{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th3/th337.htm","path":"gno/th3/th337.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th3/th337.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\ni. Divin\u00e6 Institutiones, i. 6, 1; Brandt, p. 18; Fritzsche, i. 13. 2\nLet us now pass to divine testimonies; but, first of all, I will bring into court testimony which is like divine [witness], both on account of its exceeding great age, and because he whom I shall name was carried back again from men unto the gods.\nIn Cicero, 3 Caius Cotta, 4 the Pontifex, arguing against the Stoics about faiths and the diversity of opinions which obtain concerning the gods, in order that, as was the way of the Academics, 5 he might bring all things into doubt, declares that there were five Hermeses; and after enumerating four of them in succession, [he adds] that the fifth was he by whom\n[paragraph continues] Argus was slain, 1 and for that cause he fled into Egypt, and initiated the Egyptians into laws and letters.\nThe Egyptians call him Thoyth, and from him the first month of their year (that is, September) has received its name. He also founded a city which even unto this day is called Hermopolis. The people of Phen\u00ebus, 2 indeed, worship him as a god; but, although\nhe was [really] a man, still he was of such high antiquity, and so deeply versed in every kind of science, that his knowledge of [so] many things and of the arts gained him the title of \u201cThrice-greatest.\u201d\nHe wrote books, indeed many [of them], treating of the Gnosis 1 of things divine, in which he asserts the greatness of the Highest and One and Only God, and calls Him by the same names as we [do]\u2014God and Father. 2 And [yet], so that no one should seek after His name, he has declared that He cannot be named, in that He doth not need to have a name, owing, indeed, unto the very [nature of His] unity. 3 His words are these 4:\nBut God [is] one; and He who\u2019s one needs not a name, for He [as one] is The-beyond-all-names.\nFor Lactantius, then, Hermes was very ancient; moreover, he was one who descended from heaven and had returned thither. When, however, Firmianus attempts the historical origins of the Hermetic tradition, as was invariably the case with the ancients, he can do nothing better than refer us to a complex though\ninteresting myth, and to a legend of it devised to flatter the self-esteem of its Hellenic creators: A Greek god, whose cult, moreover, was known to be intimately connected with an ancient mystery-tradition, was the originator of the wisdom of Egypt. Of course; and so with all nations who had any ancient learning\u2014their special tradition was oldest and best and originator of all others!\nFor the rest, Lactantius knows nothing historically of the tradition which he esteemed so highly, and the mention of the Latinized name Thoyth 1 and of Hermopolis 2 does but throw the paucity of his knowledge into deeper relief. What Lactantius does know is a large literature in Greek and its general tendency.\nThe sentence he quotes is not found textually in any of the extant Trismegistic literature. 3\nii. Ibid., i. 11, 61; Brandt, p. 47; Fritzsche, i. 29, 30.\nAnd so it appears that he [Cronus] was not born from Heaven (which is impossible), but from that man who was called Uranus; and that this is so, Trismegistus bears witness, when, in stating that there have been very few in whom the perfect science has been found,\nhe mentioned in their number Uranus, Cronus and Hermes, his own kinsfolk. 1\niii. Ibid., ii. 8, 48; Brandt, p. 138; Fritzsche, i. 89.\nFor the World was made by Divine Providence, not to mention Thrice-greatest, who preaches this. 2\niv. Ibid., ii. 8, 68; Brandt, p. 141; Fritzsche, i. 91.\nHis [God\u2019s] works are seen by the eyes; but how He made them, is not seen even by the mind, \u201cin that,\u201d as Hermes says:\nMortal cannot draw nigh\u00a03 to the Immortal, nor temporal to the Eternal, nor the corruptible to That which knoweth no corruption.\u00a04\nAnd, therefore, hath the earthly animal not yet capacity to see celestial things, in that it is kept shut within the body as in a prison house, lest with freed sense, emancipate, it should see all.