One of the ways I like to describe how to approach reading the Hermetic texts is as if they were fine dining.  Instead of treating them as fast food, where you pull up in a drive-through and order and wolf down a sandwich and soda before you even get back home, this is more something you should sit down for in a proper state of mind, appreciate the layout of the various bits and bobs in front of you, chew each bite carefully several times, swallow it down with a complementary wine, and mull over one course before moving onto the next.  The reason for this is simple: the Hermetic texts can be dense, if not obtuse at times!  More than anything else, they take time to properly understand, so we need to give ourselves that time and effort to digest what’s in them.  It’s not that their content is somehow encrypted or encoded, or written in some multilevel way at different spiritual levels; on the contrary, they’re all rather blatant and up-front about what they talk about—it’s just that it’s hard to talk about this stuff.
我喜欢将阅读赫尔墨士文本的方法描述为一种精致的用餐体验。与其将它们视为快餐，像在得来速点餐后迅速狼吞虎咽地吃掉三明治和饮料，不如将其视为一种需要坐下来、调整心态来享受的体验，欣赏面前各式各样元素的布局，仔细咀嚼每一口，搭配一杯合适的葡萄酒慢慢吞咽，在进入下一个章节之前好好思考这一道菜。原因很简单：赫尔墨士文本有时会非常晦涩，甚至难以理解！更重要的是，它们需要时间来正确理解，因此我们需要花时间和心思去消化文本中的内容。这并不是说它们的内容以某种方式被加密或编码，或者在不同的精神层次上以多层次的方式书写；恰恰相反，它们所谈论的内容相当明确和直接——只是谈论这些内容本身是很困难的。

On the whole, if you approach the Hermetic texts in this sort of let-it-digest mindset and pair it off with complementary reading from contemporary Greco-Egyptian spiritual and magical texts (especially the Greek Magical Papyri or Nag Hammadi Codices), much of it can be appreciated rather fully (and in rather short order with the appropriate approach).  However, there are still some concepts that are particularly troublesome to get, and one of those is introduced in CH XI: that of aiōn, sometimes translated “eternity”.  In this text, we are presented with a dialogue between Hermēs Trismegistos as student and with Nous itself as teacher to Hermēs:
总体而言，如果以一种让其消化的心态来接触赫尔墨斯文本，并结合对当代希腊-埃及精神及魔法文本（特别是希腊魔法纸草书或纳格哈马迪文献）的互补阅读，那么其中的大部分内容都可以相当充分地被欣赏（并且在合适的方式下可以相对快速地理解）。然而，仍然有一些概念特别难以理解，其中之一在第十一章中被引入：aiōn 的概念，有时翻译为“永恒”。在此文本中，我们看到赫尔墨斯·崔斯梅吉斯托斯作为学生与 Nous 本身作为赫尔墨斯的老师之间的对话：

Nous: “God, eternity, cosmos, time, becoming.  God makes eternity; eternity makes the cosmos; the cosmos makes time; time makes becoming. The essence (so to speak) of god is [the good, the beautiful, happiness,] wisdom; the essence of eternity is identity; of the cosmos, order; of time, change; of becoming, life and death. But the energy of god is mind and soul; the energy of eternity is permanence and immortality; of the cosmos, recurrence and counterrecurrence; of time, increase and decrease; of becoming, quality <and quantity>. Eternity, therefore, is in god, the cosmos in eternity, time in the cosmos, and becoming in time. And while eternity has stood still in god’s presence, the cosmos moves in eternity, time passes in the cosmos, but becoming comes to be in time.  The source of all things is god; eternity is their essence; the cosmos is their matter. Eternity is the power of god, and the cosmos is eternity’s work, but the cosmos has never come into being; it comes to be forever from eternity. Therefore, nothing in the cosmos will ever be corrupted (for eternity is incorruptible), nor will it pass away since eternity encloses the cosmos.”
我们：“上帝、永恒、宇宙、时间、生成。上帝创造永恒；永恒创造宇宙；宇宙创造时间；时间创造生成。上帝的本质（可以这样说）是[善、美、幸福、]智慧；永恒的本质是同一性；宇宙的本质是秩序；时间的本质是变化；生成的本质是生与死。然而，上帝的能量是心灵和灵魂；永恒的能量是持久性和不朽；宇宙的能量是重复和反复；时间的能量是增加和减少；生成的能量是质量<和数量>。因此，永恒在上帝中，宇宙在永恒中，时间在宇宙中，生成在时间中。虽然永恒在上帝面前静止，宇宙在永恒中运动，时间在宇宙中流逝，但生成在时间中出现。万物的源头是上帝；永恒是它们的本质；宇宙是它们的物质。永恒是上帝的力量，宇宙是永恒的作品，但宇宙从未真正存在；它永远从永恒中出现。因此，宇宙中的任何事物都不会被腐蚀（因为永恒是不朽的），也不会消逝，因为永恒包容着宇宙。”

Hermēs: “But the wisdom of god—what is it?”
赫尔墨斯：“但是，神的智慧——它是什么？”

