POEMANDRES. ///. 29 



for knowledge of Divine power, to know parts (a) of good 

 and evil things, and to discover workmanship (b) of all 

 good things. 



4. Their living and becoming wise beginneth according 

 to portion (or degree) (c), of course of encircling Gods, and 

 to be resolved into that ; and there shall be great memorials 

 of artificial works (d) upon the earth, leaving behind in 

 renewal the wasting (e) of times. And every generation of 

 animated flesh (/), and of the fruit of seed, and of all art 

 energy (g) ; those which are diminished, shall be renewed 

 by necessity, and by renewal of Gods, and by course of 

 periodical circle of Nature. For Divine is the whole cos- 

 mical composition (h) renovated by Nature. For in the 

 Divine has Nature also been constituted. 1 



(a) f^oipot;, or degrees. (6) B/BXov/>y/ay. (c) poipxv. 



(d) re^vovpyififAoirtoy. (e) ftoti>paoii>. (/) l^v^v aotpxo;. 



G/) T%ywp f /tii;. (Ji) 



1 The construction of this Chapter is in many parts obscure, and I 

 the text corrupt or incomplete. Plato (" Timaeus," 30), after saying 

 that The God had brought all things out of disorder into order, adds : 

 " For it was not lawful for The Best to work out anything else but 

 the most beautiful." 



The account of the Creation of Man, and the purposes for which 

 he was created, in the book of Genesis, which it will be instructive to 

 compare with that of Hermes, is as follows : 



" And God said, Let Us make Man in Our Image, after Our Like- 

 ness : and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over 

 the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and 

 over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God 

 created Man in His own image, in the image of God created He him ; 

 male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God 

 said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, 

 and subdue it ; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over 

 the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth (or 

 ' creepeth,' Heb.) on the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given 

 you every herb bearing seed (' seeding seed,' Heb.), which is upon the 

 face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a 

 tree yielding seed, to you it shall be f6r meat. And to every beast 

 of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that 

 creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life (' a living soul,' Heb.), I 

 have given every green herb for meat : and it was so. And God saw 



