χώρα • REAM, Dualismes, p.

261‑278

Dualism in the Hermetic Writings

Zlatko Pleše
(University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

To Bentley Layton

Résumé. L’article examine la tension qui existe entre tendances monistes et

dualistes dans l'ancien hermétisme et propose de considérer que les écrits hermétiques,
tout en opérant dans un cadre dualiste pluriforme (ontologique, cosmologique,
anthropologique), soutiennent un modèle moniste de la réalité issue d’une divinité
transcendante et tout‑englobante. L’imposition d’un état d’esprit dualiste est
typique pour les premières étapes de l’initiation hermétique, suivies par un
dépassement progressif de toutes les dualités (Aufhebung) et l’acquisition finale
d'un point de vue totalisant et noétique du monde.

The notion of dualism is marred by ambiguities. In its most general sense,

dualism represents arguably the most pervasive conceptual grid in human
history – a method of discovery that permits a diversified perception of raw
phenomenal data, reflecting a fundamental distinction between the thinking
subject and the object of thought. According to one of its standard narrow
definitions, as coined by Ugo Bianchi1, the term designates a doctrine of two
opposite principles, causes, or levels of reality. Scholars like Bianchi also bring
to attention «the monist vocation of dualism»2 – a tendency to overcome the
limitations of its own reductionism by way of mediation, reconciliation, and
the subsequent sublation (Aufhebung) of strict oppositional determinations. It
is precisely this «monist vocation» that, as I argue in this essay, lies at the

1. See, for instance, U. Bianchi, «The Category of Dualism in the Historical

Phenomenology of Religion», Temenos, n° 16, 1970, p. 15 : «In our terminology dualism
means the doctrine of the two principles. More precisely articulated, dualistic are all those
religions, systems, conceptions of life which admit the dichotomy of the principles which,
coeternal or not, cause the existence of that which does or seems to exist in the world».
2. U. Bianchi, «Le dualisme en histoire des religions», RHR, n° 159, 1961, p. 18‑41.
See also the introduction of this volume.
262 Zlatko PleŠe

core of ancient Hermetism. While operating within the multi‑faceted dualist

framework (ontological, cosmological, anthropological), Hermetic writings 3
aspire to create a unified vision of reality directed by an all‑encompassing
divine principle. Thus, at the ontological level, they assert the superiority of
the intelligible to the sensible, but at the same time argue for the underlying
unity of purpose – of the world striving for godlikeness and of god desiring
to be recognized by his creation. At the cosmological level, again, Hermetism
maintains the duality of the eternal heavens and the ever‑changing sublunary
world, but simultaneously claims that their different makeup and diverging
activities (energeiai) are sustained, in varying degrees, by a single creative
power (dunamis) of God. Finally, at the human level, Hermetism considers
a sharp division between body (sôma) and soul (psukhê) as symptomatic of
cognitive deficiency and proposes the way (hodos) to overcome this duality
by means of noetic elevation – a totalizing viewpoint of the intellect (nous)
which grasps things all at once and as a whole in their underlying unity. As
Hermetists would say, «all is in all, and all is one» 4.
By emphasizing the monist vocation of Hermetic dualism, this study
embraces the view prevalent among modern scholars that monistic and
dualistic attitudes toward the physical cosmos in the Hermetic writings,
previously considered as indicative of doctrinal inconsistency in the Hermetic
corpus5, are not contradictory ideologies but shifting perspectives corres­
ponding to different successive stages of Hermetic initiation. As pointed out
by Jean‑Pierre Mahé, «Hermetism is not a philosophical system but a way
(hodos)», and «from this standpoint, traditional charges of inconsistency […]
are completely irrelevant»6. According to Garth Fowden, «a more or less
immanentist or monist position», characterized by «sympathetic interlinking»
of God, cosmos, and man, would best suit an earlier stage of Hermetic
initiation, later to be superseded by an increasingly negative (dualist) assessment

3. The following abbreviations are used for the collection of Hermetic writings
throughout this article : CH = Corpus Hermeticum ; SH = Stobaei Hermetica ; FH =
Fragmenta Hermetica ; DH = Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius (Armenian) ;
NF  = A. D. Nock‑A.J. Festugière, Hermès Trismégiste, t. 1‑4, Paris, Belles Lettres,
1945‑1954 ; NHC VI = Nag Hammadi Codex VI.
4. See, e.g., CH XII.8, XIII.18, XVI.3.
5. For various older taxonomies of the philosophical Hermetica according to the dualist/
monist divide see K.‑W. Tröger, Mysterienglaube und Gnosis in Corpus Hermeticum XIII,
Berlin, Akademie‑Verlag, 1971, p. 4‑8 ; T. Petersen, «Hermetic Dualism ? CH. VI. against
the Background of Nag Hammadi Dualistic Gnosticism», in S. Giversen, T. Petersen,
and J. Podemann Sørensen (dir.), The Nag Hammadi Texts in the History of Religions,
Copenhagen, The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 2002, p. 95‑102.
6. J.‑P. Mahé, «Mental Faculties and Cosmic Levels in The Eight and the Ninth
(NH VI,6) and Related Hermetic Writings», in S. Giversen, T. Petersen, and J. Podemann
Sørensen (dir.), The Nag Hammadi Texts, op. cit., p. 81.
 Dualism in the Hermetic Writings 263

and the eventual abandonment of body and materiality7. This essay reverses
the proposed sequence and argues that the imposition of a dualist mindset
occurs at the initial stage of Hermetic initiation, followed by a gradual
overcoming or subsuming of all dualities and the resulting acquisition of a
totalizing viewpoint of reality.

Dualist Character of Hermetic Instruction

The assortment of writings attributed to the Hellenized Egyptian god of

wisdom, Thoth‑Hermes8, generally thought to date from the first three
centuries of the Roman Empire, is vast and variegated. Individual texts are
variously concerned with magic and astrology, with occult botany and the
property of gems and stones, but also with more rarified philosophical
subjects. Most texts belonging to the last group, traditionally labeled as
theoretical or philosophical Hermetica, are framed in a question‑and‑answer
format (erôtapokriseis), in which an awe‑inspiring divine teacher, in most
cases Hermes Trismegistus, reveals to his disciple the secrets of the three
interconnected domains – god, cosmos, and humanity – as a necessary
prerequisite for the novice’s spiritual rebirth and his mystical union with the
divine. The revelatory character of these instructions and their systematic
intertwinement of cosmological speculation with meditative precepts invite
comparison with other contemporaneous forms of philosophical religion
with Orientalizing tendencies, from Christian Gnostic traditions and the
Chaldaean Oracles to various eclectic brands of imperial Platonism. We are
dealing here with a Greco‑Egyptian variety of late ancient religiosity, univer­
salist in scope and spatially decentered – to use Jonathan Z. Smith’s topo­
graphical taxonomy, the religion of «anywhere» rather than of «here» (household)
or «there» (temple, shrine)9.

