That the Good Is in God Alone, and Nowhere Else

In the sixth book of Ficino's Pimander, Hermes addresses Asclepius with an argument: the good cannot be found in the world, only the name of the good. God alone is the good; God is not even possessor of the good — God is the good itself, and the good is God himself. In the world everything is generation, and generation is passion, and where there is passion the good cannot dwell. The book closes by convicting mortals who call earthly things good of deep blindness, and pointing to the only road: piety joined to knowledge.

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

TRISMEGISTUS: The good, O Asclepius, cannot be in anything but in God alone — indeed, God himself is always the good itself. Therefore the essence of all motion and all knowledge must be God. Whatever is deprived of this essence is nothing; this essence, stable around itself, needing nothing, possesses infinitely and superabundantly what it gives. One, the principle of all things, giving and pouring out good — whenever I name the good, understand by it that which is all goods and is always good. This belongs to God alone; for he needs nothing, that he should grow evil by desiring an acquisition; nor can anything steal from him, that after loss he should suffer pain. For the good is greater than any portion of evil; there is nothing more powerful in hatred that could overcome it. No injury can befall him to make him burn with resentment when provoked and stung. There is nothing wiser than he that could stir jealousy in him. And so since no evils can befall him: nothing of his nature remains except the good itself.

Just as none of the things that are evil exist in this essence: so in nothing else is the good found. For in each of the rest, individual things are in individual places — in the small, in the great, and even in those things according to one principle, and even in the greatest and most powerful of all animals, which fills all things born through passions. For generation is a kind of passion. Where there is passion: in no way can the good be placed. Where there is good: no passion is placed at all. Where there is day: in no way night; where night, not even day. Therefore in generation the good cannot be. It remains then in what is unbegotten.

Just as matter has been granted participation in all things: so also through participation in the good, the world is good. I call good the lord, insofar as he also makes all things; from this side the world is good; in everything else, not good. For it is passible and mobile, and is itself the cause of all passions beyond these. In man, moreover, the good exists only by comparison with evil. That which is not too evil, which is less evil — this is what we call good in men. So it comes about that our good is nothing other than the smallest portion of evil. From which it also follows: that such a good cannot be separated from evil. For this good is contaminated by admixture with evils. When purified, it no longer remains good: if it remains at all in the smallest measure, it becomes evil. In God alone, therefore, the good itself abides.

This is why only the name of good is present in man, O Asclepius — not the nature of the good. For a material body compounded on all sides and oppressed by depravity, labors, pains, desires, wrath, deceptions, and foolish opinions and trifles: cannot receive it.

But the worst of all things, O Asclepius, is certainly this: that each of the things I have named is believed to be good. The evil must first of all be fled. The excess of the belly is the tinder of all evils: this is the error, from this comes the deprivation of the good. Indeed, I give great thanks to God, who has poured into me, while I was thinking about the nature of the good, this certain conviction: that the good cannot be in the world. For the world is a heap of evils.

But God is of the good, or the good: God's overflowing fullness — the supereminence of goods shining sincerely and most purely around the essence. Nor perhaps are these the essences of God. But this I affirm must be heard, O Asclepius: the essence of God, if God has any essence, is the good itself.

Beauty and goodness in the world, or in the parts of the world, cannot be found. For whatever moves the senses are images and vain apparitions. What escapes the organs of the senses: these belong to beauty and goodness. Just as the gaze of the eye does not see itself, so neither does it know beauty and goodness. These are indeed the parts of God — his own most pure, kindred, inseparable, and especially beloved. And as God himself loves these: so God is loved by them. If you are able to perceive God, you will also perceive beauty and goodness, most brilliantly illumined, shining through all things. For beauty without comparison, without imitation, is goodness. God admits no comparison and no imitation. And just as you shall know God to be beautiful and good: so also no other living thing can ever be compared with God or communicated with him.

If you seek God, you seek beauty itself. The only road that leads there: one alone — piety joined to knowledge. Therefore the ignorant mortals who have strayed from the path of piety shall never be able to arrive. They do not hesitate to call good the man who can have no true knowledge of the good: but who is entangled and snared in evils. They conceal that evil is from good; he uses evils incurably; he fears their loss and privation; and contends with all devices and all his powers, that he should not be crushed by a single evil — while in truth he is growing increased in the number and greatness of his evils.

Such, O Asclepius, are the things of the body — and we can neither flee them nor hate them. For of all things that is most difficult, above all for this reason: that we must use them and feed on them, and deprived of them we cannot live at all.

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 VI of Ficino's Pimander — the text Ficino designates Quod in solo deo bonum est, alibi vero nequaquam, ad Esculapium, corresponding to Corpus Hermeticum VI 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 Bonum Est, Alibi Vero Nequaquam — Liber VI

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.