\nThe first part of this citation (which Lactantius gives in Latin) is identical in idea with a sentence in Frag. iv.\u2014that favourite source of quotation, which Stob\u00e6us, Ex. ii. (Flor. lxxx. [lxxviii.] 9), excerpted from \u201cThe [Sermon] to Tat.\u201d 1 It might, then, be thought that this was simply a paraphrase of Lactantius\u2019, or that he was quoting from memory, and that the second sentence was not quotation but his own writing. But the second sentence is so thoroughly Trismegistic that it has every appearance of being genuine. 2\nv. Ibid., ii. 10, 13; Brandt, p. 149; Fritzsche, i. 96.\nBut the making of the truly living man out of clay 3 is of God. And Hermes also hands on the tradition of this fact,\u2014for not only has he said that man was made by God after the Image of God, 4 but also he has attempted to explain with what skilfulness He has formed every single member in the body of man, since there is not one of them which is not admirably suited not only for what it has to do, but also adapted for beauty. 5\nMan made after the Image of God is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Trismegistic tradition. For instance, P. S. A., vii. 2: \u201cThe [man] \u2018essential,\u2019 as say the Greeks, but which we call the \u2018form of the\n[paragraph continues] Divine Similitude\u2019\u201d; and x. 3: \u201cGiving the greatest thanks to God, His Image reverencing,\u2014not ignorant that he [man] is, too, God\u2019s image, the second [one]; for that there are two images of God\u2014Cosmos and man.\u201d 1\nvi. Ibid., ii. 12, 4; Brandt, p. 156; Fritzsche, i. 100.\nEmpedocles 2 . . . [and others] . . . laid down four elements, fire, air, water, and earth,\u2014[in this] perchance following Trismegistus, who said that our bodies were composed of these four elements by God.\n\u201cFor that they have in them something of fire, something of air, something of water, and something of earth,\u2014and yet they are not fire [in itself], nor air, nor water, nor earth.\u201d\nAll this about the elements is, of course, a commonplace of ancient physics, and we may, therefore, dismiss the na\u00efve speculation of Lactantius, who evidently thought he had the very words of the first inventor of the theory before him; for he renders into Latin word for word the same text which Stob\u00e6us has preserved to us in an excerpt from \u201cThe [Sermons] to Tat\u201d\u2014Ex. iii. I. 3\nvii. Ibid., ii. 14, 5; Brandt, p. 163; Fritzsche, i. 105.\nThus there are two classes of daimons,\u2014the one celestial, and the other terrestrial. The latter are impure spirits, the authors of the evils that are done, 4\nof whom the same Diabolus is chief. Whence Trismegistus calls him the \u201cDaimon-chief.\u201d 1\nviii. Ibid., ii. 15, 6; Brandt, p. 166; Fritzsche, i. 106.\nIn fine, Hermes asserts that those who have known God, not only are safe from the attacks of evil daimons, but also that they are not held even by Fate. 2 He says:\nThe one means of protection is piety. For neither doth an evil daimon nor doth Fate rule o\u2019er the pious man.\u00a03 For God doth save the pious [man] from every ill. The one and only good found in mankind is piety.\nAnd what piety means, he witnesses in another place, saying:\n\u201cDevotion is God-Gnosis.\u201d 4\nAsclepius, his Hearer, has also explained the same idea at greater length in that \u201cPerfect Sermon\u201d which he wrote to the King.\nBoth, then, assert that the daimons are the enemies and harriers of men, and for this cause Trismegistus\ncalls them \u201cevil \u2018angels\u2019,\u201d 1\u2014so far was he from being ignorant that from celestial beings they had become corrupted, and so earthly.\nThis passage is given in Greek, and is quoted, but with numerous glosses, also by Cyril (Contra Julianum, iv. 130); it is also practically the same as the sentence in P. S. A., xxix.: \u201cThe righteous man finds his defence in serving God and deepest piety. For God doth guard such men from every ill.