(a) xotQe'htw. (b) rot^ati/ra, qpnfrrott. (c) 



(d) S/aAvff/i/. (e) ayxuftwov. (/) 



(g) oyxffff. (h) dioc^Vffotffoe.. 



1 So far as in Stobaeus (Eclog. Physica; Meineke, i 212). As to 

 the subject of death, see Part II., Excerpts by Stobseus in the Florile- 

 gium, ch. ii; Meineke, iv. 106, and ante, ch. viii. 1, 2, and^postf, xi. 15. 



2 " This is life eternal, that they should know Thee The Only 

 True God " (John xvii. 3). " And hath given us an understanding 

 (otxvoiotv'), that we may know Him that is true. . . . This is the 

 true God, and eternal life" (1 John v. 20). 



POEMANDRES. X. 61 



blood be coagulated, and the veins and the arteries be I 

 emptied, and then the animal perish (a), and this is the j 

 death of the Body. 1 



14. From one beginning have all things depended (&), 

 but the beginning is from The One and Only. And the 

 beginning indeed is moved, that beginning may again be- 

 come (c), but The One stands abiding, and is not moved. 

 And three therefore are these, The God and Father and 

 The Good, and the World and the Man. And The God 

 hath indeed the World, but the World the Man. And the 

 World indeed is generated Son of The God ; but the Man 

 as it were offspring of the World. 



15. For The God ignoreth not the Man, but moreover 

 thoroughly knoweth him and desires to be known. This 

 alone is saving for Man, The knowledge of The God. 2 

 This is the ascent to the Olympus. By this alone the Soul 

 becometh Good, and not sometimes Good, sometimes Evil ; 

 but becomes so of necessity. 



Tat. How sayest thou this, Trismegistus ? 



Hermes. Contemplate a Soul of a boy, Child! not 

 having yet received its distribution (d\ his body being yet 

 small and not yet fully amplified (e). 



Tat How? 



Hermes. Beautiful to look upon everywhere, and not 

 yet defiled by the passions of the body, still almost depen- 

 dent from the Soul of the world ; but when the body has 

 been amplified (/) and shall have drawn it out, into the 

 masses (g) of the body, having distributed (h) itself, it 

 engenerates oblivion, and partakes not of the beautiful and 



