VII. Lactantius

Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906], at sacred-texts.com

p. 231

VII.

LACTANTIUS ¹

i. Divinæ Institutiones, i. 6, 1; Brandt, p. 18; Fritzsche, i. 13. ²

THOYTH-HERMES AND HIS BOOKS ON THE GNOSIS

Let 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.

In 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

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[paragraph continues] Argus was slain, ¹ and for that cause he fled into Egypt, and initiated the Egyptians into laws and letters.

The 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 Phenëus, ² indeed, worship him as a god; but, although

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he 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 “Thrice-greatest.”

He 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]—God 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:

FRAGMENT II.

But God [is] one; and He who’s one needs not a name, for He [as one] is The-beyond-all-names.

THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE HERMETIC TRADITION

For 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

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interesting 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—their special tradition was oldest and best and originator of all others!

For 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.

The sentence he quotes is not found textually in any of the extant Trismegistic literature. ³

ii. Ibid., i. 11, 61; Brandt, p. 47; Fritzsche, i. 29, 30.

URANUS, CRONUS AND HERMES, ADEPTS OF THE PERFECT SCIENCE

And 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,

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he mentioned in their number Uranus, Cronus and Hermes, his own kinsfolk. ¹

iii. Ibid., ii. 8, 48; Brandt, p. 138; Fritzsche, i. 89.

DIVINE PROVIDENCE

For the World was made by Divine Providence, not to mention Thrice-greatest, who preaches this. ²

iv. Ibid., ii. 8, 68; Brandt, p. 141; Fritzsche, i. 91.

ON MORTAL AND IMMORTAL SIGHT

His [God’s] works are seen by the eyes; but how He made them, is not seen even by the mind, “in that,” as Hermes says:

FRAGMENT III.

Mortal cannot draw nigh ³ to the Immortal, nor temporal to the Eternal, nor the corruptible to That which knoweth no corruption. ⁴

And, 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.

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The first part of this citation (which Lactantius gives in Latin) is identical in idea with a sentence in Frag. iv.—that favourite source of quotation, which Stobæus, Ex. ii. (Flor. lxxx. [lxxviii.] 9), excerpted from “The [Sermon] to Tat.” ¹ It might, then, be thought that this was simply a paraphrase of Lactantius’, 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

v. Ibid., ii. 10, 13; Brandt, p. 149; Fritzsche, i. 96.

MAN MADE AFTER THE IMAGE OF GOD

But the making of the truly living man out of clay ³ is of God. And Hermes also hands on the tradition of this fact,—for 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

Man made after the Image of God is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Trismegistic tradition. For instance, P. S. A., vii. 2: “The [man] ‘essential,’ as say the Greeks, but which we call the ‘form of the

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[paragraph continues] Divine Similitude’”; and x. 3: “Giving the greatest thanks to God, His Image reverencing,—not ignorant that he [man] is, too, God’s image, the second [one]; for that there are two images of God—Cosmos and man.” ¹

vi. Ibid., ii. 12, 4; Brandt, p. 156; Fritzsche, i. 100.

HERMES THE FIRST NATURAL PHILOSOPHER

Empedocles ² . . . [and others] . . . laid down four elements, fire, air, water, and earth,—[in this] perchance following Trismegistus, who said that our bodies were composed of these four elements by God.

“For that they have in them something of fire, something of air, something of water, and something of earth,—and yet they are not fire [in itself], nor air, nor water, nor earth.”

All this about the elements is, of course, a commonplace of ancient physics, and we may, therefore, dismiss the naïve 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 Stobæus has preserved to us in an excerpt from “The [Sermons] to Tat”—Ex. iii. I. ³

vii. Ibid., ii. 14, 5; Brandt, p. 163; Fritzsche, i. 105.

THE DAIMON-CHIEF

Thus there are two classes of daimons,—the one celestial, and the other terrestrial. The latter are impure spirits, the authors of the evils that are done, ⁴

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of whom the same Diabolus is chief. Whence Trismegistus calls him the “Daimon-chief.” ¹

viii. Ibid., ii. 15, 6; Brandt, p. 166; Fritzsche, i. 106.

DEVOTION IS GOD-GNOSIS

In 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:

FRAGMENT IV.

The one means of protection is piety. For neither doth an evil daimon nor doth Fate rule o’er the pious man. ³ For God doth save the pious [man] from every ill. The one and only good found in mankind is piety.

And what piety means, he witnesses in another place, saying:

“Devotion is God-Gnosis.” ⁴

Asclepius, his Hearer, has also explained the same idea at greater length in that “Perfect Sermon” which he wrote to the King.