Nous: “The good and the beautiful and happiness and all excellence and eternity. Eternity establishes an order, putting immortality and permanence into matter.  The becoming of that matter depends from eternity, just as eternity depends from god. Becoming and time, whose natures are twofold, exist in heaven and on earth: in heaven they are changeless and incorruptible, but on earth they change and become corrupt. And god is the soul of eternity; eternity is the soul of the cosmos; heaven is the soul of earth. God is in mind, but mind is in soul, and soul is in matter, yet all these exist through eternity. Inwardly, a soul full of mind and god fills this universal body in which all bodies exist, but outwardly soul surrounds the universe and brings it to life. Outwardly, the universe is this great and perfect living thing, the cosmos; inwardly, it is all living things. Above in heaven soul persists in its identity, but on earth below it changes what it comes to be.
我们：“善、美、幸福、以及所有卓越与永恒。永恒建立了一种秩序，将不朽和永恒性注入物质中。物质的生成依赖于永恒，就像永恒依赖于神一样。生成与时间，其本质是双重的，存在于天上和地上：在天上它们是恒定且不腐朽的，但在地上它们变化并变得腐朽。神是永恒的灵魂；永恒是宇宙的灵魂；天是大地的灵魂。神存在于心智中，而心智存在于灵魂中，灵魂又存在于物质中，但这些都是通过永恒存在的。从内在看，充满心智和神的灵魂填满了这个所有身体存在的宇宙之体，而从外在看，灵魂围绕着宇宙并赋予其生命。从外在看，宇宙是这个伟大而完美的生物，宇宙；从内在看，它是所有生物。在天上，灵魂保持其身份，但在地上，它改变了其所成为的状态。”

And on and on.  It’s a really interesting dialogue, not least because it’s one of the few that presents Hermēs as student (and that in a conversation with Mind—his own? as if he’s in some sort of deliberative/investigative trance?), but because of its fascinating description of “eternity”.  Copenhaver has a lengthy note about this word in his endnotes to his translation:
并且如此不断。这是一个非常有趣的对话，尤其是因为这是少数几个将赫尔墨斯呈现为学生的对话之一（而且是在与心智的对话中——是他的心智吗？仿佛他处于某种审议/调查的恍惚状态？），以及它对“永恒”的迷人描述。科本哈弗在他翻译的尾注中对这个词有一段详尽的说明：

The word “eternity” (aiōn) occurs thirty times in the Greek treatises, twenty-seven times in C.H. XI; the others are in XII.8, 15 and XIII.20. The Latin equivalent, aeternitas, can be found twenty-five times in the Asclepius. Festugiére…distinguishes temporal and spatial, static and dynamic, personal and impersonal senses of aiōn, translating it variously as Eternité to signify a hypostasized divine power (XI.2-5), éternité or éternelle durée to represent the abstract philosophical sense (XI.7, XII.15), and Aiōn (XI.20, XII.8, XIII.20) to mean a particular Hellenistic god…Aion, as the supreme god of Mithraism, resembles the Persian Zrvan akarana, boundless time; in theological terms he became Kronos and Saturnus, in philosophical terms the Stoic heimarmenē. But Zervan was never precisely identified with Aion, according to Nock, who distinguishes various meanings of the word aiōn, which he calls “a term of fluid sense”: in classical philosophy, the idea of eternity; in Hellenistic thought, a supreme or lesser god, such as Helios; a Greek rendering of the Phoenician Baal Shamin, “lord of eternity”; a personalized power or hypostasis in Christian and Gnostic literature; a deity of Alexandria identified with Agathodaimon. In one place a magical text (PGM IV.3168 [Betz, p. 94]) addresses Aion as “holy Agathos Daimon,”… elsewhere the same papyrus (1205 [Betz, p. 61]) calls Aion “Wisdom” or (520 [Betz, p. 48]) “immortal Aion…master of the fiery diadems”; cf. “the invariable Aion” (V.467 [Betz, p. 110]). Commenting on the doctrine of the Chaldaean Oracles, Lewy…writes that “the Chaldaean Aion is not only a divinity, but also a noetic hypostasis.”…
“永恒”（aiōn）一词在希腊文的著作中出现了三十次，在 C.H. XI 中出现二十七次；其他的出现在 XII.8、15 和 XIII.20 中。拉丁文对应词 aeternitas 在《阿斯克勒庇乌斯》中出现了二十五次。费斯图吉埃……区分了 aiōn 的时间和空间、静态和动态、个人和非个人的意义，分别翻译为永恒以表示一种具化的神性力量（XI.2-5）、永恒或永恒的持续以代表抽象的哲学意义（XI.7，XII.15），以及 aiōn（XI.20，XII.8，XIII.20）以指代一个特定的希腊化神祇……艾翁，作为密特拉教的至高神，与波斯的 Zrvan akarana（无边时间）相似；在神学术语中，他成为了克罗诺斯和土星，在哲学术语中则是斯多卡的 heimarmenē。 但根据诺克的说法，泽尔瓦从未被确切认同为艾翁，他区分了“aiōn”这个词的各种含义，称其为“流动意义的术语”：在古典哲学中，永恒的概念；在希腊化思想中，至高或较低的神灵，例如赫利俄斯；腓尼基巴尔·沙敏的希腊语翻译，“永恒的主”；在基督教和诺斯替文献中，个性化的力量或本体；被亚历山大城认定为阿卡托达蒙的神。在一处，魔法文本（PGM IV.3168 [Betz, p. 94]）称艾翁为“神圣的阿卡托斯·达伊蒙”，……而在同一卷纸草文献（1205 [Betz, p. 61]）中则称艾翁为“智慧”或（520 [Betz, p. 48]）“不朽的艾翁……火焰王冠的主人”；参见“不变的艾翁”（V.467 [Betz, p. 110]）。评论查尔德神谕的教义时，刘维…写道“查尔德的艾翁不仅是一位神明，还是一种智识的本体”。请提供您需要翻译的文本