7. G. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes : A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind,
Cambridge/New York, Cambridge UP, 1986, p. 102‑113.
8. Z. Pleše, «Hermes Trismegistos : Greco‑Roman Antiquity», in D. C. Allison et
al. (dir.), The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, Berlin/New York, De Gruyter,
2015, t. 11, cols. 878‑880.
9. J. Z. Smith, «Here, There, and Anywhere», in : S. Noegel, J. Walker and
B. Wheeler (dir.), Prayers, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World,
University Park, PA : The Pennsylvania State UP, 2003, p. 21‑36. Many scholars have
tried to shed more light on the socio‑historical milieu of Hermetism. Peter Brown, for
instance, suggested a «hushed lecture‑hall atmosphere» as the likely locus of Hermetism
(P. Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, London, Hudson and Thames, 1971, p. 57). For
André‑Jean Festugière, the tutorial setting of the philosophical Hermetica is reminiscent
of Alexandria and its sub‑philosophic Hellenic life (A.‑J. Festugière, La Révelation d’Hermès
264 Zlatko PleŠe

Individual texts in the «philosophical» Corpus Hermeticum resist a clear‑cut

genre classification. Brief ex cathedra expositions reminiscent of the rhetorical
development of a philosophical thesis are interspersed with more elevated
sections : a prayer, a brief encomium, a gnomic sentence, a mythical narrative,
or an uplifting exhortation. The purpose of these non‑argumentative sections
is to add persuasive force and emotional efficacy to systematic exposition.
They allow the novice to interiorize what he has heard, heighten his perceptiveness,
and help him adopt the superior viewpoint of his divine teacher. Among
these rhetorical devices, gnomic sayings or «headings» (kephalaia) appear to
have played an important role in the process of interiorizing the content of
Hermetic teachings. They enable the initiate to concentrate on the essential
and, at the same time, serve as an aide‑memoire to recall and re‑enact the
argumentative details of more developed expositions10. A similar give‑and‑take
of cognitive contraction and expansion characterizes the didactic program
of Hellenistic philosophical schools. Epicurean instruction, for instance, began

Trismégiste, t. II, Le Dieu cosmique, Paris, J. Gabalda et Cie, 1949, p. 28‑50). Garth
Fowden, in turn, resorts to Max Weber’s concept of Laienintellektualismus and argues
that an educated class of the Hellenized Egyptians, generally divorced from political
power, turned to a «new transcendent set of otherworldly values» and contrived «a
common mode of spiritual discourse» nourished «within their scattered circles» (G. Fowden,
Egyptian Hermes, op. cit., p.  186‑195). A younger generation of researchers, working
primarily on the bilingual Greco‑Egyptian literary papyri and other documents of the
cross‑cultural interaction in Roman Egypt, tends to explain Hermetism in terms of
commodity exchange, whereby the impoverished priestly caste gained prestige and a
certain amount of cultural capital by taking part in the culture of the Greco‑Roman élite ;
see J. Dieleman, Priests, Tongues, and Rites, Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2005 ; J. Dieleman,
I.S. Moyer, «Egyptian Literature», in J. J. Clauss and M. Cuypers (dir.), A Companion
to Hellenistic Literature, Malden, MA/Oxford, Wiley‑Blackwell, 2010, p.  429‑447.
Hermetism would thus exemplify a type of behavior that postcolonial theory calls
«subversive mimicry», where a colonized subject, in this case a Hellenized Egyptian priest,
feigns resemblance while in fact promoting difference and superiority. But Hermetism
may just as well be the product of reverse mimicry – that of Greek Orientalizers eager
to redefine their identity by means of the exotic «barbarian» alter‑ego. Both of these
types, the Hellenized Egyptian sage and the Orientalizing Greek curioso, are well attested
in contemporaneous literary sources – for instance, in Lucian’s portrayal of the Egyptian
priest Pancrates and his Pythagorean apprentice Arignotus (Philops. 29‑37). It is precisely
in this type of interaction between the increasingly mobile and bilingual Egyptian
priesthood and the Greek wisdom‑seekers that we may wish to situate the development
and dissemination of Hermetic treatises.
10. In an interesting article on the performative or illocutionary aspect of Hermetic
texts, Radek Chlup explains these headings as «formalized abbreviations of favourite
philosophical arguments» that «were turned into revealed “logia”, acquiring a new
“liturgical” function [. . .] with new sentences constantly arising while the old ones were
being expanded upon». See R. Chlup, «The Ritualization of Language in the Hermetica»,
Aries, n° 7, 2007, p. 140.
 Dualism in the Hermetic Writings 265

with the memorization of short summaries of Epicurus’s teaching, made up

entirely of gnomic declarations and devoid of framework narratives and
elaborate argumentation, and then moved on to more developed compendia
and full‑fledged treatises. Yet during this acquisition of a more detailed
knowledge, the Epicurean novice had to retain in his mind «an elementary
outline in the form of principal headings in order not to get lost in the details»11.
The content and purpose of typical Hermetic headings is given in a
passage preserved in Stobaeus’ Anthology (SH XI.1‑3) :

XI.1 But now, my child, I will traverse in brief headings things that exist ; indeed,
you will understand what is being said if you bear in mind what you have heard
before. 2 (1) All beings are moved ; only that which is not is motionless. (2) All bodies
are subject to change ; but not all bodies are dissoluble. (3) Not every living being is
mortal, and not every living being is immortal. (4) What is dissoluble is corruptible, what
remains [unchangeable] is everlasting. (5) What is ever coming to be is also ever perishing ;
but what has come to be once for all never comes to perish nor becomes something else.
(6) God is first, cosmos second, man third. (7) Cosmos is for the sake of man, man is for
the sake of God. (8) The sense‑perceptive part of the soul is mortal, and the rational
immortal. […] (17) Everything that has come to be is subject to change, not everything
that has come to be is perishable. (18) There is nothing good on earth ; there is nothing
bad in heaven. […] (38) What is immortal has no part in the mortal ; but what is
mortal has part in the immortal. […] (40) The forces are not upward‑ but
downward‑moving. […] (42) Heaven is receptive of everlasting bodies ; earth is receptive
of corruptible bodies. (43) Earth is irrational, heaven is rational. […] 3 Now if you
keep in mind these headings, you will easily recall what I have explained to you
in more detailed discourses ; for these headings are their summaries12.

