part in the heredity of the cosmogeneeis of our

" Poemandres " tractata In it the simultaneous identi- fication and distinction of Thoth and Ptab and of Maat and Sekhet are naturally explained, and the Son of these Powers is the Young Tem, identified with the Young Horus or Young Thoth who is to succeed his Father. Are we here on the track of the ancestry of our Tat ?
At Heliopolis (Annu) the Ancient God Tem was equated with Ba. Tem was the Father-God, Lord of Heaven, and Begetter of the Gods (op. eiL, i 92, 93> Usertsen 1. rebuilt the sanctuary al Heliopolis about
THE DISCIPLES OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES 459
2433 B.C., and dedicated it to Ba in the two forms of Horus and Temu (ib., 330).
"Tern was the first living Man-Gk)d known to the Egyptians, just as Osiris was the first dead Man-God, and as such was always represented in human form and with a human head. . . .
" Tem was, in fact, to the Egyptians a manifestation of God in human form. ... It is useless to attempt to assign a date to the period when the Egyptians began to worship Gt)d in human form, for we have no material for so doing; the worship of Tem must, however, be of very great antiquity, and the fact that the priests of Ra in the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties united him to their God under the name of Ra-Tem, proves that his worship was wide-spread, and that the God was thought to possess attributes similar to those of Ba"(i6.,349,350).
In the Trismegistic tradition in which Thoth holds the chief place, the Young Tem would thus represent the Young Thoth who succeeded to his Father when that Father ascended to the Qods.
Imhotep-Imxtth-Asclspius
Moreover the Egyptian texts prove that besides Nefer-Tem still another Son of Ptab was regarded as the third member of the Memphitic Triad. This Son was called I-em-betep (or Imbotep), whom the Greeks called Imouthes or Imuth, and equated him with their Asclepius.
The name I-em-betep means "He who cometh in Peace," and is very appropriate to the God who brought the knowledge of Healing to mankind ; but I-em-betep, though specially the Qod of medicine, was also the Gtod of study and learning in general
460 THRICE-GRRATBST HKRMSS
"As a God of learning he partook of some of the attributes of Thoth, and he was supposed to take the place of this Grod in the performance of funeral cere- monies, and in superintending the embalming of the dead ; in later times he absorbed the duties of Thoth as ' Scribe of the Gods/ and the authorship of the words of power which protected the dead from enemies of every kind in the Underworld was ascribed to him " (*., 522, 523).
Inthe'*Bitual of Embalmment"^ it is said to the Deceased: "Thy soul uniteth itself to I-em-b«tep whilst thou art in the funeral valley."
The oldest shrine of the God was situated close to Memphis, and was called the " Temple of I-em-^etep, the Son of Ptab/' which the Greeks called the Ascl^pieion.
Under Ptolemy IV., Philopator (222-205 B.a), a temple was built to I-em-betep on the Island of Phibe, and from the hieroglyphic inscriptions we learn that the God was called : " Great One, Son of Ptab, the Creative God, made by Thenen, begotten by him and beloved by him, the God of divine forms in the temples, who giveth life to all men, the Mighty One of wonders, the Maker of times [?], who cometh unto him that calleth upon him wheresoever he may be, who giveth sons to the childless, the wisest and most learned one, the image and likeness of Thoth the WLse." '
Imbotep - Asclepius was thus the "image and likeness of Thoth the Wise," even as Nefer-Tem was
1 See Maspero, op. ett., p. 80. Which of the numerous opp, estt. of Maspero's Uii8 maj be is not dear from Badge's reference.
* Cf. Brugsch, TKeMwnu, p. 783 ; Sdigum, p. 627. Sethe, ImKotep, 1903 — 80 Budge; but, more accurately, Sethe (K.X Uniertuehungen wur Cf€$ckicfUe %nd AlUriumAundt Agyptetu^ ii. 4 (^ Imhotep, der Asklepios der Agypter^X
THE DISCIPLES OF THRIGE-OREATEST HERMES 461
Young Thoth. Here we have precisely the distinction drawn between Asclepius and Tat in our Trismegistic literature ; Asclepius was trained in all philosophy, Tat was young and as yet untrained.
" I-em-t^etep/' concludes Budge, ** was the Qod who sent sleep to those who were suffering and in pain, and those who were afflicted with any kind of disease formed his special charge ; he was the (rood Physician both of Grods and men, and he healed the bodies of mortals during life, and superintended the arrangements for the preservation of the same after death. . . . He was certainly the Gk>d of physicians and of all those who were occupied with the mingled science of medicine and magic ; and when we remember that several of the first Kings of the Early Empire are declared by Manetho, whose statements have been supported by the evidence of the papyri, to have written, %.e. caused to be edited, works on medicine, it is clear that the God of medicine was in Memphis as old as the archaic period" (tJ., 524).