\u201d\nNow we know that Lactantius had the Greek of this \u201cPerfect Sermon\u201d before him, and we know that our Latin translation is highly rhetorical and paraphrastic.\nThe only difficulty is that Lactantius\u2019 quotation ends with the sentence: \u201cThe one and only good found in mankind is piety\u201d; and this does not appear in the Latin translation of P. S. A. On the other hand, Firmianus immediately refers by name to a Perfect Sermon, which, however, he says was written by Asclepius, and addressed to the King. Our Fragment is, therefore, probably from the lost ending of C. H., xvi. (see Commentary on the title).\nix. Ibid., iv. 6, 4; Brandt, p. 286; Fritzsche, i. 178.\nHermes, in that book which is entitled the \u201cPerfect Sermon,\u201d uses these words:\nThe Lord and Master of all things (whom \u2019tis our custom to call God), when He had made the\nsecond God, the Visible and Sensible,\u00a01\u2014I call Him sensible, not that He hath sensation in Himself (for as to this, whether or no He hath Himself sensation, we will some other time enquire), but that He is object of senses and of mind,\u2014when, then, He\u2019d made Him First, and One and Only,\u00a02 He seemed to Him most fair, and filled quite full of all things good. At Him he marvelled, and loved Him altogether as His Son.\u00a03\nLactantius here quotes from the lost Greek original of \u201cThe Perfect Sermon,\u201d viii. 1. We have thus a means of controlling the old Latin translation which has come down to us.\nIt is, by comparison, very free and often rhetorical; inserting phrases and even changing the original, as, for instance, when in the last clause it says: \u201cHe fell in love with him as being part of His Divinity.\u201d\nIt is, however, possible that the translator may have had a different text before him, for there is reason to believe that there were several recensions of the P. S. A. 4\nx. Ibid., iv. 6, 9; Brandt, p. 291; Fritzsche, i. 179.\n(Speaking of the Son of God and identifying Him with the pre-existent Wisdom spoken of in Proverbs viii. 22, Lactantius adds:)\nWherefore also Trismegistus has called Him the \u201cDemiurge of God.\u201d 1\nxi. Ibid., iv. 7, 3; Brandt, p. 292; Fritzsche, i. 179.\nEven then [when the world shall be consummated], 2 it [God\u2019s Name] will not be able to be uttered by the mouth of man, as Hermes teaches, saying:\nBut the Cause of this Cause is the Divine and the Ingenerable Good\u2019s Good-will, which\u00a03 first brought forth the God whose Name cannot be spoken by the mouth of man.\u00a04\nxii. Ibid., iv. 7, 3; Brandt, p. 293; Fritzsche, i. 179, 180.\nAnd a little after [he says] to his son:\nFor that there is, [my] son, a Word [Logos] of wisdom, that no tongue can tell,\u2014a Holy\u00a05\n[paragraph continues] [Word] about the only Lord of all, the God before all thought,\u2014whom to declare transcends all human power.\u00a01\nxiii. Ibid., iv. 8, 5; Brandt, p. 296; Fritzsche, i. 181.\nBut Hermes also was of the same opinion when he says:\n\u201cHis own father and His own mother.\u201d 2\nxiv. Ibid., iv. 9, 3; Brandt, p. 300; Fritzsche, i. 182, 183.\nTrismegistus, who has tracked out, I know not how, almost all truth, has often described the power and greatness of the Word (Logos), as the above quotation 3 from him shows, in which he confesses the Word to be Ineffable and Holy, and in that its telling forth transcends the power of man.\nxv. Ibid., iv. 13, 2; Brandt, p. 316; Fritzsche, i. 190.\nFor God, the Father, and the Source, and Principle of things, in that He hath no parents, is very truly called by Trismegistus \u201cfather-less\u201d and \u201cmother-less\u201d 4 in that He is brought forth from none. 5\nxvi. Ibid., v. 14, 11; Brandt, p. 446; Fritzsche, i. 256.\nBut \u201cpiety is nothing else than Gnosis of God,\u201d 1 as Trismegistus has most truly laid down, as we have said in another place. 2\nxvii. Ibid., vi. 25, 10; Brandt, p. 579; Fritzsche, ii. 60.\nConcerning justice, he [Trismegistus, who in this (namely concerning sacrifice) \u201cagrees substantially and verbally with the prophets\u201d] has thus spoken:\n\u201cUnto this Word (Logos), my son, thy adoration and thy homage pay. There is one way alone to worship God,\u2014[it is] not to be bad.