11. Compare Epicurus’s letter to Herodotus in Diog. Laert., Vit. phil. 10.35 : «For
those who are unable to study carefully all my physical writings or go into the longer
treatises at all, I have myself prepared an epitome of the whole doctrine to preserve in the
memory enough of the principal doctrines, to the end that on every occasion they may be
able to aid themselves on the most important points, as far as they take up the study of
physics. And those who have made some advance in the survey of the entire system ought
to fix in their minds under the principal headings an elementary outline of the whole treatment
of the subject ; for a comprehensive view is often required, the details but seldom».
12. SH 11.1‑3 : Νῦν δέ, ὦ τέκνον, <ἐν> κεφαλαίοις τὰ ὄντα διεξελεύσομαι· νοήσεις
γὰρ τὰ λεγόμενα μεμνημένος ὧν ἤκουσας. (1) πάντα τὰ ὄντα κινεῖται· μόνον τὸ μὴ ὂν
ἀκίνητον. (2) πᾶν σῶμα μεταβλητὸν, οὐ πᾶν σῶμα διαλυτόν· (3) οὐ πᾶν ζῷον θνητόν, οὐ
πᾶν ζῷν ἀθάνατον. (4) τὸ διαλυτὸν φθαρτόν, τὸ μένον ἀμετάβλητον ἀίδιον. (5) τὸ ἀεὶ
γινόμενον ἀεὶ καὶ φθείρεται. τὸ δὲ ἅπαξ γινόμενον οὐδέποτε φθείρεται οὐδὲ ἄλλο τι γίνεται.
(6) πρῶτος ὁ θεός, δεύτερον ὁ κόσμος, τρίτον ὁ ἄνθρωπος. (7) ὁ κόσμος διὰ τὸν ἄνθρωπον,
ὁ δὲ ἄνθρωπος διὰ τὸν θεόν. (8) ψυχῆς τὸ μὲν αἰσθητικὸν θνητόν, τὸ δὲ λογικὸν ἀθάνατον.
[…] (17) πᾶν τὸ γενόμενον μεταβλητόν, οὐ πᾶν τὸ γενόμενον φθαρτόν. (18) οὐδὲν ἀγαθὸν
ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, oὐδὲν κακὸν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ. […] (38) τὸ ἀθάνατον οὐ μετέχει τοῦ θνητοῦ, τὸ
δὲ θνητὸν τοῦ ἀθανάτου μετέχει. […] (40) αἱ ἐνέργειαι οὐκ εἰσὶν ἀνωφερεῖς, ἀλλὰ
κατωφερεῖς. […] (42) ὁ οὐρανὸς σωμάτων αἰδίων δεκτικός, ἡ γῆ σωμάτων φθαρτῶν
266 Zlatko PleŠe

I have quoted extensively from the excerpt to point to a markedly opposi­

tional character of Hermetic headings, which seems to suggest that the
explanatory framework impressed on the disciple’s mind was intentionally
set in dualistic terms. Even the non‑binary heading (6), which summarizes
the Hermetic hierarchy of the three «worlds» (god, cosmos, man), requires
the memorization of a whole array of underlying oppositional categories :
visible/invisible, sensible/intelligible, perishable/imperishable, and movable/
immovable. As stated in a heading from the Armenian Definitions of Hermes
Trismegistus to Asclepius (DH 1.1 Mahé) :

God : an intelligible world. World : a sensible God. Man : a destructible world.

God : an immovable world. Heaven : a movable world. Man : a rational world.
Then there are three worlds. Now the immovable world is God, and the rational
world is man ; for both of these units are one : God and man after the species.

Binary parsing of the threefold scheme of reality allows the Hermetic

novice to set these three terms in various proportional relationships and even
to subvert their prescribed ontological sequence. Thus, in heading (7), which
stipulates that «cosmos is for the sake of man [and] man is for the sake of
God», the terms are placed in a proportional relation with regard to their
priority of purpose. In this teleological order of priority, the human being no
longer occupies the lowest rank in the hierarchy, but serves as a middle term
between the two extremes. Man is placed above the cosmos as a whole,
including even the rational heavenly sphere, on account of his capacity to
acquire divine intellect and conceive god – and even to «become god» 13.

Ontological Dualism : God vs. Cosmos

I will first examine in greater detail the binary relationship between god
and the cosmos in Hermetic writings. As we have seen in the previous section
(DH 1.1), god is said to be ontologically prior to the world, and this priority
is explained by reference to Platonist (and Aristotelian) dichotomies between
the invisible and the visible, the intelligible and the sense‑perceptible, and
the immovable and the movable14. The priority of god over the world is

δεκτική. (43) ἡ γῆ ἄλογος, ὁ οὐρανὸς λογικός. […] τούτων τῶν κεφαλαίων μεμνημένος
καὶ ὧν σοι διὰ πλειόνων λόγων διεξῆλθον εὐκόλως ἀναμνησθήσῃ· ταῦτα γὰρ ἐκείνων
εἰσὶ περιοχαί.
13. CH I.26, IV.7, XIII.10.
14. In outlining their metaphysical and epistemological dichotomies, ancient
Hermetists probably drew on Plato’s classic discussion of two separate orders of reality
in Tim. 27d‑28a : «What is that which always is and has no coming into being, and that
 Dualism in the Hermetic Writings 267

causal, too, inasmuch as god acts as the source and ultimate telos of all
creation. But to what extent and in what ways can god be seen as consciously
and actively involved in the world and directly responsible for its production
and administration ? Hermetic texts yield two principal models for god’s
involvement with mundane affairs. The first model conceives of god as a
unitary entity simultaneously identified with the Platonic demiurge, the idea
of the Good from the Republic, and Aristotle’s self‑thinking intellect, and
explains his interaction with the world in terms of a Peripatetic distinction
between god’s immovable essence (ousia) and his creative power (dunamis).
The second model, in turn, postulates god’s absolute transcendence beyond
being and thought, and views his interaction with the cosmos as effected
through a series of hypostasized intermediaries (intellect, reason or rational
soul, spirit), all acting on account of god’s will for self‑recognition 15.
The contours of the first model are drawn in the following passage (CH
XIV.4‑5) :

Who is this [father], and how shall we recognize him ? Or is it right to dedicate
to him alone the appellative «god» or «maker» or «father», or even the three of
them ? «God» because of his power (dunamis), «maker» because of his activity
(energeia), «father» because of the Good ? For he is power, different from things
that come to be, and he is activity in the coming to be of all things. Therefore,
having done away with loquacity and idle chatter, we must think of these two
things : what comes to be and who makes it ; for between them there is nothing,
no third thing. 5 [...] For the two are all there is, what comes to be and what
makes it, and it is impossible to set them apart. No maker can exist apart from
what comes to be. Each of the two is just what it is ; thus it is not possible to
separate one from the other nor from itself.16

which is always coming into being and never really is ? The former is apprehensible by
the mind with reason, and is always the same. The latter, again, is opined by opinion
combined with non‑rational sense perception, and it keeps coming into being and passing
away, but never really is». Another dualist framework likely to inform Hermetic dualist
speculations was Aristotle’s distinction in the twelfth book of the Metaphysics between
two kinds of substance, intelligible and sensible, and the subdivision of the latter into
celestial and terrestrial, both of them movable but the former characterized as eternal
and the latter as perishable – unlike the intelligible substance, which is eternal and
immovable (Meta XII.1.1069a30‑b1, 6.1071b3‑20).
15. In his recent magisterial treatment of the chief aspects of Middle Platonist
metaphysics and its tendency toward theologizing the noetic domain, Franco Ferrari
similarly distinguishes between the «conservative» Platonist view which «compresses» the
intelligible and divine sphere into a unique entity assuming the role of a formal and
efficient cause of the universe, and the opposite hierarchical model which anticipates
later hypostatic doctrines of Neoplatonism ; see F. Ferrari, «Metafisica e teologia nel
medioplatonismo», Rivista di Storia della Filosofia, n. 2, 2015, p. 321‑337.
16. CH XIV.4‑5 : 4 […] τίς οὖν ἐστιν οὗτος καὶ πῶς αὐτὸν γνωρίσομεν ; ἢ τούτῳ
τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ προσηγορίαν μόνῳ δίκαιον ἀνάκεισθαι, ἢ τὴν τοῦ ποιητοῦ, ἢ τὴν τοῦ
268 Zlatko PleŠe

