{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th3/th324.htm","path":"gno/th3/th324.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th3/th324.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\n(Title in Patrizzi (p. 45) is \u201cThe Likeness of Children,\u201d followed by: \u201cFrom Aphrodite.\u201d\nText: Stob., Phys., xxxvi. 2, under heading: \u201cOf Hermes from \u2018Aphrodite\u2019\u201d; G. pp. 297, 298; M. i. 207, 208; W. i. 295, 296.\nM\u00e9nard, Livre IV., No. iii. of \u201cFragments Divers,\u201d p. 273.)\n[\u2014\u2014] How, [then,] are offspring born like to their parents? Or how are they returned 1 to [their own] species 2?\n[Aphrodite.] I will set forth the reason. When generation stores up seed from the ripe blood being sweated forth, 3 it comes to pass that somehow there\u2019s exhaled from the whole mass 4 of limbs a certain essence, following the\nlaw of a divine activity, as though the man himself were being born; the same thing also in the woman\u2019s case apparently takes place.\nWhen, then, what floweth from the man hath the ascendancy, and keeps intact, the young one\u2019s brought to light resembling its sire; contrary wise, in the same way, [resembling] its dam.\nMoreover, if there should be ascendancy of any part, [then] the resemblance [of the young] will favour that [especial] part.\nBut sometimes also for long generations the offspring favoureth the husband\u2019s form, because his decan has the greater influence 1 at that [particular] moment when the wife conceives.\nThis fragment belongs to a type of Hermetic literature of which it is the sole surviving specimen. It is in form identical with the Isis and Horus type; but what the name of the questioner of Aphrodite could have been is difficult to say.\n89:1 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03b4\u03af\u03b4\u03bf\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9,\u2014referring, presumably, to the idea of metempsychosis.\n89:2 Or families.\n89:3 \u1f10\u03be\u03b1\u03c6\u03b5\u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5. But W. has \u1f10\u03be\u03b1\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 (turned into foam), following the emendation of Usener, based on Clem. Al. P\u00e6dagog., I, vi. 48.\n89:4 Lit. body.\n90:1 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3: I. Excerpts by Stob\u00e6us: Excerpt XXIII. From \u201cAphrodite\u201d","type":"page"}