Hermetica: the original sin of the Father

[Peter Kirby]

[Not sure about the timeline here (most put these texts in the 2nd-3rd century AD), but the Hermetic tradition has certain ties to the Gnostics.]

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/herm/hermes1.htm

God:

But All-Father Mind, being Life and Light, did bring forth Man co-equal to Himself, with whom He fell in love, as being His own child; for he was beautiful beyond compare, the Image of his Sire. In very truth, God fell in love with his own Form; and on him did bestow all of His own formations.

Man:

So he who hath the whole authority o'er [all] the mortals in the cosmos and o'er its lives irrational, bent his face downwards through the Harmony, breaking right through its strength, and showed to downward Nature God's fair form.

And when she saw that Form of beauty which can never satiate, and him who [now] possessed within himself each single energy of [all seven] Rulers as well as God's own Form, she smiled with love; for 'twas as though she'd seen the image of Man's fairest form upon her Water, his shadow on her Earth.

He in turn beholding the form like to himself, existing in her, in her Water, loved it and willed to live in it; and with the will came act, and [so] he vivified the form devoid of reason.

And Nature took the object of her love and wound herself completely around him, and they were intermingled, for they were lovers.

It goes on: "And this is why beyond all creatures on the earth man is twofold; mortal because of body, but because of the essential man immortal. Though deathless and possessed of sway o'er all, yet doth he suffer as a mortal doth, subject to Fate."

The impulse that led God the Father to create, and to fall in love with his child Man, was the same which led Man to fall in love with his reflection in the Water, in Nature, and thus to be condemned to entanglement with matter.

[MrMacSon]

I think it would be very helpful to compare and contrast all the hermetica (aka corpus hermeticum) to Christian and para-Christian literature -

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/herm/

[MrMacSon]

Scope

Parts of the Hermetica appeared in the 4th-century Gnostic library found in Nag Hammadi. Other works in Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic and other languages may also be termed Hermetica — another famous tract is the Emerald Tablet, which teaches the doctrine "as above, so below".

All these are themselves remnants of a more extensive literature, part of the syncretic, intellectualized esotericism of their era, a cultural movement that also included the Neoplatonic philosophy of the Greco-Roman mysteries and late Orphic and Pythagorean literature and influenced Gnostic forms of the Abrahamic religions. There are significant differences:[4] the Hermetica contain no explicit allusions to Biblical texts and are little concerned with Greek mythology or the technical minutiae of metaphysical Neoplatonism. However most of these schools do agree in attributing the creation of the world to a Demiurge rather than the supreme being[5] and in accepting reincarnation. Although Neoplatonic philosophers, who quote apocryphal works of Orpheus, Zoroaster, Pythagoras and other figures, almost never cite Hermes Trismegistus, the tracts were still popular enough in the 5th century to be argued against by Augustine of Hippo in the City of God.[6]


Character and antiquity

More recent research, while affirming the late dating in a period of syncretic cultural ferment in Roman Egypt, suggests more continuity with the culture of Pharaonic Egypt than had previously been believed.[9] There are many parallels with Egyptian prophecies and hymns to the gods but the closest comparisons can be found in Egyptian wisdom literature, which is characteristically couched in words of advice from a "father" to a "son".[10] Demotic (late Egyptian) papyri contain substantial sections of a dialogue of Hermetic type between Thoth and a disciple.[11] Egyptologist Sir William Flinders Petrie states that some texts in the Hermetic corpus date back to the 6th century BC during the Persian period.[12] Some similarities between the Demotic texts and Platonic philosophy could be the result of Plato and his followers' having drawn on Egyptian sources.[13][14]

One interesting but unproven claim about the origin of the Corpus Hermeticum is that of B.H. Stricker (1949), according to whom it is a codification of the Egyptian religion. Ptolemy I and his son would have promised to publish the secret literature of the three groups of citizens of Egypt (Egyptians, Greeks and Jews). So, for him, Hermetism is the Greek version of a redaction of Egyptian literature. Its form is Greek, but its contents would be Egyptian (the Septuagint being the equivalent Jewish redaction).[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetica

[andrewcriddle]

[Not sure about the timeline here (most put these texts in the 2nd-3rd century AD), but the Hermetic tradition has certain ties to the Gnostics.]

