POEMANDRES. XIV. 99 



Him, having attributed to Him as passion, contempt (a), ! 

 or impotence, or ignorance, or envy; for if He makes not 

 all things, in pride (b) He makes them not, or not being 

 able, or being ignorant, or grudging, which is impious. 



9. For The God has one only Passion, The Good; but 

 The Good is neither proud nor impotent, nor the rest; for 

 this is The God The Good, with Whom is every power of 

 making all things; but everything that is generated hath 

 been generated by The God; that is by The Good and 

 Him able to make all things. 



10. But if, how then He makes and how the generate 

 are generated thou wishest to learn it is permitted thee. 

 Behold a very beautiful and very similar figure ; an agri- 

 culturist casting down seed into the earth, sometimes wheat, 

 sometimes barley, sometimes some other of the seeds. 

 Behold the same planting a vine, and an apple, and fig, 

 and the others of the trees. Thus The God indeed in 

 Heaven sows immortality, but in Earth change, but in 

 the Universe life and motion. These things then are not 

 many but few, and easily numbered. For all of them are 

 four, 1 both The God Himself and the Generation in which 

 the Entities (c) consist. 2 



(a) VTtpvfyliur. (6) vTrepyQaiyay. (c) roe. o'yr 



1 viz., Earth, Air, Fire, Water. 



2 See the first line of ch. i., ante. 



FlNIS POEMANDRES. 