Both, then, assert that the daimons are the enemies and harriers of men, and for this cause Trismegistus

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calls them “evil ‘angels’,” ¹—so far was he from being ignorant that from celestial beings they had become corrupted, and so earthly.

This 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.: “The righteous man finds his defence in serving God and deepest piety. For God doth guard such men from every ill.”

Now we know that Lactantius had the Greek of this “Perfect Sermon” before him, and we know that our Latin translation is highly rhetorical and paraphrastic.

The only difficulty is that Lactantius’ quotation ends with the sentence: “The one and only good found in mankind is piety”; 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).

ix. Ibid., iv. 6, 4; Brandt, p. 286; Fritzsche, i. 178.

THE COSMIC SON OF GOD

Hermes, in that book which is entitled the “Perfect Sermon,” uses these words:

FRAGMENT V.

The Lord and Master of all things (whom ’tis our custom to call God), when He had made the

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second God, the Visible and Sensible, ¹—I 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,—when, then, He’d made Him First, and One and Only, ² 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. ³

Lactantius here quotes from the lost Greek original of “The Perfect Sermon,” viii. 1. We have thus a means of controlling the old Latin translation which has come down to us.

It 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: “He fell in love with him as being part of His Divinity.”

It 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

x. Ibid., iv. 6, 9; Brandt, p. 291; Fritzsche, i. 179.

THE DEMIURGE OF GOD

(Speaking of the Son of God and identifying Him with the pre-existent Wisdom spoken of in Proverbs viii. 22, Lactantius adds:)

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Wherefore also Trismegistus has called Him the “Demiurge of God.” ¹

xi. Ibid., iv. 7, 3; Brandt, p. 292; Fritzsche, i. 179.

THE NAME OF GOD

Even then [when the world shall be consummated], ² it [God’s Name] will not be able to be uttered by the mouth of man, as Hermes teaches, saying:

FRAGMENT VI.

But the Cause of this Cause is the Divine and the Ingenerable Good’s Good-will, which ³ first brought forth the God whose Name cannot be spoken by the mouth of man. ⁴

xii. Ibid., iv. 7, 3; Brandt, p. 293; Fritzsche, i. 179, 180.

THE HOLY WORD ABOUT THE LORD OF ALL.

And a little after [he says] to his son:

FRAGMENT VII.

For that there is, [my] son, a Word [Logos] of wisdom, that no tongue can tell,—a Holy ⁵

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[paragraph continues] [Word] about the only Lord of all, the God before all thought,—whom to declare transcends all human power. ¹

xiii. Ibid., iv. 8, 5; Brandt, p. 296; Fritzsche, i. 181.

HIS OWN FATHER AND OWN MOTHER

But Hermes also was of the same opinion when he says:

“His own father and His own mother.” ²

xiv. Ibid., iv. 9, 3; Brandt, p. 300; Fritzsche, i. 182, 183.

THE POWER AND GREATNESS OF THE WORD

Trismegistus, 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.

xv. Ibid., iv. 13, 2; Brandt, p. 316; Fritzsche, i. 190.

THE FATHERLESS AND MOTHERLESS

For God, the Father, and the Source, and Principle of things, in that He hath no parents, is very truly called by Trismegistus “father-less” and “mother-less” ⁴ in that He is brought forth from none. ⁵

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xvi. Ibid., v. 14, 11; Brandt, p. 446; Fritzsche, i. 256.

PIETY THE GNOSIS OF GOD

But “piety is nothing else than Gnosis of God,” ¹ as Trismegistus has most truly laid down, as we have said in another place. ²

xvii. Ibid., vi. 25, 10; Brandt, p. 579; Fritzsche, ii. 60.

THE ONLY WAY TO WORSHIP GOD

Concerning justice, he [Trismegistus, who in this (namely concerning sacrifice) “agrees substantially and verbally with the prophets”] has thus spoken:

“Unto this Word (Logos), my son, thy adoration and thy homage pay. There is one way alone to worship God,—[it is] not to be bad.”

Here Lactantius translates literally from C. H., xii. (xiii.) 23, a sermon which now bears the title, “About the Common Mind to Tat.” Hermes, however, in the context of the quoted passage, is not writing “about justice,” 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., “On Justice.”

xviii. Ibid., v. 25, 11; Brandt, p. 579; Fritzsche, ii. 60.

