14 HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 



God. And then in order they mount upward to the Father,. 



j and they deliver themselves up to Powers, and be- 



j coming Powers they become in God. 1 This is the good 



ending of those attaining knowledge, to be made divine (a). 



For the rest, why delayest thou ? Is it not that having 



accepted (&) all things, thou mayest become guide to those 



who are worthy ; so that the race of mankind through thee 



may be saved by God ? " 



27. Saying this to me, Poemandres mingled himself with 

 the Powers ; but I having given thanks, and blessed the 

 Father of the Universals (c), rose up, empowered by Him 

 and instructed as to the nature of everything (d), and the 

 grandest vision ; and I began to proclaim to the men the 

 beauty of the piety and that of the knowledge. " O 

 peoples, earthborn men, ye having given yourselves up to 

 drunkenness and sleep and to the ignorance of God, be sober,. 

 cease being gluttons (e), allured by irrational sleep." 



28. But they having heard, approached with one consent, 

 and I say, " Why, earthborn men, have ye given your- 

 selves over to death, having power (/) to partake of im- 

 mortality ? Eepent (g) ye who have walked together with 

 the error, and who have intercommuned with the igno- 

 rance; depart from the dark light, partake ye of the 

 immortality, having abandoned the corruption." 



C 29. And some of them having jeered, stood off, having 



I given themselves up to the way of the death ; but some 



i requested to be taught, casting themselves before my feet. 



But I raising them up became a guide of the human race,. 



teaching the words how and in what way they shall be 



saved. And I sowed upon them the words of the 



Wisdom, and they were nourished with the Ambrosial 



(a) QeaQyjvKi. (6) KctpoLha.fiuv. (c) ruv ohuv. (f?) 

 (e) xpoti'ffciheiivrsi,. (jf) s^ovirioty. ((/) 



1 The doctrine of Plato as to the life hereafter of the pious who 

 had vanquished evil and the desires of the flesh is explained in 

 Timseus (42) : " He who has lived well the time belonging to him, 

 having again proceeded to the habitation of his consociate star, shall 

 lead a happy and familiar (avvhfa} life therein." 



