The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius: 1.3
Just as the soul, having the Form, (is) in the body, which cannot be constituted without the soul, so also all visible things cannot be constituted without the invisible.
Translation choices
- "having the Form" - in the original this phrase sits between "in the body" and "which without the soul cannot be constituted" (a descriptor of the body). This makes it ambiguous: is it a descriptor of the soul or the body? It is present in half of the manuscripts. Manandyan drops this phrase, while Mahé restores it.
- "having the Form" - the verb used for "having" is later used for the body having eyes and the soul having reason. I chose not to substitute it with a more specialised term (like participating) to avoid enforcing an interpretation
- be constituted - the same word will later be used to indicate that something is composed of elements
Definitions
- soul - ψυχή, the animating principle of a living body. In ancient philosophy, the soul is what makes a body alive, unified, and capable of functioning. Definitions will later have more to say on what the soul is and how it comes into being.
Interpretation
The soul "having the Form" echoes Man as Form, while "the invisible" was previously linked to the intelligible world, God. The two monads from I.1 show up again. In I.3 we find out why they are related - they serve a similar function, in that they are necessary for their visible counterpart - respectively the body of man and the cosmos - to be constituted. The soul is holding the constituents of the body together, and without it the body dissolves.
Incidentally, this also suggests that the cosmos is in some sense the body of God.