Asclepius (with the commentary), chapters 9–11

CHAP. IX.

ANd because we are now speaking of the similitude, and mutuall fellowship of men and God, acknowledge, O Asclepius, the authority and power of man. For as the Lord and Father, or most high God, is the Creatour of the heavenly Gods or Angels; so Man is the creatour of those gods which are set in Temples, contented to be neighbours unto men, and are not onely illuminated, but do also illuminate, doing not only good unto men, but also confirmeth that there is a God. Dost wonder at this, O Asclepius, or dost thou doubt of it, as many do?

Asclep. I am confounded, O Trismegistus: but giving credit to what you say, I judge man to be most happy, who hath attained to so great blessednesse.

Trism. Neither unworthily is he worthy of admiration, who is the greatest amongst the gods. For the Genus of all things is manifest without confusion, being propagated of the purest part of Nature, and the similitudes of them to be (as it were) the heads of all; but the Species of the gods, which man represents, is fashioned of two natures; Divine, which is the more excellent and noble part; and Earthly, which is that which is here conversant in earth, and which consists of the whole Fabrick, or severall parts of the outward Man. So Man being mindfull of his Divine Nature and Originall, remains still in the likenesse of God. For as the Father and the Lord hath made eternal Gods, that might be like unto him. So man hath fashioned out unto himself gods; after the similitude of his own countenance.

Asclep. Do you mean images, O Trismegistus?

Trism. Do you not see how far you are mistaken? living images, full of sense and spirit, doing such and so great things! Images having fore-knowledge of things to come, and fore-telling by many other things, infirmities, cares, and sorrows, which shall happen deservedly to men. Are you ignorant, O Asclepius, that Aegypt is the image of Heaven, or, which is more true, a translation of descension of all things, which are governed and exercised in Heaven? And if we speak rightly, Our land is the Temple of the whole World, and yet for that it beseemeth wise men to fore-know all things, it behoveth you not to be ignorant, that the time will come when it may appear, that the Aegyptians have by a constant and pious practice in religion served God in vain, and all their holy worship shall become void, and of no effect: For the Divinity shall return back from Earth into Heaven, Aegypt shall be forsaken, and the Land which was the seat of the Divinity, shall be destitute of Religion, and deprived of the presence of the Deity. For when strangers shall possesse, and fill up this Land and Kingdom, not onely there shall be a neglect of Religion; but, which is more miserable, there shall be Laws enacted against Religion, Piety, and Divine Worship, with punishment inflicted upon those that seem to favour it: then this holy seat shall be full of Iolatry, Idols Temples, and dead mens Sepulchres. O Aegypt, Aegypt, there shall remain only a fained shew of thy Religion, and which will seem incredible to posterity; and onely letters shall stand ingraven upon thy pillars, which may declare thy pious deeds, and in thee shall inhabit the Scythian, Indian, or some other neer barbarous Nation. For the Divinity shall fly to Heaven, the whole Nation forsaken shall die, and so Aegypt shall be forsaken of God and man. I call upon thee, thou most holy River, and presage unto thee things which shall come to passe; thy waters and divine streams shall be filled with blood, which shall overflow thy banks, and make a violent inundation, so that there shall be more dead than living, and he that remains alive, shall onely by his language be known to be an Aegyptian, but by his deeds he shall seem a Barbarian. Why weep you, O Asclepius, Aegypt shall be furnished with far greater, and worse evils than these, she being heretofore a holy and great Favourer of the Deity, and Divine Worship and Religion, and that worthily upon earth, separated alone from other Nations, became the Mistresse of Sanctity and Piety, shall be an example of the greatest cruelty, and then with grief of heart, the world shall not seem to be admired and adored. This whole good (than the which there neither is, hath, or shall be any thing that shall appear, of more excellencie) shall be indangered, and seem burdenous to men, and in this respect shall be despised: neither shall the world be esteemed, which is the immutable work of God, a most glorious Fabrick, a work compounded with the different variety of shapes, an instrument of the will of God, who in his work (without envie) bespake all things to become one; which, of the beholders, might be honoured, praised, and loved, being an united heap of sundry shapes. For darknesse shall be preferred before light, death shall seem sweeter than life, no man shall look up to Heaven, a religious man shall be accounted a mad man, an irreligious and profane person seem wise, a mad man, valiant; and the worst of all men, good and pious: for the Soul, and all things about it, wherein it is either mortall, or conceiveth that it shall attain to immortality, accordingly as I have declared unto you, shall not onely be esteemed a thing worthy of laughter, but also a meer vanity: For beleeve me, it shall be reckoned a capital offence for him that shall study to be religious, there shall new Statutes and Laws be stablished: nothing which is religious shall be heard worthy of Heaven, or heavenly things, or be entertained in the hearts of men: there shall be a separation of God, which is much to be lamented, from the Society of men, onely evil angels shall remain mixed with the humanity, which shall violently move to all manner of audacious mischiefs, stir them up to wars, sedition, robberies, deceit, and unto all things contrary to the disposition of the Soul, then the Earth shall not stand, the Sea shall not be sailed in; and in Heaven, the course of the Stars and Planets shall cease, all divine knowledge shall (of necessity) be buried in silence, the fruits of the earth shall be corrupted, neither shall the earth be fruitfull, and the air it self shall languish with a sorrowfull countenance; these and such like times shall come; irreligion and confusion of the world, with a senslesnes & vacancy of al good things. When these things shall happen, O Asclepius, then that Lord and Father God Almighty, Governour onely of the world, looking into the manners, and voluntary deeds of men; after his own will (which is his goodnesse) punishing vices, taking away all errours and corruption, and drowning all manner of wickednesse, either by an inundation of waters, or else consuming them by fire, or else by plague and pestilence, he will end this world, and restore it to its ancient beauty; so that the world it self may seem to be admired and honoured: and God, the Creatour and Restorer of so great a work, shall of all men then being, be magnified with continuall praises and thanksgivings: For this generation of the world, and the reformation of all good things, and the most holy and religious restitution of nature it self, in due time both is, and hath been eternall from the beginning, for the will of God wants beginning, which is the same, and continuall in every place.