The passage first discusses the meaning of three favorite Hermetic names,
or appellatives, for the divine principle – a constellation of terms that closely
echoes Plato’s portrayal of the demiurge in the Timaeus as the formal, efficient,
and final cause of creation (28c‑29a, 29d‑30a). Although beyond and above
all names, the invisible principle can provisionally be designated as «father»
in the sense of being the ultimate source of goodness in other things and the
final cause to which all creation aspires ; as «god» on account of its being
potentially all things and its power to carry out whatever it wills to do ; and
as «maker» because it acts as the efficient cause bringing things into actuality
and endowing them with their specific makeup and activities 17. The passage
next refuses any intermediary between the divine principle and its visible
product because «no maker can exist apart from what comes to be». The
phrasing evokes the Stoic idea of god as an all‑pervasive causal agent immanent
in matter. But «not existing apart from what comes to be» need not imply
being thoroughly blended, as the Stoics would have explained god’s effects
on the material substrate. Considering, furthermore, that no reference is made
in the passage, and in the text as a whole, to god’s corporeality18, which is one
of the principal postulates of Stoic physics, it seems more plausible to assume
that the author operates within a Peripatetic dichotomy of god’s unified and
unnamable essence and his multi‑faceted and polyonymous power. This
conception finds its clearest formulation in the pseudo‑Aristotelian treatise
De mundo, which portrays god as transcendent «in essence» and «established
in the immovable», yet everlastingly exerting «his single indefatigable power»
in the world without himself pervading it (De mundo 6‑7.397b9‑27, 398b11‑17,
400b12‑13 ; 7, 401a12‑13) :

There still remains for us to treat briefly […] of the cause which holds all things
together [...] Thus, some of the ancients went so far as to say that all those things

πατρός, ἢ καὶ τὰς τρεῖς ; θεὸν μὲν διὰ τὴν δύναμιν, ποιητὴν δὲ διὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν,
πατέρα δὲ διὰ τὸ ἀγαθόν. δύναμις γάρ ἐστι, διάφορος τῶν γενομένων, ἐνέργεια δὲ ἐν
τῷ πάντα γίνεσθαι. διὰ τῆς πολυλογίας τε καὶ ματαιολογίας ἀπαλλαγέντας χρὴ νοεῖν
δύο ταῦτα, τὸ γινόμενον καὶ τὸν ποιοῦντα· μέσον γὰρ τούτων οὐδὲν οὐδὲ τρίτον τι.
5 […] δύο γάρ ἐστι τὰ πάντα, τὸ γινόμενον καὶ τὸ ποιοῦν, καὶ διαστῆναι τὸ ἕτερον τοῦ
ἑτέρου ἀδύνατον· οὐδὲ γὰρ τὸν ποιοῦντα χωρὶς τοῦ γινομένου δυνατὸν εἶναι· ἑκάτερος
γὰρ αὐτῶν αὐτὸ τοῦτό ἐστι· διὸ οὐκ ἔστι τὸ ἕτερον τοῦ ἑτέρου χωρισθῆναι, ἀλλ’ <οὐδὲ>
αὐτὸ ἑαυτοῦ.
17. Ibid. 9 : «For in god there is only one condition, the good, and one who is good
is neither contemptuous nor powerless. For this is what god is, the good, all power to
make all things, and all that is begotten has come to be by god’s agency, which means
by the agency of one who is good and capable of making all things».
18. On one occasion the text refers to god’s body, but this reference is clearly to be
taken in a metaphorical sense ; ibid. 7 : «God’s glory is one, namely that he makes all things,
and this making is like the body of God».
 Dualism in the Hermetic Writings 269

presented to us through the senses are full of God, thus propounding an account
which accords with the divine power, but surely not with the divine essence. For
God is essentially the preserver and creator of all that is in any way brought to
perfection in this world ; yet he does not endure the weariness of a being that
works and toils its own, but exerts an indefatigable power by which he dominates
even over things that seem far distant from him. He has himself obtained the
first and highest place and is therefore called «supreme». […] The most divine
thing of all is to produce all kinds of result easily by means of a single motion,
just like the operators of machines who produce man varied activities by means
of the machine’s single release mechanism. […] For he is established in the
immovable, and moves and directs all things as he wills. Though he is one, he
has many names, according to the many effects he produces.

Whereas the previous model attempts to close the distance between «what
comes to be and what makes it», the other widens the gap by shifting the
focus from god’s «indefatigable power» (dunamis) that permeates the world
to his ineffable essence (ousia), or even to his lack of essence (anousiaston)19.
According to this model, god is so remote that any direct involvement with
the world must be precluded. Identified with Plato’s idea of the Good from
the Republic (6.509a‑b), he is a superordinate principle beyond being without
which nothing can exist, but he requires intermediary entities (Intellect,
Rational Soul or Reason) to bring things into existence. And unlike the god
delineated in the first model, he does not carry the traits of Aristotle’s active
intellect everlastingly engaged in self‑contemplation, on the ground that such
a self‑reflective thinking would impose limitations on his absolute freedom
and introduce the duality of thinking subject and object of thought in his
absolute simplicity. This conception of a transcendent divinity closely resembles
the Plotinian idea of an absolutely simple causal principle, the One superior
to Being and Intellect, which is unconstrained by anything, not even by
self‑reflection, in its will to bring into existence a metaphysically graded
reality. As explicitly stated in the Hermetic texts which embrace and develop
this idea, god is «the preexistent one beyond all existent things and even
those which truly exists [the intelligible forms]» (SH XXI.1) ; «the single
one (monos) from whom the one‑who‑is [intellect] comes» (CH V.2) ; «the
pre‑principle that exists before a beginning without end» (CH I.8) ; «the
unbegotten» who is the cause of «the self‑begotten» [Intellect] and «the
begotten» [Reason]» (NHC VI,6 p. 63,21‑23) ; «the monad which is the
beginning and root of all things» (CH IV.10) ; and not the same as intellect,
but rather «the cause of intellect’s being» (CH II.14).
The qualification of god as superior to intellect and thought is taken from
a dialogue between Hermes Trismegistus and Asclepius (CH II), which starts