So much for the more important information that Budge has to offer us on the subject of Asclepius-Imuth from the side of pure Egyptian tradition — if we can use such a phrase of that tradition as strained through the sieve of almost purely physical interpretation.^
Thath-Tat
And now let us turn to Reitzenstein and his instruc- tive Dissertation, " Hermes u. Schaler" (pp. 117 ff.).
> For Asclepius among the Greeks, see Thraemer's article ^ Asklepios" in Roscher's Lex, (2. . . . Mythologie (Leipzig, 1884- 1900), i. 615-641 ; also the * Bophy," No. III., The Cult of Aiklepios, by Alice Walton, PhJO. (Ithaca, N.Y., U.S.A., 1894).
462 THRICK-OREATBST HERMBS
Unquestionably the moet general form of sermon found in the remains of our Trismegistic literature is that of instruction to Tat the ** Son " of Hermes, who is "Father" and Initiator. Of these instructions two Corpora existed, namely, " The G^eral Sermons " and ** The Expository Sermons."
The name Tat is, of course, a variant of Tboth (Te^nt); but whereas Hermes himself is always in such sermcms characterised as Thrice - greatest. Tat has not yet reached to this grade of mastership ; he is still " Young."
The name " Tat " occurs in one of the prajers in the Magic Papyri, part of which is undecipherable, and can only be translated by following the conjecture of Beitzenstein (p. 117, n. 6).
** Show thyself unto me in thy prophetic power O God of mighty mind. Thrice-great Hermes ! Let him who rules the four regions of the Heavens and the four foundations of the Earth appear. Be present unto me O thou in Heaven, be present unto me thou from the Egg. . . . Speak, the Two Gods also are round thee, — the one God is called Thath and the other Hat" ^
Spiegelberg equates Haf with ^pj\ the "Grenius of the Dead " who appears coupled with Thoth in a Coptic Magic Papyrus of the second century aj)^' where Isis speaks of " my father Ape-Thoth." This thus seems to identify Haf with Anubis — that is, Harmanup or Horus as Anubis. And Anubis, as Hermes-Tat, was considered in Egyptian tradition to be a composer of sacred scripture.'
1 Weasely, DenJucKr. d. K. K. Akad. (1893X p. 38^ IL 660 It ; Kenyon, Cat. of Ok. Pap^ p. 102. s Griffith, in Zeitiehr.f. Og, Sprad^ (1900), p. 90. ' According to lianetho ; see Miiller, Mandko Fngm^ 4.
THE DISCIPLES OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES 463
The Incarnations of Thoth
The prayer just cited appears to put us into contact with the atmosphere of some inner mysteries of spiritual instruction. The Gk>d or Spiritual Master contains in himself his disciple, or a duad or triad of disciples; the relationship of Master and disciple is of the most intimate nature ; not only is it of that of father to son, but of mother to child — for the disciple is bom in the womb of the Master Presence. The disciple is as it were his ha.
Thus for the Egyptians, as Sethe and others have pointed out, the wise priest, that is a priest truly initiated into the Wisdom, was regarded as an incarna- tion of Thoth, and such an one after the death of his body was worshipped as Thoth.
And so we find at Medinet Habu the remains of a shrine, erected in the time of Ptolemy IX. (Euergetes II.) — 146-117 B.C. — to a certain Hiirh Priest of Memphis, Teos, who is called " Teos the Ibis," ^ that is Thoth, and so identified with Thoth himself.
What we learn from the general tradition of this belief in the " incarnation " of Thoth into the perfected disciple of Wisdom, and the ascription of sacred literature to similar though not identical Ood-names to that of Thoth himself, is that there was on the one
I Teephibis. C/. CaUd. God. Aitrd. Orae., I 167: ''Hermes Phibi the Thrice-greatest.'' Sethe (op. iup, eit.) would equate this Teephibis with Hermes of Thebes, in comiection with the state- ment of Clement of Alexandria (Strom,, I. xxL 134) : *' Of those, too, who once lived as men among the Egyptians, but who have been made Qods by human opinion, are Hermes of Thebes and Asclepius of Memphis." If this is correct, we have our Tris- megistus flourishing as Teephibis at the end of the second centiuy aa But there seems to my mind to be nothing definite in SetWs contention.
464 THRICE-ORKATBST HERMSS
hand a firm belief in the unity of the Thoth-tradition, and on the other a neoeBsary division of the aaeied literature into older and later periods. The Thoth of tiie older period was regarded as a Ghxl, the Thoth of more recent times as a God-man.^ And so we find Plato in the famous passage of the Phildm^ 18 b» uncertain whether to speak of Thoth as God or man.
