The General Discourse

In the second book of Ficino's Pimander, Hermes Trismegistus leads his student Asclepius through a sequence of foundational questions. Is God intelligible? How do things move? Can anything truly be empty? What is the incorporeal? And what two names belong to God alone? The answers move from physics to metaphysics to theology, ending with the startling claim that a man who dies without children commits the gravest impiety — for in the Hermetic understanding, to fail to generate is to fail in the divine office of the Father himself.

This translation renders Book II from Ficino's Latin as preserved in the 1505 Lefèvre d'Étaples edition. The underlying text is a translation of what modern scholars designate Corpus Hermeticum II.

God — and divinity itself. I speak now not of what is begotten; for what is unbegotten, if faith receives it, is essence. If God: then above essence itself. And the intelligible, in this way: God is intelligible not to himself, but first to us. For the intelligible falls under the intelligent through sense. God therefore is not intelligible to himself — he does not exist as some particular thing apart from what he understands; he is understood by himself alone. Yet he differs from us, and therefore we understand him. If God is intelligible only as logos, then as God — assuredly not as logos, as word, as something distinct from himself.

But everything that moves, moves not in something moving, but in something stable. And that which causes motion likewise remains — for it is impossible that it be moved along with what it moves.

ASCLEPIUS: How then, Trismegistus, are the things in the world changed along with those things that move them? For you said the wandering spheres are moved by the fixed sphere.

TRISMEGISTUS: That is not motion, Asclepius — it is resistance. For they do not travel in the same direction but in the contrary mode. And opposition contains the rebound of motion in stability. For the rebound of rest is agitation. So the wandering spheres, running alternately in counter-opposition to the fixed, are set in motion by the counter-meeting of their contrary passage, driven by that which stands firm. How else could it be? Consider the Bear itself — those stars you know never rise and never set — circling perpetually around the same point: do you reckon they move, or rather stand?

ASCLEPIUS: They move, Trismegistus.

TRISMEGISTUS: What motion, Asclepius?

ASCLEPIUS: A motion circling eternally around the same point.

TRISMEGISTUS: And that circulation — the same, ever around the same — is motion contained by rest. For it is held in its circuit by what is above it. But that which is above it, encountering what presses from below, stays in its own orbit. And so the contrary agitation holds firm, stabilized perpetually by opposition itself.

Let me set before you an example from living things on earth. When a man swims — the water running beneath him — the push and pull of his hands and feet together holds him upright, so that he neither falls with the water nor sinks into it.

ASCLEPIUS: A clear example you have brought forward, Trismegistus.

TRISMEGISTUS: Whatever moves, then, moves in a state, from a state. All animal motion — which is composed of matter — comes not from what lies outside the world, but from within outward: either from the soul, from the spirit, or from some incorporeal mind. For body does not move an ensouled body, unless the whole body together exists also as ensouled.

ASCLEPIUS: On what ground do you say this, Trismegistus?

TRISMEGISTUS: Wood, stones, and all things whatsoever that have a soul — they are not moved by bodies, Asclepius. What then, within a body, moves it in its inanimate state? Surely it is not that body that moves both — the body of what carries and the body of what is carried. Nor is what is called ensouled called so for the primary reason that it moves. Do you not see that the soul is burdened most when it bears two bodies alone? And it is evident: whatever moves, moves in something and from something that stands.

ASCLEPIUS: Then what changes must change within it, Trismegistus.

TRISMEGISTUS: You are right, Asclepius. Nothing in the order of things is void. Only that which has no existence, which is deprived of being, is to be called void. Nothing can be found that, while it exists, is void.

ASCLEPIUS: Do we not find certain empty things, Trismegistus? An empty barrel, an empty well, and very many things like them?

TRISMEGISTUS: Alas, how far from the truth you wander, Asclepius. What you think most empty and full of nothing — those are the most ample and full of all.

ASCLEPIUS: How so, Trismegistus?

TRISMEGISTUS: Air is surely a body. That body penetrates all other bodies, and flowing through them, fills everything — for it is such a body as is not composed of corporeal parts. And so whatever you call void is in fact full of air. Those hollow things should be called concave rather than void, for they are full of air and spirit.