THE WORTHIEST SACRIFICE TO GOD

Also in that “Perfect Sermon,” when he heard Asclepius enquiring of his son, ³ whether it would be pleasing to his ⁴ father, that incense and other perfumes

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should be offered in their holy rite to God, [Hermes] exclaimed:

FRAGMENT VIII.

Nay, 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.

These 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].

But let us worship pouring forth our thanks. The [worthiest] sacrifice to Him is blessing, [and blessing] only.

With 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’ 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.

xix. Ibid., vii. 4, 3; Brandt, p. 593; Fritzsche, ii. 69.

MAN MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

But Hermes was not ignorant that man was made by God and in the Image of God. ¹

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xx. Ibid., vii. 9, 11; Brandt, p. 612; Fritzsche, ii. 82.

CONTEMPLATION

(Speaking of man being the only animal that has his body upright, and face raised to heaven, looking towards his Maker, Lactantius says:)

And this “looking” Hermes has most rightly named contemplation. ¹

xxi. Ibid., vii. 13, 3; Brandt, p. 624 Fritzsche, ii. 90.

THE DUAL NATURE OF MAN

Hermes, in describing the nature of man, in order that he might teach how he was made by God, brings forward the following:

FRAGMENT IX.

From the two natures, the deathless and mortal, He made one nature,—that of man,—one 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 ² the godlike and immortal

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nature and the mortal, that seeing all he might wonder at all.

WONDER THE BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY

This idea of “wondering” was, doubtless, a commonplace in Hellenistic philosophical circles and looked back to the Platonic saying: “There is no other beginning of Philosophy than wondering.” Compare also one of the newest found “Logoi of Jesus,” from the rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus, which runs: “Let not him that seeketh . . . cease until he find, and when he finds he shall wonder; wondering he shall reign, and reigning he shall rest.” ¹

Wondering 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 βασιλεύσει by Grenfell and Hunt as “reach the kingdom” seems to me to have no justification.

Lactantius 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.

xxii. Ibid., vii. 18, 3; Brandt, p. 640; Fritzsche, ii. 99.

THE COSMIC RESTORATION

And Hermes states this [the destruction of the world] ² plainly. For in that book which bears the title

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of “The Perfect Sermon,” after an enumeration of the evils of which we have spoken, he adds:

FRAGMENT X.

Now 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, ¹ look down on what is done, and, making firm His Will,—that is the Good,—against 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,—He [then] will bring again His Cosmos to its former state, and so achieve its Restoration. ²

xxiii. Ibid., Epitome, 4, 4; Brandt, p. 679; Fritzsche, ii. 117.

OF HERMES AND HIS DOCTRINE CONCERNING GOD

Hermes,—who, 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,—declaring 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,

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nor has He any parents, in that He is both from Himself and by Himself. ¹

In writing to his son [Tat] he begins as follows:

“To 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.” ²

xxiv. Ibid., Ep., 14; Brandt, p. 685; Fritzsche, ii. 121.

A REPETITION

(Lactantius repeats in almost identical words what he has written in i. 11.)

xxv. Ibid., Ep., 37 (42), 2; Brandt, p. 712; Fritzsche, ii. 140.

PLATO AS PROPHET FOLLOWS TRISMEGISTUS

By 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. . . .

Finally 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.

(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.)

Footnotes

231:1 A pupil of Arnobius; flourished at the beginning of the fourth century.

231:2 Brandt (S.), L. Caeli Firmiani Lactanti Opera Omnia,—Pars 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.

231:3 De Natura Deorum, iii. 22, 56.

231:4 C. Aurelius Cotta, 124-76 (?) B.C.

231:5 Cicero makes Cotta maintain the cause of this school both here and in the De Oratore.

232:1 Argos, according to the many ancient myths concerning him, was all-seeing (πανόπτης), 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’s Ausführ. Lex. d. griech. u. röm. Myth., s.v. “Argos.” 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).

232:2 Pheneatæ,—Phenëus was a town in Arcadia, that country of ancient mysteries. (It is remarkable that Hermas is taken by the “Shepherd” 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 Phenëus 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:

“The 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.” Frazer’s Translation, i. 393 (London, 1898).

233:1 Cognitionem.

233:2 Cf. P. S. A., xx. (p. 42, 16, Goldb.) et pass.; C. H., v. (vi.) 2.

233:3 Compare with Epitome 4 below.

233:4 Lactantius here quotes in Greek. Cf. P. S. A., xx. (p. 42, 27-43, 3, Goldb.).

234:1 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.

234:2 Which he probably took from P. S. A., xxxvii. 4: “Whose home is in a place called after him.”