Thb Disciflbs or Lord Hirmsb dt Pktosibzs ahd
NlCHIPSO
In the known oldest references to the Thoth-HermeB literature, there has so far not been diaoovered any- thing that suggests the existence of a distincticm between Hermes [Thoth] and Tat [Thoth]; but the absence of references proves little. Already, however, Nechepso and Petosiris, in the second centorj na, make Hermes the teacher of the younger Grod-diacipleB Anubis and Asclepius; in which connection it is of interest to note the following passage from a horoscope for the first year of the Emperor Antoninus Pius,' set up by the priests of Hermes at Thebes — the Greek of which is very faulty and evidently written by ** Barbari " :
** After enquiry based on many books, handed down to us by the wise Ancients, the Chaldsans, — both Pet06iris,andespeciallyEingNecheus[ne; ie.Kechepso], in as much as they also took counsel of our Lord Hermes and of Asclepius, that is of Imouthes» son of Hephestus. . . ."»
^ There is alio an dder and joanger laia in the ZUT. cxtree^ and alio in both theae and in P. 8. A. an older and yooagor Aidepiui.
s R. (p. 119) hai ''dm Kaimn Antomm*' ; but I know of no Emperor so called. The fint years of Anton inns Pins woold fas 138-139 A.D.
* Pap. du Lauw^ 19 6u, Noiicei d SxtmiU, zriiL 8, laS.
THE DISCIPLES OP THRICE-GREATP3T HERMES 465
From this we learn that in the second century a.d. the writings of Petosiris and Nechepso, together with the " Chaldaean Books/' still formed part of the Temple Library at Thebes; moreover, that Petosiris and Nechepso, in the second century B.C., based themselves on these Books as well as on Books ascribed to both Hermes and Asclepius. Moreover, from the Fragments of Nechepso^ we learn that he had before him a sermon of Asclepius caUed Moirogenesis^ concerning the Genesis of Fate, and also Dialogues in which Hermes instructs Asclepius and Anubis concerning the mysteries of astrology. These Trismegistic works must thus be dated prior to the beginning of the second century B.C.
Sethe, in his essay on Asclepius - Imhotep, has en- deavoured to show that this Imuth was originally a man, and that divine honours were first paid to him in the reign of Amasis (Am5sis — ^Aab-mes), about 1700 b.c.
TOSOTHBUS-ASCLBPIUS
Manetho, however, tells us another story, when he wVites of a certain king of the Third Dynasty (b.c. 3700) : " Toso[r]thru8 reigned twenty-nine years. He is called Asclepius by the Egyptians, for his medical knowledge. He built a house of hewn stones, and greatly patronised literatura"'
Tosothrus is Tcheser or Tcheser-sa (Doder), the second king of the Third Dynasty from Memphis. The ** house of hewn stones " which he built, received remarkable confirmation from the excavations which were carried out by the Prussian General Minutoli in 1819,' in the Step-Pyramid of ^l^V^ra. This temple,
1 Rieas, J^. 25.
* Cory, An. Fragi,^ p. 100. Bodge, A Hidory of Egypt (London, 1902X i 218.
* BiiM maim Tempel de$ Jupiter Amman, pp. 296 ff. VOL. L 30
466 THRICE-ORKATSST HKRMS8
8aj8 Budge (op. cU,, i 219) *" is certainly the oldest of all the large buildings which haye successfully resisted the action of wind and weaUier, and destriKstion by Uie hand of man."
In the Inscription of the Seven Famine Years,^ moreover, belonging in its present form to the later Ptolemaic period, but a copy of a far more ancient record, we read, in Sethe's restored Qreek text :
''Tosothrus, in whose days (lived) Imouthea. He was considered by the Egyptians to be Aaclepius because of his knowledge of the healing art; he dis- covered the art of building with hewn stones, and, moreover, occupied himself with literatura"
We thus learn that long before Manetho's time there was an Asclepian literature, and not only did this deal with medicine but also with scripture in general and with " masonry."
IMUTH-ASCLKPIUS THI liASTIR MaSON AND POKT
That Asclepius was specially occupied with the sacred building-art, may be seen from Sethe's study, whose industry has disoovered a book on Temple-build- ing ascribed to Imuth, a " Book that came from Heaven northwards from Memphis." It was according to this Book that Ptolemy X. (Soter IL) and Ptolemy XL (Alexander L) enlarged the building of their ancestors at Edfu, "in agreement with the writing concerning the plans of the Temple of Horus, which the chief prelector of the priests, Imhotp, the son of Pta]^ had written."
There were also certain very ancient Sermons (or Songs) of Imhotp, and a saying from one of these
^ A rock inacription found on the catarsct idaad SdifiL R., p. 189.
THE DISCIPLVS OF THRICE-ORSATEST HERMBS 467
Sermons, the " Song from the House of King Intf ," is given by Sethe as follows :
*' I have heard the words of Imhotp and Hardadaf ; they are still much spoken of, but where are their abodes?"
