218 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XII. 



rated essence, which, being of a vivific nature, the 

 Demiurgus took it, and fabricated from it the 

 harmonious and imperturbable spheres ; but the 

 dregs of it he employed in the fabrication of gene- 

 rated and perishable bodies. " * 



Another idea of the origin of things is thus 

 explained in what are termed the modern Her- 

 metic books. " The glory of all things is God, 

 and Deity, and divine Nature. The principle of 

 all things existing is God, and the intellect, and 

 nature, and matter, and energy, and Fate and con- 

 chision, and renovation. For these were boundless 

 darkness in the abyss, and water, and a subtile 

 Spirit, intellectual in power, existing in Chaos. 

 But the holy light broke forth, and the Elements 

 were produced from among the sand of a watery 

 Essence." t 



lamblichus sayst, that " Chera^mon and some 

 others, who treat of the first causes of the phae- 

 nomena of the world, enumerate in reality onli/ the 

 lowest principles ; and those who mention the 

 planets, the zodiac, the dreams, and horoscopes, 

 and the stars termed mighty chiefs, confine them- 

 selves to particular departments of the productive 

 causes. Such topics, indeed, as are contained in 

 the Almanacs, constitute but a very small part of 

 the institutions of Hermes ; and all that relates to 

 the apparitions or occultations of the stars, or the 

 increasings or wanings of the Moon, has the lowest 



* lamblichus, sect. viii. c. 2. 3. 



f Serm. Sac. lib. 3. Vide Cory, p. 286. 



i Iambi, sect. viii. c. 4. 



