No statue without a sculptor — never rob the works of their Craftsman
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Hermes — καὶ ἀνδρίαντα μὲν ἢ εἰκόνα χωρὶς ἀνδριαντοποιοῦ ἢ ζωγράφου οὐδείς φησι γεγονέναι, τοῦτο δὲ τὸ δημιούργημα χωρὶς δημιουργοῦ γέγονεν; ὦ τῆς πολλῆς τυφλότητος, ὦ τῆς πολλῆς ἀσεβείας, ὦ τῆς πολλῆς ἀγνωμοσύνης. μηδέποτε, ὦ τέκνον Τάτ, ἀποστερήσῃς τοῦ δημιουργοῦ τὰ δημιουργήματα… μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ κρείττων ἐστὶν ὅση κατὰ θεὸν ὀνόματος. τοσοῦτός ἐστιν ὁ πάντων πατήρ· ἦ γὰρ μόνος οὗτος, καὶ τοῦτο αὐτῷ τὸ ἔργον ἐστί, πατέρα εἶναι.
And no one says a statue or a portrait has come to be without a sculptor or a painter — and yet has this workmanship come to be without a craftsman? O the great blindness, O the great impiety, O the great senselessness! Never, O child Tat, deprive the works of their Craftsman — rather, he is even greater, as much as befits God's name. So great is the Father of all; for he alone is this, and this is his work: to be a father.
And no one says a statue or a portrait has come to be without a sculptor or a painter — and yet has this workmanship come to be without a craftsman? O the great blindness, O the great impiety, O the great senselessness! Never, O child Tat, deprive the works of their Craftsman — rather, he is even greater than any name that befits God can say. So great is the Father of all; for he alone is this, and this is his work: to be a father.
Hermes clinches the design argument with the analogy that natural theology would use forever after: no one imagines 'a statue or a portrait (ἀνδριάντα… ἢ εἰκόνα)' making itself 'without a sculptor or a painter (χωρὶς ἀνδριαντοποιοῦ ἢ ζωγράφου)' — so how could the living body, a far greater artefact, have come to be 'without a craftsman (χωρὶς δημιουργοῦ)?' The interlinear keeps the artisan-words visible because the whole force is in the everyday comparison: to see craftsmanship and deny a craftsman is not scepticism but folly, and Hermes names it in a rising cry of three — 'O the great blindness, the great impiety, the great senselessness (τυφλότητος… ἀσεβείας… ἀγνωμοσύνης)!'
Hence the commandment to the disciple: 'never deprive the works of their Craftsman (μηδέποτε… ἀποστερήσῃς τοῦ δημιουργοῦ τὰ δημιουργήματα)' — never rob the creation of its Creator. (The text is broken by a lacuna here, marked in the reading; the sense of what follows is that God exceeds even the greatest name we could give him.) The treatise then lands on its final identification, gathering CH IV's two names into one: 'so great is the Father of all (ὁ πάντων πατήρ); for he alone is this, and this is his work — to be a father (τοῦτο αὐτῷ τὸ ἔργον ἐστί, πατέρα εἶναι).' God's defining act is not to be worshipped or feared but to father all things: making is the very content of his being. The unseen God of V.1 is, in the end, the Father whose one work is to beget the world — which is why he is everywhere seen in what he makes.
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