In statuary, he was represented as a naked, lion-headed man bearing four wings on his back, carrying keys and a scepter in his hands, and encircled six times by a serpent whose head appears atop the lion-head. Figures of Aion are sometimes ringed by the zodiac, reflecting Mithraic interest in the soul’s voyage through the heavens. For aiōn and the Hebrew `olam, see… Zostrianos, a text early enough to have been known to Plotinus, contains a rich description of the aeons in a Gnostic myth… Festugière acknowledges…the interpenetration of the meanings of aiōn and the consequent difficulties of translating the word, to which he devotes two full chapters…of his Révélation.
在雕像中，他被表现为一个赤裸的、狮头人，背上生有四只翅膀，手中握着钥匙和权杖，六次被一条蛇环绕，蛇头位于狮头之上。艾翁的形象有时被黄道带环绕，反映出米特拉教对灵魂穿越天际的兴趣。关于 aiōn 和希伯来语的`olam，请参见……《佐斯特里亚诺斯》是一部足够早的文本，以至于普罗提诺可能熟知，它丰富地描述了诺斯底神话中的永世……费斯图吉尔承认……aiōn 意义的交融及其翻译所带来的困难，因而他在《启示录》中专门花费两章进行了讨论……

Copenhaver’s endnotes to his CH and AH translations are good, but it’s uncommon even for him to devote such length to a any particular concept, but that of aiōn deserves it.  The Wikipedia article on it is a good place for many to start to introduce themselves to this theological concept and presences in a variety of Mediterranean and Hellenistic spiritual traditions, but even then it doesn’t get too in-depth.  Eleni Pachoumi’s The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri treats on aiōn in a handful of PGM texts (PGM IV.2145, PGM XIII, PGM XII.201, PGM IV.1167, PGM V.459); her analyses of the individual PGM texts are really enlightening (and I recommend everyone to check it out and read it in full), but her conclusion tidies it all up:
Copenhaver 对其 CH 和 AH 翻译的尾注很优秀，但即使对他来说，也不常见会对某一特定概念如此详细的探讨，而 aiōn 值得如此。维基百科上的相关文章是许多人接触这一神学概念以及在多种地中海和希腊化精神传统中存在的一个良好起点，但即便如此，它的内容也并没有深入。Eleni Pachoumi 的《希腊魔法 papyri 中的神圣概念》在一些 PGM 文本中探讨了 aiōn（PGM IV.2145，PGM XIII，PGM XII.201，PGM IV.1167，PGM V.459）；她对各个 PGM 文本的分析确实令人启发（我建议大家查看并完整阅读），但她的结论将一切都整理得很清晰：

In this section the religious and philosophical assimilations have been examined of the abstract, deified concept of Aion, or the god of Aions in a series of spells of the Greek magical papyri. The abstract character of Aion is defined by his various assimilations to deities mainly from the Greek and Egyptian polytheistic systems, or from the Jewish monotheistic system with its whole range of angels and archangels, or even to abstract, philosophical concepts. The assimilation of Aion to the creator-god of all and to Jewish deities reveals Jewish influences. Aion’s identification also with other abstract concepts, such as Wisdom (or Tyche, the encompassing, the system, the spirit, or the form of the world) emphasises his abstract quality, appropriating at the same time to a single concept of Eternity gods from various religious traditions.
在本节中，探讨了抽象的、神化的“艾翁”（Aion）概念或“艾翁之神”在一系列希腊魔法古纸文献中的宗教和哲学同化。艾翁的抽象特征通过他与主要来自希腊和埃及多神教系统，或来自犹太一神教系统及其全系列天使和大天使，甚至抽象哲学概念的各种同化而得以定义。艾翁与所有创造神以及犹太神祇的同化揭示了犹太影响。艾翁还与其他抽象概念的认同，例如智慧（或幸运，包罗万象、系统、精神或世界的形式），强调了他的抽象属性，同时也将来自各种宗教传统的永恒神归于一个单一的概念。

This process of assimilation also implies Aion’s ability to accumulate the features of these gods, or concepts into a single concept of Aion/“Eternity.” The ‘many-forms’ and transformations of Aion become explicit in the assimilation of the creator-god of all to “Aion of Aion,” “who is transformed into all (gods).” This ‘many-formedness’ is an important vehicle in the assimilation of gods from different religious systems. It also facilitates a tendency towards henotheism.
这一同化过程也暗示了“永恒”Aion 累积这些神祇或概念特征的能力。Aion 的“多形态”和变形在将所有创造神同化为“Aion of Aion”的过程中变得显而易见，“他化身为所有（神）。”这种“多形态性”是同化来自不同宗教体系的神祇的重要载体。它还促进了一种单神崇拜的倾向。

The assimilation of “the master of all things (ὁ τῶν ὅλων δεσπότης), Aion of Aions” to “Πᾶν” (IV.2196–2199) and a similar association of Ἕν καὶ τὸ Πᾶν to ὁ πάντα κτίσας and θεὸς μόνος “the only god” (XIII.978–983) implies henotheistic and monotheistic notions within a formally polytheistic framework. There are also other attempts to create a megatheistic concept in the description of Aion as being “great, great,” or the “forefather,” or a similar first principle as the “first-begotten,” “first-born,” or the “self-engendered,” often derived from Orphic cosmogonies.
“万物之主（ὁ τῶν ὅλων δεσπότης），永恒之永恒”与“Πᾶν”的同化（IV.2196–2199）以及“Ἕν καὶ τὸ Πᾶν”与“ὁ πάντα κτίσας”和“θεὸς μόνος”即“唯一的神”（XIII.978–983）之间的类似关联，暗示了在一个形式上为多神论框架内的单神论和一神论观念。还有其他尝试将 Aion 描述为“伟大、伟大”或“祖先”，或类似的第一原则，如“首生”、“初生”或“自生”，这些通常源于奥尔菲克宇宙论。

