D. From the Church Fathers we obtain many refer-

ences and twenty-five short Fragments, otherwise unknown to us, and considerably widening our ac- quaintance with the scope of the literature.
K From Zosimus and Fulgentius we obtain three Fragments, and from the former and lamblichus, and Julian the Emperor-Philosopher, we obtain a number of valuable references.
Such are what at first sight may appear to be the comparatively scanty remains of what was once an exceedingly abundant literature. But when we re- member that this literature was largely reserved and kept secret, we cannot but congratulate ourselves that so much has been preserved; indeed, as we shall see later on, but for the lucky chance of a Hermetic apolo- gist selecting some of the sermons to exemplify the loyal nature of the Trismegistic teaching with respect to kings and rulers, we should be without any Hermetic Corpus at all, and dependent solely on our extracts and fragments.
But even with our Hermetic Corpus before us we should never forget that we have only a fraction of the Trismegistic literature — the flotsam and jetsam, so to say, of a once most noble vessel that sailed the seas of human endeavour, and was an ark of refuge to many a pious and cultured soul.
References to lost writings of the School will meet
RBMAIKS OF THE TRISBiEGISTIC LITERATURE 5
UB abundantlj in the course of our studies, and some attempt will be made later on to form a notion of the main types of the literature.
As for the rest of the so-called Hermetic works, medico-mathematical, astrological and medico-astro- logical, and alchemical, and for a list of the manj inventions attributed to the Thrice-greatest — inven- tions as numerous as, and almost identical with, those attributed to Orpheus bj fond posterity along the line of "pure" Hellenic tradition — I would refer the student to the Bibliotheca Orceca of Joannes Albertus Fabricius.^
For the Alchemical and Mediaeval literature the two magnificent works of Berthelot (M. P. K) are indispens- able— namely. Collection des aneiens Alchimistes grecs (Paris, 1888), and La Chimie (m Moyen Age (Paris, 1893)i
In close connection with the development of this form of '* Hermetic" tradition must be taken the Hermes writings and traditions among the Arabs. See Beausobre's Histoire Critique de Manichie et du Mani- efUisme (Amsterdam, 1734), I 326 ; also Fleischer (H. L.), Hermes TrismegisltLS an die menechliche Seele^ Aror Usek %md DetUech (Leipzig, 1870); Bardenhewer (0.), Hermetis Trismegisti qui apud Ardbes fertv/r de Casti- gatione Animas Liber (Bonn, 1873) ; and especially R Pietschmann, the pupil of Georg Ebers, who devotes the fourth part of his treatise, entitled Hermes Trisme- gidusnackagyptischenundorientaiisehen Uberlieferungen (Leipzig, 1875), to a consideration of the Hermes tradition, " Bei Syrem und Araben."
^ YoL L, lib. i., cap. vii. See the fourth and last edition (Leipzig, 1790X with up to that time unedited supplements by FabriduB and Q. C. Heumann, and yery numerous and im- portant additions by GL 0. Harles.
6 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
Beitgenstein treats very briefly of the development of this kter Hermetic literature on pp. 188-200 of his PoimaTidru}
The Obiginal MS. or our Cobpus
From the fragmentary nature of the remains of the Trismegistic literature that have come down to us, it will be at once seen that a critical text of them is a complicated undertaking; for, apart from the Corpus, the texts have to be collected from the works of many authors. This, however, has never yet been done in any critical fashion ; so that a translator has first of all to find the best existing critical texts of these authors from which to make his version. This, I hope, I have succeeded in doing ; but even so, numerous obscurities still remain in the texts of the excerpts, fragments, and quotations, and it is highly desirable that some scholar specially acquainted with our literature should collect all these together in one volume, and work over the labours of specialists on the texts of StobsBus and the Fathers, with the added equipment of his own special knowledga
Even the text of our Corpus is still without a thoroughly critical edition ; for though Seitzenstein has done this work most admirably for C. H., i, xiiL (xiv.), and (xvi)-(xviii.), basing himself on five MSS. and the printed texts of the earlier editions, he has not thought fit to give us a complete text
A list of the then known MSS. is given in Harles' edition of Fabricius' BMiotheca Oroeea (pp. 51, 52); while Parthey gives notes on the only two MSS. he used in his edition of fourteen of the Sermons of
^ For the Hermetic writing in Pitra, Analeda Sacra d Clamca, pt il., see R., pp. le, n. 4, and 269, n. 1 ; and for xeferenoe to the Arabic literature, pp. S3| n. 6, and 17i, n. 3.
REICAINS OF THE TRISMEOISTIC UTERATURB 7
our Cbrpus. It is, however, generallj believed that there may be other MSS. hidden awaj in Continental libraries.
All prior work on the MSS., however, is entirely superseded by Seitzenstein in his illuminating " History of the Text" (pp. 319-327), in which we have the whole matter set forth with the thoroughness that characterises the best German scholarship.
From him we learn that we owe the preservation of our Hermetic Corpus to a single MS. that was found in the eleventh century in a sad condition. Whole quires and single leaves were missing, both at the beginning (after ch. i) and the end (after ch. xvi) ; even in the remaining pages, especially in the last third, the writing was in a number of places no longer legibla
In this condition the MS. came into the hands of Michael Psellus, the great reviver of Platonic studies at Byzantium, probably at the time when his orthodoxy was being called into question. Psellus thought he would put these writings into circulation again, but at the same time guard himself against the suspicion that their contents corresponded with his own conclusions. This accounts for the peculiar scholion to C, H,, LIS, which seems at first pure monkish denunciation of Pcemandres as the Devil in disguise to lead men from the truth, while the conclusion of it betrays so deep an interest in the contents that it must have been more than purely philological
And that such an interest was aroused in the following centuries at Byzantium, may be concluded from the fact that the last three chapters, which directly justify polytheism or rather Heathendom, were omitted in a portion of the MSS., and only that part of the Corpus received a wider circulation which corresponded
8 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
with what might be regarded at first sight as a Neoplatonism assimilated to Christianitj. The text was reproduced with thoughtless exactitude, so that though its tradition is extraordinarily bad, it is uniform, and we can recover with certainty the copy of Psellas from the texts of the fourteenth century.
These Trismegistic Sermons obtained a larger field of operation wit^ the growth of Humanism in the West Georgius Gremistus Pletho, in the latter part of the fourteenth and b^^ning of the fifteenth century, brought Neoplatonism from Byzantium into Italy as a kind of religion and made a deep impression on Cosimo Medici ; and Marsiglio Ficino, who was early selected by the latter as the head of the future Academy, must have made his Latin translation of our Corpus, which appeared in 1463, to serve as the first groundwork of this undertaking. Cosimo had the Greek text brought from Bulgaria (Macedonia) by a monk, Fra Lionardo of Pistoja, and it is still in the Medicean Library.
It was not, however, till the middle of the sixteenth century that the Greek text was printed; and meantime, with the great interest taken in these writings by the Humanists, a large number of MSS. arose which sought to make the text more understandable or more elegant ; such MSS. are of no value for the tradition of the text
Texts and Translatioks
We will now proceed to give some account of the texts and translations of the Trismegistic writings, a bibliographical labour which the general reader will most probably skip, but which the real student will appreciate at its proper value.^
^ This study was published in the Theoiophical Review^ May 1899, and is independent of Reitsenstein's work.
UMAINS OF THS TRI8MSGI8TIG LITERATURE 9
The best account of the texts and translations up to 1790 is that of Harles, who has entirely rewritten tlis account of Fabricius (op. cii., pp. 52 ff.).^
The ediiio prinoeps was not a text but a Latin trans- lation hj Marsiglio Fidno (Marsilius Ficinus), published in quarto in 1471.* Both the name of the publisher and place of publication are lacking, but the British Museum catalogue inserts them in parenthesis as *' O. de lisa, Treviso/' presumably on the authority of Harks. This translation consisted of the so-called "Pcamandres/' in fourteen chapters, that is to say fourteen treatises, under the general title, Mermrii Trwnsgidi Liber de PoUskUe et SapierUia Dei (or Tlie Book of Mercury Triamtgist conoernmg the Power and Wiadom of God), The enormous popularity of this work is seen by the fact of the very numerous editions (for a book of that time) through which it ran. No ksB than twenty-two editions have appeared, the first fl^t of them in the short space of a quarter of a oentnry.*
In 1548 there appeared an Italian translation of FScinuB' Latin version of the *' Poemandres " collection, entitled H Pimandro di Merewrio Trismegisto, done into Florentine by Tommaso Bend, printed at Florence in 12mo. A second edition was printed at Florence in 1549 in 8vo, with numerous improvements by Paitoni.
^ S. F. W. Hoffinann's BibUographMehes Lexicon der geiommten lAUmAmr dm OrieeKen (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1838) simply copies Harle^ while bis appendix of " ErlauterongBschriften " is of no value.
* B. (p. 880), as we have seen, gives the date as 1463, but I have found no tiaoe of this edition.
* The datee of these editions are as follows, though doubtless tlwre were other editions of which we have lost record : 1471, 72, W, '83, 'SI, '93, 'W, '97 ; 1603, '06, '16, '22, '32, '49, '62, '64, '61, 70^ 16, '77 ; 1611, '41. They were printed at Venice, Paris, Baalfl^ Lyon% and London.
10 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
The first Greek text was printed at Paris, in 1554, bj Adr. Tumebus ; it included the ** Poemandres " and ''The Definitions of Asclepius," to which the Latin version of Ficino was appended. The title is, Merewrii Trismegidi Posmander seu de FoUsUUe ae SapterUia Divina: Aeseulapii D^niiumu ad Amnumem Begem; the Greek was edited hj P. Angelo da Barga (Angelas Vergecius).
In 1557 appeared the first French translation by Gabriel da Preaa, at Paris, with a lengthy title. Deux Livres de Mereure Trismegiste Hermde tree ancien Theologien, et excellarU Philozopke, Z'un de la puissance et eapievxe de Dieu. Vauire de la volarUe de Dieu, Aueeq^un Dialogue de Logs Zazarel, po&e Chredien, inlUvU le Baesin cCffermA.
This seems to be simply a translation of an edition of Ficinas' Latin version pablished at Paris by Hear. Stephanas in 1505, to which a certain worthy, Leys Lazarel, who farther rejoiced in the agnomen of Septempedanas, appended a lacabration of his own of absolutely no value,^ for the title of Estienne's edition runs : Pimander Mereurii LSber de Sapientia $t Potestaie Dei. Asdepiui, ejuedem Mereurii Liber de VolurUaU Divina, Item CraUr Eermetis a Lazarelo Septempedano,
In 1674 Franciscus Flussas Candalle reprinted at Bourdeauz, in 4to, Tumebus' Greek text, which he emended, with the help of the younger Scaliger and other Humanists, together with a Latin translation, under the title, Mereurii Triemegisti Pimander sive Pcsmander. This text is still of critical service to-day.
This he followed with a French translation, printed in 1579, also at Bourdeaux in folio, and bearing the title, Ze Pimandre de Mereure Trismegiste de la Philo-
^ The writer has painfully pemaed it^ for, more fortunate than the Britiih Museum, he possessee a copy of this raie work.