ASCLEPIUS: This argument is incontrovertible and beyond doubt, Trismegistus.

And what is the incorporeal? Mind and reason, embracing itself: free from all burden of body, alien to error, without passion, untouchable, its own attendant — purifying and preserving all things. Its rays are the good, truth, the primal light. Such is the form of souls.

ASCLEPIUS: What is God?

TRISMEGISTUS: That which is none of the things belonging to man — yet present to all things, that all may be: a presence filling existence itself for each one, permitting nothing to not-be. That which has no condition through which it might at any time fail to exist.

ASCLEPIUS: Do you say, then, that God exists at any time?

TRISMEGISTUS: God is certainly mind — though not as a particular thing. But he is the cause that mind may be. Not spirit, but the cause that spirit stands. Not light, but the cause by which light exists. Therefore God must be worshipped by those two names alone, which belong to him and to no other — for none among all the rest can claim them.

Among all those who, besides him, are called gods — whether daemons or men — none can be as good as the one God. For he is the good itself, and nothing beyond the good. All other things are withdrawn from the good's own nature. Body and soul have no place in which the good may dwell. For the goodness of the good is as wide as the existence of all things — of corporeal and incorporeal alike, of sensible and intelligible. That is the good: that is God. Take care, therefore, never to call anything else good — for that would be profane error. Nor call God anything other than the good alone — you would fall into the same impiety.

The good is proclaimed by all; yet what it is, none understand. And therefore God is not known by all. Through ignorance, some name both gods and certain men good. But they can never be good, nor ever become so. All the other immortal gods are honored with the name of god. But God is good not by honor, but by his own nature itself. For God has one nature — the good, which is this: the good itself. This one nature is in both names, from which all kinds flow. For the good gives out everything and receives nothing. God bestows all, takes nothing. Therefore God is the good, and the good is God.

The other name of God is Father — because he generates all things. For it is the office of the father to beget. And so the highest pursuit of life, counted among the wise, is the generation of children. The greatest calamity and impiety falls upon him who departs life without children — for which cause he pays penalty to the daemons after death. Such is the punishment: that the sterile soul migrates by judgment into some body that has neither male nor female nature — a body raised and bound by the sun.

Therefore, Asclepius, have no dealings with a man who has begotten no children. Have pity on his misfortune, knowing what evils await him after death.

So much, and such things, have been said to you, Asclepius, from which a certain foreknowledge of all nature may be gathered.

Colophon

Translated from Ficino's Latin Pimander as preserved in the 1505 Lefèvre d'Étaples edition: Contenta in hoc volumine. Pimander. Mercurij Trismegisti liber De sapientia et potestate dei. Asclepius. Eiusdem Mercurij liber De voluntate divina. Item Crater Hermetis a Lazarelo Septempedano (Rome, 1505). Digital text from the Internet Archive, identifier bub_gb_SbGbIvDI0ekC, held by the National Central Library of Rome. Public Domain Mark 1.0.

This is Book II of Ficino's Pimander — the text Ficino designates Mercurii ad Esculapium Sermo Universalis, corresponding to Corpus Hermeticum II in modern scholarship. The modern critical edition of the Greek text (Nock and Festugière 1945, Patristic GCS series) was not consulted; translation is derived independently from Ficino's Latin. The 1905 English of G. R. S. Mead was consulted structurally after translation was complete; no passages were derived from it.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text: Mercurii ad Esculapium Sermo Universalis — Liber II

Latin source text from Ficino's Pimander as preserved in the Lefèvre d'Étaples 1505 edition, accessed via the Internet Archive (identifier: bub_gb_SbGbIvDI0ekC). Transcribed from the OCR text with corrections for long-s rendering (ſ → s), hyphenated line-breaks rejoined, and obvious OCR splits resolved. Marginal glosses from the 1505 typesetting are bracketed.