The philosophical influences on the particular magical spells and especially the influences from the Neoplatonists are used in active ways, for example, to underwrite unifying abstractions such as Intelligence, or Mind, or to reconcile the notion of apparent plurality with ‘one-ness.’ The notion of ‘one-ness,’ as transcending apparent plurality is expressed in the hymn “To the creator of all” (XII.244–252), in which the creator of all-king of Aions is addressed as “one god immortal; the begetter of all” (XII.246–247).
哲学对特定魔法咒语的影响，特别是新柏拉图主义者的影响，是以积极的方式运用的，例如，用以支持统一的抽象概念，如智慧或心智，或调和表面多样性与“统一性”的概念。“统一性”的概念，作为超越表面多样性的，是在颂歌《一切创造者的颂歌》中表达的（XII.244–252），在此，所有之王—时代之王的创造者被称为“一个不朽的神；万物的造物主”（XII.246–247）。

The reading of the spells should be inclusive of the various religious and philosophical currents and not exclusive. The various assimilations of Aion within a religious system, or between different systems and the various names and transformations may also at the same time reflect influences from the Neoplatonist philosophers related to the notion of the “one (which) is at the same time and many,” or “that manifold one having the many in one.”
咒语的诵读应当包容各种宗教和哲学潮流，而非排他性地进行。在某一宗教体系内或不同体系之间对艾翁的各种吸收，以及各种名称和转化，可能同时反映了与“一个（同时也是多个）”或“那多样的一个拥有多个合而为一”的概念相关的新柏拉图主义哲学家的影响。

Despite my objections to the tendency of reading henotheism/monotheism/megatheism into such a context, the PGM content Pachoumi investigates is noteworthy especially because the PGM is such a valuable body of texts for the study of Hermeticism.  Sure, it’s not in the genre of philosophical/theoretical Hermetica, but there are parts of it that would certainly classify as practical/technical Hermetica, or at the very least concordant Greco-Egyptian magical texts that would have been familiar to the writers and mystics behind the philosophical/theoretical Hermetica (cf. the Prayer of Thanksgiving from PGM III also present at the end of the AH and following up the Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth in the Nag Hammadi Codices).  For my part, a good many of my favorite entries from the PGM involve Aiōn to one degree or another, including offering elaborate invocations to Aiōn; what I call the Stele of Aiōn from PGM IV.1167, the similar Stele of Deliverance from PGM I.197, the Hymn of the Hidden Stele from PGM IV.1115, the Royal Hymn from PGM XII.201, pretty much the entirety of PGM XIII including the main focus of the Heptagram Rite, and on and on.  While all taking place in a really fun Greco-Egyptian spiritual context that blurs the boundaries between religion and magic, we see Aiōn take a huge role as being some sort of supreme deity in the PGM, identified at times with the God of Abraham in Jerusalem (as in PGM XIII), all-sovereign Zeus (as in PGM VI.459), the Agathos Daimōn (as in PGM XII), and so on.
尽管我反对在这种背景下将亨诺斯主义/一神论/大神论的倾向融入其中，但帕乔米调查的《庞哥米》内容尤其值得注意，因为《庞哥米》是一部对研究赫尔墨斯主义极为重要的文本。确实，它不属于哲学/理论赫尔墨斯主义的类型，但其中有些部分无疑可以归类为实用/技术赫尔墨斯主义，或者至少是与哲科-埃及魔法文本一致的内容，后者对哲学/理论赫尔墨斯主义的作者和神秘主义者来说是熟悉的（参见《庞哥米》第三卷的感谢祷告，亦出现在《阿卡夫文集》的末尾，并随后在《纳哈姆迪手稿》中提到第八和第九谈话）。就我而言，我最喜欢的《庞哥米》条目有许多与艾翁有关，程度各异，包括对艾翁的详细召唤；我称之为《庞哥米》第四卷第 1167 节的艾翁碑，《庞哥米》第一卷第 197 节的解脱碑，《庞哥米》第四卷第 1115 节的隐秘碑歌，《庞哥米》第十二卷第 201 节的皇家颂歌，以及几乎整部《庞哥米》第十三卷，包括七角星仪式的主要内容，等等。 尽管所有这些都发生在一个非常有趣的希腊-埃及精神背景中，模糊了宗教与魔法之间的界限，我们看到艾翁在《帕格梅》（PGM）中扮演了一个巨大的角色，作为某种至高无上的神明，有时被认同为耶路撒冷的亚伯拉罕之神（如在 PGM XIII 中），全能的宙斯（如在 PGM VI.459 中），善神达伊蒙（如在 PGM XII 中）等。

So why do I bring this up in this post series of oneness in Hermeticism?  It’s because I think Aiōn has a really useful role to play in the theology and theologically-driven practice of Hermeticism.  To be sure, there’s Wouter Hanegraaff’s intricate and nuanced argument in his Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination about aiōn and what it means to “become the aiōn” (which he dedicates two chapters to detailing in his book), where he understands aiōn as “God’s incorporeal imagination filled with the noēmata of all that is”, what he calls a “third kind of imaginal awareness” (different from both the “‘phantom images’ of the imagination” of everyday human consciousness as well as the “supreme image of the Monas that is capable of drawing the soul up from the body”), where it is “the eternal divine perspective from everywhere…not the image of God as it appears to human consciousness, but the All as it is perceived in God’s own consciousness”.  It is a “third kind” in the sense that it mediates between Being (as God is) and Becoming (as things come to be), between the “divine noetic world and the material world of the senses”, and as such is what we are reborn into to dwell within permanently as part of the process of Hermetic salvation.  I admit, this was all rather difficult for me to grasp, but my recent musing about the Godhead and what it means to realize it has helped me better understand Hanegraaff’s thesis here in some really insightful ways; Hanegraaff clarifies that “becoming the aiōn” can be understood as a sort of “cosmic consciousness” in the sense of it being a permanent “mode of imaginal perception by which God perceives the world” without necessarily receiving gnōsis of God or of oneself.  It is not in and itself salvation or the end-goal of Hermeticism, but it is part of the process by which one attains that goal; it is only cosmic consciousness, not transcendent awareness.
所以我为什么在这篇关于赫尔墨斯主义统一性的系列文章中提到这一点？因为我认为艾翁在赫尔墨斯主义的神学及其驱动的实践中扮演着非常有用的角色。值得肯定的是，沃特尔·哈内格拉夫在他的《赫尔墨斯精神性与历史想象》一书中对艾翁及“成为艾翁”的意义进行了复杂而细致的论证（他在书中 dedicates 了两个章节来详细探讨），他将艾翁理解为“上帝充满一切存在的理性意象的无形想象”，他称之为“第三种想象意识”（不同于日常人类意识中“想象的幻影图像”和“能将灵魂从身体中升起的单一 supreme 意象”），它是“来自各个地方的永恒神圣视角……不是人类意识中所见的上帝形象，而是在上帝自身意识中感知的万物”。 它是一种“第三类”，因为它在存在（如神一样）和生成（如事物的成就）之间进行调解，在“神圣的思维世界与感官的物质世界”之间，因此它是我们再生后永久栖息的地方，作为赫尔墨斯救赎过程的一部分。我承认，这对我来说相当难以理解，但我最近对神性的思考以及实现它的意义帮助我以某种深入的方式更好地理解汉内格拉夫在这里的论点；汉内格拉夫澄清，“成为 aiōn”可以理解为一种“宇宙意识”，因为它是一种永恒的“想象感知的方式，通过这种方式，神感知世界”，而不一定获得对神或自我的认识。它本身并不是救赎或赫尔墨斯主义的终极目标，但它是实现该目标过程的一部分；它只是宇宙意识，而不是超越的觉知。