\u201d\nHere Lactantius translates literally from C. H., xii. (xiii.) 23, a sermon which now bears the title, \u201cAbout the Common Mind to Tat.\u201d Hermes, however, in the context of the quoted passage, is not writing \u201cabout justice,\u201d and much less could the whole sermon be so entitled, if indeed Lactantius intended us so to understand it. But see the Commentary, C. H., xii. (xiii.) 6, and Ex. xi., \u201cOn Justice.\u201d\nxviii. Ibid., v. 25, 11; Brandt, p. 579; Fritzsche, ii. 60.\nAlso in that \u201cPerfect Sermon,\u201d when he heard Asclepius enquiring of his son, 3 whether it would be pleasing to his 4 father, that incense and other perfumes\nshould be offered in their holy rite to God, [Hermes] exclaimed:\nNay, nay; speak more propitiously, O [my] Asclepius! For very great impiety is it to let come in the mind any such thought about that One and Only Good.\nThese things, and things like these, are not appropriate to Him. For He is full of all things that exist and least of all stands He in need [of aught].\nBut let us worship pouring forth our thanks. The [worthiest] sacrifice to Him is blessing, [and blessing] only.\nWith this compare the passage in P. S. A., xli. 2 (p. 61, 16, Goldb.). Here again we have the means of controlling the old Latin translator, but not with such exactitude as before, for Lactantius has also turned the Greek text into Latin. But not only from the other specimens of Lactantius\u2019 Hermes translations, but also from his present close reproduction of the ordinary wording of the Trismegistic treatises, we may be further confident that the Old Latin translation is free, paraphrastic, and rhetorical, as we have already remarked.\nxix. Ibid., vii. 4, 3; Brandt, p. 593; Fritzsche, ii. 69.\nBut Hermes was not ignorant that man was made by God and in the Image of God. 1\nxx. Ibid., vii. 9, 11; Brandt, p. 612; Fritzsche, ii. 82.\n(Speaking of man being the only animal that has his body upright, and face raised to heaven, looking towards his Maker, Lactantius says:)\nAnd this \u201clooking\u201d Hermes has most rightly named contemplation. 1\nxxi. Ibid., vii. 13, 3; Brandt, p. 624 Fritzsche, ii. 90.\nHermes, in describing the nature of man, in order that he might teach how he was made by God, brings forward the following:\nFrom the two natures, the deathless and mortal, He made one nature,\u2014that of man,\u2014one and the self-same thing; and having made the self-same [man] both somehow deathless and somehow mortal, He brought him forth, and set him up betwixt\u00a02 the godlike and immortal\nnature and the mortal, that seeing all he might wonder at all.\nThis idea of \u201cwondering\u201d was, doubtless, a commonplace in Hellenistic philosophical circles and looked back to the Platonic saying: \u201cThere is no other beginning of Philosophy than wondering.\u201d Compare also one of the newest found \u201cLogoi of Jesus,\u201d from the rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus, which runs: \u201cLet not him that seeketh . . . cease until he find, and when he finds he shall wonder; wondering he shall reign, and reigning he shall rest.\u201d 1\nWondering is the beginning of Gnosis; this makes a man king of himself, and thus master of gods and men, and so he has peace. The translation of \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 by Grenfell and Hunt as \u201creach the kingdom\u201d seems to me to have no justification.\nLactantius here quotes the Greek text of P. S. A., viii. 3, and so once again we can control the Old Latin version. The Church Father is plainly the more reliable, reproducing as he does familiar Hermetic phrasing and style; and we thus again have an insight into the methods of our rhetorical, truncated, and interpolated Latin Version.\nxxii. Ibid., vii. 18, 3; Brandt, p. 640; Fritzsche, ii. 99.