POEMANDRES. XII. 83 



the change into one another, always conserve the incor- 

 ruption of the identity. 



15. But in all the other composite bodies there is num- 

 ber of each. For apart from number it is impossible for 

 constitution or composition or dissolution to become. But 

 the Unities (a) generate and augment the number, and 

 again dissolved receive [it] (b) into themselves. And the 

 Matter is One. But this entire World, the great God, and 

 image of the Greater, and united to Him and conserving 

 the order and will of The Father is plenitude (c) of the 

 Life. And there is nothing in this throughout all the eter- 

 nity of the paternally given (d) revolution, 1 neither of the 

 whole, nor of them in part, which is not living. For not 

 one thing neither hath become, nor is, nor shall be in 

 the World, dead. For the Father hath willed Life to 

 be in it, whilst it be constituted. Wherefore also it must 

 be God. 



16. How then, O Child! in The God, in the Image of 

 the Universe, 2 in the plenitude of the Life, can there be j 

 dead things? For deadness is corruption, and the corrup- ' 

 tion destruction. How then can any part of the incor- 

 ruptible be corrupted or anything of The God be destroyed ? 



Tat. The animals in it die not then, O Father ! being 

 parts of it? 



Hermes. Speak well, Child! erring in the appella- 

 tion of the [thing] generate. For they do not die, Child L 

 but as composite bodies are dissolved, and the dissolution 

 is not death, but the dissolution of the mixture (e). And 

 they are dissolved not that they may perish, but that they 

 may become new. For what is the energy of Life? la- 

 it not motion? What then in the World is immoveable? 

 Nothing, O Child ! 



(a) evofiiss. (6) i.e., number. (c) 



(d) Konwag. (e) 



1 aLKoxctroiordiatas ', Latine, " Reditus Solis Lunse, &c., anno verterite 

 ad eadem signa." 



3 TCIVTOS. Parthey (p. 109) translates "patris," netrpas; the sense 

 rather requires this latter -word. Menard translates as in the text. 