Bonum o Esculapi in nullo potest esse nisi in uno deo — imo ipsum bonum deus ipse semper est. Quare essentia omnis motionis atque cognitionis esse deum oportet. Hac essentia orbatum nihil: haec circa se stabilis ac nullius egens, infinitum superabundanter porrigens possidet. Unum in universorum principio bonum porrigens, effundens bonum, quoties nomino bonum, id quod omnia bona ac quod bonum semper intellige. Hoc uni deo adest; neque enim cuiusquam indigus est, ut ad eptionem illius appetendo malus fiat; neque id furari cuiusquam in eum umquam, ut post damnum dolore afficiatur. Maior enim portione mali: nec est odio validius aliud a quo expugnetur. In hunc iniuria incidere nulla potest, qua irritatus lacessitusque excandescit. Nihil eius iugum subterfugit, quo contemptus indignetque atque irascatur. Nec est sapientius eo quicquam quod illi aemulationem incutiat. Itaque cum nec illi mala accidant: nihil eius naturae praeter ipsum bonum restat.

Quemadmodum vero nihil eorum quae mala sunt in hac essentia sunt: sic in nullo alio bonum invenitur. In singulis enim reliqua sunt singula: tum in parvis, tum in magnis, tum etiam in his quae secundum unum, et in ipso quoque animali maximo omniumque potentissimo, quod utique passionibus genita replet. Nam generatio: passio quaedam est. Ubi autem passio: nullo modo bonum poni potest. Ubi bonum: non passio ponitur ulla. Ubi dies: nullo modo nox; ubi nox, neque etiam dies. Quapropter in generatione bonum esse non potest. Restat itaque in eo quod ingenitum.

Ut autem materia concessa est omnium participatio: sic quoque boni participatione, mundus bonus est. Bonum dico dominum, quatenus ipse etiam omnia efficit; qua quidem ex parte bonus est mundus; in reliquis omnibus non bonus. Nam passibilis et mobilis est, et omnium praeter ea causam passionum. In homine insuper comparatione mali, bonum. Id quippe quod non nimis malum, quod minus malum, bonum in hominibus appellamus. Quo fit: ut bonum nostrum nihil aliud sit quam mali portio minima. Unde illud etiam sequitur: ut bonum huiusmodi a malo separatum esse non possit. Inquinatum enim hoc bonum; admixtione malorum. Sedum vero, ulterius bonum non permanet: si minimum permanet, malum efficitur. In solo igitur deo bonum ipsum exstat. Quare solum boni nomen homini adest o Esculapi, natura boni nequaquam. Neque enim id capere potest materiale corpus confectum undique et oppressum: praevitate, laboribus, doloribus, cupiditatibus, iracundia, deceptionibus, stultisque opinionibus ac nugis.

Deterrimum tamen omnium id certo Esculapi: quod unumquodque eorum quae dixi, creditur esse bonum. Fugiendum in primis malum est. Ventris luxus malorum omnium fomes: hic error, hinc boni privatio. Equidem ingentes deo gratias habeo, qui de natura boni cogitanti mihi sententiam hanc certam insudit: quod in mundo bonum esse non possit. Siquidem mundus congeries est malorum. Deus autem boni vel bonum: dei exuberans plenitudo; supereminentia quippe bonorum circa essentiam sincere fulgentis atque purissime. Neque forte sunt essentiae dei. Audiendum sane id assero o Esculapi: essentiam dei, si ullam deus habet essentiam, ipsum bonum esse. Pulchrum vero et bonum in mundo, aut in mundi partibus invenire non licet. Nam quaecumque sensus movent: idola sunt et vanae quaedam admirationes. Quae vero sensuum organa subterfugiunt: ad pulchrum bonumque pertinent. Usque acies oculi suum non cernit, sic neque pulchrum bonumque cognoscit. Hae siquidem partes dei sunt: integerrimique illius propriae, cognatae, inseparabiles, praecipueque dilectae. Et ut has ipse deus amat: sic ab his ipse deus amatur. Si deum percipere poteris, pulchrum quoque bonumque percipies, perfulgens omnibus illustratum adeo. Pulchritudo enim sine comparatione sine imitatione bonum. Deus enim comparatione imitationeque nulla admittit. Quemadmodum ergo deum pulchrum bonumque noveris: ita sane et ceteris viventibus cum deo conferri neque numquam communicandum.

Si deum quaesieris, pulchritudinem ipsam quaeris. Quae tandem ad id ferat: unica via est, pietas cognitioni coniuncta. Quapropter ignari mortales a pietatis semita devii: pervenire numquam valebunt. Hominique bonum nominare non verentur, cum boni notitiam veram habere nulla possit: sed malis irretitus et illaqueatusque sit. Malum a bono esse celant; insanabiliter malis utatur; eorumque iactura privationeque formidet; omnibus denique machimentis viribusque contendat: ne unico solo malo prematur, verum et in numerum mala magnitudinemque augeatur.

Talia o Esculapi de corporali atque bona: neque fugere neque odisse valemus. Omnium namque id difficillimum exstitit, ob eam potissimum causam: quia nos illis uti oportet atque vesci; illis orbati vitam agere nullo modo possumus.

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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