William Wynn Westcott - The Collected Works

30. But do thou understand the true to be that which abides the same, and is Eternal, but man is not ever, therefore not True, but man is a certain Appearance, and Appearance is the highest Lie or Falsehood.

31. Tat. But these Eternal Bodies, Father, are they not true though they be changed?

32. Hermes. Everything that is begotten or made, and changed is not true, but being made by our Progenitor, they might have had true Matter.

33. But these also have in themselves, something that is false in regard of their change.

34. For nothing that remains not in itself, is True.

35. Tat. What shall one say then, Father, that only the Sun which besides the Nature of other things, is not changed, but abides in itself, is Truth?

36. Hermes. It is Truth, and therefore is he only intrusted with the Workmanship of the World, ruling and making all things whom I do both honour, and adore his Truth; and after the One, and First, I acknowledge him the Workman.

37. Tat. What therefore doth thou affirm to be the first Truth, O Father?

38. Hermes. The One and Only, O Tat, that is not of Matter, that is not in a body, that is without Colour, without Figure or Shape, Immutable, Unalterable, which always is; but Falsehood, O Son, is corrupted.

39. And corruption hath laid hold upon all things on Earth, and the Providence of the True encompasseth, and will encompass them.

40. For without corruption, there can no Generation consist.

41. For Corruption followeth every Generation, that it may again be generated.

42. For those things that are generated, must of necessity be generated of those things that are corrupted, and the things generated must needs be corrupted, that the Generation of things being, may not stand still or cease.

43. Acknowledge therefore the first Workman by the Generation of things.

44. Consequently the things that are generated of Corruption are false, as being sometimes one thing, sometimes another: For it is impossible they should be made the same things again, and that which is not the same, how is it true?

45. Therefore, O Son, we must call these things fantasies or appearances.

46. And if we will give a man his right name, we must call him the appearance of Manhood; and a Child, the fantasy or appearance of a Child; an old man, the appearance of an old man; a young man, the appearance of a young man; and a man of ripe age, the appearance of a man of ripe age.

47. For neither is a man, a man; nor a child, a child; nor a young man, a young man; nor an old man, an old man.

48 But the things that pre-exist and that are, being changed are false.

49. These things understand thus, O Son, as these false Operations, having their dependence from above, even of the truth itself.

50. Which being so, I do affirm that Falsehood is the Work of Truth.

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1. Hermes. We must now speak of the Soul and Body, O Son; after what manner the Soul is Immortal, and what operation that is, which constitutes the Body, and dissolves it.

2. But in none of these is Death, for it is a conception of a name, which is either an empty word, or else it is wrongly called Death (by the taking away the first letter,) instead of Immortal.

3. For Death is destruction, but there is nothing in the whole world that is destroyed.

4. For if the World be a second God, and an Immortal living wight [a creature], it is impossible that any part of an Immortal living wight [a creature] should die.

5. But all things that are in the World, are members of the World, especially Man, the reasonable living wight [a creature].

6. For the first of all is God, the Eternal and Unmade, and the Workman of all things.

7. The second is the World, made by him, after his own Image and by him holden together, and nourished, and immortalized; and as from its own Father, ever living.

8. So that as Immortal, it is ever living, and ever immortal.

9. For that which is ever living, differs from that which is eternal.

10. For the Eternal was not begotten, or made by another; and if it were begotten or made, yet it was made by itself, not by any other, but it is always made.

11. For the Eternal, as it is Eternal, is the Universe.

12. For the Father himself, is Eternal of himself, but the World was made by the Father, ever living and immortal.

13. And as much Matter as there was laid up by him, the Father made it all into a Body, and swelling it, made it round like a Sphere, endued it with Quality, being itself immortal, and having Eternal Materiality.

14. The Father being full of Ideas, sowed Qualities in the Sphere, and shut them up, as in a Circle, deliberating to beautify with every Quality, that which should afterwards be made.

15. Then clothing the Universal Body with Immortality, lest the Matter, if it would depart from this Composition, should be dissolved into its own disorder.

16. For when the Matter was incorporeal, O Son, it was disordered, and it hath here the same confusion daily revolved about other little things, endued with Qualities, in point of Augmentation, and Diminution, which men call Death, being indeed a disorder happening about earthly living wight [a creature]s.

17. For the Bodies of Heavenly things have one order, which they have received from the Father at the Beginning, and is by the instauration of each of them, kept indissolveable.

18. But the instauration of earthly Bodies, is their consistence; and their dissolution restores them into indissoluble, that is, Immortal.

19. And so there is made a privation of Sense, but not a destruction of Bodies.

20. Now the third living wight [a creature] is Man, made after the Image of the World; and having by the Will of the Father, a Mind above other earthly wight [a creature]s.

21. And he hath not only a sympathy with the second God, but also an understanding of the first.

22. For the second God, he apprehends as a Body but the first, he understands as Incorporeal, and the Mind of the Good.

23. Tat. And doth not this living wight [a creature] perish?

24. Hermes. Speak advisedly, O Son, and learn what God is, what the World, what an Immortal wight [a creature], and what a dissolvable One is.

25. And understand that the World is of God and in God; but Man of the World and in the World. 26. The Beginning, and End, and Consistence of all, is God.

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1. Because my Son Tat, in thy absence, would needs learn the Nature of the things that are: He would not suffer me to give over (as coming very young to the knowledge of every individual) till I was forced to discourse to him many things at large, that his contemplation might from point to point, be more easy and successful.

2. But to thee I have thought good to write in few words, choosing out the principal heads of the things then spoken, and to interpret them more mystically, because thou hast, both more years, and more knowledge of Nature.

3. All things that appear, were made, and are made.

4. Those things that are made, are not made by themselves, but by another.

5. And there are many things made, but especially all things that appear, and which are different, and not like.

6. If the things that be made and done, be made and done by another, there must be one that must make, and do them; and he unmade, and more ancient than the things that are made.

7. For I affirm the things that are made, to be made by another; and it is impossible, that of the things that are made any should be more ancient than all, but only that which is not made.

8. He is stronger, and One, and only knowing all things indeed, as not having any thing more ancient than himself.