Deus atque ipsa divinitas, dico nunc non quod genitum videlicet: quia ingenitum, si crediderit fit, essentia est. Si deus: etiam super essentiam. Intelligibile autem id hoc pacto: intelligibilis enim deus primus non sibi, sed nobis existit. Intelligibile quippe intelligenti per sensum subincidit. Deus itaque minime sibi intelligibilis: non enim quiddam existens praeter id quod intelligit, intelligitur a seipso. Est tamen differens quiddam a nobis: idcirco a nobis intelligitur. Quod si intelligibilis logos modo deus, sin ut deus: haud sane ut logos, verbum tamquam discretus dicatur.

Omne autem quod movetur: non in moto sed in quodam stabili movetur. Ipsum quoque quod movet etiam permanet: impossibile enim est cum eo simul agitari.

ESCV. Quonam igitur pacto Trismegiste, ea quae in mundo sunt mutantur una cum iis quae movet. Nam fibras erraticas ab aplana sphera moveri dicebas. TRISME. Iste non motus o Esculapi, sed resistentia est. Non enim eodem sed modo contrario gradiuntur. Oppositio vero reverberationem motionis stabile continet: repercussio enim stationis agitatio est. Ideo erraticae sphaere contrario ac aplana sublalterne invicem discurrendo obviationem contrariam circa oppositionem huiusmodi ab ea quae perstat, agitantur. Quoquidem aliter habere se licuit. Nam arctosipas (quas noscis nec exoriri umquam nec mergi) circaideo perpetuo recurrentes: non moveri censes, an consistere potius? ESCV. Moveri o Trismegiste. TRISME. Quonam motu Esculapi? ESCV. Motione circa idem sempiterne currente. TRISME. At vero circulatio illa idem et circa idem, motus statione contentus. Ipsum namque circa idem prohibetur quod super ipsum est. Impeditu autem id quod super ipsum est: circa idem instat. Atque ita contraria agitatio firma est, ab ipsa oppositione perpetuo stabilita.

[Anima motu diffinitur.]

MER. Exempla tibi ante oculos pona in terris viventium: veluti dum homo quis natat (currente nimirum aqua) manuum simul et pedum repercussio stare hominem efficit, necu aqua pariter collabatur aut mergatur in ea. ESCV. Perspicuum o Trismegiste exemplum in medium attulisti. TRISME. Quodcumque ergo movetur, in statu, a statu movetur. Motus itaque animalis omnis (quod ex materia constat) nequaquam fit ab iis qui sunt extra mundum: ceterum ab internis ad externa, seu ab anima, sive a spiritu, sive ab animo quodam incorporali. Corpus enim corpus animatum minime movet: si neque totum simul corpus et unianimatum existat. ESCV. Qua ratione id asseris o Trismegiste? TRISME. Ligna et lapides, et cetera omnia quaecumque animam habent, non moventur a corporibus o Esculapi. Quid enim intra corpus movens ipsum inanimatum? Non utique corpus illud est quo movetur utraque, et corpus eius quod fert eiusque quod fertur. Non illud quoque quod dictum est animatum est ob eam potissimum rationem quod movet. Nonne ergo perspicis animam tunc onerari maxime, quando sola duo corpora sustinet? Quetiam manifestum est: quicquid movetur, in aliquo et ab aliquo stante movetur. ESCV. In illo utique mutari oportet quae mutatur o Trismegiste. TRISME. Recte dicis o Esculapi. Nihil est in rerum ordine vacuum. Solum vero quod non est, quod privatur existentia, vacuum nuncupandum. Nihil enim reperiri potest quod, cum existat, vacuum sit. ESCV. Nonne reperiuntur quaedam vacua Trismegiste? Veluti dolium vacuum, vacuus puteus, et similia quoque plurima. TRISME. Heu quam procul a veritate vagaris o Esculapi. Quam ampla et maxime omnium plena sunt: ea tu vacua putas. ESCV. Quo id o Trismegiste. TRISME. Aer profecto corpus est. Id corpus reliqua penetrat, discurrensque replet omnia. Corpus enim huiusmodi est: ex corporalibus non compositum. Quo fit ut quaecumque tu vacua nuncupas, plena sint aeris. Itaque concava potius ista quam vacua nuncupari deberent: namque existant et aeris spiritisque sunt plena. ESCV. Invicta atque indubia haec est ratio Trismegiste.