When we go back to CH XI’s description of Aiōn, we see Aiōn being the first thing in the order of creation, the essence of which is tautotēs “identity” and which is the essence of the All.  Given this, and given how Hanegraaff describes Aiōn as the imaginal domain of God in which and by which God creates all things, and given what other scholars have noted about Aiōn’s presence in other Greco-Egyptian and Mediterranean Hellenistic spiritual contexts, the best way for me to approach and understand Aiōn in a nutshell is this: Aiōn is God if God were a god.  After all, the Godhead itself is not a god but is beyond the gods; however, Aiōn itself is considered a “first and primal” god, a god whom the gods themselves worship (more than they do each other at any rate), a god of ultimate power and creation and order for the whole cosmos.  Aiōn behaves and functions as a supreme deity within a good deal of Greco-Egyptian magical literature, and takes on as much an immanently demiurgic role as much as a transcendent theosophical one.  To my mind, Aiōn comes closest (within the same Greco-Egyptian context that the Hermetic texts themselves arise) to acting as a sort of “avatar” or “mask” for the Godhead as a god, not unlike how the Father or Son or Holy Spirit are “persons” for the hypostasis of God in a trinitarian Christian sense.
当我们回到 CH XI 对 Aiōn 的描述时，我们看到 Aiōn 是创世秩序中的第一事物，其本质是 tautotēs“同一性”，而这一点是宇宙的本质。鉴于此，以及 Hanegraaff 将 Aiōn 描述为上帝的想象领域，正是在这个领域和通过这个领域，上帝创造万物，并考虑到其他学者对 Aiōn 在其他希腊-埃及和地中海希腊化精神背景中存在的注意，我对 Aiōn 的理解简而言之就是：如果上帝是一个神，Aiōn 就是上帝。毕竟，上帝本身不是一个神，而是超越诸神的；然而，Aiōn 本身被视为“第一且原始”的神，一个众神敬奉的神（至少比他们彼此之间更敬奉），是整个宇宙的最终力量、创造和秩序之神。Aiōn 在大量希腊-埃及的魔法文献中表现并发挥着作为至高神的角色，同时兼具内在的造物主角色和超越的神秘哲学角色。 在我看来，艾翁在赫尔墨文本所产生的希腊-埃及背景中，最接近于充当一种“化身”或“面具”，作为神的神性，这与父亲、儿子或圣灵在三位一体基督教意义上作为神的本质的“位格”并无二致。

The idea that “Aiōn is God as if God were a god” is one that came to me some time ago on Discord (and which I’ve been meaning to write about for some time now), and while I don’t go so far as to outright equate Aiōn with the Godhead (because Aiōn is a thing that exists, while the Godhead only preexists!), this idea does provide a way to understand or approach the Godhead with god-like tendencies.  In a way, especially given how many of the Aiōn-related prayers we see in the PGM ring so closely to what we see of the prayers in the classical Hermetic texts (e.g. PGM XIII.325 with the opening of the Secret Hymn from CH XIII), when we worship God though prayer, thanksgiving, or sacrifice, it could be argued that we’re doing so “through” Aiōn, and as we develop our sort of mystic devotion to God, we’re doing so “towards” Aiōn or using Aiōn as a conceptual stand-in for the Godhead (until we reach such a point as we can do so with the Godhead directly via nous, i.e. the transition to be made between saguna bhakti and nirguna bhakti).  In this sense, Aiōn provides a “directly interactable divine entity” for God that allows God to directly interact with the cosmos (and us) and for us (and the rest of the cosmos) to directly interact with God, as opposed to the Godhead in its own fullness.  In that light, praying to Aiōn is praying to the Godhead as a god.
“艾翁（Aiōn）是上帝，就像上帝是个神”这一想法在不久前通过 Discord 传达给我（我一直想对此写些东西），尽管我不至于将艾翁完全等同于神性（因为艾翁是存在的事物，而神性只是预存在的！），但这个想法确实提供了一种理解或接近神性的方式，具有神的倾向。某种意义上，尤其考虑到我们在《帕格姆》（PGM）中看到的许多与艾翁相关的祷告与经典赫尔墨斯文献中的祷告（例如，PGM XIII.325 与 CH XIII 的《秘密颂歌》开头）如此接近，当我们通过祷告、感恩或祭献来崇拜上帝时，可以说我们是在“通过”艾翁来崇拜，而随着我们发展对上帝的一种神秘奉献，我们是在“朝向”艾翁，或在使用艾翁作为神性概念的替代（直到我们能够通过心灵（nous）直接与神性交流，即在有形崇拜（saguna bhakti）与无形崇拜（nirguna bhakti）之间进行过渡）。 在这个意义上，Aiōn 为上帝提供了一个“可直接互动的神圣实体”，使上帝能够直接与宇宙（和我们）互动，同时我们（和其他宇宙）也能直接与上帝互动，而不是以上帝自身的完整性。在这种情况下，向 Aiōn 祈祷就是向其作为神的上帝本体祈祷。