Perhaps this explains the statement in S. H. I. (Stob., Ec., i 49 ; W. p. 467, 4) that Asclepius-Imuth was the inventor of poetry. Imuth was to the Egyptians what Orpheus, Linus or Musseus was to the Qreeks.
And so Reitzenstein (p. 121) concludes that the tradition of the old Egyptian and Hellenistic literature is unbroken. In Hellenistic times this view of the Divine Son of Ptab of Memphis and of his chief Shrine at Memphis spread widely, and his cult was extended to Thebes and even to Philae. At Thebes he appears united with the Theban Thoth and his younger likeness or image Amenhotep — the twin-brother of Imhotep (Asclepius) — Son of Hapu, who is said to have lived as a man under King Amenophis III. (Amen-betep), 1450 B.C., and who tells us himself how he became acquainted with the '* Book of Qod " and saw in vision the " Pre-eminence of Thoth." ^
The chief Temple of Asclepius at Memphis was still honoured in later times, and even in the days of Jerome its priesthood was renowned for its occult wisdom.'
J£SCULAPIUS THE HrALKR
Of the Cult of .^Isculapius in Qreece and of the wide- spread influence of this ideal there is little need to remind the student of the comparative history of religions; we cannot, however, refrain from appending a paragraph
> R., p. 124. Cf, Sethe, jEgyptiaca, Feetachrift fttr Q. Eben, pp. 106 E s Ammian. liaic^ xzil 14. 7 ; ViL HiL^ 81.
468 THRICE-ORKATEST HERMB9
from a remarkable address recently delivered by the Bev. J. Estlin Carpenter to the students of Manchester College, Oxford,^ in which he sajrs :
'* Pass beyond the limits of Israel and its hopes, and you enter a world of religious phenomena, so varied as to be practically inexhaustible, and all the patient labour of the last thirty years has only begun to exhibit to us its contents. At every turn you are confronted with beliefs resembling those which pervade our New Testament, so that Prof. Cheyne has recently attempted in a very remarkable little volume, Bible Problems, to trace archsologically the roots of four great doctrinas associated with the person of Jesus — the Virgin Birth, the Deecent into Hades, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. The inscriptions reveal to you the very language of Christianity in the making. The hymns and liturgies of other faiths derive their strength bom similar ideas, and express similar aspirationa Does Jesus, according to the (Gospels, give sight to the bUnd, and call the dead back to life 7 So does i^tscnlapiaa He, too, is wondrously bom; he, too, is in danger in his infancy. He, too, heals the sick and raises the dead, till Zeus, jealous of this infringement of his preroga- tives, smites him with his thunderbolt, and translates him to the world above. But from his heavenly seat he continues to exercise his healing power. His worship spreads all through Oreece. After a great plague in Rome, in 291 aa, it is planted on a sacred island in the Tiber. In the first century of our era you may follow it all round the Eastern Mediterranean. In Greece alone Pausanias mentions sixty-three ABkUpieia. There were others in Asia Minor, Egypt, Sicily ; nearly two hundred being still traceable. They were both sano-
^ '^Christianitj in the Li^t of Hiatorietl Seitnoe," in JU Examim^ (LondonX Oot 81, 1906, pp. 688 iL
THE DISCIPLES OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES 469
tuaries and medical schools. A number of inscriptionB relate details of cures, or consecrate the eayootaSy which are still dedicated at Loretto or Lourdes. The temple by the Tiber won special fame in the reign of Anto- ninus Pius, for the restoration of the sight of a blind man. .£sculapius himself bears the titles 'king' and deog awnip, * divine saviour.' He was even a-urhp twv okuv, 'saviour of the universe.' In his cosmic signi- ficance he was thus identified with Zeus himself, and on earth he was felt to be ' most loving to man ' {cp. Tit. iii 4). Hamack, in one of the fascinating chapters of his Easpansian of ChristiarUtt/, has traced the action of these influences on later Christianity conceived as a religion of healing or salvation, medicine alike of body and of mind. It must be enough now to remind you that the god was believed to reveal himself to those who sought his aid, and Origen afi&rms that a great multitude, both of Greeks and barbarians, acknowledge that they ' have frequently seen, and still see, no mere phantom, but .£sculapius himself, healing and doing good, and foretelling the future.' "
But to pass on to the Trismegistio Asdepius.
AsGLKPros IN Trismkqistic Tradition
Asclepius comes forward in our literature as the type of a disciple of Trismegistus already trained in philo- sophy. This prior training must presumably be referred to the Ptah-tradition — Ptah being himself a Ood of Bevelation, that is of teaching by means of apocalypsis, and Asclepius being originally his ** non ** and '* priest." But not only was Ptah a God o( apooalypsis generally, but also a God of medicine, as he must needs have been for his son to have learned his wisdom from him.
