POEMANDRES. IV. 35 



being other beginning. Monad then being beginning, 

 comprises in it (a) every number, comprised by none ; and 

 it engenders (6) every number engendered by no other 

 number. 



11. But everything engendered is imperfect and divis- 

 ible, may be increased and diminished; but to that perfect 

 nothing of these things happens ; and what may be in- 

 creased also is increased by the Monad, but is consumed (c) 

 by its own weakness, when no longer able to receive the 

 Monad. 1 



This then to thee, Tat ! as far as possible is described 

 the Image of The God, which if thou contemplatest accu- 

 rately, and shalt understand with the eyes of the heart, 

 believe me, Child ! thou shalt find the way to the things 

 above, or rather, the Image itself will guide thee. For 

 the spectacle hath something peculiar; those who shall 

 attain to the contemplation it detains and attracts, just as 

 they say the magnet-stone the iron. 2 



(a) iimpik-tfi. (&) yeyvK. (c) 



1 Here is set forth the Pythagorean doctrine. He placed the 

 principles (dpxd$) of all things in numbers and their symmetries, 

 which he calls harmonies, but these composed of both elements 

 (ffTOixHoi). Again, he placed the Monad and the indefinite Duad in 

 these principles. One of these principles he assigns to The creative 

 and eternal Cause, which is Mind The God; but the other to the 

 passive and material, which is the Visible World. " The nature of 

 number is a Decade, for you count up to Ten, and then go back to 

 the Monad ; and of these Ten the power is in the Fours, for it is made 

 up of the Tetrad and of its parts ; and if any one exceeds the Tetrad,. 

 he will fall over out of the Ten." (See Stob., Physica, 300; Meineke,. 

 i. 80). The views of Leibnitz in his "Principia Philosophise and 

 Theodicse," nearly resemble the above. 



2 Here may be quoted the noble passage from the Wisdom 

 of Solomon, wherein many of the expressions and ideas closely 

 resemble what has preceded and what follows (ch. vii 16, 17 r 

 22-29). 



The English version is this: 



" For in His hand are both we and our words ; all Wisdom also, 

 and knowledge of workmanship. For He hath given me certain 

 knowledge of the things that are, namely, to know how the world 

 was made, and the operation of the elements, &c. For Wisdom, 



