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The Virgin of the World

By Hermes Mercurius Trismagistus tr. A. Kingsford, E Maitland

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Fragments of the Book of Hermes to his Son Tatios – Part VIII

TO understand God is difficult; to speak of God, impossible. For the corporeal cannot express the incorporeal; the imperfect cannot comprehend the perfect. How is the eternal to be associated with the transient? The first abides for ever, the other is fleeting; the first is the Real, the other is a reflected shadow. As much as weakness differs from strength, or smallness from greatness, so much the mortal differs from the divine. The distance which divides them one from the other obscures the vision of the beautiful. Bodies are visible to sight, and that which the eye beholds the tongue is able to express. But that which has not any body, nor appearance, nor form, nor matter, cannot be apprehended by sense.

I understand, O Tatios, I understand that which it is impossible to define--that is God.

[The above fragments are from the "Physical Eclogues" and "Florilegium" of Stobæus.]