RE1£AINS OF THE TBI8MEGISTIC LITERATURE 11
wpkit Chrestienne^ Cognaissance du Verb Dimn, et de VBaocdUnce des (Ehwres de Dim. This we are assured is translated **de Vexemplaire Oree^ avee collation de Ms-^mpUs eommerUaires," ^ all of which is followed by the full name and titles of Flussas, to wit; '' Fran9ois Monsieur de Foix, de la famille de Gandalle, Captal de Buchs, etc., Evesque d'Ayre, etc.," the whole being dedicated to '' Marguerite de France, Boine de Navarre."
Twelve years later Franciscus Patricius (Cardinal Francesco Patrizzi) printed an edition of the text of the Sermons of the Corpus, of "The Asclepius," and also of most of the Extracts and of some of the Frag- ments ; he, however, has arranged them all in a quite arbitrary fashion, and has as arbitrarily altered the text, which generally followed that of Tumebus and Candalle, in innumerable places. To this he appended a Latin translation, in which he emended the versions of Fidno and de Foix, as he tells us, in no less than 1040 places. These were included in his Nova de Univenii Fhiloiophia^ printed at Ferrara, in foUo, 1591, and again at Venice by B. Meiettus, in 1593, as an appendix to his Nov. de Uh. Fhil, now increased to fifty books.
This Latin translation of Patrizzi was printed apart, together with the Chaldcean Oracles^ at Hamburg in 12mo, also, in 1593, under the title Magia Philosophiea. The latter edition bears the subscription on the title- page, **jam nunc primum ex BMioteca Banzoviana i tenebrie ervia^ which Harles explains as a reprint by plain Henr. Banzou, who is, however, described in the volume itself as "^prodiuc.** It seems to have been again reprinted at Hamburg in 1594 in 8vo.
Meantime the Carmelite, Hannibal Bossellus,' had
* These on peruBal prove of little value.
* R. 322 callfl him a Minorite.
12 THBICE-OREATEST HERMES
been laboriously engaged for many years on an edition of the ''Poemandres" with most elaborate commen- taries. This was printed at Cracow by Lazarus, in six Yolumes in folio, from 1585 to 1590. Bossel treats of philosophy, theology, the Pope, the scriptures, and all disciplines in his immanibm commeniariis, inepU as some say, while others bestow on him great praise. His title is Pymander Mercurii Trismegitti. This was reprinted with the text and translation of de Foix in folio at Cologne in 1630, under the title Divinus Pimander Hemutis Mercurii Trismeffidi.
Hitherto nothing had been done in England, but in 1611 an edition of Ficinus' translation was printed in London. This was followed by what purports to be a translation of the " Poemandres *' from Arabic,^ ** by that learned Divine, Doctor Everard," as the title-page sets forth. It was printed in London in 1650 in 8vo, with a preface by ''J. F.," and bears the title The Divine Fymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistue, in xvii. Booke. Translated formerly out of the Arabick into Oreek [!] and thence into Zatin^ and IhUch, and now out of the Original into English. There was a second edition of Everard's version printed at London in 1657, in 12mo. There are also reprints of the 1650 edition by Fryar of Bath, with an introduction by Hargrave Jennings, in 1884;* by P. B. Bandolph, Toledo, Ohio, 1889; and by the Theosophical Publishing Society, in the Collectanea Hermetica, edited by W. Wynn Westcott, in 1893.
To what Dutch translation Everard refers I cannot discover, for the only one known to me is that printed
* It is clear, however, that Everard timziBlated from Ficinus' Latin version, and that the ** Arabick" is a myth.
* Of which only 200 copies were issued to subscribers, as though, forsooth, they were to come into great '^ooeult* secrets thereby.
RBMAINS OF THE TRI8MBGISTIC LTTERATURE 13
at Amsterdam in 1652 in 12mo. It is a translation of Patrizzi's text, and bears the title, Sedien Boeeken van deii Hermu TrisnugiUus. . . • uyt het Orieex glubracJU . . . mtt eene . . . Voarede v/gt het Zatijn von F. Fatrieius in de welcke h4f lewijd dot desen . . . I^iloKph hee/t gMeoyt voar Mayses, etc Harlee says nothing of this edition, but speaks of one printed at Amsterdam in 1643 in 4to, hj Nicholas van Rauenstein, bnt I can find no other trace of it
The first German translation was hj a certain Aletho- philus, and was printed at Hamburg in 1706 (8vo) under the title Hermetis Tri$megisti FrkdrUnUss der Natw^ etc, containing seventeen pieces ; this was reprinted at Stuttgart in 1855, in a curious collection by J. Schieble, entitled Kleiner Wiinder'Schmuplatx.^ The title reads Hermetis Trismegisti Finkittmg in*$ hoehete Wisten van JBrkeninisi der NoAwr und der darin sich offenharenden grossen Chttes, with an appendix concerning the person of Hermes, etc
But why Schieble should have reprinted Aletho- philus' translation is not clear, when in 1781 a new translation into German, with critical notes and valuable suggestions for emending the text, had appeared by Dieterich Tiedemann (Berlin and Stettin, in 8vo), entitled Hermes Trism^egists Posmander, oder van der gottlichen Ma4M und Weiskeit, a rare book which, already in 1827, Baumgarten-Crusius^ laments
1 Part of the full title nms: K. W.-S, d. Wiwnickaften^ Mfftterieny TheosophUy gSUlichen und margenlUndiichm Magie, NaturkrUfU^ hermet, u, niagnet, PhiLf Kabbaloy u, and, hdhem KeiUnitseny and much more in the same strain, but I have no doubt the reader has already had enough of it From 1865 to 1867 fourteen parte appeared, mostly taken up with German tranalationB of Hermes, of Agrippa's Philotophia OecuUa from the Latin, and id The Teiucope of Zoroaster from the French.
« Op. u^. ciL, p. 10.
14 THXICX-'€SXAXKST ^>*^^*ieb
m ahncst unfirnlahTfi in the repoblk of letterB, and of whidi the Biitdsh If neenm prwMFiii no oopj.^
It it remarkable that of a work idiich ezhanatod ao maoj editdona in tranalaticm and waa evidently reoeiyad with such great enthnsaam, there have been ao few editions of the text, and tfaat for two oentoxieB and a quarter' no attempt waa made to collate the diiEsrent MSS. and ediuona, nntil in 1854 Goatav Fkrthe J printed a critical text of the fonrteen pieces of " Poemandrea," at Berlin, nnder the title JSermdis TrinugiMi Peanandtr, to which he ai^wnded a Latin translation based on the original Teiai ancoesaiirel J revised by de Foix and PatrizxL PartheT's promise to edit rdiqwn Herwutit mrifia haa not been f alfilled, and no one else has so bir attempted this most neoessary task.
Beitzenstein's (p. 322) opinion of P^othey's text, however, is very onfavoorableL In the first plaoef, Parthey took Patrizzi's arbitrary alterations as a true tradition of the text ; in the second, he himself saw neither of the IfSS. on which he says he reliea. The first of these was very carelessly copied for him and carelessly used by him; while the second, which was copied by D. Hamm, is very corrupt owing to very numerous "corrections" and interpolations by a later hand — all of which Parthey has adopted as ancient readings. His text, therefore, concludes Beitzenstein, is doubly falsified — a very discouraging judgment for lovers of accuracy.
In 1866 there appeared at Paris, in 8vo, a complete translation in French of the Trismegistic treatises and
1 I have, therefore, not been able to avail myself of Tiede- nuinn^t labours. R. 322 speaks highly of them.
> The last edition prior to Parthey's was the reprint of Flussss' tezt| at Cologne in 1630, appended to Bossel's IncabiatiaDt.
REMAINS OF THE TRI8MEGISTIC LITERATUBE 15
fragments by Louis Menard, entitled Hermh TrismigisU, preceded hj an interesting study on the origin of the Hermetic books, of which a second edition was printed in 1867. This is beyond question the most sympathetic version that we at present possess.
Everard's version of the " Poemandres " being re- printed in 1884 by Fryar of Bath, the rest of the treatises were retranslated by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland from Mdnard's French version (including his notes), and appeared in 1885 (in 4to), published by Fryar, but bearing a publisher's name in India, under the general title The Hermetic Works : The Virgin of the World of ffermee Mercuriiis Trisme- gietuB. Meantime, in 1882, J. D. Chambers had pub lished (at Edinburgh, in 8vo) a crabbed and slavishly literal translation of the'*' Poemandres," together with the Excerpts from Stobeus and the Notices of Hermes in the Fathers, with an introductory Preface, under the title, TJie Theological and Philosophical Works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian Neoplatonist. Indeed, the loose and erroneous version of Everard is far more comprehensible than this fantastically literal translation.
For the last six years I have myself been publishing, in the pages of The Theosophical JSevieto, translations of the Trismegistic Sermons and also a few of the studies now included in these Prolegomena; all of the former, however, have been now carefully revised, and the btter have for the most part been greatly enlarged and improved.
Finally, in 1904, B. Beitzenstein of Strassburg published at Leipzig his illuminating study, Poimandres, in which he gives the critical text of C, jBT., l, xiii. (xiv.), (xvi.>-(xviii), based on five MSS. and the best early printed editions, with all that minute care, knowledge of paleography, and enthusiasm for philology which
16 THRIGB-OREATBST HERMB8
characterises the best textual-critical work of modem scholarship. Why, however, Beitzenstein has not done the same good service for the whole of the Corpus as he has done for the selected sermons, is a mystery. He IB the very man for the task, and the service he could render would be highly appreciated by many.
So much, then, for the existing partial texts and translations of the extant Trismegistic literature. Of the translations with which I am acquainted,^ Everard's (1650), the favourite in England, because of its dignified English, is full of errors, mistranslations, and obscurities ; it is hopeless to try to understand " Hermes " from this version. (3hambers's translation (1882, from the text of Parthey) is so slavishly literal that it ceases to be English in many places, in others goes wide of the sense, and, in general, is exasperating. Menard's French translation (1866, also from Parthey's text) is elegant and sympathetic, but very free in many places ; in fact, not infrequently quite emancipated from the text The most literally accurate translation is Parthey's Latin version (based on the Latin translation of Ficino, as emended by Gandalle and Patrizzi) ; but even in such literal rendering he is at fault at times, while in general no one can f uUy understand the Latin without the Greek. To transkte "Hermes" requires not only a good knowledge of Greek, but also a know- ledge of that Gnosis which he has not infrequently so admirably handed on to u&
^ Ab already remarked, I have not been able to tee a copy of the German of Tiedemann.
II
THE HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF OPINION
Thb Chuf Points oi IimEBBOOATiON
Ws have now to consider the following interesting points:
The early Church Fathers in general accepted the Trismegistic writings as exceedingly ancient and autho- ritative, and in their apologetic writings quote them in support of the main general positions of Christianity.
In the revival of learning, for upwards of a century and a half, all the Humanists welcomed them with open arms as a most valuable adjunct to Christianity, and as being in accord with its doctrines ; so much so that they laboured to substitute Trismegistus for Aristotle in the schools.
During the last two centuries and a half, however, a body of opinion was gradually evolved, infinitesimal in its beginnings but finally well-nigh shutting out every other view, that these writings were Neoplatonic forgeries and pli^;iarisms of Christianity.
Finally, with the dawn of the twentieth century, the subject has been rescued from the hands of opinion, and has begun to be established on the firm ground of historical and critical research, opening up problems of the greatest interest and importance for the history of Christian origins and their connection with Hellen-
vou L 17 2
18 THRICB-OREATEST HERMES
istdc theology and theosophy, and throwing a brilliant light on the development of Gnosticism.