19. CH II.5 ; see also CH VI.4 : «One dares to say, Asclepius, that god’s essence, if
in fact he has an essence, is the beautiful».
270 Zlatko PleŠe

as a philosophical investigation (zêtêma) into properties of the physical place

(topos) but soon turns into a lofty exposition of Hermetic metaphysics. What
we see gradually building up in this Hermetic treatise is a hierarchical reality
presided by a remote supra‑noetic divinity filling the role of the Platonic idea
of the Good as the ultimate cause and explanation of all existent things. The
second rank is assigned to Intellect as an independent hypostasis, which is
identified with an intelligible place «capable of containing all things» and
«from which the good, the truth, the archetype of Spirit, and the archetype
of Soul radiate like rays» (CH II.12). Moving down from the hypostasized
intermediaries (Intellect, Rational Soul, Spirit) to the cosmos, we encounter
an ordered bipartite structure : in the everlasting heavens, the sphere of the
fixed stars produces the opposite planetary movements (ibid. 7) ; in the sublunary
region, all things are caught in a never‑ending cycle of becoming and passing
away, «filled with the four [elementary] bodies» (ibid. 11)20.
Back to the first god, the treatise explains his priority and superiority to
intellect, relegated to the secondary status of an incorporeal «place» of archetypal
forms, in the following fashion (CH II.4‑5) :

Place is incorporeal, then, but the incorporeal is either divine or else god. (By
«divine» I mean here not the begotten, but the unbegotten). If it is divine, it is
something essential ; but if it is god, it comes to be even without essence.
Otherwise, it is something intelligible, and this is how. For god is to us the first
intelligible, but not so to himself ; for the intelligible falls within the awareness
of one who thinks of it. Thus, god is not intelligible to himself ; for he is not
something different from the object of his thought so as to be thought by himself.
For us, however, he is something different : for this reason, he is thought by us21.

20. Another similar ontological hierarchy is built in SH XXI, with «the preexistent
one» at its summit, from which proceeds «the universal substantiality (ἡ οὐσιότης ἡ
καθόλου) common to the truly existent things [ideal forms] and the things thought
individually [possibly rational principles or logoi]», and with «the gods capable of thought
[the supra‑celestial demiurge and his powers] and the sensible gods [celestial bodies]»
occupying the intermediate position between the intelligible realm and «nature, a sensible
substance (οὐσία αἰσθητή) having in itself all sensible things». This monistic model of
reality bears a strong resemblance to Simplicius’s summary of the metaphysical system
of Moderatus of Gades (Simpl. In Ph. 230,34‑231,24 Diels), pointing to a possible
Neopythagorean background of Hermetic ontological speculations. For Moderatus and
his monistic reinterpretation of the Timaeus see M. Baltes, Der Platonismus in der Antike.
Grundlagen‑System‑Entwicklung, Bd. 4 : Die philosophische Lehre des Platonismus. Einige
grundlegende Axiome/Platonische Physik (im antiken Verständnis) I, Stuttgart‑Bad Cannstatt,
Frommann‑Holzboog, 1996, p. 477‑485.
21. CH II.4 Ἀσώματος οὖν ὁ τόπος, τὸ δὲ ἀσώματον ἢ θεῖόν ἐστιν ἢ ὁ θεός. τὸ δὲ
θεῖον λέγω νῦν, οὐ τὸ γενννητόν, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἀγέννητον. 5 ἐὰν μὲν οὖν ᾖ θεῖον, οὐσιῶδές
ἐστιν· ἐὰν δὲ ὁ θεός, καὶ ἀνουσίαστος γίνεται. ἄλλως δὲ νοητόν, οὕτως· νοητὸς γὰρ
πρῶτος ὁ θεὸς ἐστὶν ἡμῖν, οὐχ ἑαυτῷ· τὸ γὰρ νοητὸν τῷ νοοῦντι αἰσθήσει ὑποπίπτει·
 Dualism in the Hermetic Writings 271

The argument that the supreme god is «not intelligible to himself» because
it would then be «something different from the object of his thought» finds
a close parallel in Plotinus’s rejection of a self‑thinking intellect as the first
principle of reality. According to Plotinus, «it is not necessary for everything
intelligible to have a thinking activity in itself and to think ; for then it will
be not only an object of thought but also a thinker, and, since it is two, will
not be the first» (Enn. V.6 [24] 2.5‑9). Any act of thinking, even if self‑reflective,
implies the duality of subject and object and makes intellect a non‑simple
entity. As perfectly simple, self‑sufficient, and indivisible, the first principle
must therefore «exist before thinking, for indeed it has no need of thinking»
(ibid. 2.15‑16). Now that the inward‑looking intellect is rejected as an
inadequate expression of god’s absolute freedom and unity, the Hermetic
author, very much like Plotinus, proposes the more suitable faculties and
appellations for designating the nature of the supreme divinity : «the Good»,
or the power of unconditional giving, and «Father», or the capacity of
bringing things into existence22.

God is not intellect, but he is the cause of intellect’s being ; he is not spirit, but
the cause of spirit’s being ; and he is not light, but the cause of light’s being. […]
16 […] One is the nature of God, «the Good», and there is one kind in both,
from which come all kinds. For the good person gives everything and receives
nothing. God, therefore, gives everything and receives nothing ; thus, god is <the>

ὁ θεὸς οὐκοῦν οὐχ ἑαυτῷ νοητός· οὐ γὰρ ἄλλο τι ὢν τοῦ νοουμένου ὑφ’ ἑαυτοῦ νοεῖται.
6 ἡμῖν δὲ ἄλλο τί ἐστιν. διὰ τοῦτο ἡμῖν νοεῖται.
22. Another faculty that Hermetic treatises regularly ascribe to their supreme divinity
is that of autonomous free will, in most cases portrayed as unconstrained by premeditated
planning. God’s activity is not cognitive and self‑reflective but driven by a spontaneous
will to create and to be recognized by his creation. Compare, for instance, CH X.1‑4 :
«Thus, O Tat, god is the father and the Good, and has the same nature, or rather activity.
[...] For his activity (ἐνέργεια) is will (θέλησις) and his essence (οὐσία) is to will all things
to be (τὸ θέλειν πάντα εἶναι). […] For the Good is the capacity of making ; and this can
come to be in none other than him alone who receives nothing but wills all things to
be. […] For the intrinsic mark of the Good is to be recognized». The same volitive
dimension of god’s nature is made an ultimate source of cosmogony in a mythical account
of creation in Poimandres. In this treatise (CH I.8), the elements of nature are said to
have come to exist «from the Will of God which, having received Reason (ἐκ Βουλῆς
θεοῦ, ἥτις λαβοῦσα τὸν Λόγον) and seen the beautiful [archetypal] cosmos, imitated it,
having become a cosmos through her own elements and the progeny of souls». The phrase
Βουλὴ θεοῦ is often taken in an intellectualist sense and translated as «god’s counsel» (cf.
Asclepius, 26 = NF II, p. 331 : voluntas, o Asclepi, consilio nascitur), but the text of Poimandres
(«the Will of God having received Reason») appears to favor the voluntarist reading : the
willing of the supreme god, who is «the pre‑principle that exists before a beginning
without end» (CH I.8), is prior to rational consideration and not generated by it.
272 Zlatko PleŠe

Good, and the Good is god. […] And the other appellation is that of «Father»,
again because of his capacity of making all things ; for the nature of a father is
to make (CH II.14‑17)23.

