84 HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 



17. Tat. Does not the earth seem to thee immoveable, 

 Father? 



Hermes. No, Child! but also multimoveable, and it 

 alone also stable. For how would it not be ridiculous the 

 nurse of all to be immoveable, her producing (a) and gene- 

 rating all things ; for it is impossible apart from motion 

 that the producer produce anything. Thou hast asked the 

 most ridiculous thing, whether the fourth portion shall be 

 inert. For the immoveable body signifies nothing else but 

 inertness. 



18. Know then universally, Child ! that the whole 

 Entity (&) in the World is moved either by way of diminu- 

 tion or augmentation; but what is moved also lives, but 

 there is no necessity that the whole (c) living animal should 

 be the same. For the entire World, being collective (d), is, 

 Child ! unchangeable, but the parts of it are all change- 

 able ; but nothing corruptible or destroyed. But the ap- 

 pellations confuse mankind. For the generation is not 



f Life, but the Sense, nor the change death, but oblivion. 

 \ These things then having themselves thus, immortal are 

 \ all things, the Matter, the Life, the Spirit, the Soul, out of 

 j which every animal has been constituted. 



19. Every animal therefore is immortal through the 

 Mind ; but of all especially The Man, who is susceptible of 

 God, and joint in Essence (e) with God. For with this 

 animal alone God holds converse (/), by night through 



i dreams, by day through symbols (</), and through all He 

 predicts to him things future through birds, through 

 entrails, through spirit (A), through an oak; 1 wherefore 

 also The Man professes to be acquainted with things ante- 

 cedent and present and future. 



20. And see this, O Child ! that each of the other ani- 

 mals frequents one part of the world, the aquatics indeed 



(a) QVQVOO.V. (6) TC&V TO Sv. (c) TO t^uov ir civ. 



(d) 6[AOV UV. (e) (TVVOVffiOlffTlXOS. (/) OftihSl. 



(g) avpfifauv, possibly presages. (h) Tcvtvponof. 



1 The foregoing seems to prove that the author wrote under the 

 Roman domination. 



