INTRODUCTION.

three-shaped and truly multiform God is the separating and discriminating cause of that which is intelligible. Likewise, the middle triad exists according to the egg, as yet united; but the third 9. "The third" (to triton) is, I believe, erroneously omitted in the original. exists according to the God who separates and distributes the whole intelligible order. This is the common and familiar Orphic theology. But the version delivered by Hieronymus and Hellanicus is as follows: According to them, water and matter were the first productions, from which the earth was secretly drawn forth, so that water and earth are established as the two first principles; the latter of these has a dispersed existence, but the former conglutinates and connects it. They are silent, however, concerning the principle prior to these two, as it is ineffable: for as there are no illuminations regarding him, his arcane and ineffable nature is sufficiently proven. But the third principle following these two—water and earth—which is generated from them, is a dragon, naturally endowed with the heads of a bull and a lion, but having the face of a god in the middle.