To what extent are these two models of god’s involvement with the cosmos
compatible with one another ? As already mentioned, traditional scholarship
tended to consider their different emphases as indicative of two currents in
ancient Hermetica, one monist or immanentist and the other dualist or
transcendental. Judging from the critical remarks made in the above quoted
sections from CH XIV about the wrongful tendency to posit intermediaries
between «what comes to be and what makes it», the issue of god’s indirect
or direct involvement was considered sufficiently significant to stir polemics.
On the other hand, the two models share some important common characte­
ristics : they both maintain the conception of god’s transcendence, of his
unconditional goodness, and of his infinite power. We could speculate again
that they served different yet complementary purposes in Hermetic instruction,
with one furnishing a basic dualist framework (god vs. cosmos) and the other
uncovering the dualities of the intelligible world (reason vs. intellect, intellect
vs. the highest god), more appropriate for advanced initiates in their gradual
ascent to the ultimate and all‑encompassing source of all existence. As pointed
out by J.‑P. Mahé, «realities assume different aspects, depending on the stage
you have reached»24.

Cosmological Dualism : Heaven vs. Earth

Moving on to the Hermetic speculations about the cosmos, I will first

return to the previously discussed headings (kephalaia) and the distinction
they draw between «heaven» and «earth» – or, more accurately, between the
ensouled heavens and the sublunary world. The division is based on physical
and psychological criteria (everlasting/dissoluble, stable/perishable, rational/
irrational), but terms of value are also applied. In heading (18), for instance,
we are told that «there is nothing good on earth ; there is nothing bad in
heaven» (SH XI.11.18). This stark axiological assessment, however, is not
always maintained in full‑fledged Hermetic discourses, where goodness and

23. CH II.14 […] ὁ οῦν θεὸς οὐ νοῦς ἐστιν, αἴτιος δὲ τοῦ <νοῦν> εἶναι, οὐδὲ πνεῦμα,
αἴτιος δὲ τοῦ εἶναι πνεῦμα, οὐδὲ φῶς, αἴτιος δὲ τοῦ φῶς εἶναι. […] 16 […] μία γὰρ ἡ
φύσις τοῦ θεοῦ, τὸ ἀγαθόν, καὶ ἓν γένος ἀμφοτέρων, ἐξ οὗ τὰ γένη πάντα. ὁ γὰρ ἀγαθὸς
ἅπαντά ἐστι διδοὺς καὶ μηδὲν λαμβάνων. ὁ οὖν θεὸς πάντα δίδωσι καὶ οὐδὲν λαμβάνει·
ὁ οὖν θεὸς <τὸ> ἀγαθόν, καὶ τὸ ἀγαθὸν ὁ θεός. 17 ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα προσηγορία ἐστὶν ἡ τοῦ
πατρός, πάλιν διὰ τὸ ποιητικὸν πάντων· πατρὸς γὰρ ποιεῖν.
24. J.‑P. Mahé, «Mental Faculties», art. cit., p. 81.
 Dualism in the Hermetic Writings 273

badness are predicated of the world as relational rather than intrinsic values.
Thus, in one treatise (CH XII.15) «this entire cosmos», including its
perishable sublunary domain, is presented as «a great god and an image of
the greater, united with god, helping preserve the father’s will and order, and
a fullness of life». According to another explanation, «the cosmos is not good
because it moves but it is not bad because it is immortal» (CH X.12). Or
again, as asserted elsewhere, «the earth is infested by evil, not the cosmos»
(CH IX.4). Some statements strike as markedly pessimistic, for example the
characteri­zation of the whole cosmos as «a fullness of evil», in contrast to
god who is «a plenitude of the good» (CH VI.4) ; but earlier in the same
treatise the cosmos is also called «good» in the sense of indirectly partaking
of the absolute Good and «with respect to the making that it does» (ibid. 2).
Taken at their face value, these statements may indeed seem irreconcilable.
But they are so only if we disregard the providential nature of god as the
final cause and ultimate referential point of all creation. The world is an
ordered whole, but with various degrees of ordering as one moves down
from the heavenly to the sublunary region. As Hermes Trismegistus says to
Asclepius‑Imhotep while interpreting the headings about god’s creative power
and providential care for all things (CH XIV.7‑10), god’s agency is not limited
to the heavens but extends to the earth, too : in the former he «sows immortality
(athanasia)» and in the latter continuous «change (metabolê)» as a way to
prevent irreparable «corrosion» and «re‑purify generation». The purpose of
negatively intoned pronouncements about the cosmos, and especially its
sublunary regions, is to assert the gap between god and his creation. Positive
assertions about the world, in turn, invite the initiate to comprehend its
continuity with the divine sphere, everlastingly maintained by the chains of
divine energies and natural forces stemming from the unlimited power of
the beneficent creator (CH X.22) :

There is a community of souls : the souls of the gods [sc. stars] commune with
souls of humans, those of humans with souls of irrational beings. The greater
take charge of the lesser : gods of humans, humans of living things without reason,
and god takes charge of them all. For he is greater than all of them, and all are
less than he. Thus, the cosmos is subject to god, mankind to the cosmos and
unreasoning things to mankind. God stands above all things and watches over
them. And energies are like rays from god, natural forces like rays from the
cosmos, arts and learning like rays from mankind. For energies work through
the cosmos and upon mankind through the natural rays of the cosmos, but
natural forces work through the elements, and humans work through the arts
and through learning25.

25. CH X.22 : κοινωνία δέ ἐστι ψυχῶν, καὶ κοινωνοῦσι μὲν αἱ τῶν θεῶν ταῖς τῶν
ἀνθρώπων, αἱ δὲ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ταῖς τῶν ἀλόγων. ἐπιμελοῦνται δὲ οἱ κρείττονες τῶν
274 Zlatko PleŠe

Anthropological Dualism : Soul vs. Body,

Reason vs. Intellect

The previous passage touches on the final subject of this study – the nature
of human beings and their purpose in the cosmic structure. On the Hermetic
scale of animate beings, humans occupy the intermediate position between
stars and animals, partaking of the nature of both. The details of this two‑way
participation are explained in an excerpt from Stobaeus’s Anthology which
discusses an array of issues related to the nature and powers of the soul – from
its peculiar kind of immortality through the intricacies of its relationship with
incorporeal and immortal forces or «energies» inherent in the body 26 to the
classification of various kinds of souls (SH III.5‑8 = NF 3, p. 17‑18) :

5 Kinds of souls : divine, human, and irrational. […] 7 The human soul has also
something that is divine, but there are joined to it also the irrational parts, namely
appetite and spiritedness. And these two are immortal in so far as they also
happen to be forces (energeiai), but they are forces that have to do with mortal
bodies. And so, as long as the soul is in the divine [sc. astral] body, they [sc.
appetite and spiritedness] happen to be far away from the divine part. But when
this one enters into a mortal body, they also come in addition, and it is through
their presence that the human soul comes into being 27.