In addition to giving a useful and clearly-defined role to Aiōn, this approach also resolves a longstanding religious issue for me regarding the specifics of prayer and supplication to God in Hermeticism.  As many of my readers know, I’ve experimented with different ways to approach Hermeticism as a mystical and spiritual tradition, resulting in my two approaches of “Papetic” Hermeticism and “Luxoric” Hermeticism, the former being grounded in a Greco-Egyptian polytheistic approach, the latter being an Abrahamic monotheistic approach.  These resulted in my two prayerbooks of Preces Templi and Preces Castri, respectively, with Preces Castri itself coming about as part of a sort of “geomantic spirituality” I was working on as its own expansive project some years ago with heavy Islamic influence.  While I still at times use some of my Luxoric tricks here or there, in general I stick to a Papetic approach precisely because I have this hang-up on “asking God for things”.  Like, there are countless prayers, supplications, and the like that have been drawn up in various Abrahamic traditions to ask God for prosperity, protection, power, honor, abundance, physical well-being, and on and on—and yeah, such supplications make sense within a context like that.  But for me, it always seemed…”off” to ask that of God within a classical Hermetic context.  Like, if God in Hermeticism is so transcendent and so cosmic, and if our own salvation is tied up not in cosmic things but in hypercosmic attainment, then…like, why ask God for these things?  That’s what I should go to the gods for, since it’s in their immediate domain and power and responsibility to ask for protection, health, abundance, and the like, and so it’s improper to go to God for these things, since God has nothing to do with them and is higher and beyond all them.  In that light, the only things I pray for from God are gnōsis, thanksgiving for nous, and the like; the gods, for me, take care of everything “lower” than that.  We see this in Prayer of Thanksgiving, where Hermēs prays that “we ask for only one favor…we ask for only one protection…”; this part suggests to me that there’s not a whole lot to “pray for” from God besides knowing God, especially after all the other talk of so many other things Hermēs immediately spoke about going to the gods in general for in the AH immediately preceding the Prayer of Thanksgiving.
除了为 Aiōn 赋予一个有用且明确定义的角色，这种方法还解决了我在赫尔墨斯主义中关于向上帝祈祷和恳求细节的长期宗教问题。正如我的很多读者所知，我尝试过不同的方法来接近赫尔墨斯主义作为一种神秘和精神传统，形成了我两种“教宗式”赫尔墨斯主义和“光明式”赫尔墨斯主义的方式，前者基于希腊-埃及多神教，后者则是一种亚伯拉罕单神教。这导致了我分别创作的两本祈祷书《圣殿祈祷集》和《城堡祈祷集》，而《城堡祈祷集》本身是在几年前作为一种“占卜灵性”项目的一部分而产生的，并受到强烈的伊斯兰影响。虽然我偶尔会在某些时候使用一些“光明式”的技巧，但一般来说，我坚持以“教宗式”的方式，因为我对“向上帝请求东西”这个问题感到困扰。 像是，在各种亚伯拉罕传统中，有无数的祈祷、恳求等等，被用来向上帝请求繁荣、保护、力量、荣誉、丰盈、身体健康等等——这些恳求在那样的背景下是有意义的。但是对我来说，在经典的赫尔墨斯背景下向上帝请求这些总是感觉……”不对劲”。就像，如果在赫尔墨斯主义中，上帝是如此超越和宇宙，并且我们的救赎并不与宇宙事物相关，而是与超宇宙的成就相联系，那么……为什么要向上帝请求这些东西呢？这正是我应该向众神请求的，因为这在他们的直接领域、权力和责任之内，而向上帝请求保护、健康、丰盈等显得不合适，因为上帝与这些无关，而是高于并超越一切。从这个角度来看，我只向上帝祈求 gnōsis、对 nous 的感恩，等等；对我而言，众神照顾所有“低于”这些的事情。 我们在感谢祷告中看到了这一点，赫尔墨斯祈祷说：“我们只请求一个恩惠……我们只请求一个保护……”；这部分让我感觉除了认识上帝之外，从上帝那里“祈求”的东西不多，尤其是在赫尔墨斯在感谢祷告之前的 AH 中提到的那么多其他事情之后。

