POEMANDRES. XIII. 95 



Eternity of Thee I have found praise ; and what I seek 

 by that Thy counsel I acquiesce in (a). I know that by 

 Thy will, this the Praise is said. 



Tat. O Father ! I have placed thee in my World. 



Hermes. In the intelligible (b) say, O Child ! 



Tat. In the intelligible, O Father! I am able; from 

 the hymn of thee and this thy praise my Mind hath been 

 enlightened. Moreover I also wish from my own thought 

 to send praise to The God. 



21. Hermes. O Child ! not incautiously. 



Tat. In the Mind, O Father ! What I contemplate I 

 Tat say to Thee, Patriarch of the generative energy (c) ; 

 to God I send rational sacrifices. God ! Thou Father ! 

 Thou the Lord ! Thou the Mind ! Eeceive the rational 

 sacrifices which Thou wishest from me; for Thou being 

 willing, all things are performed. 



Hermes. Thou, Child ! send an acceptable sacrifice 

 to The God, Father of aU things. But add also, Child r 

 through the Word (d). 1 



(a) dvoi'TriTrctvfteti. (&) gv TOJ 



(c) f /itoipx,oc rqg ytyt(rtovp'ytot$. (rf) S/ot rot/ 



1 It is manifest that in this Chapter Hermes mystically yet un-^ 

 mistakeably enunciates the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, " God The / 

 Father," " Thy Word," and The " Spirit God." See CyriU. Alexand. [ 

 contr. Julian. 33, and Suidas (post, Part III.). Cudworth (Intell. Sys- 

 tem, ch. iv., cxxxvi.) writes: " Since all three, Orpheus, Pythagoras, 

 and Plato, travelling into Egypt, were there initiated into the arcane 

 theology of the Egyptians, called Hermaical, it seemeth probable that 

 this doctrine of a Divine Triad (ij ruv rpiav 6&uv Tretpdtioffts) was also 

 part of the arcane theology of the Egyptians." He proceeds further \ 

 to show at length that the Pagan philosophers above named and their 

 followers " called this their Trinity, a Trinity of Gods." This 

 opinion, so far as Greek philosophers and the ancient Egyptians are 

 concerned, has been controverted by Mosheim in the notes to his 

 Latin translation of Cudworth's work and by others, on the ground 

 that this philosophical creed was in a Trinity not of persons, but of 

 attributes. (See Rawlinson's " Egypt," voL i. p. 320). But this ob- 

 jection by no means applies to our Hermes, whose Trinity is that 

 of Three Persons who were in Union, each actively employed in the 

 Creation, in sustaining the cosmical system, and in conducting Man 

 to Heaven. 