The first point will be brought out in detail in the volume in which a translation of all the passages and references to Thrice-greatest Hermes in the writings of the Church Fathers will be given; while the last will be made abundantly apparent, we hope, in the general course of our studies. The second and third points will now demand our immediate attention, especially the third, for we have endeavoured with great labour to become acquainted with all the "arguments'' which have tended to build up this opinion ; and unless we have to change all our ideas as to the time-frame of so-called Neoplatonism, we are entirely unconvinced ; for we find that it has been evolved from unsupported assertions, and that not one single work exists which ventures in any satisfactory fashion to argue the question (most writers merely reasserting or echoing prior opinions), or in which the statements made may not as easily prove the priority of the Triamegistic school to the Neoplatonic as the reversa
We will then proceed to give some account of this chaos of contradictory opinions, picking out the most salient points.
Thi Opinions oi the Humanists
That the early scholars of the revival of learning were all unanimously delighted with the Trism^istic writings, is manifest from the bibliography we have already given, and that they should follow the judgment of the ancient Fathers in the matter is but natural to expect; for them not only were the books prior to Christianity, but they were ever assured that Hermes
HISTORY Oy THE EVOLUTION OP OPINION 19
had been a really existent peraonality, like any of the Biblical worthies, such as Enoch and Noah (as was unquestionably believed in those days), and further, that he was prior to, or a contemporary of, Moses.^
Thus in the editio princeps of Ficino we read : '* Who- ever thou art who readest these things, whether grammarian, or rhetorician, or philosopher, or theo- logian, know thou that I am Hermes the Thrice-greatest, at whom wondered first the Egyptians and the other nations, and subsequently the ancient Christian theo- logians, in utter stupefaction at my doctrine rare of things divine."
The opinion of Ficino, that the "writer" of the ^ Pcamandres " tractates was one who had a knowledge both of Egyptian and Greek, is of interest as being that of a man uncontaminated by the infinite doubts with which the atmosphere of modem criticism is filled, and thus able to get a clean contact with his subject
Of the same mind were Leys Lazarel and du Preau, the first French translator ; while the Italian Cardinal Patrizzi appends to his labours the following beautiful words (attributed by some to Chalcidius '), which he puts in the mouth of Hermes :
" Till now, my son, I, banished from my home, have lived expatriate in exile. Now safe and sound I seek my home once more. And when but yet a little while I shall have left thee, freed from these bonds of body, see that thou dost not mourn me as one dead. For I return to that supreme and happy state to which the universe's citizens will come when in the after-stata
1 For a list of thoee who thought Hermes was prior to Moses, and even identical with Joseph, or even Adam, see Harles, p. 49 Aland notes.
* A Platonic philosopher who lived probably in the 4th eentory A.D.
20 THRICE-ORKATBST HXRMS8
For there the Onlj God is supreme lord, and He will fill His citizens with wondrous joy, compared to which the state down here which is regarded by the multitude as life, should rather be called death." ^
Patrizzi believed that Hermes was contemporary with Moses, basing himself upon the opinion of Eusebius in his Chronicum^ and thought that it would be to the greatest advanti^ of the Christian world, if such admirable and pious philosophy as was contained in the Trismegistic writings were substituted in the public schools for Aristotle, whom he r^arded as oyerflowing with impiety.
The First Doubt
And that such opinions were the only ones as late as 1630, is evident from the favour still shown to the voluminous commentaries of de Foix and BosseL Never- theless some fifty years previously, a hardy pioneer of scepticism had sturdily attacked the validity of the then universal Hermes tradition on one point at least — and that a fundamental one. For Patrizzi (p. la) declares that a certain Jo. Goropius Becanus was the first after so many centuries to dare to say that Hermes (as a single individual) never existed ! But the worthy Goropius, who appears to have flourished about 1580, judging by an antiquarian treatise of his on the race and language of the " Gimbri or Germani " published at Amsterdam, had no followers as yet in a belief that is now universally accepted by all critical scholarship. But this has to do with the Hermes-saga and not directly with the question of the Trismegistic works,
> Op. cit., p. 3a.
' In which Patrizzi did but echo the opinion of hia pre- deeessors, such as Vergecius, the editor of the first edition of the Qreek text, Candalle and many more.
BISTORT OF THE ETOLUTION OF OPINION 21
and 80 we may omit for the present any reference to the host of contradictory opinions on ** Hermes " which are fonnd in all the writers to whom we are referring, and none of which, prior to the decipherment of the hieroglyphics, are of any particular valua
Thb Launchino of thk Thsort of Plagiarism
It was about the middle of the seventeenth century that the theory of plagiarism and forgery was started. Ursin (Joh. Henr. Ursinus), a pastor of the Evangelical Church at Batisbon, published at Niimberg in 1661, a work, in the second part of which he treated of *' Hermes Trismegistus and his Writings,"^ and endeavoured to show that they were wholesale plagiarisms from Christianity, but his arguments were subjected to a severe criticism by Brucker some hundred years later.^
This extreme view of UrsiD «iras subsequently modified into the subsidiary opinions that the Trismegistic works were composed by a half-Christian (semuchrisiiano) or interpolated by Christian overworking.
The most distinguished name among the early holders of the former opinion is that of Isaac Casaubon,^ who dates these writings at the beginning of the second
^ De Zoroadre Bactriano HermeU THnnegitto Sanchoniaihane Pheenido wrumqvs SeriptU^ et AUii contra Mosaica Scriptures Anti- quUaUm ; ExmciUUiona FamiUares^ pp. 73-180— a book now very scarce.
' Jacobi Bmckeri, Hiitoria Oritiea PhUosophuB (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1767), i. 262 flf. lib. iL, cap. vii., " De Philoaophia .figyptiorum." See alBO Meinen* Vemuh iiher die ReUgurMgetckichU det UUegtm VaUur be9ondar$ d#r Egypiier (QoUingen, 1775).
* De RAue Sacrit . . . Exereitationes ad Card, Baronii Prole- gomena, L, n. 10 (London, 1614). Casaubon concludes that the frfude book, ue. the ^ PcBmandres," is a pseudepigraph, the pure invention ol some Christian or other, or perhaps better, of some semi-Christian (p. 66).
22 THUGK-GRKATEST TnatM^
oentnzy ; Cuaobon's opmions, however, were promptly rrfatad by Cadworth in his famous work The Tfiu IfUdledual Sydem of tke Univgrm, the first edition of which was printed at London, in folio, 1678.^ Cad- worth wonld have it. however, that Casaubon was right as bir as the treatises entitled ** The Shepherd of Men" and ** The Secret Sermon on the Mountain " are con- cerned, and that these treatises were counterfeited by Christians since the time of lamblichus — a very curious position to assume, since a number of the treatises themselves look back to this very " Shepherd " as the original document of the whole * Ptemandres ** cycle.
But, indeed, so far we have no arguments, no really critical investigation,^ so that we need not detain the reader among these warring opinions, on which the cap was set by the violent outburst of Colberg in defence of orthodoxy against the Alchemists, Bosicrucians, Quakers, Anabaptists, Quietists, etc., of which fancUici, as he calls them, Hermes, he declares, was the PatriarcL'
The Onlt Aboumxnt Adduced
One might almost believe that Colberg was an incarna- tion of a Church Father continuing his ancient polemic against heresy ; in any case the whole question of heresy
1 See his diaeertation on Hermes and the Hermetic writings in the edition of 1820, toL ii^ pp. 128>155.
' Though Reitzenstein (p. 1) speaks of the ^* tehneidende KrUtk** of Casaubon.
* Vol. i, p. 89, of the following amply entitled work. Das PlaUmiBck'Herfneiiichei [tie] Chridenthum, h^rifftind die hiitorueke ErzMung vom Utipnmg und vielerley SecUn der heutigen Fanatitchen Tkeologie^ wUerm Namm der ParuceltUten, fFeigdianer, Raten- emUxer, Qudkery Bdhmitten^ fFiedertUf^er^ Bowriffniden^ Lobaditten uhd Quietiden^ by M. Ehre Gott Daniel Colberg, S vols. (Frank- fort and Leipzig, 1690, 1691).
BISTORT OF THE BVOLUTION OP OPINION 28
was now reviyed, and the eighteenth and nineteenth century criticism of the Trismegistic works ahnost invari- ably starts with this prejudice in mind and seeks (ahnost wiUiout exception) to father the Trismegistic writings on Neoplatomsm, which it regards as the most powerful opponent of orthodoxy from the third century onwards. Harles (1790) gives the references to all the main factors in the evolution of this opinion during the eighteenth century;^ but the only argument that the century produced — indeed, the only argument that has ever been adduced — is that the doctrines of the Trismegistic writings are clearly Platonic, and that too of that type of mystical Platonism which was especially the characteristic of the teaching of lamblichus at the end of the third century A.D., and which is generally called Neoplatonism ; therefore, these writings were forged by the Neoplatonists to prop up dying Paganism against the ever more and more vigorous Christianity. We admit the premisses, but we absolutely deny the conclusion. But before pointing out the weakness of this conclusion of apologetic scholarship, we must deal with the literature on the subject in the last century. The eighteenth century produced no arguments in support of this conclusion beyond the main premisses which we have admitted.' Has the nineteenth century
^ Op, 9upr. eit, ; Uie most ** advanced ** writer on the subject being Tiedemann, to whose work we have already referred ; but onfortuiiately we have not been able to procure a copy, and the British Museum is without it. Tiedemann thinks that none of the Trismegistic writings existed before the fourth century, while Pabridus himself, whoee summary of prior opinion is overworked by Harles, assigns them to the time of Porphyry and lamblichus, though Haries dates the earliest of them from the end of the first to the middle of the second century (p. 48, n.).
' It niay be worth while here to record the opinion of Gibbon, who would ascribe a Christian origin to some of the Trismegistic
24 THRICl-ORKATBT HKRHK
pfoduced any others ao as to justify the pomtion taken up bj the echoes of opinion in all the popular encyclo- pedias with regard to these most Taluable and beautiful treatises? 1
If our encyclopedias deign to rest their assertions on authority, they refer ua to Fabridus (Harles) and Baumgarten-Grusius. We haye already seen that Harles will not help us much ; mil the latter authority throw any more light on the subject? We are afraid not; for, instead of a bulky volume, we have before us a thin academical exerdse of only 19 pp.,^in which the author puts forward the bare opinion that these books were invented by Porphyry and his school, and this mainly because he thinks that Orelli' had proved the year before that the Cosmogony of Sanchoniatbon was invented by the '^ PlatonicL" Moreover, was not Porphyry an enemy of Christ, for did he not write XV. Books against the Christians? All of which can scarcely be dignified with the name of argument, far less with that of prool
writingi, and impatiently diBmiases the subject by dasnng Hennes with Orpheiu and the Sibjli as a cloak for Christian forgery (voL ii. p. e9, Bury's ed.).
' How the public is catered for may be seen from any popular "knowledges-digest The following will serve as a specimen, taken from the article " HermeA Trismegistus," in The Afneriean Encyeloptedia: a Popular Dictionary of Gmeral KnowUdge^ edited by Ripley and Dana (New York, 1874): "In die conflict between Neoplatonism and Christianity, the former sought to give a profounder and more spiritual meaning to the pagan philosophy, by combining the wisdom of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and representing it as a very ancient^ divine revelation."
