POEMANDRES. XIII. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 



To his Son Tat on a Mountain. Secret Discourse about 

 Regeneration and Profession (a) of Silence. 



1. Tat. In the Generalities, Father ! thou hast spoken 

 enigmatically and not lucidly, discoursing concerning Deity, 

 and hast not revealed, having said that no one can be saved 

 before the Eegeneration (6); and I having become suppliant 

 of thee on the descent from the mountain after that thou 

 hadst conversed with me, and desiring to learn the dis- 

 course of the Eegsneration, because that, beyond all things 

 this alone I know not, thou promisedst when thou shouldest 

 become alienated (c) from the World, to deliver it to me. 

 Wherefore I became prepared, having alienated also the 

 thought in me from the deceit of the World. But do Thou 

 fulfil to me also the last residues (d) in which thou pro- 

 misedst to deliver to me Eegeneration, propounding them 

 with voice or privily. I am ignorant, Trismegistus ! 

 from what matter and womb Man hath been generated, 

 and from what kind of seed. 



2. Hermes. O Child! intellectual Wisdom (e) is in 

 Silence, and the Seed the truthful Good. 



Tat. Of whom sowing, O Father? for as to the whole 

 I am in doubt. 



Hermes. Of the Will of The God, O Child ! 



Tat. And of what kind (/) the engendered, O Father? 

 Being destitute of the Essence that intelligible (g) in me, 

 other will be the engendered (h) God Son of God. 



Hermes. The All in all, constituted of all Powers. 1 



Tat. Thou speakest enigma to me, O Father ! and dost 

 not converse as father with son. 



(a) ia-ayygA/etf. (6) TJJ? 



(c) ^eAA/jj d'xcLh'hvrpiwsQct.i. (d) 



(e) 00$ tot, voepa. (/) 



T9j{ vovrrqs. (h) o 



1 See ColoBsians i. 15, 16, &c., before cited. 