\nAnd Hermes states this [the destruction of the world] 2 plainly. For in that book which bears the title\nof \u201cThe Perfect Sermon,\u201d after an enumeration of the evils of which we have spoken, he adds:\nNow when these things shall be, as I have said, Asclepius, then will [our] Lord and Sire, the God and Maker of the First and the One God,\u00a01 look down on what is done, and, making firm His Will,\u2014that is the Good,\u2014against disorder, recalling error, and purging out the bad, either by washing it away with water-flood, or burning it away with swiftest fire, or forcibly expelling it with war and famine,\u2014He [then] will bring again His Cosmos to its former state, and so achieve its Restoration.\u00a02\nxxiii. Ibid., Epitome, 4, 4; Brandt, p. 679; Fritzsche, ii. 117.\nHermes,\u2014who, on account of his virtue and knowledge of many arts, gained the title of Thrice-greatest, who also in the antiquity of his doctrine preceded the philosophers, and who is worshipped as god among the Egyptians,\u2014declaring the greatness of the One and Only God with unending praises, calls Him God and Father, [and says] He has no name, for that He has no need for a distinctive name, 3 inasmuch as He alone is,\nnor has He any parents, in that He is both from Himself and by Himself. 1\nIn writing to his son [Tat] he begins as follows:\n\u201cTo comprehend God is difficult, to speak [of Him] impossible, even for one who can comprehend; for the Perfect cannot be comprehended by the imperfect, nor the Invisible by the visible.\u201d 2\nxxiv. Ibid., Ep., 14; Brandt, p. 685; Fritzsche, ii. 121.\n(Lactantius repeats in almost identical words what he has written in i. 11.)\nxxv. Ibid., Ep., 37 (42), 2; Brandt, p. 712; Fritzsche, ii. 140.\nBy means of him [the Logos] as Demiurge, 3 as Hermes says, He [God the Father] hath devised the beautiful and wondrous creation of the world. . . .\nFinally Plato has spoken concerning the first and second God, not plainly as a philosopher, but as a prophet, perchance in this following Trismegistus, whose words I have added in translation from the Greek.\n(Lactantius then translates verbally from the Greek text he has quoted in iv. 6, 4, omitting, however, the last clause and the parenthesis in the middle.)\n231:1 A pupil of Arnobius; flourished at the beginning of the fourth century.\n231:2 Brandt (S.), L. Caeli Firmiani Lactanti Opera Omnia,\u2014Pars I., Divinae Institutiones et Epitome (Vienna, 1890). Pars II., to be edited by G. Laubmann, has not yet appeared. Fritzsche (O. F.), Div. Institt. (Leipzig, 1842), 2 vols.\n231:3 De Natura Deorum, iii. 22, 56.\n231:4 C. Aurelius Cotta, 124-76 (?) B.C.\n231:5 Cicero makes Cotta maintain the cause of this school both here and in the De Oratore.\n232:1 Argos, according to the many ancient myths concerning him, was all-seeing (\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03c0\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2), possessed of innumerable eyes, or, in one variant, of an eye at the top of his head. Like Hercules, he was of superhuman strength, and many similar exploits of his powers are recorded. In the Io-legends, Hera made Argos guardian of the cow into which the favourite of Zeus had been metamorphosed. Zeus accordingly sent Hermes to carry off his beloved. Hermes is said to have lulled Argos to sleep by means of his syrinx, or pipe of seven reeds, or by his caduceus, and then to have stoned him or cut off his head. See Reseller\u2019s Ausf\u00fchr. Lex. d. griech. u. r\u00f6m. Myth., s.v. \u201cArgos.\u201d It is to be noticed that instead of Argum, four MSS. read argentum, which is curious as showing a Medieval Alchemical influence. See n. 4 to Ciceronis Opera Philosophica (Delph. et Var. Clas.), vol. ii. (London, 1830).