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wisest of the wise; the Father of equity and justice, self- 
taught, physical, and perfect and wise, and the only inventor 
of the sacred philosophy. The Theurgists assert that He is a 
circulating and eternal God, infinite through his power, and of 
a spiral form. 
14. The Chaldseans call the God Iao in the Phoenician 
tongue, instead of the intelligible light; and He is often called 
Sabaoth, signifying that he is above the seven poles, that is, the 
Demiurgus. Containing all things in the one summit of his 
own subsistence, He himself subsists wholly beyond. 
15. The mind of the Eternal Father said that all things 
should be cut into three, governing all things by mind. All 
things are governed and subsist in these three. For in the 
whole world shineth a Triad, over which a Monad rules. 
16. Of the soul it is thus said : — Having mingled the vital 
spark from two according substances, mind and the Divine 
Spirit, to these were added as a third, Holy Love, the venerable 
charioteer uniting all things. For the Father of gods and 
men placed the mind in soul, but in a body He placed you. 
The soul does in a manner clasp God to herself; for, having 
nothing mortal, she is wholly inebriated from God, and glories 
in the harmony under which the mortal body exists. The 
soul perpetually runs and passes through all things in a certain 
space of time, which being performed, it is presently compelled 
to run back again through all things, unfolding the same web 
of generation in the world. Let the immortal depth of your 
soul lead you ; but earnestly extend your eyes upward. 
17. Of matter, Zoroaster is thus supposed to have taught. 
We learn that matter pervades the whole world, as the gods 
also assert. The Maker, self-operating, framed the world, and 
there was another mass of fire: all these things He produced 
self-operating. He has made the whole world of fire, and 
water, and earth, and all-nourishing ether. For the Father 
congregated the seven firmaments of the world, circumscribing 
the heaven with a convex figure. 
18. The Chald/EAN Cosmogony, as explained by Berosus, a 
priest of Babylon, and the contemporary of Alexander the 
Great, appears to be of a very different order from that taught 
by Zoroaster, and received by the Chaldseans* in the earlier 
* Justin Martyr relates a curious story respecting tlie Chaldaeans and 
Hebrews in his Hortatory Address to the Greeks. He says: Since it has been 
sufficiently proved that the opinions of your philosophers are full of all igno- 
rance and deceit, I think it right to mention what I once heard concerning 
your oracles. When one inquired at the shrine, What religious men had 
ever lived, you say that the Oracle answered thus : “ Only the Uhaldceans have 
obtained wisdom, and the Hebrews, who worship God Himself, the self- 
begotten King ” (c. xi.). 
