A Maker and Master of all — for all order is made, only chaos is unmade
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Hermes — ἄρκτος αὕτη, ἡ περὶ αὐτὴν στρεφομένη καὶ τὸν πάντα κόσμον συμπεριφέρουσα. τίς ὁ τοῦτο κεκτημένος τὸ ὄργανον; τίς ὁ τῇ θαλάσσῃ τοὺς ὅρους περιβαλών; τίς ὁ τὴν γῆν ἑδράσας; ἔστι γάρ τις, ὦ Τάτ, ὁ τούτων πάντων ποιητὴς καὶ δεσπότης. ἀδύνατον γὰρ ἢ τόπον ἢ ἀριθμὸν ἢ μέτρον φυλαχθῆναι χωρὶς τοῦ ποιήσαντος. πᾶσα γὰρ τάξις ποιητή, μόνη δὲ ἡ ἀτοπία καὶ ἀμετρία ἀποίητος. ἀλλ' οὐκ ἀδέσποτος οὐδὲ αὕτη, ὦ τέκνον. καὶ γὰρ εἰ τὸ ἄτακτόν ἐστιν ἐνδεές, ὅτε κατέχει, τοῦτό ἐστι, τὸν τρόπον τῆς τάξεως, καὶ ὑπὸ δεσπότην ἐστὶ τὸν μηδέπω αὐτῇ τὴν τάξιν τάξαντα.
The Bear, this one, turning around itself and carrying the whole cosmos round with it — who is it that possesses this instrument? Who set the bounds round the sea? Who fixed the earth? For there is Someone, O Tat, the maker and master of all these. It is impossible for place or number or measure to be kept apart from a maker; for all order is made, and only disorder and measurelessness is unmade. But not even that is masterless, child. For even if the disordered is deficient — in that it lacks this, that is, the manner of order — even so it is under a master: the one who has not yet arranged its order.
The Bear, turning around itself and carrying the whole cosmos round with it — who possesses that instrument? Who set the bounds round the sea? Who fixed the earth? For there is Someone, O Tat, the maker and master of all these. It is impossible for place or number or measure to be kept apart from a maker; for all order is made, and only disorder and measurelessness is unmade. But not even that is masterless, child. For even if the disordered is deficient — in that it lacks the manner of order — even so it is under a master: the one who has not yet arranged its order.
The design argument widens from the stars to the whole frame of the world. The circumpolar Bear 'turns around itself and carries the whole cosmos round with it (τὸν πάντα κόσμον συμπεριφέρουσα)' — the daily rotation of the heavens, imagined as a vast instrument (ὄργανον). Three hammering questions follow, each naming an act of cosmic engineering — who owns the turning sky, 'who set the bounds round the sea (τοὺς ὅρους περιβαλών),' 'who fixed the earth (τὴν γῆν ἑδράσας)?' — and each is the language of Genesis and Job, where God bounds the sea and founds the earth. The answer is stated plainly: 'there is Someone (ἔστι… τις), the maker and master of all these,' ποιητὴς καὶ δεσπότης — a near-quotation of the Timaeus's 'maker and father.'
Then the principle is generalized into a small metaphysics of order that the interlinear keeps sharp through its ποιητ-/τάξ- vocabulary: 'impossible for place or number or measure to be kept apart from a maker (χωρὶς τοῦ ποιήσαντος); for all order is made (πᾶσα τάξις ποιητή), and only disorder and measurelessness is unmade (ἀτοπία καὶ ἀμετρία ἀποίητος).' To be ordered is to have been made; only chaos is uncreated. But Hermes refuses to leave even chaos outside God's dominion: 'not even this is masterless (οὐκ ἀδέσποτος), child.' Disorder is not a rival power but a mere deficiency — it 'lacks the manner of order' — and a lack is still under the Master, 'the one who has not yet arranged its order (τὸν μηδέπω… τὴν τάξιν τάξαντα).' The unformed is simply the not-yet-formed, held by the God whose ordering is still to come. (The middle clause here is textually rough in Parthey and is rendered as the syntax best allows.) So even the argument from order refuses dualism: there is one Maker, and nothing — not even the unmade — falls outside him.
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