' Delivered before the University of Jena at Pentecost^ 1827, by Lud. Frid. Otto Baxungarten-Cmaias.
* Orelli (J. CX SancKoniathonii FragmerUa d$ Ootmogonia H Thsologia PKenUeorum (Leipzig, 1886).
HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF OPINION 25
The Thiobt oi Hilgkbs
The same may be said of the short academical thesis of Hilgers,^ who first shows the weakness of Mohler's strange opinion* that the author was a Christian who pretended to be a Pagan and inserted ''errors" on purpose. Hilgers finally ends up with the lame con- clusion that Christian doctrine was known to the author of the " Poemandres " cycle, especially the Gospel of ** John " and Letters of Paul ; but how it is possible to conjecture anything besides, he does not know. Of the possibility of the priority of the '' Poemandres " to the writings of "John" and Paul, Hilgers does not seem to dream ; nevertheless this is as logical a de- duction as the one he draws from the points of contact between the two groups of literature. But Hilgers has got an aze of his own to grind, and a very blunt one at that; he thinks that "The Shepherd of Men" was written at the same time as " The Shepherd of Hermas/' that simple product of what is called the sub-apostolic age — a document held in great respect by the early outer communities of General Christianity, and used for purposes of edification. Our "Shepherd," Hilgers thinks, was written in opposition to the Hennas document, but he can do nothing but point to the similarity of name as a proof of his hypothesis. This topsytunry opinion we shall seek to reverse in a subsequent chapter on " ' Hermes ' and ' Hermas.' "
As to the author of our " Shepherd " Hilgers thinks he has shown that "he was not a follower of the
^ HilgeiB (K J.), De Hermetit TritmegiiU Poimandro Ckymnysn- iMo (Bomi, 1S65), soggested by the appearance of Parthe/t text in 1854.
* Holder (J. A.), Pairologiej pp. 950-951— a brief note on Hermei. Ed. by F. X. Beithmayr (Begenabere^ 1840).
26 THRICS-OREATEST HEBMES
doctrines of the Christ, but of the so-called Neoplaton- ists, and among these especiallj of Fhilo Judseus " ; in fact he seems, says Hilgers, to have been a Therapeut^
The Osrman Thsobt of Nkopultonic ** STKCRinsicns*
Here we have the first appearance of another ten- dency; the more attention is bestowed upon the Trismegistic writings, the more it is apparent that they cannot be ascribed to Neoplatonism, if, as generally held, Neoplatonism begins with Ammonias Saccas, Flotinos, and Porphyry in the third century. There- fore, in this subject, and in this subject alone, we find a tendency in later writers to push back the Neoplatoniats so as to include Fhilo Judasus, who flourished in the first half of the first century! On these lines we should soon get JVdo-platonism back to Plato and Pythagoras, and so be forced to drop the *" Neo " and return to the old honoured name of simple '* Platonid."
But already by this time in Germany the theory of Neoplatonic Syncretitmtts to prop up sinking Heathen- dom against rising Christianity had become crystallised, as may be seen from the article on "Hermes, Hermetische Schriften" in Pauly's famous Beal Enr etfchpddis der elcLSsischen AUerihumstvissensha/t (Stutt- gart, 1844X where this position is assumed from the start
Parthey, however, in 1854, in his preface, ventures on no such opinion, but expresses a belief that we may even yet discover in Egypt a demotic text of the *" Poemandres," which shows that he considered the original to have been written in Egyptian, and there- fore not by a Neoplatonist
1 Op. eiL, pp. 16-17.
HI8T0BY OF THE EVOLUTION OF OPINION 27
Thi Fsinch Theobt of Eoyftian Obioin
In France, moreover, the Egyptian paternity of the Triamegifitic writings, and that too on very sensible lines, was asserted about the same time, namely, in 1858, by Artaud in his article on ''Hermte Trismd- giste," in Hoeffer's Nowodle Biographis Gin^aU, published at Paris by Messrs Firmin Didot Artaud writes:
" In the mystic sense Thoth or the Egyptian Hermes was the symbol of the Divine Mind ; he was the incar- nated Thought, the living Word — the primitive type of the Logos of Plato and the Word of the Christians. . . .
** We have heard Champollion, the younger, giving ex- pression to the formal opinion that the books of Hermes Trismegistus really contained the ancient Egyptian doctrine of which traces can be discovered from the hieroglyphics which cover the monuments of Egypt Moreover, if these fragments themselves are examined, we find in them a theology sufficiently in accord with the doctrines set forth by Plato in his Timasus — doctrines which are entirely apart from those of the other schools of Greece, and which were therefore held to have been derived by Plato from the temples of Egypt, when he went thither to hold converse with its priests/* ^
Artaud is also of the opinion that these Trismegistic treatises are translations from the Egyptian.
The Views of M^nabd
Nowadays, with our improved knowledge of Egypt- ology, this hypothesis has to be stated in far more
1 The whole of this article has been lifted, without acknowledg- menti by M'Glintock and Strong in their Cydofosdia of BibUeal^ TImiogiealf and EceUnadieal LUeraiun (New York, 187S).
28 THRICE-GREATBST HSRMSS
careful tenns before it can find acceptance among the learned; nevertheless it was evidently the conviction of D^v^ria, who in a work of which he only succeeded in writing the first two pages, proposed to comment on the entire text of the Trismegistic Books from the point of view of an Egyptologist For these Books, he declared, offered an almost complete exposition of the esoteric philosophy of ancient Egypt^
But by far the most sjrmpathetic and really intelligent account of the subject is that of Mdnard,' who gives us a pleasant respite from the chorus of the German Neoplatonic syncretism theory. And though we do not by any means agree with all that he writes, it will be a relief to let in a breath of fresh air upon the general stuffiness of our present summary of opinions.
The fragments of the Trismegistic literature which have reached us are the sole surviving remains of that " Egyptian philosophy " which arose from the congress of the religious doctrines of Egypt with the philo- sophical doctrines of Greece. In other words, what the works of Philo were to the sacred literature of the Jews, the Hermaica were to the Egyptian sacred writings. L^nd and myth were allegorised and philosophised and replaced by vision and instruction. But who were the authors of this theosophic method ? This question is of the greatest interest to us, for it is one of the factors in the solution of the problem of the literary evolution of Christianity, seeing that there are intimate points of contact of ideas between several of the Hermetic documents and certain Jewish and Christian writings, especially the opening verses of Genesis, the treatises of Philo, the fourth Gospel
1 Pierrety Milanga dHArMoLogie egypiunne et oisyrienne^ L (1873X p. 112; Rl,iLl. s Op. tup. cU.^ 1866.
mSTOBY OP THE EVOLUTION OP OPINION 29
(especially the Prologue), and beyond all the writmgs of the great Gnostic doctors Basilides and Valentinus.
Such and similar considerations lead Mdnard to glance at the environment of infant ChriBtianity and the various phenomena connected with its growth, and this he does from the point of view of an enlightened independent historical scholar.
" Christianity/' he writes, " did not fall like a thunder- bolt into the midst of a surprised and startled world. It had its period of incubation, and while it was en- gaged in evolving the positive form of its dogmas, the problems of which it was seeking the solution were the subject of thought in Greece, Asia, and Egypt. Similar ideas were in the air and shaped themselves into all sorts of propositions.
** The multiplicity of sects which have arisen in our own times under the name of socialism, can give but a faint idea of the marvellous intellectual chemistry which had established its principal laboratory at Alex- andria. Humanity had set in the arena mighty philo- sophical and moral problems: the origin of evil, the destiny of the soul, its fall and redemption ; the prize to be given was the government of the conscience. The Christian solution ^ won, and caused the rest to be forgotten, sunk for the most part in the shipwreck of the past. Let us then, when we come across a scrap of the flotsam and jetsam, recognise in it the work of a beaten competitor and not of a plagiarist. Indeed, the triumph of Christianity was prepared by those very men who thought themselves its rivals, but who were only its forerunners. The title suits them, though many were contemporaries of the Christian era, while others were a little later ; for the succession of a religion only dates from the day when it is accepted by the
1 The popular Christian solution, Menard should have said.
so THRICE-OREATEST HERMES
nations, just as the reign of a claimant to the throne dates from his victory " (pp. ix., x.).
Menard distinguishes three principal groups in the Trismegistic treatises, which he assigns to Jewish, Greek, and Egyptian influences. In them also he finds a link between Fhilo and the Gnostics.
"Between the first Gnostic sects and the Hellenic Jews represented bj Fhilo, a link is missing; this can be found in several of the Hermetic works, especially 'The Shepherd of Men' and 'The Sermon on the Mountain.' In them also ¥rill perhaps be found the reason of the differences, so often remarked upon, between the first three Gospels and the fourth'' (p. xHv.).
Next, the direction in which that " link " is to be looked for is more clearly shown, though here Menard is, I think, too precise when writing:
"It seems certain that 'The Shepherd' came from that school of Therapeuts of Egypt, who have been often erroneously confounded with the Essenians of Syria and Palestine " (p. Ivi).
But "instead of the physical discipline of the Essenians, who, according to Fhilo, practised manual labour, put the product of their toil into the common fund, and reduced philosophy to ethics, and ethics to charity, the 'monasteries' of the Therapeuts contri- buted to Christian propaganda a far more Hellenised population, trained in abstract speculations and mystic allegories. From these tendencies, combined with the dogma of the incarnation, arose the Gnostic sects. 'The Shepherd' should be earlier than these schools" (p. Iviii).
As to "The Sermon on the Mountain," "it can be placed, in order of ideas and date, between 'The Shepherd ' and the first Gnostic schools ; it should be
HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF OPINION 81
a little earlier than the founders of Gnosticism, Baailides, and Valentinus " (p. Ixv.).
If Gnostidsm be taken with M6nard to mean the Christianised theosophj of Basilides and Valentinus from the first quarter of the second century onwards, the oldest Trismegistic treatises are demonstrably earlier, for their Gnosticism is plainly a far simpler form ; in fact, BO much more simple that, if we could proceed on so crude an hypothesis as that of a straight-lined evolution, we should be forced to find room for inter- mediate forms of Gnosticism between them and the Basilidian and the Valentinian Gnosis. And of this Menard seems to be partly conscious when writing: ** We can follow in the Hermetic books the destiny of this Judffio-^yptian Gnosis, which, during the first century, existed side by side with Christianity without allowing itself to be absorbed by it, passing insensibly from the Jewish school of Philo to the Greek school of Hotinus" (p. Ixvii).
Mdnard here used the term Christianity for that tendency which aftcftwards was called Catholic or General Christianity, the body to which these very same Gnostics gave the principal dogmas of its sub- sequent theology.
But if the Gnostics were Therapeuts, and the Tris- megistic writers Therapeuts, why should Menard call them Jews, as he appears to do in his interesting question, "Where are the Jewish Therapeuts at the end of the second century ? " Certainly Philo laboured to give his readers the impression that the Therapeuts were principaUy Jews, perhaps to win respect for his compatriots in his apology for his nation ; but the Thera- peuts were, evidently, on his own showing, drawn from all the nations and scattered abroad in very numerous communities, though many Jews were doubtless in
32 THRICB-ORKATBST HSRMB8
their ranks — indeed, Riilo probablj knew little about their communities other than the Mareotic. If, then, the term "Therapeut" will explain some of the phenomena presented by these writings, the combination "Jewish Therapeuts" will certainly not do so. The very answer of Menard himself to his question shows that even these Mareotic Therapeuts could not have been orthodox Jews, for the French scholar proceeds to surmise not only that, " some, converted to Christianity, became monks or Gnostics of the Basilidian or Valen- tinian school," but that ** others more and more assimi- lated themselves to Paganism."