Asclep. For the nature of God is the counsaile of his will, and his excellent goodnesse his counsaile, O Trismegistus.

Trism, O Asclepius, his will proceeds from his counsaile, and his will from his will, neither wills he any thing ambitiously which is full of all things, and those which he wills he hath, but he wills all good things, and hath all he wills. For he thinks and wills all good things; but this is God, and the world is the Image of that Good.

Asclep. Good O Trismegistus.

Trism. Good, as I shall teach thee, O Asclepius, for as God is the dispenser and giver of all good things, to every Genus and Species in the World, that is, both of soul and life, so likewise the world is the distributer and giver of all things, which seem good to mortall creatures, that is, change of parts seasonable fruites, nativity, encrease and maturity, and the like, and by this God sitting above in the highest Heaven, is every where, and beholds all things: for there is above these Lower Heavens, a place without Starrs, far from all earthly things, this place betwixt Heaven and Earth the dispenser of a[…]l things inhabiteth, whom we call Iupiter, or god, but on the earth and the Sea, Reigneth Iupiter Pluto, and he is the nourisher, and preserver of all Living and fruitfull mortall Creatures, by the power of all these, Fruits, Trees, Plants, and the ground are refreshed, and the power and effects of other Gods are distributed through all things that are. They are distributed that shall bear rule on the Earth, and shall be placed in the very entrance of Egypt, in that City which is built in the West, or where the Sun sets. To which place all mortall Creatures both in Land and Sea shall hasten.

Asclep. But at this time where are they, O Trismegistus.

Trism. They are placed in the great City, in the Libyan Mountain, and thus far this declaration.

The COMMENTARY.

