150 HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 



if even it were possible to understand Him, for the incor- 

 poreal to be signified by body impossible and tlie perfect 

 to be comprehended (a) by the imperfect not possible, and 

 the eternal to be conversant with the short-lived difficult; 

 for this ever is, but that passes away, and this is true, but 

 that is overshadowed by phantasy. 1 For as much as the 

 strengthless and the stronger and the less from the superior, 

 are distant, so much the Mortal from the Divine and im- 

 mortal. If then there be any incorporeal eye, let it come 

 forth from the body, and to the Vision of the Beautiful. 

 Let it fly up and be lifted into air ; not figure, not body, 

 not ideas, seeking to contemplate, but that rather, The 

 Maker of these ; the quiet, the serene, the stable, the in- 

 variable, the Self, all things and Only, The One ; the Same 

 out of Itself, the same in Itself, the like to Itself, which 

 neither is like to another, nor is unlike to Itself, 2 and again 

 The Same." 



Ibid. 33c. 



" But the Trismegistus Hermes thus speaks concerning 

 The God : ' For The Word of Him proceeding forth being- 

 altogether perfect and generative and Creator in a genera- 

 tive nature falling upon generative Water, made water 

 pregnant.' " 3 



And the same again : 



" The 4 Pyramis" (he says) " lying under the Nature, and 

 to the intelligible world. For it has resting upon it a 

 Kuler and Creator, Word of The Lord of all, Who, after 



1 See Stobseus, Florileg., 80; Meineke, iii. 104; ante, Stobecus, 

 vii., Part II. 



2 Extracted by Stobseus also substantially, Florilegium, xi. 23, ad 

 Jin. See 1, ante, Part II., and Meineke, i. 251. 



3 See Poemandres, i. 8, 14, 15; Suidas, Lexicon, post, x., who quotes 

 this same passage. 



4 In the commencement of Poemandres, ch. i., Hermes had as- 

 serted that Fire or heat was the chief medium which the Creator 

 had employed for the arrangement of Creation. Fire as Flame is in 

 form a Cone or Pyramid, hence that appellation was given to the 

 Pyramids, which are Cones. See Poemandres, i. 17. 



