C. And if any man (H. he says) is *' blind from birth,"' and

bath not seen ^ the True Light, which ligbteth every man that cometh into the world,'' * — let him see again throu^ us, and let him see as it were through —
J.^ — Paradise, planted with Trees and all kinds of seeds, the Water flowing amid all the Trees and Seeds, and [then] shall he see that from one and the same Water the Olive selects and draws Oil, and the Vine Wine, and each of the rest of the Trees according to its kind.
1 Lit^ the Heracleian stone.
> fccpfc(Si. Cf. Hipp., PhU.y V. 17, on system of Sethiani (S. 198, 36). Both S. and C. translate it correctly as " 9pina" meaning '^ backbone " ; it has, however, been erroneously translated as ''spur." Plutarch, De Is. d 0«., Ixii. 3, tells us that the load-stone was called by the Egyptians '* bone of Horus " ; and Horus is the ''hawk" par excellence, the ** golden hawk." Cf, Budge, Chde of ike Effypttans, ii. 246, who says that we are informed by Manetho (thus making ManeUio the main source of Plutarch) that the ** load -stone is by the Egyptians called the * bone of Horus,' as iron is the 'bone of Typho.''' In the chapter of the Ritual dealing with the deification of the members, the backbone of the deceased is identified with the backbone of Set (xlii. 12). Else- where (criii. 8) the deceased is said '' to depart having the harpoon of iron in him.'' This seems to suggest the black backbone of death and the golden backbone of life.
> Cf. John iz. 1 ; Tvit>\hs iic ^crfr^r, perhaps mystically meaning "blind from (owing to) genesis." Cf. the ** blind accuser" in the Tnsmegistic treatise quoted by Zosimus in our Fragments.
« John i. 9.
^ This is evidently to be attributed to ' J., or rather his " Simonian " source, as it follows directly on the sentence about "every nature selecting." Either C. has suppressed the opening words of J.'s paragraph and substituted his own gloss, or H. has mangled lus text
190 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
But (H. be says) that Man is of no honour in the World, though of great honour [in Heaven, betrayed^] by those who know not to those who know Him not, being accounted '* as a drop from a cask." *
But we (H. he says) —