And by "Paganism" our author says he does not mean " poljrtheism," for "at tlus period all admitted into the divine order of things a well-defined hierarchy with a supreme God at the head ; only for some this supreme Deity was in the world, for others outside it " (p. Ixxiv.).
Menard's introduction meets with the general approval of Reitzenstein (p. 1), who characterises it as feinsinnige, and agrees that he has rightly appreciated many of the factors, especially from the theological side ; he, however (p. 116, n. 2), dissents, and rightly dissents, from Menard as to any direct Jewish influence on the Trismegistic literature, and refuses to admit that the " Poemandree " can in any way be characterised as a Jewish-Gnostic writing.
But the sensible views of Menard were impotent to check the crystallisation of the (German theory, which was practically repeated by Zeller,^ and once more by
^ QucK. d. gruch, Philai.y III., ii, 225 ff. ZeUer, while recognising the GnoBtic nature of C. H, i. and G. H, xiiL (xiy.), treats the rest of our Corpus as an expression of declining Paganism. So also Erdmann {Hitt. Philos.^ i. 113, 8, Tr.X who deals with our Corpus only, and assigns its sermons to different authors and tunes.
mSTOBY OF THE EVOLUTION 07 OPINION 33
Pietschxnann in his learned eeaay,^ based in part on A. O. Hoffmann's article " Hermes " in Erseh and Oruber's AUgemeine JEnq/dopddie der WissenschaftefiundKiirute^ An exception to this tendency, however, is to be foond in the opinion of Aall ; ' who, though he adduces no proof, would on general grounds place the composition of the Hermetic literature (though whether or not by this he means our extant Trismegistic sermons is not dear) as far back as the second century B.C., and would see in it an ofishoot from the same stem which later on supplied the ground - conceptions of the Jobannine theolc^>
Enoush Enctclopadism
In England, as we have seen, the subject, like so many others of a similar nature, has been ahnost entirely neglected, but with the encyclopedic activity of the past generation we find it touched upon, and in the usual encyclopaedic fashion. The German position is aanmied, without one word of proof or reference to any, as an ** acquired fact of science " ! The ** last effort of expiring Heathendom" theory is trotted out with complacency and with that impressive air of official knowledge which makes the pronouncements of the family physician a law unto all its members, from baby to father — until the specialist is called in. And
He contends that C. H. xiiL (xiv.) shows a Neo-pythagorean tendency, — a term far vaguer than Neo-platonic even.
> Hermit l^rtmnegiiioi n. Ugyp^f grieeh. u, orimtaL VherUeferungen (Leipzig, 1876).
* A laborious article replete with references, bat dealing solely witih the Hermes-saga and not with our writings.
s Aall (A.), OetchichU der Logotidee in dor Philoiophie (Leipzig, ToL L ISee, vol. ii. 1899), ii. 78, n. 4.
* Cf. Beitsenstein, Zwii r$Ugumigetchichiliche Fragm (Strassboig, 1901XP.93, n.3.
VOL. L 3
34 THRICB-QREATSST HERMES
unfortunately these exeathedrd encyclopeedic pronounce- ments are all the general reader will ever hear. This is the case with all those three indifferent articles in our current dictionaries of reference.^ We are assured that, ''as all are generally agreed,** the writings are Neo- platonic, and this without any qualification or definition of the term, and that too in dictionaries where the term *" Neoplatonic/' in articles on the subject, is applied solely to the " Chain " from Ammonius Saccas and Flotinus onwards. The presumption is plain that by Neoplatonic forgeries we are to understand a date of at earliest from the middle of the third century onwards.
Chambkbs's Opinion
And this although Justin Martyr (ctr. 150 A.D.) bestows emphatic praise on these veiy same writings and classes their writer, ^ Hermes," among the " most ancient philosophers," a point which the German theorists and their English copiers have all discreetly shirked, but which, together with other considerations, has forced Chambers, in the preface to his translation (London, 1882), to give quite a new meaning to the term Neoplatonist, which he uses of Hermes in his title,' and to declare that our Hermes is entitled " to
^ Art " HerineB and Hermes TriflmegistuA," by L. Schmitr, in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (London, 1870X a work which is now entirely out of date ; Jowett's art., "Hermes Trismegistus," in the Eneyelopadia Britannica (9th ed., London, 1880), repeated in the recent reprint without alteration ; and Mozley's art., '* Hermes Trismegistus," in Smith and Wace*s Dictionary of Christian Biography (London, 1882); to both of which articles, if not to the works themselves, the above remark also applies.
s Th$ ITuologicalandPhilMophical Worh (/ Herme$ Triimegidui^ C^iridian Neoplatonist.
HI8T0RT OF THB EVOLUTION OF OPIKIOK 35
be oonsidered the real fownder of NeopIatoniBm." ^ Chambers would still, in spite of Justin's clear testi- monj, wedge in the earliest deposit of Trism^;istic literature immediately between the time of composition of the new canonical books and Justin, and devotes nearly all his notes to fishing out every verse of the New Testament he can which bears the slightest reeemblanoe to the Trismegistic text.* But if we closely compare these so-called parallels, we are compelled to acknowledge that if there be any plagiarism it is not on the side of Hermes; nay, more, it is as plain as it can be that there \a no verbal plagiarism at all, and that the similarity of ideas therefore pertains to quite another problem, for the distinctive dogmas of Common Christianity are entirely wanting; there is not a single word breathed of the historical Jesus, not a syllable concern* ing the nativity, the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension or coming of C^irist to judgment, as Chambers admits.
OXBMAN ENCTCLOPiBDISM
Let us now turn to the pronouncements of German encyclopaedism on the subject F. A. Brockhaus' CcnvtTBtUionB'Lexihon (Leipzig, 1884) does but repeat the old hypothesis. The Trismegistic writings are "the last monuments of Heathendom"; the writer, however, grudgingly takes in the date of Justin Martyr in the sentence, "presumably the majority of these writings belong to the second century," but not a word is breathed of how this conclusion is arrived at.
A most valuable article, in fact far and away the
> Op. eiL^ p. xiL
* In this repeating de Foix, who attempted the same tMk more than three hundred yean before.
36 THRICB-ORBATXaT HKEMS8
very best that has jet been done, containing innameraUe references to all the articles in the most recent trans- actions of learned societies and to the papers in scien- tific periodicals, is that of Chr. Scherer on " Hermes,'* in W. H. Boecher's AufUhrlieha Leadkon der grikkiMckmi u. r6m%$ehen Mythologie (Leipxig, 1884, etc). Un- fortonatelj this article deals solely with the Hermes of the Oreeks, while for "Hermes Trismegistos " we are referred to " Thoth," an article which has not yet appeared. This brings our summary of opinions down to the close of the last century; we have probably omitted reference to some minor opinions, for no up- to-date bibliography exists on Uie subject, but we doubt that any work of importasoe has escaped our notioa
A BiCIMT Abticxji bt Orahoib
The most recent work done in England on the subject, in the present century, is an article by Frank Granger,^ who, in spite of some useful criticisms and suggestions on some points, is nevertheless in the main reactionary, and contends for a Christian origin of our most important tractates. The scope of his enquiry may be seen from his preliminary statement when be writes:
" We shall have little difficulty in showing, as against Zeller, that the book [? our Corpus, or the first Sermon only] is in the main homogeneous and of Christian origin. Not only so, our discussion will bring us into contact with the later Greek culture as it developed amid Egyptian surroundings, and will raise several problems of considerable importance. Among other
1 *« The Poemandres of Hermes Trifm^gistni^" in Th§ Jovmoi oj Theologieal Studia, vol. ▼. No. 19, April 1904 (London).
mSTORT OF THE BTOLnTION OF OPINION 37
things we shall have to trace the way in which Hermes passes over into Ghristian tradition, and how the Oreek representations of Hermes furnished Christian art with one of its earliest motives.^ We shall further find in it a bridge by which we may pass over from Gkeek philosophy and science to modes of thought which are properly Christian. And yet the writer retains so much of the antique spirit that he can hardly be mistaken for an apologist of Paganism." *
When, however, Granger attempts to prove his case, he breaks down utterly, being able to point to little besides the popular phrase "increase and multiply." Towards the end of his enquiry, however, he sees that the traditional values of many factors will have to be altered by a study of our literature, as, for instance, when he writes :
"The traditional estimate of Gnosticism, then, re- quires to be reconsidered, in the light of the Poemandres, It belongs to a time when religious definitions were still in the making — a time, therefore, when the limits of free discussion were not yet straitly drawn. Hence the various permutations of religious belief which we find in Irensus, Hippolytus, TertuUian, would not be admitted by their exponents to be in conflict with the Christian faith, but would rather be r^arded as exhibiting new and fruitful applications of principles common to alL Ecclesiastical opinion ulti- mately settled down in one direction rather than another. But until this process was complete, each living system of belief might count upon a possible victory,' and so, among others, the system which may be traced in the Poemandres. And the Poemandres is so far from being a merely heretical production, that
1 Namely, that of the Good Shepherd.
* Thia ia a reflection of M^nard'i senaible view.
88 THRICB-OBSATBST HKRMSS
its relation to orthodox belief may fairly be indicated by saying that it answers to the earlier intellectual position of Clement of Alexandria." ^
We should saj rather that the difficulties in which our essayist is evidently involved by his hypothesis of Christian origin, would be considerably lessened by accepting the evidence on all hands which a more extended study of the Trism^;istic and allied literatures affords, and by treating what he refers to as Gnosticism without quali6cation as the Christianised Gnosis, and not as Gnosticised Christianity.
We thus find Granger compelled, in keeping with the above, to guess the date of the " PcBmandres " as towards the end of the second century ; but even so, he feels dissatisfied with himself, for he has to add: " Nor does this date preclude us from finding occasional traces of even earlier material"
However we may dissent from Granger's conclusions as to the ** Foomandres," we agree with him in the importance he ascribes to the Qospd aecording to ths Bgyptians, in connection with which he writes * :
" It is instructive to note that Salome, who plays so prominent a part in the Qi)spd according to the Egyp- tians, is the mother of St John,' and that the same Gnostic circles in which this gospel is current were also those in which we hear for the first time of the Fourth Gospel That is to say, the Fourth Gospel oomes to us from the hands of the Alexandrine Gnostics. The system of Valentinus is really a somewhat fanci-
1 Ibid^ p. 40e.
« Ihid., p. 411.
* I have never come acroas thiB statement before, and so regret that Q. has not given hia authority. If such were the tradition, it would be exceedingly inatractiye. Salome, however, in the fragments of this Gospel preserved to us, says cat^rically that she has ne?ar ** brought forth."
HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OP OPINION 39
ful commeDtary upon the opening chapters of St John's GospeL^ Heracleon, the first great commentator * upon St John, was both a Gnostic and at the same time was really the master of Origen, and through him helped to determine the development of the orthodox theology. Now, the key to the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel is to be found in the Gnostic ideas which underlie the Paemandres, ideas to which Heracleon furnishes the clue. But the commentators have refused the help which the Gnostics could give, and the Fourth Gospel has been consistently misunderstood owing to the exaggerated stress which has been laid upon the doctrine of the Xoyop."
