Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3 · 13 of 46

Excerpt XIII. Of the Whole Economy

EXCERPT XIII.

OF THE WHOLE ECONOMY

(Patrizzi (p. 38) gives no title, but only the heading: “To the Same Ammon (Αμμωνα).”

Text: Stob., Phys., v. 16, under sub-heading: “Of the Whole Economy,” followed by: “Of Hermes from the [Sermons] to Ammon (Ἀμοῦν )”; G. p. 68; M. i. 47; W. i. 79, 80.

Ménard, Livre IV., No. i. of “Fragments of the Books of Hermes to Ammon”).

Now what supporteth the whole World, is Providence; what holdeth it together and encircleth it about, is [called] Necessity; what drives all on and drives them round, is Fate, bringing Necessity to bear on them (for that its nature is the bringing into play of [this] Necessity); [it is] the cause of birth and death of life.

Insight

Providence foreknows; Fate is the reason of the disposition of the Stars. Such is the law that no one can escape. The Hermetic position is harder than modern readers may expect. The cosmos is determinate; the stars hold the chain of causes; no creature down here gets out by force. What modern thought heard in this kind of language as fatalism the ancient thought heard differently: the law you cannot escape is also the law that makes anything intelligible at all. To know the law is to find your way inside it, not to break it. The Stoics knew this; so did the writer of Romans 8 when he said all things work together for good to those who love God. The freedom available is the freedom of fit, not the freedom of exemption.Stoic amor fati: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations IV.23, X.7; Romans 8:28; on Hermetic fate and freedom: Mahé, Hermès en Haute-Égypte, II.241-42.

So, then, the Cosmos is beneath the sway of Providence (for ’tis the first to meet with it); but Providence [itself] extends itself to Heaven.

For which cause, too, the Gods revolve, and speed round [Heaven], possessed of tireless, never-ceasing motion.

But Fate [extends itself in Cosmos]; for which cause, too, Necessity [encompasses the Cosmos].

And Providence foreknows; but Fate’s the reason of the disposition of the Stars.

Such is the law that no one can escape, by which all things are ordered.

Footnotes

61:1 The only place in which this form occurs in Stobæus; cf. v. 20, and xxxv. 4, 7, 8.

61:2 Or Cosmos.

61:3 Or makes them to revolve

61:4 Fate—εἱμαρμένη.

61:5 Or destruction.

62:1 Lit. “first has Providence.” The following words in parentheses seem to be the gloss of a scribe who was puzzled by the sentence. Usener, however, would detect a lacuna after the parentheses and the beginning of a new excerpt after that, and Wachsmuth agrees with him. This seems to me to be unnecessary.

62:2 That is, pure Providence unmixed with Necessity and Fate.

62:3 That is, because of Providence, the law of heaven.

62:4 αὐτόν.

62:5 The text is hopeless, being simply: εἱμαρμένη δὲ, διότι καὶ ἀνάγκη.

62:6 That is, the Seven Spheres.

62:7 Cf. Exx. x., xi., xii.