38 HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 



mits (a), having above itself stars revolving smaller than 

 itself. Whom reverencing or whom fearing, Child? 

 And each of these the Stars being in Heaven, make not 

 alike or equal course. Who is He having defined to each 

 the way and the magnitude of the course ? 



4. This Bear (&) which turned about itself, and carrying 

 round along with it the whole World order (c) : who is He 

 having fabricated that organism? Who is He having cast 

 bounds about the Sea? Who He having stablished(d) 1 the 

 Earth? 



For there is some One, Tat ! the Maker and Lord of 

 all these things. For it is impossible that either place or 

 number or measure be conserved apart from the Maker. 2 

 For all order (e) cannot be made (/) without place and 



(a) avt-fctTai. (b) "Apxros. (c) rov 'Troc-vroe, KM/AGP. 



(d) f^pKffois. (e) rx^ig. ( < / r ) awoiwos. 



1 "The Lord made the Sea and all that therein is" (Exod. xx. 11). 

 " The Sea is His and He made it, and His hands formed the dry land" 

 (Ps. xcv. 5). " Thou hast founded the world and its fulness" (Ps. Ixxxix. 

 11). " The world also shall be established that it shall not be moved " 

 (Ps. xcvi. 10. See also Ps. xxiv. 2, xxxv. 6; Jonah ix. 9; Acts iv. 24, 

 xiv. 15; Kev. x. 6). " Where wast thou when I laid the foundations 

 of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid 

 the measures thereof, if thou knowest ? or who hath stretched out the 

 line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or 

 who laid the corner-stone thereof? Or who shut up the Sea with 

 doors, when it brake forth as if it had issued out of the womb? and 

 brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, 

 Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further ; and here shall thy proud 

 waves be stayed?" (Job xxxviii. 4. See Isaiah li. 10). "The Lord 

 which hath placed the land for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual 

 decree that it cannot pass it " (Jer. v. 22, and see Neh. ix. 6). " The 

 Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways before His works of 

 old," &c., "when He gave to the Sea His decree that the waters 

 should not pass His commandment ; when He appointed the founda- 

 tions of the earth, then I was by Him " (Prov. viii. 22-29). 



2 " HoiYrrvjs" Maker, " Creator." In this Hermes rises beyond 

 Plato, whose God may seem to some to be rather a constructor and 

 arranger of material already existing. In his Timaeus he speaks of 

 Fire, Water, Air, and Earth as beginnings or first principles (tip%ei$), 

 and asserts that no one hath ever indicated what was their origin. 

 Yet, in other places, he speaks of The God as 



