POEMANDRES. VII. 45 



5. If thou art able to understand (a) The God, thou 

 wilt understand The Beautiful and Good, the exceeding 

 "bright, the exceeding radiant, from The God. For that is 

 the Beauty incomparable, and that the Good inimitable, 

 just as also God Himself. As then thou understandest 

 The God, thus also understand The Beautiful and Good ; for 

 these are incommunicable to the others of the animals, - 

 because of being inseparable from The God. If Thou^ v 

 inquirest about The God, thou inquirest about The Beau- 

 tiful 



6. For the way leading to it is one, the piety with 

 knowledge; hence the ignorant, and they not having \^ 

 journeyed the way, which is concerning this piety, dare to 

 speak of the Man as beautiful and good, not having even 

 beheld a dream whether anything is good, but preimpli- 

 oated (6) with every evil, and having believed the evil to 

 be good, and thus using it insatiably, and fearing to be 

 deprived of it, and striving in every way that, not only he 

 may have, but also may augment it. Such are the human 

 gods and The Beautiful, O Asclepius! which we are 

 neither able to fly nor to have hated. For that, of all 

 things, is most difficult, because we have need of them, 

 and without these we cannot live. 



CHAPTEK V 



That the Greatest Evil among Men is Ignorance of 

 The God. 



1. WHITHER are ye carried, men, intoxicated! drinking 

 up the unmixed wine of ignorance, which yet ye cannot 

 bear, but already are even vomiting it? Stop, be sober; 

 look again with the eyes of the heart, and if ye all cannot, 



(a) vowou, to conceive in mind. (b) 