I am not quite clear what the last sentence is intended to mean. Too great stress cannot be laid upon the doctrine of the Logos, for it is, as we shall show, the fundamental concept of Hellenistic theology ; but too great stress can and has been laid upon the illegitimate claim that the Proem of the Fourth Gospel embodies a peculiarly Christian doctrine.
Moreover, if the Fourth Gospel emerges in Alexan- drine circles and is so essentially Gnostic, how can it be ascribed, as Granger appears to ascribe it, to "St John"? A very different conclusion seems to follow from. Granger's premisses.
The conclusion of the most recent study by English scholarship on our ** Foemandres " is as follows :
« The Poemandres, then, is a very striking exponent of the religious and philosophical ideas amid which
> It is not, even if the '* opening chapters" be reduced to the Proem. Heracleon, one of the disciples of Yalentinus, comments directly on this Proem, but from the point of view of a quite independent tradition.
t The first commentator of any kind of which we have any knowledge, rather.
40 THRICE-OREATIST HKRMES
Aldzandiine theology arose. On the one hand it is in touch with Greek mythology and sdenoe; on the other, with Jewish and Christian literature. The author is more sober than most of his Onostie con- temporaries; he is a more consistent reasoner than Clement." 1
But if, as we shall show, the date of the " Poemandres ** must be pushed back demonstrably at least a hundred years, and if, as is exceedingly probable, it must go back still further, the whole problem is changed, and the relationship of all the factors alters proportionately.
RxrrZKNBTKIN AKD TBI DAWN OF BiGHT VlKWS
But in the present century, by the publication of Beitzenstein's Paimandres, the whole subject has been placed on a different footing and brought into a clearer light Beitzenstein attacks the problem of the Trismegistic writings from an entirely objective, his- torical, philological, and literary standpoint Being entirely emancipated from any theological preconcep- tions, he is always careful to point out that lus conclusions are based solely on critical research in the domain of philology proper; he cannot, however, refrain at times from adding (somewhat slily) that these results are of the deepest interest to the theo- logian— ^indeed, we might say highly embarrassing if the theologian happens to be a traditionalist
The general scope of Beitzenstein's essay may be gathered from his sub-title, " Studies in Greek-Egyptian and Early Christian Literature." Our Trismegistic writings form part of a large number of Greek written texts, the remains of a once exceedingly extensive Hellenistic theological literature; and by Hellenistic 1 Ibid., p. 41S.
mSTOBY OF THE EVOLUTION OF OPINION 41
theology is meant the blending of Greek and Oriental religions thought and experience. This Hellemstic theology was most strongly influenced by Egyptian conceptions and traditions. The Egyptian religion is known to have spread itself over the Hellenistic world, and every scholar will at once recall to mind how many Greek writers have treated expressly of the Egyptian religion, and how many passages in Greek literature refer to Egyptian beliefs, as compared with the very few which treat of Babylonian, Persian, or even Syrian.
Nevertheless, the remains of this Hellenistic theo- logical literature have never been treated as a whole from the point of view of philology ; the cause of this has been the entire disregard of the subject by Chris- tian theologians, coupled with the grotesque grounds on which the consideration of the Hellenistic-Egyptian religion is usually set aside— one famous theologian lately going so far as to assert that the Egyptian wordiip was despised on all sides, both by Jews and Greeks, as the lowest depth of human superstition.
As then E^ypt had a provably dominant position in Hellenistic literature, so also must she have had in some sort a correspondingly strong influence on Hellenistic culture, and consequently on the develop- ment of Hellenistic religious experienca The evidence of this is afforded by the Early Christian literature.
We have, therefore, here in these Greek-Egyptian and Early Christian documents the possibility of methodical work, seeing that it is a question of the comparative study of two contemporaneous literatures ; moreover, the language and typology of the Christian literature is bound to betray traces of the general Hellenistic theology of the time (pp. v., vl).
The study of Beitzenstein is thus a consideration of
42 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
our TrismegiBtic literature as a whole, and the analjsis and comparison of two of the most typical sermons with other Hellenistic documents and with Early Christian writings.
This he does with praiseworthy and painstaking industry, with great acumen and admirable scholarly equipment; but his work is of no service to any but scholars, and that, too, to scholars who are specialists. It is a work bristling with technicalities of every description, and crammed with untranslated texts. In- deed, Reitzenstein belongs to that school of philological purists who think it a loss of dignity to translate anything ; this is a very convenient convention, and I myself have often wished that I could have availed myself of it when face to face with innumerable diffi- culties of translation.
Beitzenstein, then, translates nothing, but busies himself with texts and the higher criticism of the subject He, however, does not give us the text of our literature as a whole, or even of the Corpus Hermeticum, but only of four chapters and the frag- ments of a fifth. Moreover, the results of bis in- vestigations are very difficult to summarise; indeed, he nowhere summarises them himself in any certain fashion, his chapters being on the whole of the nature of studies in the Trism^istic literature rather than a complete exposition.
Nevertheless these studies are, beyond comparison, the most important and suggestive work that has yet been done on the subject ; and as I shall avail myself of his labours on so many occasions in the sequel, I cannot refrain from acknowledging here the special debt of gratitude which all lovers of our sermons must feel to him, for compelling the attention of scholars to the first importance of the Trismegistic literature in the
HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF OPINION 43
domain of the history of the development of religious thought in the first centuriea
The general scope of his studies will be seen from the titles of the main chapters : — L Age of the " Poi- mandres"; by *' Poimandres " R means C. H., I onlj. IL Analysis of the Conception of the " Poimandres " ; IV. '' Poimandree ' and the Egyptian Apocalyptic Literature ; V. Expansion of the Hermetic Literature; VI. The Hermetic Corpus ; YIL The Later " Poimandres " Document (The Prophet- Initiation).
The theory of plagiarism from Christianity must for ever be abandoned. The whole literature is based on the "Poemandree" as its original gospel, and the original form of this scripture must be placed at least prior to the second century A.D. How much earlier it goes back we cannot at present say with any exactitude ; before the b^^ning of the second century is the iermiMu ad guem — that is to say it cannot possibly be later than this; to seek, therefore, for traditional Christian thoughts in this document is henceforth deprived of any prospect of success (p. 36).
Beitzenstein tells us (p. 2) that these writings in the first place interested him solely through their literary form, but that this interest became deepened as he gradually learned to value them as important records of that powerful religious movement which, like a flood, overflowed the West from the East, and, after preparing the way for Christianity, subsequently bore it along with it ; the best and surest evidence of this religious revival is to be found in the literary form of Hellenistic theology.
This in itself is of interest enough and to spare; and at a time when every scrap of contemporary literature is being so eagerly scanned for the smallest side-light it
44 THRICB-GREATEST HERMSS
can throw on the environment and development of Christian^ origins, it is amazing that the Trism^istic writings should have been hitherto so studiously neglected.
A Est to Egypt's Wisdom
But there is another and still more profoundly interesting side of the subject which we cannot expect to find treated in a purely philological, technical, and critical treatise. The more one studies the beet of these mystical sermons, casting aside all prejudice, and trying to feel and think with the writers, the nearer one is conscious of approaching the threshold of what may well be believed to have been the true Adytum of the best in the mystery-traditions of antiquity. In- numerable are the hbits of the greatnesses and immensities lying beyond that threshold — among other precious things the vision of the key to Egypt's wisdom, the interpretation of apocalypsis by the light of the sun-clear epopteia of the intelligible cosmos.
Such greatnesses and such mysteries have a power and beauty which the most disreputable tradition of the texts through unknowing hands cannot wholly disguise, and they are still recognisable, even though thus clad in the rags of their once fair garments, by those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
But to return to the points we raised in the opening of this chapter.
The Suggestkd Answibs to oub Quxstions
If we now re-state the problems we are considering in the interrogative form, we shall have to find answers to the following questions :
Why did the early Church Fathers accept the Tris-
HISTORY 07 TBS BVOLUTION OF OPINION 45
megistic writings as exceedingly ancient and authorita- tive, and in their apologetic writings quote them in support of the main impersonal dogmas of Christianity ?
Why, in the revival of learning, for upwards of a century and a half did all the Humanists welcome them with open arms as a most valuable adjunct to Chris- tianity, and as being in accord .with its main doctrines, so much so that they laboured to substitute Trismegistus for Aristotie in the schools ?
Finally, why during the last two centuries and a half has a body of opinion been gradually evolved, infinitesimal in its beginnings, but well-nigh shutting out every other view, that these writings are Neo- platonic forgeries ?
The answers to these questions are simple: — ^The Church Fathers appealed to the authority of antiquity and to a tradition that had never been called in question, in order to show that they taught nothing funda- mentally new — that, in brief, they taught on main points what Hermes had taught They lived in days too proximate to that tradition to have ventured on bring- ing any charge of plagiarism and forgery against it without exposing themselves to a crushing rejoinder from men who were still the hearers of its "living voice" and possessors of its ''written word."
The scholars of the Benaissanee naturally followed the unvarying tradition of antiquity, confirmed by the Fathers of the Church.
Gradually, however, it was perceived that, if the old tradition were accepted, the fundamental originality of general Christian doctrines — that is to say, the philosophical basis of the Faith, as apart from the historical dogmas peculiar to it— could no longer be maintained. It, therefore, became imperatively neces- sary to discredit the ancient tradition by every possible
46 THBICB-OBBAIBI
matofl. With whAl snooesB this policj baa been attended we have already aeen ; we have alao reviewed this growth of opinion, and shown its baaeleea character and the straits to which ita defenders have heen pat.
From the doods of this obscorantiBm the sun of Thrioe-greatest Hermes and the radiance of his Gnosis have once more shone forth in the skies of humanistic enquiry and unprejodiced research. He is no longer to be called bastard, and plagiarist, and thief of other people's property, bot most be regarded as a genuine teacher of men, handing on his own, and giving freely of his substance to all who will receive the gift
Ill
THOTH THE MASTER OF WISDOM
Thoth (Tbhuti)
The present chapter will be devoted to a brief considera- tion of the nature, powers, and attributes of the divine personification Thoth (Te^uti), the Master of Wisdom and Truth, on the ground of pure Egyptian tradition. As I have unfortunately no sufficient knowledge of Egyptian, I am not in a position to control by the texts the information which will be set before the reader; it will, however, be derived from the works of specialists, and mainly from the most recent study on the subject, the two sumptuous volumes of Dr R A. Wallis Budge, the keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities in the British Museum.
First of all, however, let us see what the German scholar Pietschmann has had to say on Thoth in his monograph specially devoted to Thrice-greatest Hermes according to Egyptian, Greek, and Oriental traditions.^
The first part of Pietschmann's treatise, in which he seems to be content, as far as his own taste and feeling are concerned, to trace the original of the grandiose concept of the Thrice-greatest to the naive conception of an "ibis-headed moon-god," is devoted to the con- sideration of what he calls the god Te;(-Tehuti among
> HmineiTrumegittoifnaehdgypiikhefifgruehM &berlu/erung9n (Leipzig^ 1876). 47
48 THRICE-ORSATEST HERMES
the Egyptiana Why Pietschmann should hare choeen this double form of the name for his sub-title is not Tery clear. The variants appear to be Te^ii, Tebu, Te^iiut, and Tebuti — of which it would seem that the Greek form Thoth is an attempt to transliterate Te^ut There are, however, it may be remarked, no less than eighteen variants of the name found in Greek and Latin. I should thus myself be inclined to use the form Tehut if it were permissible ; but of this I am not quite sure, as the weak-sounding though undoubtedly more common form Tehuti, is usually employed by scholars. As, however, Te]^uti, to my ears at any rate, is not a very dignified sounding cognomen, I shall use the Greek form Thoth aa being the more familiar to English readers.