[Incorporeum quid sit.]

Incorporeum vero quid est? Mens ac ratio se seipsa complectens: libera ab omni corporis mole, ab errore aliena, impassibilis, intangibilis, ipsa sibi assistens, purgans atque servans omnia. Cuius radii sunt bonum, veritas, principale lumen. Ita animarum forma. ESCV. Deus quid est? TRISME. Quod nullum ex iis est hominum: tamen omnium ut sit, ea praesens quaedam cunctas, plena existentiam unicuique. Neque quidquam permittit non esse. [Deus.] Ea quae maturitatem non habet per quam aliquando non existat. ESCV. Quid igitur ais deum esse aliquando? TRISME. Deus profecto mens non enim. At vero ut sit mens: causa est. Nec spiritus: sed causa quod spiritus extat. Nec lumen: sed causa qua lumen existit. Unde deum colere oportet duobus iis cognominibus quae soli competunt illi, ceterorum vero nulli penitus cognominantur.

[Boni cognomentum Deo aptum.] [Pater.]

Etenim ex iis qui praeter ipsum appellantur dii, sive daemones, sive homines: nullus tam bonus esse potest quam deus unicus. Is enim ipsum bonum est, nec aliud quidquam praeter bonum. Reliqua omnia ab ipsa boni natura secreta sunt. Corpus quidem et anima locum habent nullum quo bonum capiat. Tam amplam enim est bonitas quam existentia rei, omnium in virtute corporalium etiam incorporalium, sensibiliumque et intelligibilium. Id bonum est: id est deus. Cave itaque ne quando dixeris aliud quidquam bonum: profanus enim ne foret error. Neque etiam dixeris deum aliud quiddam praeter solum bonum: in eandem quippe impietatem incideres.

MER. Sermonem igitur ab omnibus bonum pronuntiatur, quid tamen sit ab omnibus non intelligitur. Idcirco deus non cognoscitur ab omnibus. Verum propter ignorantiam, tum deos, tum etiam non nullos homines bonos nominant. Numquam esse boni possunt: neque etiam fieri. Reliqui igitur dii cuncti immortales: honorati nomine dei. Deus autem bonum non secundum honorationem: sed ipsa sui natura. Una enim dei natura est ipsum scilicet hoc bonum. Unum quidem est in utrisque nominibus, unde cuncta genera profluunt. Bonus enim porrigit universa: nec accipit quidquam. Deus exhibet omnia: capit nihil. Igitur deus bonum: ac bonum deus.

Altera dei appellatio pater est. Ob eam causam: quia omnia gignit. Patris enim officium est generare. Qua propter praestas id in vita censetur studium, atque ipsum apud sapientes: procreatio liberorum. Extrema vero omnium calamitas et impietas accidit illi qui absque filiis e vita decedit. Qua de causa: daemonibus dat poenas post obitum. Supplicium denique huiusmodi est: ut sterilis anima in corpus quoddam per iudicium migret, cui nec maris nec feminae natura insit. Quod quidem a sole elevatum est atque connexum. Igitur o Esculapi cum homine qui nullos genuit filios nullum habeto commercium: infelicitatis ergo eius miserere, cum noveris quae hunc mala post transitum maneant. Tot igitur tibi et talia dicta sint o Esculapi: ex quibus praecognitio quaedam omnium naturae colligitur.

Source Colophon

Latin source text drawn from Contenta in hoc volumine. Pimander. Mercurij Trismegisti liber De sapientia et potestate dei (Rome: Lefèvre d'Étaples, 1505), digitized by the National Central Library of Rome and made freely available on the Internet Archive (identifier: bub_gb_SbGbIvDI0ekC). Public Domain Mark 1.0. OCR text corrected for long-s rendering (ſ → s) and standard Latin abbreviations expanded. Marginal glosses from the 1505 typesetting are included in brackets.

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