That the Beautiful and the Good Exist in God Alone — A Discourse to Asclepius on Sense, Understanding, and the Kosmos

In the ninth book of Ficino's Pimander, Hermes speaks to Asclepius on sense and understanding, and on the two sources from which the mind receives its seeds: God, who plants virtue, temperance, and piety; and demons, who scatter the seeds of every vice. The world possesses its own sense and motion — far more powerful and simple than any human faculty — and serves as the instrument of divine will, composing and dissolving all things like a skilled farmer who prunes what is ripe. The Kosmos is named for ornament and is God's son; God himself is the treasury of all existence, beyond whom there is nothing, and who is himself all things. The book closes with a statement on faith: to understand is itself to believe, and what is said of divine things, when truly understood, is believed at once.

This translation renders Book IX from Ficino's Latin as preserved in the 1505 Lefèvre d'Étaples edition. The underlying text is designated Corpus Hermeticum IX in modern scholarship.

Yesterday, Asclepius, I set out a careful discourse. Now I think it necessary to speak briefly of sense.

Sense and motion seem to differ chiefly in this: motion belongs to matter, sense to essence. Yet to me both seem to agree — they cannot be cleanly separated in human beings by reason alone. In living creatures, instinct is now united with sensation; in humans, with understanding. Understanding differs from the intellect as divinity differs from God. Divinity flows from God; understanding flows from man. Understanding is speech's sister — or rather, each is the instrument of the other. For speech is not uttered without understanding, nor does understanding come to light without speech.

And so in man, sense and understanding conspire together as if bound into one. We can neither understand without sense, nor sense without understanding. Yet to understand without sense is possible — like those who see visions in dreams. Both operations appear there as in external wakefulness; though from sleep one wakes again into ordinary sight.

Further: in the soul, body and man are joined. When the two portions of sense agree with each other, understanding, conceived in the mind, takes its disposition. The mind conceives all notions. Good ones, when the seed is poured from God. Contrary ones, when seeds are cast by certain demons. No part of the world is empty of the presence of demons — their light descends entirely from God himself. A demon, once poured into a man, scatters the seeds of its own notions. The mind, sprinkled with those seeds, conceives, and brings forth: adultery, rape, murder, parricide, sacrilege, contempt of the divine, slaughter, the overthrow of cities, pestilences, and all the rest that is the work of demons.

God's knowledge is few things — but those few are great, beautiful, good: virtue, temperance, piety. Piety is the knowledge of God.

Whoever recognizes God, filled with all good, attains to divine notions — notions nothing like the many. For this reason, whoever devotes himself to this knowledge pleases neither the crowd, nor does the crowd please him. He is thought to be mad; he earns their mockery. Sometimes he is hated, abused, deprived of his life. We said that wickedness dwells here — earth is its province. By earth I mean not the whole world, as the impious sometimes argue.

Nevertheless, the man devoted to God — as soon as he has tasted the divine vision — consigns everything else to forgetting. Even what others count as evils befalls him as good: he counsels wisely, refers all things to knowledge. And what is wonderful: evils are always wholly converted into goods.

But let us return to the discourse on sense. It is the mark of humanity to join sense with understanding. Men are carried by understanding, as I said above. One man belongs to matter, another to essence. Whoever is a slave to wickedness is material; he too received from demons, as we said, the seed of his understanding. But if any are masters of the good soul, their nature is taken up by a different source. God, the maker of all, producing all things, renders them like himself. Yet some of what he carries as good remains sterile in use. For the revolution of the world, stirring up generations, produces certain qualities — infecting some, fouling them with evil; protecting others, purging the good.

The world, Asclepius, possesses sense and motion — not like the sense and motion of men, but far more powerful, far more simple. For the sense and understanding of the world are one thing: to make all things and to dissolve all. It is the instrument of divine will, built for this purpose especially: that it receives all seeds and holds them in its whole embrace, produces all by composition, takes all back again by dissolution. And like a skilled farmer, whatever has grown too ripe it cuts away, so that at its proper intervals of season it may grow green again. There is nothing to which the world itself does not furnish life. It is the place of life, and its guardian.

Bodies consist of differences of matter: some from earth, some from water, some from air, very many from fire — all composite. Some more dense, some more simple; the former heavy, these light. The speed of agitation introduces the variety of quality in generation; for breathing, occurring frequently, supplies quality to bodies together with an abundance of life.