The human soul, unlike its divine and animal counterparts, has a tripartite
structure closely knit together by incorporeal forces (energeiai) that emanate
from the celestial bodies. The formation of this composite entity is reminiscent
of a two‑stage creation of the human soul in Plato’s Timaeus (69d‑70a), where
the descent of the immortal kind into a mortal body is immediately followed

ἐλαττόνων, θεοὶ μὲν ἀνθρώπων, ἄνθρωποι δὲ τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων, ὁ δὲ θεὸς πάντων·
πάντων γὰρ οὗτος κρείττων, καὶ πάντα αὐτοῦ ἐλάττονα. ὁ μὲν οὖν κόσμος ὑπόκειται
τῷ θεῷ, ὁ δὲ ἄνθρωπος τῷ κόσμῳ, τὰ δὲ ἄλογα τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ· ὁ δὲ θεὸς ὑπὲρ πάντα
καὶ περὶ πάντα· καὶ τοῦ μὲν θεοῦ καθάπερ ἀκτῖνες αἱ ἐνέργειαι, τοῦ δὲ κόσμου ἀκτῖνες
αἱ φύσεις, τοῦ δὲ ἀνθρώπου αἱ τέχναι καὶ ἐπιστῆμαι· καὶ αἱ μὲν ἐνέργειαι διὰ τοῦ
κόσμου ἐνεργοῦσι καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον διὰ τῶν τοῦ κόσμου φυσικῶν ἀκτίνων, αἱ δὲ
φύσεις διὰ τῶν στοιχείων, οἱ δὲ ἄνθρωποι διὰ τῶν τεχνῶν καὶ ἐπιστημῶν.
26. A comprehensive Hermetic account of divine «activities» or «forces» (energeiai),
immortal yet incapable of acting outside the body, is available in SH.III‑IV (NF 3,
p. 17‑29).
27. SH III.5‑7 : 5 ἰδέαι δὲ ψυχῶν· θεῖα, ἀνθρωπίνη, ἄλογος. [...] 7 ἡ δὲ ἀνθρωπίνη
ἔχει μὲν καί τι τοῦ θείου, συνῆπται δὲ αὐτῇ καὶ τὰ ἄλογα, ἥ τε ἐπιθυμία καὶ ὁ θυμός.
καὶ αὗται μὲν ἀθάνατοι, καθότι καὶ αὐταὶ ἐνέργειαι τυγχάνουσιν, ἐνέργειαι δὲ θνητῶν
σωμάτων. διὸ τοῦ μὲν θείου μέρους, τῆς ψυχῆς οὔσης ἐν τῷ θείῳ σώματι, πόρρω
τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι· ἐπειδὰν δὲ εἰσέλθῃ τοῦτο εἰς θνητὸν σῶμα, κἀκεῖνα ἐπιφοιτᾷ καὶ
τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτῶν γίνεται ἀεὶ ψυχὴ ἀνθρωπίνη.
 Dualism in the Hermetic Writings 275

by the insertion of a bipartite mortal kind, spiritedness and appetite. As the

Hermetic author explains in one of the subsequent sections (SH IV.8‑9 = NF
3, p. 23), the rational part, as soon as it is plunged into a mortal body, falls
prey to forces coming from its irrational counterparts, and it is only «at the
age of adolescence», when «the purer forces arrive», that it becomes capable
of controlling excessive desires. At this point, the rational soul, if properly
guided, is ready to engage in a long‑lasting strife for domination against the
irrational parts. According to one Hermetic excerpt, this is «a contest about the
journey to the other place», the realm of truth (SH IIB.5‑8 = NF 3, p. 13‑16).
The principal objective of early stages of Hermetic initiation is to teach the
rational soul the ways of securing its complete control over appetite and
spiritedness, ranging from bodily renunciation and moral improvement to the
acquisition of a comprehensive view of reality through the study of discourses,
headings and summaries. A prize set up by god for this noble struggle is the
gift of intellect (nous). Rational comprehension of the world, a telos of the
philo­sophical life summarized in Plato’s phrase «becoming like god» (Theaet.
176a5‑c3 ; Tim. 90c‑d), is not the end of Hermetic initiation (CH IV.3) :

God shared reason among all people, O Tat, but not intellect, though he begrudged
it none. Grudging envy comes not from on high, but it forms below in the souls
of people who do not have intellect. – For what reason, then, did god not share
intellect with all of them, my father ? – He wanted it put between souls, my child,
as a prize for them to contest28.

We see here the Hermetic author taking sides in the contemporary philo­
sophical debate about the relationship of intellect and soul – that is, whether
intellect arrives to the soul as a distinct entity external to it or whether the
soul is intellectual by nature29. Other Hermetic discourses exhibit a more
complex and equivocal view on this issue, primarily because they wish to

28. CH IV.3 : Τὸν μὲν οὖν λόγον, ὦ Τάτ, ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐμέρισε, τὸν δὲ
νοῦν οὐκέτι, οὐ φθονῶν τισιν· ὁ γὰρ φθόνος οὐκ ἔνθεν ἔρχεται, κάτω δὲ συνίσταται ταῖς
τὸν νοῦν μὴ ἐχόντων ἀνθρώπων ψυχαῖς. – Διὰ τί οὖν, ὦ πάτερ, οὐ πᾶσιν ἐμέρισε τὸν
νοῦν ὁ θεός ; – Ἠθέλησεν, ὦ τέκνον, τοῦτον ἐν μέσῳ ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὥσπερ ἆθλον ἱδρῦσθαι.
29. See, for instance, Nemesius, Nat. hom., p.1 Morani : «It has been the opinion of
many good people that man is eminently construed of an intellectual soul and a body.
[…] But the statement that the soul is intellectual is ambivalent – for it can mean that
the intellect came to the soul as one thing to another and thus made it intellective, or
that the soul possesses intellect of itself and from its own nature, and that this is the best
part, like the eye in the body. So some, including Plotinus, have held that the soul is one
thing and the intellect another, maintaining that man is composed of three things : body,
soul, and intellect. […] But some [sc. the Stoics] did not see intellect apart from the
soul, but believe that the intellect is the ruling part of its being. Aristotle is of the opinion
that while the potential intellect is part of the composition of man, intellect that is in
actuality comes to us from outside, not as something that makes man’s being and existence
276 Zlatko PleŠe

accommodate it to their favorite theory of forces (energeiai). One such text

claims that intellect (in potentiality) and intellective faculty are sown in all
humans, but that active intellection happens to be of two kinds – one
associated with perception, which is controlled by negative demonic forces
and in which these forces sow a bad seed, and the other concerned with the
incorporeal, which is sown by god and remains inaccessible to most people
(CH IX.1‑5). Clearly, Hermetic authors permitted themselves a certain
degree of latitude when discussing the problem, but they seem to have agreed
that intellectual faculty for attaining the acquaintance with the divine (gnôsis)
comes «from the very essence of god» (CH XII.1) ; that it is contingent on
a proper rational mindset ; and that it can only be obtained and kept active
in a proper (Hermetic) instructional and ritual setting (CH XIII ; NHC VI, 6).
The immediate outcome of intellectual «rebirth» is the abandonment of
the limited dualist perspective in favor of a monistic and all‑encompassing
viewpoint of totality. The Hermetic initiate can now experience things by a
higher‑order perception – by what one text calls «the intellectual energy
that  comes through the powers» (CH XIII.11) and another «incorporeal
imagination» (CH XI.18‑19) :

