the temple in front of Isis, whose _pudendum_ stands exposed looking upwards from below, and wearing as a crown all its fruits of begotten things.[55] And they say not only does such a thing stand in the most holy temples, but is made known to all like a light not set under a bushel but placed on a candlestick making [Sidenote: p. 152.] its announcement on the housetops in all the streets and highways and near all dwellings being set before them as some limit and term.[56] For they call this the bringer of luck, not knowing what they say. And this mystery the Greeks who have taken it over from the Egyptians keep unto this day. For we see, he says, the (images) of Hermes in such a form honoured among them. And they say that they especially honour Cyllenius the Eloquent. For Hermes is the Word who, being the interpreter and fashioner[57] of what has been, is, and will be, stands honoured among them carved into some such form which is the _pudendum_ of a man straining from the things below to those on high. And that this--that is, such a Hermes--is, he says, a leader of souls and a sender forth of them, and a cause of souls, did not escape the poets of the nations who speak thus:-- “Cyllenian Hermes called forth the souls Of the suitors.”-- (Homer, _Odyssey_, XXIV, 1.) [Sidenote: p. 153.] Not of the suitors of Penelope, he says, O unhappy ones, but of those awakened from sleep and recalled to consciousness “From such honour and from such enduring bliss.”-- (Empedocles, 355, Stürz.) that is, from the blessed Man on high or from the arch-man Adamas, as they think, they have been brought down here into the form of clay that they may be made slaves to the fashioner of this creation, Jaldabaoth, a fiery god, a fourth number.[58] For thus they call the demiurge and father of the world of form. “But he holds in his hands the rod Fair and golden, wherewith he lulls to sleep the eyes of men, Whomso he will, while others he awakens from sleep.”-- (_Odyssey_, XXIV, 3 ff.)