Thoth acoobdiko to Phtschxamk
Horapollo tells us that the ibis was the symbol of Thoth as the ''master of the heart and reason in all men,"^ though why this was so must remain hidden in the mystery of the " sacred animals," which has not yet to my knowledge been in any way explained.
And as Thoth, the Logos, was in the hearts of all, so was he the heart of the world whose life directed and permeated all things.'
Thus the temple, as the dwelling of the God, was regarded as a model of the world, and its building as a copy of the world-building. And just as Thoth had ordained measure, number, and order in the universe, so was he the master-architect of temple-building and of all the mystic monuments. Thus, as the or- dering world-mind, a text addresses Thoth as follows :
1 wda-iis Kap9ias xoi koyicfiov Ucirdr^t, p. 40, ed. Leemani. * Der Oottf ^der in pcmihndueher Anaehauungtwiie die ffomu Well beUhrend durchdrang^** writes Pietschmann, p. 14.
THOTH THB MASTER OF WISDOM 49
'' Thou art the great, the only God, the Soul of the Becoming."^
To aid him in the world Thoth has a spouse, or syzygy, Nehe-maut. She is, among the Gnostics, the Soi^ua-aspect of the Logo& She is presumably the Nature of our Trism^istic treatises. Together Thoth and Nehe-maut are the initiators of all order, rule, and law in the universe.
Thus Thoth is especially the representative of the Spirit, the Inner Beason of all things; he is the I^tector of all earthly laws, and every regulation of human society.' Says a text :
*« His law is firmly established, like that of Thoth." '
As representative of the Eeason immanent in the world, Thoth is the mediator through whom the world is brought into manifestation. He is the Tongue of B&, the Herald of the Will of Ba,^ and the Lord of Sacred Speech.^
"What emanates from the opening of his mouth, that Cometh to pass ; he speaks, and it is his command ; he is the Source of Speech, the Vehicle of Knowledge, the Bevealer of the Hidden." ^
^ Fle3rte, ZeUtchrift fur dgyptuehe Sprouhe wnd AUerthimtkimde^ 1S67, 10. The text is taken from a papyrus in the Leyden Moseiim.
* See Pietschmann, p. 16.
* From an oetrakon in the Louvre, De Horrack, Zeittchrift fwr a 8, u. A.f 1868, 8. And again at Denderah, the King is said to ^^estaUish the laws like Thoth the twice-great one." See Diimichen, ibid., 1867, 74.
* Lepeiufl, Enter QmwhreU, Taf. 1, 8. Text S. 181.
* Bro^Bch, WMmhu£k^ 803, and many other references.
* For a long list of references, see Pietschmann in loco. I have io hat dted eome of these references to show that the statements of Pietschmann are based upon very ample authority. In what follows^ however, these references may be omitted as they are not owing to my own industry, and the scholar can obtain them from Pietschmann's book for himself.
VOUL 4
50 THRICE-OREATBST HEBMJSS
Thoth is thus the Ood of writing and all the arts and sciences. On a monument of Seti L he is called *" Scribe of the nine Grods." He writes " the truth of the nine Gods," and is called " Scribe of the King of Gods and men."
Hence he is naturally inventor of the hieroglyphics, and patron and protector of all temple-archives and libraries, and of all scribes. At the entrance of one of the halls of the Memnonium at Thebes, the famous " Library of Osymandias," called " The great House of Life," we find Thoth as " Lord in the Hall of Books." ^
In the Ebers papyrus we read : " His guide is Thoth, who bestows on him the gifts of his speech, who makes the books, and illumines those who are learned therein, and the physicians who follow him, that they may work cures."
We shall see that one of the classes of priests was devoted to the healing of the body, just as another was devoted to the healing of the soul.
These books are also called *' The Oreat Gnoses of Thoth."' Thoth was thus God of medicine, but not so much by drugs as by means of mesmeric methods and certain ''magic formulsi" Thus he is addressed as " Thoth, Lord of Heaven, who givest all life, all healtL" *
Thb Three Grades or the Egyptian Mysteries
Moreover, Thoth was also Lord of Rebirth:* "Thou hast given life in the Land of the Living ; Thou hast
> Op, eU,, p. 16.
* Compare this title, dU gnmtn Brk$idnuH iet Tehuii, with the Coptic Codex BnicianuB— Foin U Uvre da gnout de rinvii- tbU divin," Amdlineaii, Notice $ur U Papyrut gnodique Bruce, p. 83 (PariB, 1891). See alao Carl Schmidt, Onodieche Sehrtflm in koptiich^r SpracKe au$ dem Oodex Bwdanui (Leipzig, 1892).
» Op. cU., p. 20.
* Herr dir Meiempifdum (Lord of Palingenesis), saji Pietschmann, p. 23.
THOTH THB MASTER OF WISDOM 51
made them live in the Begion of Flames; Thou hast given respect of thy counsels in the breasts and in the hearts of men — ^mortals, intelligences, creatures of light"
The Land of the Living was the Invisible World, a glorious Land of Light and Life for the seers of ancient Egypt Mortals, Intelligences, Creatures of light, were, says Pietschmann, the '' three grades of the Egyptian mysteries." ^ These grades were, one may assume from our treatises: (1) Mortals — ^probationary pupils who were instructed in the doctrine, but who bad not yet realised the inner vision ; (2) Intelligences — ^those who had done so and had become ** men," that is to say who had received the " Mind " ; (3) Beings (or Sons) of light— those who had become one with the Light, that is to say those who had reached the nirvdnie consciousness.
So much for what Pietschmann can be made to tell U8 of Thoth as Wisdom-GK)d among the Egyptians.
Thoth acoobdino to Bkitzinstkin
To the information in Pietschmann may be added that which is given by Beitzenstein in the second of hia two important studies, ^wei rdigiansgeschidUliche Fragen naeh ungedruckten Texten der Strasdmrger Bibliotluk (Strassburg, 1901). This second study deals with *" Creation-myths and the Logos-doctrine," the special Creation-myths treated of being found in a hitherto unpublished Greek text, which hands on purely Egyptian ideas in Greek diess and with Greek god- names, and which is of great interest and importance for the general subject of which our present studies form part.
^ Oip. «ii, p. S4 n.
52 THBICI-OaSATBST HXRMB8
The writer of this ooemogonical fragment was a priest or prophet of Hermes, and Hermes plays the most important part in the creation-story. Beitzenstein then proceeds to show that in the oldest Egyptian cosmogony the cosmos is brought into being tiirough the Divine Word, which Thoth, who seems to hare origi- nally been equated with the Sun-god, speaks fortL This gives him the opportunity of setting down the attributes ascribed to Thoth in Egypt in pre-Oreek times.^ As, however, the same ground is covered more fully by Budge, we will now turn to his Ghds of tlu Egyptians, or Studies in Egyptian MytJiology (London, 1904), vol. i. pp. 400 ff., and lay under contribution the chapter entitled "Thoth (Tebuti) and Maat, and the other Goddesses who were associated with him," as the most recent work on the subject by a specialist in Egyptological studies, whose opinions, it is true, may doubtless on many points be called into question by other specialists, but whose daia must be accepted l^ the layman as based on prolonged first-hand study of the original texts. In using the material supplied by Dr Budge, however, I shall venture on setting it forth as it appears to me — that is to say, with the ideas awakened in my own mind by the study of his facts.
Thoth accordino to Budos
In the Hymns to Ka in the Ritual or Book of ths Dead, and in works of a similar nature, we find that Thoth and Maat stand one on either side of the Great God in his Boat, and that their existence was believed to be coeval with his own. Ma&t is thus seen to be the feminine counterpart, syzygy or shakti, of Thoth, and her name is associated with the idea of Truth and 1 Op.eU^jfp.nfL
THOTH THE MASTER OF WIS]X)M 5S
Righteousness — that which is right> true, real, genuine, upright, righteous, just, steadfast, unalterable.
His DKinc Tttlss
From the inscriptions of the later dynastic period, moreover, we learn that Thoth was called "Lord of Ehemennu (Hermopolis), Self-created, to whom none hath given birth, God Ona" He is the great Measurer, the Logos, " He who reckons in Heaven, the Counter of the Stars, the Enumerator of the Earth and of what 18 therein, and the Measurer of the Earth."
He is the " Heart of Ra which cometh forth in the form of the God Thoth«"
As Lord of Hermopolis, where was his chief shrine, and of his temples in other cities, he was called ** Lord of Divine Words," "Lord of Ma§t," "Judge of the two Combatant Grods " — that is, of Horus and Set. Among other titles we find him called "Twice-great," and " Thrice-great" " From this last," says Budge, " were derived the epithets ' Trism^istus ' and ' Termaximus ' of the classical writers." We, however, doubt if this is so, and prefer the explanation of Griffith, as we shall see later on.
In addition to these deific titles, which identify him with the Logos in the highest meaning of the term, he was ako regarded as the Inventor and God of all arts and sciences ; he was " Lord of Books," " Scribe of the Gods," and " Mighty in speech " — that is to say, " his words took effect," says Budge ; his was the power of the "Spoken Word," the Word whose language is action and realisation. He was said to be the author of many of the so-called " funeral works " by means of which the "deceased" gained everlasting Hfe. These books were, however, rather in their origin sermons of
54 THRICS-GREATEST HKRME8
initiation for living men, setting forth the ''death unto sin and the new birth onto righteousness." Thus in the Book of ths Dead he plays a part to which are assigned powers greater than those of Osiris or even of Ba himself.
His Stmbols and Name
He is uBuallj depicted in human form with the head of an ibis, or sometimes as an ibis ; but why he is ao ^mbolised remains a mystery even unto this day. It is also of little purpose to set down the emblems he carries, or the various crowns he wears, without some notion of what these hidden symbols of a lost wisdom may purport The meanings of these sacred signs were clear enough, we may believe, to those who were initiated into the '' Language of the Word " ; to them they revealed the mystery, while for the profane they veiled and still veil their true significance.
Tebuti, the Egyptian name of Thoth, it has been suggested, is to be derived from tehu, the supposed oldest name of the ibis in Egypt; the termination ^t thus signifying that he who was thus called possessed the powers and quaUties of the ibis.
But if this is the true derivation, seeing that Tebuti in his highest aspect is a synonym for the Logos of our system at the very least, I would suggest that we should rather exalt the " ibis " to the heavens than drag down the sublime concept of that Logos to considera- tions connected with a degenerate fowl of earth, and believe that the Egjrptians chose it in wisdom rather than folly, as being some far-off reflection of a certain Great Bird of the Cosmic Depths, a member of that circle of Sacred Animals of which the now conventional Signs of the Zodiac are but faint sky-glyphs.