Some things I say need special conception. Consider for example what I am
saying now. All things are in god but not as lying in a place – for place is also
body, and body is immobile, and what is lying somewhere has no movement. In
incorporeal imagination things are located differently. Fix your mind on what
encompasses all things, that nothing bounds the incorporeal, that nothing is
quicker or more powerful. Of all things, the incorporeal is the unbounded, the
quickest, and most powerful ! And consider this, too, for yourself : command your
soul to travel to India, and it will be there faster than your command. Command
it to cross over to the ocean, and again it will quickly be there, not as having
passed from place to place but simply as being there. Command it even to fly
up to the sky, and it will not lack wings. Indeed, nothing will hinder it, not the
fire of the sun, nor the ether, nor the swirl [sc. the heavenly revolution], and not
even the bodies of the rest of the stars ! Cutting through them all, it will fly to
the utmost body. But if you wish to break through the universe itself and look
upon the things outside (if indeed there is anything outside the cosmos), it is
within your power30.

complete, but as contributing to the advancement of knowledge of natural things and

of contemplation».
30. CH XI.18‑19 : ἔνια δὲ τῶν λεγομένων ἰδίαν ἔννοιαν ἔχειν ὀφείλει· οἷον ὃ λέγω
νόησον. πάντα ἐστὶν ἐν τῷ θεῷ, οὐχ ὡς ἐν τόπῳ κείμενα (ὁ μὲν γὰρ τόπος καὶ σῶμά
ἐστι, καὶ σῶμα ἀκίνητον, καὶ τὰ κείμενα κίνησιν οὐκ ἔχει)· κεῖται γὰρ ἄλλως ἐν
ἀσωμάτῳ φαντασίᾳ. νόησον τὸν περιέχοντα τὰ πάντα καὶ νόησον ὅτι τοῦ ἀσωμάτου
οὐδέν ἐστι περιοριστικόν, οὐδὲ ταχύτερον, οὐδὲ δυνατώτερον· αὐτὸ δὲ πάντων καὶ
ἀπεριόριστον καὶ ταχύτατον καὶ δυνατώτατον. καὶ οὕτω νόησον ἀπὸ σεαυτοῦ, καὶ
κέλευσόν σου τῇ ψυχῇ εἰς Ἰνδικὴν πορευθῆναι, καὶ ταχύτερόν σου τῆς κελεύσεως ἐκεῖ
 Dualism in the Hermetic Writings 277

Passages of this sort are not rare in contemporary philosophical and

religious literature : one can think of Plotinus’s «dynamic images» (e.g., Enn.
V.8 [31] 9) or of Philo of Alexandria’s sublime portrayal of the mind «seized
by a sober intoxication» (Opif. 71). What distinguishes the Hermetic version
of this «flight of mind» is the underlying theory of forces (energeiai) : the
sense of an all‑embracing kinetic sympathy that overflows the boundaries of
the self, and where everything feels permeated by energies flowing from god’s
single power. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, some of the most compelling
ancient parallels for this synthetic and synesthetic experience of reality can
be found close to home, so to speak – for instance in the Egyptian Book of
Traversing Eternity, where the deceased individuals, in their daily journey
across the cosmos, break all boundaries of time and space, «passing through
this land in the form of the wind» and simultaneously «circling around the
heavens in the retinue of the stellar array» 31.
Turning back to the above quoted Hermetic passage, it is hard to see in
this penultimate phase of Hermetic initiation anything world‑negating,
escapist, or dualistic, as suggested by some modern scholars. In the activity
of «spiritual imagination» the cosmos is not rejected, but rather subsumed
and transformed – accommodated to intellect, stripped away from its alien
character, and abstracted from corporeal dimension and from all spatial‑temporal
constraints. Following this notional appropriation of reality, the initiate is
ready for the final step – to «rise up to the father» and to «be made god»
(CH I.26).

Conclusion

«Dualism», as emphatically pointed out by Gilles Deleuze, «is what prevents

thought ; dualism always wants to deny the essence of thought, namely that
thought is a process»32. It seems that ancient Hermetists would concur, in
part, to this passionate critique of binary thinking. Appropriation of the

ἔσται. μετελθεῖν δὲ αὐτῇ κέλευσον ἐπὶ τὸν ὠκεανόν, καὶ οὕτως ἐκεῖ πάλιν ταχέως ἔσται,
οὐχ ὡς μεταβᾶσα ἀπὸ τόπου εἰς τόπον, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐκεῖ οὖσα. κέλευσον δὲ αὐτῇ καὶ εἰς
τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀναπτῆναι, καὶ οὐδὲ πτερῶν δεηθήσεται. ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ αὐτῇ οὐδὲν ἐμπόδιον,
οὐ τοῦ ἡλίου πῦρ, οὐχ ὁ αἰθήρ, οὐχ ἡ δίνη, οὐχὶ τὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἀστέρων σώματα· πάντα
δὲ διατεμοῦσα ἀναπτήσεται μέχρι τοῦ ἐσχάτου σώματος. εἰ δὲ βουληθείης καὶ αὐτὸ
ὅλον διαρρήξασθαι καὶ τὰ ἐκτός (εἴ γέ τι ἐκτὸς τοῦ κόσμου) θεάσασθαι, ἔξεστί σοι.
31. M. Smith, Traversing Eternity. Texts for the Afterlife from Ptolemaic and Roman
Egypt. Oxford, Oxford UP, 2009, p. 406.
32. G. Deleuze, «Dualism, Monism and Multiplicities (Desire – Pleasure – Jouissance)»,
Contretemps, n° 2, 2001, p. 92‑108.
278 Zlatko PleŠe

dualist way of looking at things is a necessary stage on the Hermetic «road

to Truth». Binary oppositions outlined in Hermetic headings, summaries,
and fully developed treatises provide a simple yet comprehensive scheme for
mapping and homologizing the relations among the «three worlds» (god,
cosmos, man). They teach Hermetic initiates that reality is not only what
they perceive by senses and that not all activities are happening in and
through their body ; that sensorial experience is not the only criterion of
truth ; that human capacities and «forces» (energeiai) exceed those of other
living beings, and that the fulfillment of human life consists in activating
the best among those capacities. But dualist grids are also prescriptive and
restrictive, setting boundaries to an ever‑expansive activity of human thought.
The culmination of Hermetic gnôsis is precisely the erosion and overcoming
of these boundaries – a powerful confirmation of Ugo Bianchi’s assertion of
the «monist vocation of dualism»33.

33. See supra, n. 2.