POEMANDRES. XL 7$ 



be l [apart from The God or inert], by how much rather The 

 God. For if there is anything that He does not make, if 

 it be lawful to say it He is imperfect. But if He is not 

 inert but perfect, then He makes all things. For a little 

 give thyself up to -me, Hermes! thou wilt the more easily 

 understand the work of The God as being one: that all 

 the things generate be generate, whether those once gener- 

 ated, as those about to be generated. But this, O most 

 beloved ! is Life, this is The Beautiful ; this is The Good, 

 this is The God. 



14. If thou wishest also to understand this in operation, 

 see what would happen to thee wishing to engender. But 

 this is not like to Him, for He indeed is not delighted, nor 

 has He another co-operator. For being selfworking (a) He 

 is always in the work, being Himself what He makes. For 

 if He should be separated from it, of necessity all things 

 must collapse, all things be deathstruck as there not being 

 life ; but if all things are living, and One also the Life, One 

 then also is The God. And again, if all things are living, 

 both those in the heaven and those in the earth, and one 

 Life throughout all things is generate by The God, and this 

 is The God, then all things are generate by The God. 

 But Life is the Union (b) of Mind and Soul. Death how- 

 ever not the destruction of the compounds but dissolution 

 of the union. 2 



15. 3 [Eternity then is the image of The God but of the 

 eternity the world, of the world the Sun, of the Sun the 

 man]. But this transmutation the people say to be death, 

 because that the body indeed is dissolved, but the life, it 

 being dissolved, departs to the obscure (c). But in this dis- 



(a) avrovp'/os. (6) svaais. (c) its TO et$ctv$. 



1 Parthey's note (p. 92) here is : " Post slveu, excidisse videtur 

 %ppi$ TOU 6iov." But query whether not " x,ot,Ta,pyy}[ttvov" "inert." 

 (See a similar argument, Lactant., de Ira Dei, ch. 11). 



2 See ante, sec. 14, and note. Also ch. viii. 1, 2; ch. x. 13; and 

 post, Part II., Excerpt II. by Stobseus, and notes there. 



3 It seems probable, as suggested by L. Menard (p. 76), that this 

 phrase has been interpolated here by some copyist or scholiast, it 

 being out of place with what precedes and follows. 