470 THRICE-OREATEST HERMBS
This Tiew is brought out in a Hellenistic text which reads as follows :
** A Bemedy from the shrines of HephaestuB [Ptah] at Memphis interpreted bj the decision and owing to the philanthropy, they say, of Thrice-greatest Hermes; for he decided that it should be published with a view to man's saving. It was found on a golden tablet written in Egyptian charactera"^
The tradition of the date when Asclepins was admitted to the Trismegistic discipline is given in K. K^ 3 (Stob^ i^, i 49 ; W. p. 387, 1). After the ascension of Hermes, we are told:
** To him succeeded Tat, who was at once his son and heir unto these knowledges ; and not long afterwards Asclepius-Imuth, according to the will of Ptah who is Hephffistus."
What precise historical worth this tradition may contain, it is impossible to say ; all we can suppose is that there was at some early date a union of two schools of mjrstic discipline belonging respectively to the Thebaic and Memphitic traditions. This union may have been somewhat analogous to that of the disciples of John the Baptist and of Jesua What is clear, however, from our Trismegistic writings, is that there is no doubt whatever in the writer's mind that the Trismegistic tradition is in possession of the higher wisdom; and, indeed, C. K, xiiL (xiv.) distinctly allows us to conclude that though Tat was younger, in so far as he had not the technical training of the Asclepius-grade, it is nevertheless Tat, when he reaches "manhood,** and not Asclepius, who succeeds to the mastership of the School
Nevertheless we find a number of Trismogistic writings, presupposed especially in ** The Definitions of 1 Cod. Anlinon lOl, fot- ^1*
THK DISCIPLES OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES 471
Asclepius " and in " The Perfect Sennon," in which both Tat and Asclepius share in a common instruction — Asclepius appearing as the older and riper scholar.
This makes Beitzenstein (p. 122) suppose that this type of what we may call a company of two disciples was invented by the Hermes priests at Thebes, and that it was later on taken over by the Memphitic Ptah- Asclepius priests and developed in their own interest.
This may be so if we must be compelled to speculate on the dim shades of history which may be recovered from these obscure indications.
CONCKRNING AhMON
Of the Trismegistic writings of Asclepius, Lactantius (D. /., ii 15, 7) mentions a " Perfect Sermon " to the King (Ammon),^ and also refers to a rich ancient literature by Asclepius addressed to the same king.
Reitzenstein (p. 123), moreover, says that C. ff., (xviL) presupposes writings addressed to the same King Ammon by Tat ; but I gather that the persons of the dialogue are really Asclepius and the King, and not Tat, and that Tat has been substituted for Asclepius by some copyist in error.
However this may be, there was a large literature addressed by Hermes himself to Ammon, as we may see from the distinct statement in P. S, A., i. 2, and also from Stobaeus, Exx. xii-xix. The same tradition is preserved in the presumably later Hermetic treatise, latromathematica, which is also addressed to Ammon.'
» Probably our C. H. (xvi.).
• Camerarius, Adrologica (Niimberg, 1537); Hermetis latro- math., ed. Hoeschel (1597) ; Ideler, Phyiici ei Mtdici Oraxi Minoru^ i. 387 and 430. latromathematici were thoee who practised medicine in conjunction wiUi astrology, as was done in Egypt (Procl., Paraph. Piol, p. 24).
472 THRICE-0REATE8T HKRM7C8
Pbophit and Kmo
Here, then, we have another type of litermtoie, and that, too, very ancient, in which the wiae Priest and Prophet ia aet over against the King as teacher or discoverer of hidden wisdom. This we have already seen to have been the relationship between the Priest and Prophet Petoeiris and King Necbepea Bat the type goes still further back to pre-Greek times in Egypt It was, as we have learned from Plutarch, who probably hands on the information direct from Manetbo, a necessity that the King, to be a true Kii^, ahonld be initiated into the wisdom of the Priests.
As we have already seen, Imuth-Asclepias appears in Manetbo as an inventor, so also in the charming story put into the mouth of Socrates by Plato in his Pluddrw (274 c) about '*the famous old Grod whose name was Theuth," — ^Thoth is the inventor jsor exeelletux. In this story — which elicits the remark from Phsedros: "* Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of Egypt, or of any other country " — Thoth takes his inventions to a certain King Thamus for his approval or dis- approval, as to whether or no the Egyptians mij^t be allowed the benefit of them. Ttus Thamus was " King of the whole country of Egypt, and dwelt in that great city of upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the Ood Himself is called by them Ammon."
In Hecatseus, also, Osiris, King ci Thebes, has all inventions laid before him, and gives special honour to Hermes whose inventions were far and wide renowned.^
In this connection it is to be noted that in the Theban Thoth-cult, Thoth was regarded as the Bepre-
> Diodor., L 16, IS.
