Obeliscus Aegyptiacus

...into Latin, translated with equal crudity of style. It is read thus in Book 1, Chapter 1 of the aforementioned Theology:

The intention of our institute in this work is to contemplate the universe according to the mind of those who taught through signs of figures (hieroglyphs) so occult that no other person could arrive at the secrets of such a science without difficulty, even if he were of subtle and upright wit, provided he does not employ negligence; and then in Book 14, Chapter 14:

Among the entities of the supernal World, none is substantially nobler than another; but all things are there according to the best form: just as the forms existing in the mind of the Architect, for example, the figures inscribed upon a wall. Therefore, the ancients also called these kinds of supernal forms "exemplars," such as those which Plato stated were the substances and essences of inferior things. Hence, the wise Babylonians and Egyptians peered with the sharpness of their minds into the species of the intellectual World, complex, through knowledge handed down from elsewhere or discovered by themselves, which profession they also claimed for themselves; for if they were about to explain something, they used an intellectual doctrine, not a human one, as did some others, who, consulting them, still did not seem to themselves to have learned firmly enough from the opinions rendered in speech; they wrote down the concepts of their minds, as we read with eye-witness faith, onto stones through figures; doing the same in all sciences and arts, which they placed in Temples like pages to be read through. And such were their useful books, which they also made to indicate that the immaterial agent intellect created all things according to the proper reason and likeness of each essence—which was the best and most beautiful document, by which would that they might also indicate by what reason they reached those marvelous and hidden forms, for thus the Sacrament would be more worthy of praise, a condition which falls to few men. These things [are by] Aristotle.

All of which Manetho approves with his calculation in Eusebius, in the Sozomena; where he expressly says that the Books of Hermes, because of the sublimity of the mysteries, were consecrated in the sanctuaries of the temples, inscribed in hieroglyphic letters.

From the writings of Manetho of Sebennytos, who, in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, having acted as High Priest of the idols that are in Egypt, instructed by the oracle of the images lying in the Syriad land, inscribed in the sacred dialect and carved in sacred letters by Thoth, the first Hermes—which [writings] he interpreted after the cataclysm from the sacred dialect into the Greek language and set forth in hieroglyphic letters, and which were deposited in books by Agathodaemon, the second Hermes, father of the one who... in the sanctuaries of the Egyptian temples, made clear to the same King Ptolemy II Philadelphus, in the Book of Sothis. From the writings of Manetho of Sebennytos, who in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, High Priest of the idols which are in Egypt, instructed by oracle, [wrote of] the images lying in the Syriad land, inscribed in the sacred dialect and carved with sacred letters by Thoth, the first Hermes, which he interpreted after the cataclysm from the sacred dialect into the Greek tongue, and set forth in hieroglyphic letters.