\n232:2 Pheneat\u00e6,\u2014Phen\u00ebus was a town in Arcadia, that country of ancient mysteries. (It is remarkable that Hermas is taken by the \u201cShepherd\u201d in spirit to a mountain in Arcadia. See Shepherd of Hermas, Sim. ix. 1.) Cicero begins his description of the fifth Hermes with this statement, and Lactantius has thus awkwardly misplaced it. Pausanias (viii. 14, 6) tells us that Phen\u00ebus itself was considered as a very ancient city, and that its chief cult was that of Hermes. This cult of Hermes, moreover, was blended with an ancient mystery-tradition, for Pausanias (ibid., 15, 1) tells us that:\n\u201cThe Pheneatians have also a sanctuary of Demeter sumamed Eleusinian, and they celebrate mysteries in her honour, alleging that rites identical with those performed at Eleusis were instituted in their land. . . . Beside the sanctuary of the Eleusinian goddess is what is called the Petroma, two great stones fitted to each other. Every second year, when they are celebrating what they call the Greater Mysteries, they open these stones, and taking out of them certain writings which bear on the mysteries, they read them in the hearing of the initiated, and put them back in their place that same night. I know, too, that on the weightiest matters most of the Pheneatians swear by the Petroma.\u201d Frazer\u2019s Translation, i. 393 (London, 1898).\n233:1 Cognitionem.\n233:2 Cf. P. S. A., xx. (p. 42, 16, Goldb.) et pass.; C. H., v. (vi.) 2.\n233:3 Compare with Epitome 4 below.\n233:4 Lactantius here quotes in Greek. Cf. P. S. A., xx. (p. 42, 27-43, 3, Goldb.).\n234:1 Was, however, this the spelling found in Cicero, for Firmianus takes it from the text of Tully? It is a pity we have no critical apparatus of the text of Lactantius, for the MSS. of Cicero present us with the following extraordinary list of variants: Then, Ten, Their, Thoyt, Theyt, Theyn, Thetum, Them, Thernum, Theutatem, Theut, Thoyth, Thoth. See n. 5 to the text of Cicero, cited above. Cf. R. 117, n. 2.\n234:2 Which he probably took from P. S. A., xxxvii. 4: \u201cWhose home is in a place called after him.\u201d\n234:3 Chambers (p. 41, n. 1), in referring it to C. H., v. (vi.) 10, is mistaken.\n235:1 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 5; P. S. A., xxxvii. 1. Also Lact., Epit., 14. In my commentary on the first passage I have shown that Lactantius is probably here referring to a lost Hermetic treatise.\n235:2 Cf. Fragg. ap. Stob., Ecl., i. 5, 16, 20. It is to be noticed from the context that Lactantius places Trismegistus in a class apart together with the Sibylline Oracles and Prophets, and then proceeds to speak of the philosophers, Pythagoreans, Platonists, etc. He also repeats the same triple combination in iv. 6.\n235:3 Propinquare. L. glosses this as meaning \u201ccome close to and follow with the intelligence.\u201d\n235:4 Cf. Frag. ap. Cyril, C. I., i. (vol. vi., p. 31 C).\n236:1 Compare also Lact., Epit., 4.\n236:2 It is interesting to note, in the history of the text-tradition, that the received reading \u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03ae\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 (\u201cbe expressed\u201d) in Stob\u00e6us stands in one MS. (A) \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03b2\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9, which seems to be a transference from the original of L.\u2019s propinquare.\n236:3 Limo,\u2014slime or mud.\n236:4 Lact. repeats this in vii. 4. Cf. C. H., i. 12.\n236:5 Cf. C. H., v. (vi.) 6.\n237:1 Cf. also Hermes-Prayer, iii. 11. R. 21, n. 11.\n237:2 Date c. 494-434 B.C.\n237:3 See also Ex. vii. 3; C. H., ii. (iii.) 11.\n237:4 Cf. C. H., ix. (x.) 3; C. H., xvi. 10.\n238:1 \u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03ac\u03c1\u03c7\u03b7\u03bd. This term is not found in the extant texts; \u201cDiabolus\u201d is, of course, not to be referred to Hermes, but to the disquisition of Lactantius at the beginning of 14.\n238:2 Cf. Cyril, C. J., iv. (vol. vi. 130 E, Aub.).\n238:3 For the same idea, see C. H., xii. (xiii.) 9.\n238:4 \u1f21 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u03b5\u1f50\u03c3\u03ad\u03b2\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b3\u03bd\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6,\u2014which Lactantius in another passage (v. 14) renders into Latin as \u201cPietas autem nihil aliud est quam dei notio,\u2014is given in C. H., ix. (x.) 4 as: \u03b5\u1f50\u03c3\u03ad\u03b2\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ad \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b3\u03bd\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 (where Parthey notes no various readings in MSS.).