Asclepius 21–29

Asclepius 21–29

[A Hermetic discourse of Hermes to Asclepius; preserved in Coptic. Damaged in places.]

If you wish to see the reality of this mystery, behold the wonderful image of the joining of male and female. For when the seed reaches its fullness, it leaps forth; and in that moment the woman receives the strength of the man, and the man the strength of the woman. Therefore the act of generation is done in secret, lest the ignorant mock what is holy; for it is a sacrament of the One who brings forth all. The pious are few, and they are mocked by the many; but God is with them, and they walk in knowledge and love.

Hear now a prophecy, Asclepius. There will come a time when it will seem that the Egyptians have served the divine in vain; for their reverence will turn to emptiness. The gods will leave the earth and go up to heaven, and Egypt will be forsaken. Foreigners will fill the land, and it will be forbidden to revere the divine; and the most holy land of shrines will be full of tombs and of the dead. O Egypt, Egypt, only stories of your devotion will remain, words carved in stone, and your children will not believe them. Then the river will be filled with blood, and the living will be fewer than the dead, and the world will no longer be wondered at. [Line damaged]

Yet this is not the end. When these things have come to pass, the Lord and Father, the God who rules, looking upon what has happened, will set his will against the disorder, and will recall the world to its first beauty, that the world may again be worthy of reverence and wonder, and God be glorified with unceasing praise and blessing. For this is the birth of the world: a restoration of all good things, a holy and awe-filled return of nature itself, brought about in the course of time by the will of God. [Text missing]

[Fragment breaks here]