THE DISCIPLES OF THRIGE-OREATEST HERMES 473
aentafdve of the King and light-Gkxl Ra (or Ammon). And 80 we read on the tomb of Seti L :
" Thou art in my place, mj repreeentativa Wherefore are thou moreover called Thoth, Repreaentative of the Light-God IUL"i
From these and other indications it is quite possible to conclude that Plato has used an ancient Egyptian logos as the basis of his story, and that this Iojob at a very early period found an echo in written instructions given by Thoth to the King.
All this took place on purely Egyptian ground, and hence the type of instruction from Thoth-Hermes to Ammon was fairly established in tradition before it was taken over by our HeUenistic Trismegistic writers.
Amknhotbp-Asolspius
So far, however, I believe, no reference to bodes written by Imhotep (Asclepius) to Ammon in the pre-Greek period has been discovered. Sethe,* how- ever, tells us that a certain Amenhotep who lived as early as the fifteenth century B.C., was a disciple and seer of Thoth. This Amenhotep was famous as a teacher of wisdom and discoverer of magic books; he was probably also renowned for his own writings as welL Gradually this Amenhotep became blended with Imhotep-Asclepius as his twin-brother, and finally in Ptolemaic times received divine honours at Thebes. Here, then, we have the blending in of another tradition, of a writer of books who was a disciple of Thoth, and was graduaUy confounded with Asclepius-Imuth, son of Ptah. And that there were two Asclepiuses, an older and a later, we are told distinctly by P. 8. A., xxxviL 3.
^ BrugBch, ReUgion u. Myth. ' Op, 9up. cU,^ ibid.
474 THRIGE-OREATBST HERACES
Of the SajingB of this Asclepiiui a Greek poroeLun* gives ua 8ome idea. The first three Sayings, boweva, are simply taken from the Sayings of the Seven Sages of Qreece; the rest may be partially Egyptian. 'Bob scrap of evidence, however, is of importance ; for alreadj in the third century aa, Orphic Sayings are known to have been worked up with Egyptian material, and here we have Greek gnomic material blended with an E^grptian Imuth-tradition of Sayings.
Perhaps still more careful research may reward as with further side-lights on the development of this Asclepius-literature prior to the Greek period, and in its earliest Hellenistic forms. As it is, we are left with the impression that the traces which have been alreadj discovered, justify the remarks made by the writer of our Trismegistic ** Definitions of Asclepius unto the King" or ''The Perfect Sermon of Asclepius unto the King " — C. K, (xvi) — as based upon a well-established tradition in the School, concerning the change broi]^t about by putting the Egyptian forms of the Asclepian writings, which were of a very mystical natore, into the more precise forms of the Greek tongua
The Sacred Group of Four
What, however, is clear in " The Perfect Sermon " of Hermes himself, where he gives instruction to his three disciples, Asclepius, Tat and Ammon, assembled in the "holy place/' is that the history of the matter is of small moment to the writer of that Sermon. He is dealing with the inner and more intimate side of the teaching. Asclepius, Tat and Ammon are for him tiie sacred triad, forming with the Master himself the " sacred group of four " {P. 8. A., I 2).
1 Published by Wilcken in the '' Festschrift fiir Ebers," ppc 142 ff.
THE DISCIPLES OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES 475
With this we may very well compare the group of three made 80 famiUar to us by the Evangelists — the three who were always with the Master in the most intimate moments of His inner life and exaltation — James, John and Peter.
Now, if the reader will refer to my notes on the last paragraph of Hippolytus' Introduction to the Naassene document, he will see that Clement of Alexandria expressly asserts that:
" The Lord imparted the Gnosis to James the Just, to John and Peter, after His Besurrection ; these delivered it to the rest of the Apostles, and they to the Seventy."
James, John and Peteb
Here I would suggest that we have a similarity of conception. Asclepius is the main subsequent teacher, even as James is, in Christian tradition ; Peter is the organiser, to whom the rulership over the Church is given — ^he represents the king-power,and may be equated with Ammon ; while John is the Beloved even as is Tat
John understands the spirit of the teaching best of all ; James is more learned on the fonnal side ; while Peter is the organiser, and in many an apocryphal story is made to display lack of control and want of understanding.
A most interesting scrap of Johannine tradition will throw some further light on the fact that John succeeded to the spiritual directorship, even as Tat, in our sermons, succeeds to Trismegistus.
This scrap is an addition to John xvii 26, from a Codex of the Fourth Gospel, preserved in the Archives of the Templars of St John of Jerusalem in Paris : ^
* Qiven by Thilo, Codtx Apocryphtu Novi TutamerUi (Leipzig, 1632), p. 880. Cf. Pick (B.X Th4 Extra-Ckinonieal Life qf Uhfiii (New York, 1903), p. 270.