This whole Ninth Chapter is prophane. Which Augustine well reproveth in his Book of the City of God. It maintaines Idolatry, extolling and setting it forth with wonderfull praises; and the decay or fall of it, it much deplores. In the highest Heaven, he setteth a certain God beholding all things; but, in that place betwixt Heaven and Earth, he placeth Jupiter, the disposer, or Steward; and Pluto Jupiter to be the God, and dispenser on Land, and Sea, as though there were one God in Heaven, another in the Aire, and another on the Land, and Sea; all which contein an infinite impiety of errors: for out of divine Writ we are uncorruptly, purely, and holily taught, that the Lord he is God in Heaven above, and in Earth below, and that there is no other God: but against Idols and Idolatry the word of God and the […]ly Prophets do warily admonish […] that we be not defiled, with so great a blot of impiety, nor corrupted with so great an error, for the Idol it self is cursed, and him that made it, and again, the worshipping of cursed Idols is the cause beginning, and end of all mischief. An Idol maker, and this Idol are both an abomination to the Lord, for both that which is made, with him that it shall be consumed with fire, these and many more things of Idolatry out of the Book of wisdome, and in Leviticus God himself out of his own mouth commandeth, I am the Lord your God, you shall not make to your self any Idol, or graven Image, neither shall you erect any monument, or Pillar in your Land to worship it. And of the Idols of Aegypt, he advertiseth in Ezekiel, Be not polluted with the Idols of Aegypt, for I am the Lord your God: and of their abolishing […] speaketh by the same Prop[…] will destroy their Images and make an end of their Idol Memphis, he shall no more lead them out of the Land of Aegypt. What Mercurius calleth the soul Spirit, and sense of Idols, and Images in that they shall bring diseases, in firmities, and fears upon men, we know without doubt to be evill Spirits, and in assurance to be those of which the Prophet truly affirmeth, that all the Gods of the gentil[…]s, are divils, or evil Spirits. Let this little be sufficient against the impiety of Trismegistus in this ninth part, for we speake to those who are seasoned with the true knowledge of God, which (as the wiseman saith) to know and understand is perfect righteousnesse; and to know his righteousnesse and power is the root of immortality, Lazarelus draweth this place to an Analogie, as though the Idols were the Apostles; the Image of man, Christ; the power given from above, the holy Ghost; Aegypt, the darknesse of the gentiles; and the persecution of the Disciples Apostles & Martyrs, the graven pillars declaring their pious works and that the heart of posterity did ret[…]ine not their works, but their faith only: these are piously invented, but per adventure far from the Letter, or meaning. I think with Augustine that Hermes overshot himself both in this and the 13. Chapter, for they seem to have the Prophets of the Gentiles, as Balaam and the Sybills, that they may suffer both Light and darknesse the lucid and obscure intermixture of Prophecies sometimes pure, and sometimes impure:

This, for the ninth Chapter.

CHAP. X.

NOw we are to discourse of mortality & immortality: for hope and fear of death torments many, which are ignorant of the true reason: for death is caused by dissolution of the body, tyred out with labour and the harmony being ended whereby the members of the body are fitted into one composition for lively uses, for the body dieth when the vitall parts of man faile. This is therefore death; a dissolution of the body, and an utter decay of the bodily senses, about which to take thought for, is to no purpose; but there is an other thing necessary, which either ignorance, or mans incredulity seteth leight by.

Asclep. What is that, O Trismegistus, that they are either […]gnorant of, or believe not to be?

Trism. Hear therefore, O Asclepius, when there shall be a separation of the soul from the body, then the Judgement, and examination of his deserts shall passe over unto the great God; and he when he shall see that it is just and righteous shall suffer it to abide in a fit Mansion but if he shall see it to be spotted and defiled with sin and iniquity he will cast it down, and deliver it to Stormes, Whirle-Winds, fire, Lightening, and Tempest; and it shall be snatched up betwixt Heaven and Earth, with worldly tempests, and with continuall torments, be driven into divers places, that in this respect the eternity of them is prejudicious because by an immortall sentence, the Soul is condemned to everlasting judgment; left therefore we be infolded with these miseries, know that we must fear tremble, and beware; for the unbelievers are after their faults and pleasure in sin compelled to believe not by words, but by examples, not by threatenings but by the very suffering of punishment.

