102 HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 



knowing anything true; how also can it possibly be, O 

 Child? Truth is most perfect Virtue; it is the unmixed 

 Good; that neither perturbed (a) by matter, nor encom- 

 passed by body, naked, lucid, irreversible (&), holy, unalter- 

 able, good; but things here, O Child! such as they are, 

 thou seest incapable of receiving (e) this Good, corruptible, 

 subject to passion, dissoluble, reversible, ever inter- 

 changed (d), becoming other from others. What things, 

 then, are not true, even to themselves how ever can they 

 be true ? For everything that is altered is falsehood, not 

 abiding in what it is, but veering about, exhibits to us 

 phantasies, others and others. 



Is not Man then true, Father ? 



According to (e) man he is not true, O Child ! For The 

 True is that having its constitution from itself only, and 

 abiding according to it, such as it is. But the Man is 

 constituted of many things, and does not abide according 

 to himself, but is turned and changed, age from age, form 

 from form (/), and this being still in the tabernacle. And 

 many have not known their children, a short time inter- 

 vening, and again children likewise parents. That then 

 which is so changed about as not to be recognised can it 

 be true, Tatius ? Is not that, on the contrary, a false- 

 hood, becoming in various phantasies of changes ? But do 

 you understand to be something true, the abiding and 

 eternal ; but Man is not always, wherefore neither is he a 

 true thing. For the Man is a certain phantasy, but the 

 phantasy would be extremest (g) falsehood. 



Neither these, then, Father ! the eternal bodies since 

 they change are true? 



Everything, then, that is gendered and changeable is 

 not true ; but being generate by the forefather, as to the 

 matter it is possible to esteem (Ji) them true. But even 

 these have some falsehood in the change, for nothing not 

 abiding of itself (i) is true. 



v. (6) (poivou oe-TpsirTOv. (c) 



(d) tvoe.'h'hoiwf6tvai. (e) x,a,6oTi. (/) Riedv. 



(g) eixpoToiTOV. (Ji) fa-^fixtyoti. (i) t(p ctvr~. 