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/herm/hermes1.htm

God:

But All-Father Mind, being Life and Light, did bring forth Man co-equal to Himself, with whom He fell in love, as being His own child; for he was beautiful beyond compare, the Image of his Sire. In very truth, God fell in love with his own Form; and on him did bestow all of His own formations.

Man:

So he who hath the whole authority o'er [all] the mortals in the cosmos and o'er its lives irrational, bent his face downwards through the Harmony, breaking right through its strength, and showed to downward Nature God's fair form.

And when she saw that Form of beauty which can never satiate, and him who [now] possessed within himself each single energy of [all seven] Rulers as well as God's own Form, she smiled with love; for 'twas as though she'd seen the image of Man's fairest form upon her Water, his shadow on her Earth.

He in turn beholding the form like to himself, existing in her, in her Water, loved it and willed to live in it; and with the will came act, and [so] he vivified the form devoid of reason.

And Nature took the object of her love and wound herself completely around him, and they were intermingled, for they were lovers.

It goes on: "And this is why beyond all creatures on the earth man is twofold; mortal because of body, but because of the essential man immortal. Though deathless and possessed of sway o'er all, yet doth he suffer as a mortal doth, subject to Fate."

The impulse that led God the Father to create, and to fall in love with his child Man, was the same which led Man to fall in love with his reflection in the Water, in Nature, and thus to be condemned to entanglement with matter.

I think you may be misunderstanding the text (or I am misunderstanding you). In Poimandres God the Father creates the heavenly man. This is seen as good. The heavenly man falls in love with his reflection in the Water, in Nature. This leads to the origin of earthly man (people like us). This inappropriate desire leads to entanglement with matter. Although the impulse may be the same the acts are not morally equivalent. The heavenly man is worthy of God's love whereas the reflection of heavenly man in the water is unworthy of heavenly man's narcissistic passion.

Andrew Criddle

[Peter Kirby]

[Not sure about the timeline here (most put these texts in the 2nd-3rd century AD), but the Hermetic tradition has certain ties to the Gnostics.]

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/herm/hermes1.htm

God:

But All-Father Mind, being Life and Light, did bring forth Man co-equal to Himself, with whom He fell in love, as being His own child; for he was beautiful beyond compare, the Image of his Sire. In very truth, God fell in love with his own Form; and on him did bestow all of His own formations.

Man:

So he who hath the whole authority o'er [all] the mortals in the cosmos and o'er its lives irrational, bent his face downwards through the Harmony, breaking right through its strength, and showed to downward Nature God's fair form.

And when she saw that Form of beauty which can never satiate, and him who [now] possessed within himself each single energy of [all seven] Rulers as well as God's own Form, she smiled with love; for 'twas as though she'd seen the image of Man's fairest form upon her Water, his shadow on her Earth.

He in turn beholding the form like to himself, existing in her, in her Water, loved it and willed to live in it; and with the will came act, and [so] he vivified the form devoid of reason.

And Nature took the object of her love and wound herself completely around him, and they were intermingled, for they were lovers.

It goes on: "And this is why beyond all creatures on the earth man is twofold; mortal because of body, but because of the essential man immortal. Though deathless and possessed of sway o'er all, yet doth he suffer as a mortal doth, subject to Fate."

The impulse that led God the Father to create, and to fall in love with his child Man, was the same which led Man to fall in love with his reflection in the Water, in Nature, and thus to be condemned to entanglement with matter.

I think you may be misunderstanding the text (or I am misunderstanding you). In Poimandres God the Father creates the heavenly man. This is seen as good. The heavenly man falls in love with his reflection in the Water, in Nature. This leads to the origin of earthly man (people like us). This inappropriate desire leads to entanglement with matter. Although the impulse may be the same the acts are not morally equivalent. The heavenly man is worthy of God's love whereas the reflection of heavenly man in the water is unworthy of heavenly man's narcissistic passion.

Yes, the impulse was the same.

I tend to think they are not morally equivalent because Man was deceived by appearances, a reflection. It was this ignorance that led to the enmeshment of the spirit with matter.

Meanwhile, the Father loved the son, which was truly made in his image. The Father was not deceived, was not ignorant.

(There might be others who find fault with God for creating, but it isn't here in this text.)