40 HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 



capacious, who He having fashioned the most honourable 

 parts for being evident, but having concealed the base. 1 



7. Behold how many arts of one material! how many 

 works in one circumscription (a), and all exceedingly 

 beautiful and all measured, yet all in difference. Who 

 made all these things ? What mother, what father ? If 

 not alone The invisible God, by The will of Himself having 

 created all things ? 2 



8. And a statue indeed or an image apart from a sculptor 

 or painter (6), no one says can become to be (c) ; and hath 

 this creation become to be (d), apart from a creator ? O 

 this much blindness ! this much impiety ! O this much 

 ignorance ! Never ever, Child, Tat ! shouldst thou de- 

 prive the Creator of His creations. Better and superior it 

 is 3 . As much as is according to God in name, so much 

 is He the Father of all things, for He is Only (e), and this 

 is the function for Him to be, Father. 



9. But if you compel me to speak something more bold, 

 it is His Essence to be pregnant (/) of all things, and to 

 make (g). And since apart from the Maker it is impos- 

 sible that anything be generated, so also it is impossible 

 that He ever be not, unless ever making all things in 

 Heaven, in air, in earth, in depth, in every part of the 

 world, in every part of the Universe (7i), in that being and 

 in that not being; for there is nothing in the universal 

 world which is not Him. He is both the Entities * and 



(a) 'Treptypxtpy. (&) faypoitpov. (c) yfyovtvott. (d) 



(.e) (Aovog. (f) xvsiv. (</) 'Troitiv. (Ji) TOV KotuTog. (i) TO, ovrcc. 



1 " God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath 

 pleased Him. . . . Our uncomely parts have more abundant come- 

 liness. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered 

 the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part 

 which lacked" (1 Cor. xii. 22-24). 



2 " First of all believe that there is One God, Who created and 

 framed all things of nothing into a Being. He comprehends all 

 things, and is Only, immense, not to be comprehended by any." 

 Shepherd of Hennas, Lib. II., Mandat. I.; Wake's Apostolical 

 Fathers. 



3 Here occurs a lacuna, and the text is corrupt. 