So much for the Godhead, at least.  Aiōn, however?  Unlike the Godhead which is not a god, Aiōn is indeed a god, and as it turns out I have no hangups about petitioning Aiōn for all these things.  At times it may make more sense to go to a different god more specifically connected to a given situation or related to a specific thing in their domain, but given the abundance of prayers to and rituals involving Aiōn in the PGM, to say nothing of the syncretism of Aiōn with all-sovereign Zeus or the God of Abraham which involve specific empowerments and blessings, it feels much more appropriate to ask Aiōn for “things” while also going to Aiōn for cosmic issues, too, right up to transcendence of the cosmos, as if Aiōn were not just a god in his own right but also a “gate” by which one can access the Godhead.  (This also ties to Aiōn being the ultimate lord of the axis mundi in some PGM texts, and thus treating that axis mundi as itself a “portal” by which one may reach a hypercosmic realm.)  Thus, while in a strict sense the Godhead cannot be equated to or syncretized with any specific deity from any specific pantheon, when we consider the Godhead to take on Aiōn as its “avatar” or “person”, then we can get into systems where we can syncretize Aiōn with any number of supreme deities (including, with nontrivial adaptation, the monotheistic god of Abrahamic faiths).
至少关于神性就说到这里吧。然而，关于艾翁（Aiōn）？与不是神的神性不同，艾翁确实是一个神，事实证明我对于向艾翁请求这些事情没有任何顾虑。有时，求助于更具体与特定情境或其领域内特定事物相关的其他神可能更合适，但考虑到在《皮格梅利翁法典》（PGM）中对艾翁的祈祷和仪式的丰富数量，更不用说艾翁与全能宙斯或亚伯拉罕之神的融合，这涉及到特定的赋能和祝福，向艾翁请求“事物”似乎更加合适，同时也向艾翁寻求宇宙问题，甚至超越宇宙，就好像艾翁不仅是一个神，而也是通向神性的“门户”。（这也与艾翁在某些 PGM 文本中作为世界轴心的终极主宰相关，因此将该世界轴心视为一个可通往超宇宙领域的“传送门”。因此，虽然从严格意义上讲，神性不能等同于或与任何特定神话中的具体神灵进行合成，但当我们考虑神性将艾翁视为其“化身”或“角色”时，我们就能够进入可以将艾翁与任何数量的最高神灵（包括经过不小的调整后，亚伯拉罕宗教的单一神）进行合成的体系。

The important thing, of course, is to remember that Aiōn is a god, while the Godhead is not; rather, Aiōn (in addition to it being the “cosmic consciousness” that provides God the means by which and in which all things come to be, per Hanegraaff) allows us to conceptualize the Godhead as a specific god, which can aid us in the process of mystic devotion (on top of allowing interested magicians or actively-involved priests to beseech divine aid from a specific all-ruling deity in line with their mystic work).  Even still, we should be extremely careful that we not confuse Aiōn with the Godhead, because then we stifle ourselves in our own mystic work by conflating something that exists with that which preexists.  Aiōn is not God, but acts for us as if God were a god, which provides us extra grounding to perform the “trick” of mystic devotion to the Godhead as a means to attain henosis and realize Oneness.  Merely praying to God as a god, while it might provide a useful starting point for someone just starting out on a mystic path, is not at all the actual point of Hermeticism; this isn’t a small thing to merely be quietly pious about and call it a day.  As Hermeticists, we need to not only understand God, but to understand what God both is and isn’t, not in the facile sense of “there is nothing that is not God”, but rather to understand that what the Godhead is compared to all other things, and that the point of Heremticism isn’t to merely worship God but to attain union with the Godhead, which is realizing Oneness—henosis itself.
当然，重要的是要记住，Aiōn 是一位神，而神性则不是；相反，Aiōn（除了它被认为是“宇宙意识”，提供给神所有事物得以存在的方式和环境，依照 Hanegraaff 的说法）使我们能够将神性概念化为一个特定的神，这可以帮助我们在神秘奉献的过程中（另外，还允许有兴趣的魔法师或积极参与的祭司根据他们的神秘工作恳求来自特定全能神的神圣帮助）。即便如此，我们仍然应该非常小心，不要将 Aiōn 与神性混淆，因为这样会使我们在自己的神秘工作中窒息，通过将存在的事物与先存在的事物混为一谈。Aiōn 不是神，但对我们而言， Aiōn 的表现就如同神是一位神，这为我们提供了额外的基础，以便对神性进行“魔法”奉献，作为实现合一和意识统一的方法。单单向神以神的身份祈祷，虽然可能为刚开始神秘之路的人提供一个有用的起点，但这根本不是赫尔墨斯主义的真正要点；这并不是一个可以仅仅安静地虔诚对待的事情，也无法就此而结束。 作为赫尔墨斯教徒，我们不仅需要理解上帝，还需要理解上帝是什么以及不是什么，并非简单地认为“没有不是上帝的东西”，而是要理解神性与其他所有事物的比较，以及赫尔墨斯主义的意义不仅在于崇拜上帝，而在于与神性合一，这就是实现合一——合一本身。

Of course, there are other questions that all this might raise, and one of the biggest to me would be what the relationship is between Aiōn and logos or Aiōn and the Demiurge.  While I think different texts can offer different interpretations on this point (as they can with so many other topics in Hermeticism, e.g. the nature of the soul or the nature of nous), my take is that Aiōn effectively is both the logos and the Demiurge.  This notion builds cleanly on Poimandrēs’ identification of the cosmic Demiurge with the divine logos in CH I.4—11, and it also makes sense in CH XI’s statement that “aiōn makes the cosmos”, that the “cosmos is aiōn‘s work”, and “aiōn establishes an order”.  I think it’s a fairly clean identification of Aiōn with the Demiurge and with the cosmic logos, especially if we consider Aiōn as a god as a supreme ruler of all—which, given its identification with Zeus in the PGM, makes good sense from a number of philosophical perspectives, like Zeus is in Stoicism as being “the god” and who is also identified with logos there.  All this continues to build up when we consider Aiōn as a god as being associated with the circle of the zodiac that encompasses the cosmos, being the deity that presides over cyclical endless time, and thus can make sense of CH XI’s notion that “aiōn encloses the cosmos” and that “the seven worlds [i.e. planets], marshalled in eternal order, each completing eternity in a different circuit”.
当然，这些可能会引发其他问题，而我认为最大的问题之一是 Aiōn 与 logos 或 Aiōn 与工匠（Demiurge）之间的关系。虽然我认为不同的文本可以对此提出不同的解释（就像在赫尔墨斯主义的许多其他主题上，例如灵魂的本质或 nous 的本质），但我认为 Aiōn 实际上既是 logos 也是工匠。这一概念顺畅地建立在 Poimandrēs 在《赫尔墨斯文献》I.4-11 中将宇宙工匠与神圣 logos 等同的基础之上，并且在《赫尔墨斯文献》XI 中提到“aiōn 造就了宇宙”，以及“宇宙是 aiōn 的作品”和“aiōn 建立了秩序”时也显得合理。我认为将 Aiōn 与工匠和宇宙 logos 明确对应是相当合适的，尤其是如果我们将 Aiōn 视为所有事物的至高神——这在 PGM 中与宙斯的等同，从多个哲学视角来看都是合理的，因为宙斯在斯多噶学派被视为“神”，并且在那里他也被等同于 logos。 所有这些都在我们考虑艾翁作为与包围宇宙的黄道圈相关的神时不断积累，作为主宰循环无限时间的神，因此可以理解第十一章中“艾翁包围宇宙”的观点，以及“七个世界（即行星），以永恒的秩序排列，各自在不同的轨道中完成永恒”。

