no beginning, but is continually becoming by the activity of the eternal [Logos]. Therefore, nothing that constitutes the world will ever perish or be destroyed, for the eternal [Logos] is imperishable. All this great body of the world is a Soul, full of intellect and of God, who fills it within and without and vivifies everything.

Contemplate through Me [the Divine Mind], the world and consider its beauty. ... See that all things are full of light. See the earth, settled in the midst of all, the great nurse who nourishes all earthly creatures, All is full of Soul, and all beings are in movement. Who has created these things? The one God, for God is one. You see that the world is always one, the Sun, one; the moon, one; the divine activity, one; God, too, is one. And since all is living, and Life is also one, God is certainly one. It is by the action of God that all things come into being…

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quote 3647 | The Corpus Hermetica
Poimander, 1.11, based on translation by Yates, F., 1964, pp. 31-32

T he Father existed alone, unbegotten,without place, without time, without counsellor, and without any conceivable qualities ..., solitary and reposing alone in Himself. But as He possessed a generative Power [Logos], it pleased Him to generate and produce the most beautiful and perfect that He had in Himself, for He did not love solitude. He was all love, but love is not love if there is no object of love. So the Father, alone as He was, projected and generated [the world].

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quote 3646 | Hippolytus
Refutatio Omnium Heresium , VI.29.5ff. Roberts & Donaldson, 1892, Vol. VI, pp.208-210

T here are two aspects of the One. The first of these is the Higher, the Divine Mind of the universe, which governs all things, and is masculine. The other is the lower, the Thought (epinoia) which produces all things, and is feminine. As a pair united, they comprise all that exists.

The Divine Mind is the Father who sustains all things, and nourishes all that begins and ends. He is the One who eternally stands, without beginning or end. He exists entirely alone; for, while the Thought arising from Unity, and coming forth from the divine Mind, creates [the appearance of] duality, the Father remains a Unity. The Thought is in Himself, and so He is alone. Made manifest to Himself from Himself, He appears to be two. He becomes "Father" by virtue of being called so by His own Thought.

Since He, Himself, brought forward Himself, by means of Himself, manifesting to Himself His own Thought, it is not correct to attribute creation to the Thought alone. For She (the Thought) conceals the Father within Herself; the Divine Mind and the Thought are intertwined. Thus, though [they appear] to be a pair, one opposite the other, the Divine Mind is in no way different from the Thought, inasmuch as they are one.

Though there appears to be a Higher, the Mind, and a lower, the Thought, truly, It is a Unity, just as what is manifested from these two [the world] is a unity, while appearing to be a duality. The Divine Mind and the Thought are discernible, one from the other, but they are one, though they appear to be two.

[Thus] ... there is one Divine Reality, [conceptually] divided as Higher and lower; generating Itself, nourishing It self, seeking Itself, finding Itself, being mother of Itself, father of Itself, sister of Itself, spouse of Itself, daughter of Itself, son of Itself. It is both Mother and Father, a Unity, being the Root of the entire circle of existence.

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quote 3645 | Simon Magus
Apophasis Megale ("The Great Exposition"), quoted by Hippolytus of Rome, Refutatio Omnium Heresium, VI.8; adapted from Robert& Donaldson, 1892, Vol. VI, pp.208-210

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Wisdom and teachings ofGnostics

Wisdom and teachings of
Gnostics