476 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
this world, the Comforter is among you, teach throng the Comforter. As the Father has sent Me, even so send I you. Amen, I say unto you, I am not of this world ; but John shall be your Father^ till he shall go with Me into Paradise. And He anointed them with the Holy Spirit"
So also in an addition to John xix. 26-30, we read :
" He saith to His mother. Weep not ; I go to My Father and to Eternal Lif& Behold thy son! He will keep My placa Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother ! Then bowing His head He gsTB up the Ghost"
Here then at the Supreme Crisis the Master con- stitutes John the spiritual Father of the School in ffis place. So is it with Tat
Thi Triad of Disciplis
The idea of triads and other groups (e.g. of five and seven) united in the Presence of a Master, is familiar to the student of Druidical mysticism In our ** Perfect Sermon" we have such a triad, each disciple dis- tinguished by strongly-marked characteristics ; the tuning of these into one harmony, so that, to use another and a familiar simile, the disciples may be as the fingers of one hand, for the Master's use, is a matter of enormous difficulty. One is characterised by Power, another by Knowledge, and another by Lova All three must sink their individually strongest character- istic in a supreme sacrifice, where all blend together into the Wisdom of the Master. This seems to me to be the inner purport of our ** Perfect Sermon," and whatever may be the history of the evolution of the
THE DI8CIPLBS OF THRICE-GREATEST-HERMES 477
forms of the literature, the eternal fact of the nature of the intimate teaching of the Christ to the Three was known to our writer.
Chnum the Good Daimon
Let us now turn to the type of Trismegistic literature in which Osiris and Isis came forward as disciples ; and first of all let us take a glance at the Grod Chnum, Chnubis, or Chnuphis (Knuphis), whose name occurs in so many of the Abraxas and Abraxoid gems.
Chnum was for Southern Egypt precisely what Ptah of Memphis was for Northern Egypt. He was the Fashioner of men, even as a potter makes pots on a wheel Chnum was Demiurge and Grod of the heart. The chief centre of his cult was at Syene and the Island of Elephantine. Here he was regarded as the Father of Osiris. And so we hear of astrological dialogues between Chnum and Osiris, as, for instance, when we are told :
"And all that Kouphis, who is with them [the Egyptians], the Oood Daimon, handed on, and his disciple Osiris philosophized." ^
These writings were grouped with those of Nechepso, and also with our Trismegistic writings. Compare the passage in Firmicus Matemus which runs :
" All things which Mercurius (Hermes) and Chnubis [?] handed on to .£sculapius (Asclepius), which Fetosiris discovered and Nechepso." '
> Cramer, Amcd, Ox., Hi. 171, 20.
> Fir. Mat., iv. prooem. 6 (Skutech and KioU, p. 196, 21). The '* and Clmabis " is the emendation of R. for the unintelligible letters " einhntuwx.**
478 THRICB-ORKATSST-HBRMES
Osiris DiscnuE of Agathodaimqh ths Thrice^riatxst
The Patristic references to oar Tri8in^;istic literature farther imform as that Osiris was regarded as the dis- ciple of Agathodaimon, who in them bears the name of Thrice-greatest^ There is, however, nothing to riiow that Hermes himself appears in them as the disciple of Chnubis, as Beitzenstein says (p. 126). The intro- ductory phrase of Lactantius to Frag. xix. runs : " Bat I [L] will call to mind the words of Hermes the Thrice- greatest; in the 'To Asclepias' he sajs: 'Osiris said: How, then, 0 thoa Thrice-greatest, [thoa] Good Daimon, did Earth in its entirety appear ? ' "
Here we have a sermon of Hermes quoting from a tradition in which Osiris appears as the disciple of Agathodaimon, who is also called Trismegistas ; tiiat iB, the Agathodaimou-Osiris Dialogue type was old, and presumably pertained to one of the earliest forms of the Trismegistic literature, probably contemporary with the most ancient Poemandres type. This type seems to have borne impressions of the form of the " Books of the Cbaldseans " type of cosmogenesis, which we have seen to have strongly influenced Fetosiris and Kechepso in the early second century ac.
Agathodaimon is to Osiris as Poemandres to Hermea
LOGOS-MlKD THE GOOD DaIMON
So also in the early Alchemical literature there is a treatise of Agathodaimon addressed to Osiris, and in it others are presupposed' These Alchemical teachings of the Good Daimon are frequently in close contact with
> Cf, Lactantius Fragg., xiv., xix^ xxi., xxii.
> Berthelot^ Lu AldUimUU$ffrwct,Ttxtt, p. MS.
