POEM ANDRES. II. 23 



the other Gods then are called immortals, being honoured 

 with the appellation of Gods ; but The God is The Good, 

 not by honour (a) but by nature. For one is the nature of 

 The God the Good, and one the kind of both these (6), 

 from which are all the kinds (c). For the Good is giving 

 everything, and receiving nothing. The God then gives 

 all things and receives nothing. The God then is The 

 Good, and the Good The God. 



17. But another appellation is that of The Father ; again 

 because the Maker of all things; for it is of a father to 

 make. 1 Wherefore also in life the greatest and most reli- 

 gious anxiety (d) of the prudent (c) is the generation of 

 children (/), and the greatest misfortune and irreligon, is 

 that any one should depart childless from among men. And 

 this man renders justice after death to the demon, and 

 the punishment is this that the soul of the childless 

 should be condemned (g) to a body having the nature 

 neither of man nor of woman, which is accursed under the 

 Sun. Wherefore, O Asclepius ! be mutually pleased (h) 

 with no one being childless ; but on the contrary pity the 

 misfortune, knowing what punishment awaits him. 2 So 

 many and such things be said to thee, Asclepius! a 

 precognition somewhat of the nature of all things. 3 



(a) X.OITOC TifAqv. (&) svog dfttyorrtpuv. (c) ra 



(d) <77rot(Jj. (e) svCppouovaw. (/) 



1 This passage is quoted and otherwise referred to by Justin Martyr 

 (Apolog. ii. 6), and Lactantius (Divin. Instit. i. 6). See Part III., and 

 see a similar passage, post, ch. v. 8, 10. 



2 The dying childless was accounted a great misfortune among the 

 Jews. "They shall bear their sin; they shall die childless" (Levit. 

 xx. 20). " Thus saith the Lord, Write you this man childless" (Jer. 

 xxii. 30). It is manifest that this latter portion of ch. ii. was written 

 "before the epoch of Monachism. This is the only passage in which 

 Hermes propounds any kind of metempsychosis. 



3 Two portions of this chapter are extracted by Stobaeus (Ecloga 

 Physica, Meineke's Edition, vol. I., p. 105). 