God therefore is the Father of Kosmos — that is, of the world. The Kosmos is the father of what is within it, and it is God's son. What subsists within the Kosmos under its dominion is rightly called Kosmos. For the Kosmos adorns all things with the variety of generation, with the unceasing operation of life, by perpetual necessity, by the speed of the elements, by the ordered mixing of begotten things. The Kosmos itself — the word meaning ornament — is named both by necessity and by merit: the sense and understanding of all living things are breathed into them by that which contains. The Kosmos preserves perpetually whatever it received from God at its first origin.

God is not — as some suppose — deprived of sense and mind. Those who say such things speak miserable nonsense. All that exists, Asclepius, is in him and depends on God: some acting through body, some moving through the essence of soul, others giving life through spirit, others still receptacles of the dead. More correctly, we say God does not have these things — but to speak the clear truth, we confess that God himself is all things. He does not receive from outside; yet he extends to all outermost things. That is the sense and understanding of God.

Therefore there will never be a time when anything that exists fades into nothing. As often as I speak of existence: I speak of God's treasury. For God himself embraces existence. Beyond him there is nothing; beyond nothing, there is himself.

These things, Asclepius, will seem true to one who understands — to one who does not, incredible. For to understand is itself to believe; not to believe is, without doubt, to be ignorant. My discourse has run all the way to truth. The mind too, broad and guided by discourse to a fixed point, reached truth; and in the end, comprehending all and finding it consonant with what it had been interpreting, believed at once, and in that beautiful faith rested happily.

Therefore what is said about divine things: when understood, it is believed; when not understood, it is denied. Let what has been said about understanding suffice.

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 IX of Ficino's Pimander — the text Ficino designates Quod in solo deo pulchrum ac bonum; alibi vero nequaquam. Ad Aesculapium, corresponding to Corpus Hermeticum IX in modern scholarship. G. R. S. Mead's 1905 English was not consulted; translation is derived independently from Ficino's Latin. The underlying Greek Hermetica (Nock-Festugière critical edition) was not consulted.

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

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Source Text: Quod in Solo Deo Pulchrum ac Bonum — Liber IX

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.

Heri, o Aesculapi, sedula edidi oratione; in praesentiarum autem necessarium esse arbitror, ut de sensu breviter differamus. Sensus ac motus in hoc potissimum differepare videntur: quia hic quidem secundum materiam, ille autem secundum essentiam est. Mihi tamen uterque convenire videtur; neque distingui in hominibus ratione. Intuitus animantibus sensus nunc unitus est: in hominibus autem intelligentia. Ab intelligentia quidem intellectus differt quemadmodum a divinitate deus. Divinitas enim a deo: intelligentia vero ab homine provenit. Haec sermonis est soror; aut utraque sibi invicem instrumenta. Nam neque sermo absque intellectione pronunciatur: neque intellectio absque sermone prodit in lucem. Quaobrem sensus et intelligentia in homine tanquam conexa conspirant in unum. Neque enim sine sensu intelligere, neque sine intellectione sentire ullo modo possumus. Intellectione tamen absque sensu intelligere possibile est: instar eorum qui in somnis phantasmata vident: tantum quoque videntur utraeque operationes in somniorum visionibus externis; forsim autem ex somno in vigiliam suscitari.

In anima praeterea corpus homoque unitur: quotienscumque utraeque sensus particulae sibi consentiunt, tunc intellectio concepta mente disponitur. Mens omnes notiones concipit: bonas quidem, quotiens a deo semen infunditur; contrarias autem, cum a daemonibus quibusdam spermata iaciuntur. Nulla profecto mundi pars est daemonum praesentia destituta. Horum lumen ab ipso deo totum descendit. Daemon denique transfusus in hominem semina propriae notionis inspergit. Mens autem conspersa seminibus pregnans inde parit adulteria, stupra, homicidia, parricida, sacrilegia, divinorum contemptum, iugulationes, eversiones urbium, pestes hominum, et reliqua omnia quaecunque malorum sunt opera daemonum. Dei plane scientia pauca: at illa quidem magna, pulchra, bona — virtus scilicet, temperantia, pietas. Pietas autem dei cognitio. Deum qui recognoscit, bonis refertus omnibus, notiones divinas assequitur: notiones inquam haud multorum similes. Qua de causa, si qui huic se cognitioni dedicat: nec ipsi vulgo placet, nec vulgus illis; insanire demum putatur, risumque reportant; interdum etiam odio habentur, contumeliis afficiuntur, vitaque privantur. Improbitate enim hic habitare diximus: terramque illius esse provinciam. Terra dico non mundum totum, ut impii quidam obloquuntur. Verutamen homo deo devotus, quam primum divinam praegustaverit visionem, oblivioni reliqua omnia tradit, atque etiam quae reliquis hominibus mala sunt: huic ut bona contingunt, consulenti prudenter et ad scientiam singula referenti. Quodque mirandum est: mala semper in bona penitus converti.

