SO HERMES TRTSMEGISTUS. 



writing he would altogether have profited the race of men, 

 for He alone, Child ! l as First begotten God having 



viewed (a) all things pronounced Divine words 



I have heard then Him sometime saying that One are all 

 things, and especially the bodies intelligible (&), for we 

 live in power and in energy and eternity. And the Mind 

 then is good . . . which is the Soul of it ; but this being 

 of such kind, there is nothing separable of things intel- 

 ligible (c). Thus then it is possible that Mind ruling (d) 

 over all things and being the Soul of The God, do whatever 

 it wishes. 



9. But do thou understand and refer this discourse to 

 the enquiry which thou enquiredst of me in what is be- 

 fore : I speak concerning the Fate of The Mind. For if thou 

 wouldest accurately put away the contentious words, O 

 Child ! thou wilt find that truly The Mind, the Soul of The 

 God, dominates over all things, both Fate and Law and all 

 other things; and nothing impossible for it, neither the 

 placing the human Soul up above (e) Fate, nor, having 

 neglected things which happen, to place it beneath The 

 Fate. 2 And let these things indeed, as to so much be 

 spoken, the best of the good Demon. 



Tat. And divinely, Father ! and truly and helpfully 

 these things. 



10. But this further explain to me. For thou saidest 

 that the Mind in the irrational animals energized according 

 to Nature (/), working together with their appetites (g). 



(a) xctribuv. (&) roc, i/oyrdc, eupoiTa. (c) ovl)t ^IOIGTCITM ray iso'/rrav. 

 (d) oipxovroe.. (e) VTTSpdva. (/) HX.YIV (pvaiag. (g) opp^s. 



1 " The image of The invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation " 

 (Coloss. i. 15). "The beginning of the creation of God " (Rev. iii. 14). 

 " The Firstborn " (Heb. i. 6). " The Firstborn of the dead Jesus Christ " 

 (Rev. i. 5). For " Only begotten/' see John i. 14, 18; iii. 16, 18; 

 1 John iv. 9. 



2 Lactantius (Divin. Instit., lib. ii. ch. 16) writes: "Hermes affirms 

 that those who have known God are not only safe from the attacks 

 of demons, but that they are not even bound by fate. The only 

 protection," he says, "is piety; for over a pious man neither evil 

 demon nor fate has any power." 



