Poemandres – Shepherd of Men – Nous

Poemanders is personification of the Mind of God. Poemanders was revealed to Hermes Trismegistus and containing visions of the creation of the world, nature and destiny of mankind, which are partly in accordance and partly in contradiction with the book of Genesis of the Old Testament. The fall is described as the descent of primordial man through the sphere of the planets into the world of nature, which was not a consequence of disobedience, but an act of love accompanied by God’s blessing. Man passed through the celestial sphere of stars and planets, until he reached the Moon, the lowest planet. When he looked into the water from there, he saw his own shadow, fell in love with it, so he was attracted to the irrational sphere of matter and became a deity with one half and an animal with the other. The seven lords of destiny who surround the sensory world are the archons of the seven planets, which also appear in Plato and in the early Christian Gnostic writings. They represent the power of harmony, but also the source of tendencies that lead people to evil. People who know that the body is transient, after death can rise above the seven spheres and enter the eighth sphere where they will hear the hymn of the Father and become part of the power of his Mind (Nous). Poemandres describes how, at the hour of death, the soul of an ascetic leaves behind everything that is mortal and destructive, and how it ascends through the seven spheres and joins other spirits who spend eternity “singing God in a sweet voice.”

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