Asclep. Are not then, O Trismegistus, the faults of men punished only by mans Law.

Trism. Forsooth, O Asclepius, first all earthly things which are mortall, then those things also which live by corporal reason and which swarve from living after that Law of reason, all these according to their deserts and faults are liable to punishment, but after death so much the sorer punishment as their faults have been concealed & unpunished in this life, for God foreknowing all things renders a like punishment to evey one according to the measure and quality of the fault.

Asclep. Who are worthy of the greatest punishment, O Trismegistus.

Trism. Those who being condemned by the Laws of men come to a violent death, which seem not to yeeld unto the debt of nature, but to suffer punishment for their deserts: Contrarywise, God is a sheild and defence unto a righteous man, who loveth piety and religion; for he defendeth such from all manner of dangers and evils, for the Father and Lord of all things, who alone is all, showes himself willingly to all, not where he is in place, nor what in quality, nor how great in quantity, but illuminating man with the alone understandof the mind, who when the darknesse of mind is removed; and the brightnesse of truth perceived, participates himself by the full sense of divine knowledge, by whose love he is freed from that naturall part which is mortall, and conceiveth hope of future immortality. This therefore shall be the difference betwixt good and evil men, for every one by piety religion divine worship and reverence of God, shineth and becometh bright as the eye-sight, when he hath throughly seen the truth of reason, and the confidence of hope and excelleth so far other men, as the Sun excelleth other Starrs in his Light: for the Sun it self not so much in greatnesse of diety, as in divinity and sanctity illuminateth the other Starrs. For I suppose this, O Asclepius, to be the Second God governing all other things, & illustrating all worldly things whether they be creatures with life or without life, for if the creature the world hath, is & shall alwaies be Living, nothing in the world is mortal. For there is no place of mortality, for every living part which is in the world, as in one and the same continuall living creature, wherefore it ought to be full of life and eternity, if it must always live. The Sun therefore as the world is eternall, and so is the governour of life and livelinesse, and the continual dispenser of them. He is therefore the God of the living and of those things which have life in the world, the continuall governour, and eternall dispensator of life it self, for he hath once dispensed by an eternall Law; and giveth life to every Living thing. In this manner which I will speake of, for in that quicknesse of eternity, the world is moved, and in that living eternity, is the place of the world, for which hereafter it shall neither stand nor be destroyed, the world being intrenched, and as it were wrapped in with the eternity of life. It is therefore the dispenser or giver of life to all things which are in it, and the place of all things which are governed under the Sun, the commotion of which world consisteth of a twofold effect. For it self is outwardly enlivened from eternity, and it quickens and inlivens those things which are within it, differing in proportions, and appointed, and prefixed times, all things are known and ordered by the effects of the Sun, and by the course, and influence of the Starrs, all temporall things are established by reason and divine Law, the Earthly seasons are known by the quality of the Aire, as either in the variety of heat, or cold, the Heavenly seasons by the return of the Starrs to the same places, and by the temporall change of tides, and the world is the receptacle of time, by whose course and motion it is refreshed, but time is kept by order. Order and time make an innovation of all things which are in the world by course.

The COMMENTARY.

This Tenth Chapter, speaketh of death and the examination of the Soul, when the body shall die, that they shall be most punished after death, whose life justly is taken away by mens Lawes, for the greatnesse of their offences, that God is a defence to the righteous; of the divinity of the Sun, and the world, for he puts the World to be the first sensible God, the Sun to be the Second, that the world shall never take rest, nor be destroyed. But we give not the incommunicable name of God, neither to the Sun, nor to the world, and believe that the world shall one day be dissolved. These things therefore being understood (as the bare words of Hermes shew,) they set out the error of the Gentiles, yet we do grant by participation to these a divinity, as to excellent works of God.

This the tenth part.

CHAP. XI.