\n239:1 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b3\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2,\u2014these words do not occur in our extant Greek texts; but the Lat. trans, of P. S. A., xxv. 4, preserves \u201cnocentes angeli.\u201d\n240:1 Sc. the Logos as Cosmos.\n240:2 Cf. Frag. x.\n240:3 For last clause, see C. H., i. 12. Cf. also Ps. Augustin., C. Quinque H\u00e6reses, vol. viii., Append, p. 3 E, Maur.\n240:4 Lactantius himself also gives a partial translation of this passage in his Epitome, 42 (Fritz., ii. 140).\n241:1 \u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b9\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b3\u1f78\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 . The exact words do not occur in our extant texts, but the idea is a commonplace of the Trismegistic doctrine; see especially P. S. A., xxvi.: \u201cThe Demiurgus of the first and the one God,\u201d and Lact., ibid., vii. 18, 4: \u201cGod of first might, and Guider of the one God.\u201d See also C. H., i. 10, 11, xvi. 18; Cyril, C. Jul., i. 33 (Frag. xiii.), and vi. 6 (Frag. xxi.); and Exx. iii. 6, iv. 2. Cf. also Ep. 14 below.\n241:2 Cf. vii. 18 below.\n241:3 Sc. will (\u03b2\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2). Cf. especially P. S. A., Commentary.\n241:4 This is plainly from the same source as the following Fragment.\n241:5 Cf. C. H., i. 5; and Lact. and Cyril, passim (e.g. Fragg. xxi., xxii.).\n242:1 This passage and the preceding, then, are evidently taken from \u201cThe Sermons to Tat.\u201d Lactantius quotes in Greek, and again refers to the passage in iv. 9.\n242:2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u2014not found in the extant texts; but for the idea see C. H., i. 9. See also iv. 13, and Ep. 4 below.\n242:3 Ibid., iv. 7.\n242:4 \u1f00\u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03c1 et \u1f00\u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03c9\u03c1. Cf. Lact., D. I., i. 7, 2 (Brandt).\n242:5 Terms not found in our extant texts; probably taken from the same source as the terms in iv. 8 above.\n243:1 Notio dei.\n243:2 Namely ii. 15, 6; q.v. for comment.\n243:3 That is, Hermes\u2019 son Tat.\n243:4 That is, Tat\u2019s father, Hermes.\n244:1 See above, ibid., ii. 10, 13, Comment.\n245:1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03af\u03b1\u03bd = \u03b8\u03b5\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03bd. See, for instance, C. H., xiv. (xv.) 1, and K. K., 1, 38, 51; also Frag. ap. Stob., Flar., xi. 23; and also compare C. H., iv. (v.) 2: \u201cFor contemplator (\u03b8\u03b5\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2) of God\u2019s works did man become.\u201d It is also of interest to note that Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Tryph., 218 c) enumerates the Theoretics or Contemplatives, among the most famous sects of Philosophers, naming them in the following order: Platonics, Stoics, Peripatetics, Theoretics, Pythagorics.\n245:2 Compare the \u201csetting up betwixt\u201d (\u1f10\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u1ff3 . . . \u1f35\u03b4\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd) with the \u201csetting up\u201d of the mind \u201cin the midst\u201d of C. H., iv. (v.) 3.\n246:1 Grenfell (B. P.) and Hunt (A. S.), New Sayings of Jesus, p. 13 (London, 1904).\n246:2 Cf. iv. 7 above.\n247:1 Cf. Frag. v.\n247:2 Lactantius quotes the original Greek of P. S. A., xxvi. 1 (p. 48, 24, Goldb.), so that we can thus once more remark the liberties which the Old Latin translation has taken with the text.\n247:3 Cf. Frag. ii.\n248:1 See i. 6 and iv. 8 above.\n248:2 The first clause is a verbatim translation of the text of the Stob\u00e6an Extract ii., while the second is a paraphrase even of L.\u2019s own version from the Greek (see ii. 8 above). We learn, however, the new scrap of information that the quotation is from the beginning of the sermon.\n248:3 The reference to the \u201cDemiurge\u201d looks back to iv. 6, 9.","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3: II. References and Fragments in the Fathers: VII. Lactantius","type":"page"}