From a less religious or philosophical perspective and a more magical one instead, this sort of identification of Aiōn really reinforces how important it is to a magician of the PGM.  Recall the anthropogenesis myth from CH I.12—14:
从一个较少宗教或哲学的角度，以及更多魔法的角度来看，这种对艾翁的认同确实加强了它对《帕皮鲁斯魔法书》中的魔法师的重要性。回想一下 CH I.12-14 中的人类起源神话：

Mind, the father of all, who is life and light, gave birth to a man like himself whom he loved as his own child. The man was most fair: he had the father’s image; and god, who was really in love with his own form, bestowed on him all his craftworks. And after the man had observed what the craftsman had created with the father’s help, he also wished to make some craftwork, and the father agreed to this. Entering the craftsman’s sphere, where he was to have all authority, the man observed his brother’s craftworks; the governors loved the man, and each gave a share of his own order. Learning well their essence and sharing in their nature, the man wished to break through the circumference of the circles to observe the rule of the one given power over the fire.
心灵，万物之父，生命与光明，生出了一个像他自己一样的男人，像自己的孩子般深爱着他。这个人非常美丽：他有父亲的形象；而神，实际上爱着自己的形态，给了他所有的工艺品。在这个人观察了工匠在父亲帮助下所创造的东西之后，他也希望创造一些工艺品，父亲对此表示同意。当这个人进入工匠的领域，掌握所有权威时，他观察了兄弟们的工艺品；统治者们爱这个人，每个人都给了他自己部分的命令。很好地领悟了它们的本质并分享了它们的特性，这个人希望突破圆圈的边界，以观察赋予火之力的规则。

Having all authority over the cosmos of mortals and unreasoning animals, the man broke through the vault and stooped to look through the cosmic framework, thus displaying to lower nature the fair form of god.
拥有对凡人和非理性动物的全部权威，这个人突破了穹顶，俯身透过宇宙框架，从而向低等自然展示了神的美丽形象。

When we consider initiatic rituals like PGM XIII that bring the magician not just in contact and communion with Aiōn but which enlightens us as to the nature of destiny and empowers us with Aiōn’s own name and supernatural abilities, what we’re doing is we’re essentially reinforcing the authority the Demiurge (i.e. Aiōn) gave to Humanity both over and with the cosmos itself.  In doing so, we gain the power to fully co-create with the cosmos, even changing the eventualities of fate itself from bad to good.  Rather than just being characters painted upon the canvas of the Godhead’s noetic awareness, we become a self-aware participant in the painting of it ourselves with Aiōn—a more practical effect of Hermeticism’s “becoming the aiōn“.  This, too, is a result of the spiritual rebirth that Hermeticism describes, and shows a more magical and active result of the theurgic work involved in the Way of Hermēs.
当我们考虑像 PGM XIII 这样的启蒙仪式时，这种仪式不仅让魔法师与艾翁(Aiōn)接触与交流，同时也启示了我们命运的本质，并赋予我们艾翁自身的名字和超自然能力，我们所做的实际上是强化了造物主（即艾翁）赋予人类对宇宙本身的权威。通过这样做，我们获得了与宇宙完全共创的力量，甚至将命运的最终结果从坏变好。我们不再只是神性意识画布上的角色，而是与艾翁共同成为这一画作的自我意识参与者——这是赫尔墨主义“成为艾翁”的一种更实际的效果。这同样是赫尔墨主义所描述的精神重生的结果，显示了在赫尔墨斯之道所涉及的神秘工作的更魔法化和主动化的成果。

Anyway, this little post series of mine has become a bit longer and more wide-ranging than I anticipated; it certainly knocked out a few posts I’ve been meaning to put together at some point, and a good deal else besides.  I hope you enjoyed the read, dear reader, even if it gets hairy at points; as it turns out, the actual implementation of Hermeticism as a mystic tradition is far from a simple or straightforward thing, and getting a grasp of it is something that I know for myself is years in the making.  I’m sure there’s plenty more that can be said along these lines, but I think this is enough for now while I continue mulling over and muddling through the actual practices that effect such realizations.
无论如何，我这篇小系列文章比我预期的要长得多，涉及的范围也更广；确实让我耽搁了几篇我本来打算在某个时刻整理的帖子，还有许多其他内容。我希望你喜欢阅读，亲爱的读者，即使有时内容变得复杂；事实证明，赫尔墨斯主义作为一种神秘传统的实际实施远不是简单或直截了当的事情，理解它是我个人知道需要多年积累的过程。我相信还有许多可以在这方面讨论的内容，但我认为在我继续思考和理清实现这些理解的实际做法时，这些内容已足够。