234:3 Chambers (p. 41, n. 1), in referring it to C. H., v. (vi.) 10, is mistaken.

235:1 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.

235:2 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.

235:3 Propinquare. L. glosses this as meaning “come close to and follow with the intelligence.”

235:4 Cf. Frag. ap. Cyril, C. I., i. (vol. vi., p. 31 C).

236:1 Compare also Lact., Epit., 4.

236:2 It is interesting to note, in the history of the text-tradition, that the received reading σημήναι (“be expressed”) in Stobæus stands in one MS. (A) συμβῆναι, which seems to be a transference from the original of L.’s propinquare.

236:3 Limo,—slime or mud.

236:4 Lact. repeats this in vii. 4. Cf. C. H., i. 12.

236:5 Cf. C. H., v. (vi.) 6.

237:1 Cf. also Hermes-Prayer, iii. 11. R. 21, n. 11.

237:2 Date c. 494-434 B.C.

237:3 See also Ex. vii. 3; C. H., ii. (iii.) 11.

237:4 Cf. C. H., ix. (x.) 3; C. H., xvi. 10.

238:1 δαιμονιάρχην. This term is not found in the extant texts; “Diabolus” is, of course, not to be referred to Hermes, but to the disquisition of Lactantius at the beginning of 14.

238:2 Cf. Cyril, C. J., iv. (vol. vi. 130 E, Aub.).

238:3 For the same idea, see C. H., xii. (xiii.) 9.

238:4 ἡ γὰρ εὐσέβεια γνῶσις ἐστι τοῦ θεοῦ,—which Lactantius in another passage (v. 14) renders into Latin as “Pietas autem nihil aliud est quam dei notio,—is given in C. H., ix. (x.) 4 as: εὐσέβεια δέ ἐστι θεοῦ γνῶσις (where Parthey notes no various readings in MSS.).

239:1 ἀγγέλους πονηροὺς,—these words do not occur in our extant Greek texts; but the Lat. trans, of P. S. A., xxv. 4, preserves “nocentes angeli.”

240:1 Sc. the Logos as Cosmos.

240:2 Cf. Frag. x.

240:3 For last clause, see C. H., i. 12. Cf. also Ps. Augustin., C. Quinque Hæreses, vol. viii., Append, p. 3 E, Maur.

240:4 Lactantius himself also gives a partial translation of this passage in his Epitome, 42 (Fritz., ii. 140).

241:1 δημιουργὸν τοῦ . 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.: “The Demiurgus of the first and the one God,” and Lact., ibid., vii. 18, 4: “God of first might, and Guider of the one God.” 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.

241:2 Cf. vii. 18 below.

241:3 Sc. will (βούλησις). Cf. especially P. S. A., Commentary.

241:4 This is plainly from the same source as the following Fragment.

241:5 Cf. C. H., i. 5; and Lact. and Cyril, passim (e.g. Fragg. xxi., xxii.).

242:1 This passage and the preceding, then, are evidently taken from “The Sermons to Tat.” Lactantius quotes in Greek, and again refers to the passage in iv. 9.

242:2 αὐτοπάτορα καὶ αὐτομήτορα—not found in the extant texts; but for the idea see C. H., i. 9. See also iv. 13, and Ep. 4 below.

242:3 Ibid., iv. 7.

242:4 ἀπάτωρ et ἀμήτωρ. Cf. Lact., D. I., i. 7, 2 (Brandt).

242:5 Terms not found in our extant texts; probably taken from the same source as the terms in iv. 8 above.

243:1 Notio dei.

243:2 Namely ii. 15, 6; q.v. for comment.

243:3 That is, Hermes’ son Tat.

243:4 That is, Tat’s father, Hermes.

244:1 See above, ibid., ii. 10, 13, Comment.

245:1 θεοπτίαν = θεωρίαν. 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: “For contemplator (θεατής) of God’s works did man become.” 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.

245:2 Compare the “setting up betwixt” (ἐν μέσῳ . . . ἵδρυσεν) with the “setting up” of the mind “in the midst” of C. H., iv. (v.) 3.

246:1 Grenfell (B. P.) and Hunt (A. S.), New Sayings of Jesus, p. 13 (London, 1904).

246:2 Cf. iv. 7 above.

247:1 Cf. Frag. v.

247:2 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.

247:3 Cf. Frag. ii.

248:1 See i. 6 and iv. 8 above.

248:2 The first clause is a verbatim translation of the text of the Stobæan Extract ii., while the second is a paraphrase even of L.’s 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.

248:3 The reference to the “Demiurge” looks back to iv. 6, 9.