THE DISCIPLES OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES 479
our Trismegistic doctrines ; moreover, in the same litera- ture, Hermes refers to Agathodaimon and appears to regard himself as his disciple.^ It thus may be sup- posed that it was from Chnum that was originally derived the tradition of the Agathodaimonites. So thinks Beitzenstein ; but I do not think that we have sufficient evidence as yet for so general a conclusion. The term Agathodaimon is a very general one, it is true, but the whole idea cannot be refunded into Chnum ; in fact, Osiris is quite as much Agathodaimon as Chnum, and in C. H., xiL (xiii.), which deals with the General Mind, Good Mind, or Good Daimon, Agathodaimon is taken in the most general sense, and in the three quota- tions there made by Hermes from the '* Sayings of the Good Daimon" (§§ 1, 8, 13),* we find that they are in the words of Heracleitus as inspired by the Logos ; so that in reality Agathodaimon must be equated with Logos. The origin of Agathodaimon is then not solely Chnum ; and Hermes therefore cannot be spoken of as the disciple of Chnubis, unless we can cite texts in which Thoth is so described.
In our Trismegistic literature the teaching is quite simple and distinct ; as, for instance, in C. H.^ x. (xL) 23 : •* He [Mind] is the Good Daimon."
When, however, Beitzenstein (p. 128) declares that the sentence in § 25 of the same sermon, '' For this cause can a man dare say that man on earth is God subject to death, while God in heaven is man from death immune,"' is a saying belonging to the Chnu-
1 Op. ca., pp. 126, 166-263.
' We meet with a sunilar collection of Sayings, or Summaries of the chief points of teaching, in the Stobeean £z. L 7 ff., belong- ing to the Tat-literatore, and also in 6'. H^ x. (xi), xiv. (xr.X and (xvi.).
' A very similar phrase occurs in Dio Oassius, 1^. 90 ; i. 87, ed. Boiss.
480 THRICE-GRRATBST-HBRMES
phi^-Iitermture, we think he is gaing beyond the limitB of probeble oonjecture, unlen we enbetitiite for Chnnphis the general term Agathodaimon in the senae of Logoa.
When again Beitaenstein (p. 129) says that the frag- ments he has adduced show that Hermes was a later addition in the Agathodaimon-litermtore, and graduaDy poshed on one side Osins the Son of the God of Berels- tion, we are not convinced that we have eorrectlj recovered the * history " — for in the great Osiris-m jth it JB Hermes who is always the teacher of wisdom and not Osins.
Chnttm Good Mind thi .£oh
Nevertheless that a wide-spread Chnnphis-literatiue, in the Agathodaimonistie sense, existed prior to the second century kc., Beitienstein has shown by a nomber of interesting quotations (pp. 129-133). In Hellenistic times the worship of Chnuphis as the Primal Deity and Qod of Bevelatkm was strongly established, and, most interesting of all for us, his symbol was the serpent The symbol, then, of Agathodaimon as Logoe was the Serpent of Wisdom, and we are in contact with the line of tradition of the Gnostic Ophites and Naas- senes. And so also in Ptolemaic times we find his syxygy, Isis, also symbolised as a serpent, and both of them frequently as serpents with human heads ; they are both " as wise as serpents." And as Horus was their son, so we find the hawk-headed symbol of that God united with a serpent body. So also we find Agathodaimon, in his sun-aspect, symbolised as a serpent with a lion's head^ He is the iEon.
> SeetlieNechep0oFngmeiiti9(RieH»p. 379).
THE DISCIPLES OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES 481
Isis, Ladt of Wisdom, Disciple of Thricb-Greatbst Hermes
In addition to the types of Hermes and his disciples, and Agathodaimon and his disciples, we have also in our Trismegistic literature another type — namely, Isis and her disciples. Isis is the ancient Lady of all wisdom, and Teacher of all magic. In the early Hellen- istic period she is substituted for Hermes as Orderer of the cosmos,^ while Plutarch calls her Lady of the Heart and Tongue even as is Hermes.- She "sees" the teaching.
As her disciple, she has in the Stobsean Ex. xxxi.^ a king, probably King Ammon.
In a Magic Papyrus she even appears as teacher of Asclepius.^ But the more usual and natural type is that of Isis as teacher of her son Horus, and so we find Lucian speaking of Pythagoras visiting E^grpt to learn wisdom of her prophets, and saying that the sage of Samoe descended into the adyta and learned the Books of Horus and Isis.^ To this type of literature belongs our lengthy Stobsean Exx. xxv.-xxvil
But in all of this Isis owes her wisdom to face to face instruction by the most ancient Hermes, with whom she gets into contact through spiritual vision. All this I have discussed in the Commentaries to Exx. xxv.- xxviL ; the conclusion being that to the mind of the Poemandrists, no matter how ancient might be any line of tradition, whether of Agathodaimon or Osiris or Isis, the direct teacliing of the Mind transcended it.
» R., Zvoei relig. Frag,, 104 flf. * De Is, et Os,, xlviii.
3 With heading : " Of Hermes from the [Sermon] of Isis to Horus." * Weasely, Denluchr. d. K, K. Akad. (1893X P- 41> 1- 033. ^ AUetruon, 18. VOL. I. 31
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