VVHerefore all things being so, neither of things created, Heavenly things or Earthly, is any thing stable fixed or immoveable, for only God, and worthily he alone is in himself from himself, and on all sides wholly full and perfect, and this is his firme stability which cannot be removed by the enforcement, or occasion of any other seeing in him are all things, and in all things he is only, unlesse any man will dare to say that his motion consisteth in eternity, but much rather his eternity is unmoveable, into which the motion of all times returneth, and from which the motion of all times takes it beginning. God hath therefore been alwayes stable, and his eternity alwaies a like stable with him, containing the world not created within himself, which we rightly call sensible. The Image of this God is the world, which is made an imitator or resemblance of eternity: for time hath the force, and nature of stability in the very necessity of return again into it self: wherefore albeit eternity be stable immoveable and fixed, yet because by the mobility of time, motion is alwayes called back into eternity, and that mobility is turned by reason of time, it comes to passe that eternity it self is certainely immoveable, and may seem only by time to be moved in which it self is, for in that time is all the motion; so it happens that the stability of eternity is moved, and the stability of time, becomes stable by the rule of motion, and so it is credible that God is moved into himself, by the same immoveablenesse, for there is an in immoveable motion in the greatnesse of his very stability, for the condition of his greatnesse is immoveable. This therefore which is so, and not obvious to our senses, is infinite, incomprehensible and inestimable, which can neither be sustained, reported of, nor found out; whereupon it is uncertain wherein, where, how, and in what fashion it is: for he is reported to be in the greatest stability, and in him is his stability, whether he be God or Eternity, whether the one be in the other, or both in either, for which cause eternity is without definition of time: but time which may be defined, returning either by order course or circuit of another is eternal, wherefore both seem to be infinite, both eternall, for stability considering that it is fixed, for that by the Benefit of strength it can sustein all things that are moveable, it worthily obtaineth Dominion: for the beginning of all things which are, is God, and eternity; but the world because it is moveable hath not the principality, for his mobility prevents his stability by the rule of continuall motion, having an immoveable strength. All sense therefore of the divinity being a like and immoveable, moveth it self by his stability, and is incorrupt, and eternal, or whatsoever may more fitly be called; eternity consisting in the very truth of the high God, full of all sensible things, and full knowledge abiding as I said with God, but worldly sense is the receptacle of all sensible things, both for Species and disclipine, but humane sense by the strength of memory, for that it remembers all things that it hath done: for divine reason and sense come down continually to man, and God would not that excellent, and divine sense should be confounded with all Creatures, lest it should blush in being mixt with brutes. For the understanding of humane sense, of what sort, and how great it is, is wholly in the memory of things past: for by that strength of memory it is made governour of the earth; but the understanding of Nature, and of the quality and sense of the world, may be perceived by all sensible things in the world; eternity, which is the second is known to be a sense and quality given of the sensible world, but the understanding of the quality, and quality of the sense of the high God, is the alone truth, the shaddow of which truth in the world is not certainly known in the last line, for where is any thing known by the dimension of time, where there seem to be leasings generations and errors? You see therefore, O Asclepius, in what things we are agreed upon, which we handle or which we dare to touch: but I give unto thee thankes, O great God, which hast illuminated me with the light of seeing thy divinity: and you O Latus, Asclepius, And Amnon, conceale secretly within your breasts and keep close these divine Mysteries. But in this differeth understanding from sense, for that our understanding commeth by the intention, and diligence of the mind to understand and know the quality of the sense of the world, but the understanding of the world reacheth to eternity, and to know God who is above it self, and so it happens unto us men, that as in a mist we see those things which are in Heaven, as much as it is possible through the condition of humane sense. And this intention or reach in perceiving so great good things is very narrow and weak, but is most large when it shall see it by knowledge, and the testimony of a good conscience.

The COMMENTARY.

The eleventh Chapter discloseth that onely God is immovable and stable, and all other things mutable; God is infinite, incomprehensible, and is unknown what he is: the holy, incorrupt, and eternall sense of God, treateth of the sense of the world, of the sense of man, of the difference of the understanding from the sense.

This is the Sum of the eleventh Part.