Sed iam ad sermonem de sensu iterum redeamus. Humanum est sensum cum intellectione coniungere. Nam, ut supra rettuli, homines intellectione feruntur. Ceterum secundum materiam unus, alter secundum essentiam. Qui enim pravitatis servus est: materialis, a daemonibus quoque (ut diximus) intelligendi semen accepit. At si qui bonitatis animae compotes sunt: horum natura accipitur. Deus enim omnium auctor, efficiens omnia, sibi ipsi consimilia reddit. Quaedam tamen gerit bona in operationis usu sterilia. Mundi namque revolutio, gnationes exagitans, qualitates efficit quasdam inficiens maloque foedans, quasdam defensans bonosque purgans.

Mundus, o Aesculapi, sensum motumque possidet: non humano sensui motuique consimilem, sed potentiorem sane atque admodum simpliciorem. Nam sensus et intelligentia mundi id unum est: cuncta scilicet facere ac resolvere. Divinae voluntatis organum, hac potissimum ratione constructum: ut, adeo semina suscipiens universa eaque toto sinu recondens, omnia quidem componendo producat, omnia rursus auferat dividendo. Atque instar agricoltoris periti, quodcumque nimis adultum est amputat, ut suis temporibus intervallis revirescat. Nec est quidquam cui vita mundus ipse non praestet; simulque vitae locus est, estatque etiam illius tutor. Corpora vero ex materiam differentiam constant: horum quaedam ex terra, quaedam ex aqua, ex aere alia, ex igne quoque permulta, universa certe composita. Quaedam tamen concreta magis, nonnulla vero simpliciora; illa gravia, haec levia. Velocitas autem agitationis illius varietate generationis qualitatis inducit: spiratio enim crebra exsistens corporibus qualitatem una cum superabundantia vitae suppeditat.

Deus igitur Cosimi, id est mundi, pater. Cosimus autem eorum quae in cosmo; et Cosimus quidem dei filius. Quae vero in cosmo sub cosmi ditione consistunt, ad iure Cosimus appellatus est. Omnia siquidem varietate generationis cosmice exornat: necnon indeficienti vitae operatione, perpetua necessitate, celeritate elementorum, commixtione ordine genitorum. Ipse igitur cosmus, id est ornatus, necessitate simul et merito nominatus est: animantium omnium sensus et intellectio, quae ex externis influunt ab eo quod continet, inspirata. Cosimus autem quaecunque ab ipsa origine suscepit a deo, perpetuo servat. Deus profecto, non ut quibusdam videtur, sensu menteque captus est: illi enim miseriam impropere obloquuntur. Quaecunque sunt, o Aesculapi, in eo simul atque a deo pendentia: partim per corpus agentia, partim moventia per essentiam animale, alia per spiritum vivificantia, alia vero receptacula defunctorum. Rectius autem dicemus deum talia non habere: sed ut veritatem liquidam exprimamus, ipsum esse cuncta fatebimur. Nec ea quidem ab extimis capere; ad extima nihilominus porrigetem. Id est sensus et intellectio dei. Unde nulli unquam futurum est tempus in quo existentium aliquid in nihilum evanescat. Quotiens vero existentia dico: dei dico thesaurum. Nam existentia ipse deus amplectitur. Extra hunc nihil est; extra nihil ipse. Haec tibi, o Aesculapi, intelligenti vera videbuntur; ignoranti autem incredibilia. Intelligere enim ipsum credere est; at non credere proculdubio ignorare. Sermo siquidem meus ad veritatem usque cucurrit. Mens quoque ampla, et a sermone ad certum quiddam deducta, veritatem attigit; denique comprehendens omnia eaque inveniens consona illis quae interpretabatur, evestigio credidit, et in ipsa fide decora feliciter requievit. Quae igitur de divinis dicuntur: intellecta creduntur quidem; non intellecta negantur. Haec autem de intelligentia dicta sufficiant.

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.

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