向死者的七次布道（下）

Sermo IV
The dead filled the place murmuring and said:
Tell us of gods and devils, accursed one!
The god-sun is the highest good; the devil is the opposite. Thus have ye two gods. But there are many high and good things and many great evils. Among these are two god-devils; the one is the burning one, the other the growing one.
The burning one is eros, who hath the form of flame. Flame giveth light because it consumeth.
The growing one is the tree of life. It buddeth, as in growing it heapeth up living stuff.
Eros flameth up and dieth. But the tree of life groweth with slow and constant increase through unmeasured time.
Good and evil are united in the flame.
Good and evil are united in the increase of the tree. In their divinity stand life and love opposed.
Innumerable as the host of the stars is the number of gods and devils.
Each star is a god, and each space that a star filleth is a devil. But the empty-fullness of the whole is the pleroma.
The operation of the whole is Abraxas, to whom only the ineffective standeth opposed.
Four is the number of the principal gods, as four is the number of the world’s measurements.
One is the beginning, the god-sun.