But the derivation of the name Tebuti which seems
THOTH THE MASTER OF WISDOM 55
to have been favoured bj the Egyptians themselves was from tekh, which usually means a '' weight/' but is also found as the name of Thoth himself. Now the determina- tive for the word tekh is the sign for the "heart"; moreover, HorapoUo (L 36) tells us that when the Egyptians wish to write *' heart" they draw an ibis, adding, " for this bird was dedicated to Hermes (Thoth) as Lord of all Knowledge and Understanding." Is it possible, however, that in this HorapoUo was either mistaken or has said less than he knew ; and that the Egyptians once wrote simply "heart" for Thoth, who presided over the ** weighing of the heart," but subse- quently, in their love of mystery, and owing to the name-play, substituted the bird tekh or tektm, which we know closely resembled the ibis, for the more sacred symbol ?
The now commonest name for Thoth, however, is Egy. hob, Copt, hibdi, Gk. Uns ; and it is the white ibis (AbH ffannea) which is the Ibis religiasa, so say Liddell and Scott Another of the commonest symbolic forms of Thoth is the dog-headed ape. Thus among birds he is glyphed as the ibis, among animals as the cynocepbalus. The main apparent reason for this, as we shall see later on, is because the ibis was regarded as the wisest of birds, and the ape of animak.^
In the Judgment Scene of the Book of the Dead the dog-headed ape (Aan) is seated on the top of the beam of the Balance in which the heart of the deceased is weighed; his duty apparently is to watch the pointer and tell his master Thoth when the beam is level Brugsch has suggested that this ape is a form of Thoth
^ And Uus is the caae with the latter even to-day, where in the SOdftn the natiTes ** believe that its intelligence is of the highest order, and that its eomiing is iar superior to that of man«" (Qp. eU^ I 81.)
56 TRBICB-GRKATBST HSRMES
as Gtod of ** equilibrium/' and that it elsewhere sym- bolises the equinoxes; but this does not explain the ape. Thoth is indeed, as we have seen, the Balancer — ''Judge of the two Combatant Oods,**^ Horus and Set; he it is who stands at the meeting of the Two Ways, at the junction of Order and Chaos; but this by no means explains the puzzling cynocephalua It was in one sense presumably connected with a certain state of consciousness, a reflection of the true Mind, just as were the lion and the eagle (or hawk) ; it *' mimicked " that Mind better than the rest of the ** animals."
HorapoUo (L 16), basing himself on some Hellenistic sources, tells us that the Egyptians symboUsed the equinoxes by a sitting cynocephalus. One of the reasons which be gives for this is delightfully '^ Physiologic ** ; he tells us that at the equinoxes once every two hours, or twelve times a day, the cynocephalus micturates.* From this as from so many of such tales we leam what the " sacred animal ** did in heaven, rather than what the physical ape performed on earth. (Of. R 265, n. 3.)
Thjb Shrink of Thoth
" The principal seat of the Thoth-cult was Khemennu, or Hermopolis, a city famous in Egyptian mythology as the place containing the ''high ground on which Ba rested when he rose for the first time."
Dare I here speculate that in this we have the mountain of our ''Secret Sermon on the Mountain«"
1 ThiB IB one of the most interesting of his titles : ''Judge of the Behehui, the Pftdfier of the Gods, who dwelleth in Unnu " (Hermopolis). (Op, cU^ L 406,)
* This must have been the mystery folk-tale cirenkted by the priests, for Marius Victorinus repeats it (Halm, Ehd. Lot, Min.^ p. S23), and it is preserved in the Phytiologai (zlv. p. 876 — Lauchert).
THOTR TBB MA8TBR OF WISDOM 57
and that it was in the Thoth mystery-tradition of Hermopolis that the candidates for initiation were tanght to ascend the mountain of their own inner natures, on the top of which the Spiritual Sun would rise and rest upon their heads " for the first time/' as Ins says in our ** Virgin of the World " treatise ?
Thoth and His C!ompant of Eight
At Khemennu ^ Thoth was regarded as the head of a Company of Eight— four pairs of divinities or divine powers, each a syzygy of male and female powers, positive and negative, active and passive, the oldest example of the Gnostic Ogdoad.
This was long ago the view of Brugsch, and it is now strongly supported by Budge, on the evidence of the texts, as against the opinion of Maspero, who would make the Hermopolitan a copy of the Heliopolitan Paut, or Company, which included Osiris and Isis. Budge, however, squarely declares that ''the four pairs of gods of Hermopolis belong to a far older conception of the theogony than that of the company of gods of Heliopolis."
If this judgment is well founded, we have here a most interesting parallel in the Osirian type of our Trismegistic literature, in which Osiris and Isis look to Hermes (Thoth) as their teacher, as being far older and wiser than themselves.
The great struggle between Light and Darkness, of the Grod of light and the God of Darkness, goes back to the earliest Egyptian tradition, and the fights of B& and Apep, Heru-Behutet and Set, and Horus, son of Isis, and Set, are ''in reality only different versions of one and the same story, though belonging
1 Wbieh meiiis''Oity of the Sig^t [Godi].'' {Op. eU^ 1 113.)
58 THBICE-ORBATEST HERMBS
to different periods." The Horns and Set version is apparently the most recent The names of the Light Gkxl and Dark God thus change, but what does not change is the name of the Arbiter, the Mediator, " whose duty it was to prevent either Grod from gaining a decisive victory, and from destroying one another." This Balancer was Thoth, who had to keep the opposites in equilibrium.
Thx Hoijsi OF THB Nit
The name of the Temple of Thoth at Slhemennu, or the City of Eight, was Het Abtit, or '' House of the Net" — a very curious expression. From Ch. diii of the Bitual, however, we learn that there was a mysterious Net which, as Budge says, " was supposed to exist in the Under World and that the deceased regarded it mth horror and detestation. Every part of it — ^its poles, and ropes, and weights, and small cords, and hooks— had names which he was obliged to learn if he vrished to escape from it, and make use of it to catch food for himself » instead of being caught by 'those who laid snares.'"
Interpreting this from the mystical standpoint of the doctrine of Sebirth, or the rising from the dead — that is to say, of the spiritual resurrection of those who had died to the darkness of their lower natures and had become alive to the light of the spiritual life, and this too while alive in the body and not after the death of this physical frame — I would venture to suggest that this Net was the symbol of a certain condition of the inner nature which shut in the man into the limitations of the conventional life of the world, and shut him off from the memory of his true sell The poles, ropes, weights^ small cords, and hooks
THOTH TEE MASTER OF WISDOM 59
were eymbols of the anatomy and physiology, so to say, of the invisible **body" or "carapace" or "egg" or " envelope " of the sooL The normal man was emeshed in this engine of Fate; the man who received the Mind inverted this Net, so to speak, transmuted and transformed it, so that he could catch food for himseli '^Clome ye after me and I will make you fishers of men." The food mth which the " Christ " nourishes his •' body " is supplied by men.
Thus in a prayer in this chapter of the Bitual we read: "Hail, thou 'God who lookest behind thee,'^ thou 'Grod who hast gained the mastery over thine heart,'* I go a-fishing with the cordage [? net] of the * XJniter of the earth,' and of him that maketh a way through the earth.* Hail ye Fishers who have given birth to your own fathers,^ who lay snares with your nets, and who go round about in the chambers of the waters, take ye not me in the net wherewith ye ensnare the helpless fiends, and rope me not in with the rope wherewith ye roped in the abominable fiends of earth, which had a frame which reached unto heaven, and weighted parts that rested upon earth." ^
1 Ftohape suggestiiig two-faced or Janus-like — before and be- hind, without and within. With this, however, may be compared the symbolic headdress or mask worn by the virgin Eor6 (Proeerpina) in the Eleusinian Mysteries; she had, Athena- goras (zx. 2&S) tells us, " two ordinary eyes, and two in her fore- head, with her face at the back of her neck.'*
* Suggesting Thoth.
* Suggesting the power of him who can either wrap the Net round the man or open it in a new direction, so that the man can "pass right through his body," as Hermes says to Tat in one of our Sermons.
« Suggesting " Christs " who have given birth to their Father, the Mind, in their hearts.
* The fiends of a once mighty frame suggest beings of a dai- monic nature. Perhaps there is a formal distinction intended
60 THiaCB-ORSATSST HSRICES
And in another chapter (cxxxiiL) the little man says to the Great Man witlidn him : " lift thyself up, O thoa B&, who dwellest in this divine shrine ; draw thou imto thyself the winds, inhale the North wind, and swallow thou the beqem of thy net on the day wherein thoo breathest Maaf
" On the day wherein thou breathest Maat " suggests the inbreathing or inspiration of Truth and Bighteous- ness, the Holy Ghost, or Holy Breath or Life, the Spouse of the Ordering Mind or Lc^s. The winds are presumably the four great cosmic currents of the Divine Breath, the North wind being the "down- breath " of the Great Sphere.
The term beqesu has not yet been deciphered (can it mean knots ?) ; but the swallowing of the Net seems to suggest the transformation of it, inwardly digesting of it, in such a fashion that the lower is set free and becomes one with the higher.
And that this idea of a net is very ancient, especially in its macrocosmic significance, is evidenced by the parallel of the Assyrian and Babylonian versions of the great fight between the Sun-god Mar- duk and the Chaotic Mother Tiamat and her titanic and daimonic powers of disordered motion and in- stability— both Egyptian and Babylonian traditions probably being derived from some primitive common source.
''He (Marduk) set lightning in front of him, with burning fire he filled his body. He made a net to en- close the inward parts of Tiamat, the Four Winds he set so that nothing of her might escape ; the South wind and the North wind, and the East wind and the West
by the epithet "helpless" and "abominable," comsponding with the rational and irrational aspects of the soul as set forth in oar sermons.
THOTH THE BCASTBR OF WISDOM 61
wind, be brought near to tbe net wbiob bia fatber Anu had given bim."^
Now in tbe Hymns of tbe popular Hermes-cult found in tbe Greek Magic Papyri, one of tbe most iavourite forms of address to Hermes is "O tbou of tbe four winds." Moreover, we may compare witb tbe rope witb wbicb tbe Fisbers ''rope tbe abominable fiends of eartb,** tbe passage of Atbenagoras to wbicb we bave already referred, and in wbicb be tells us concerning tbe Mysteries tbat tbe mytbos ran tbat Zeus, after dismembering bis fatber, and taking tbe kingdom, pur- sued bis motber Bbea wbo refused bis nuptials. " But sbe baving assumed a serpent form, be also assimxed tbe same form, and baving bound ber witb wbat is called tbe ' Noose of Hercules' (rw KdKovfjLev^'KfiOKKeiaruc^ ififioTi), was joined witb ber. And tbe symbol of tbis transformation is the Bod of Hermea"
Here again it is tbe symbolic Caducous tbat repre- sents tbe equilibriimx between tbe opposed forces; it is tbe power of Tbotb tbat binds and loosens ; be holds the keys of heaven and bell, of life and death. It is further quite evident tbat Atbenagoras is referring to a Hellenistic form of tbe Mysteries, in which tbe influence of Egypt is dominant The ^ Noose of Her- cules " is thus presumably tbe ** Noose of Ptah." Now Ptab is the creator and generator, and bis " Noose " or ''Tie" is probably tbe Ankb-tie or symbol of life, the familiar crux anscUa, of which the older form is a twisted rope, probably representing the binding together of male and female life in generation. Ptab is also tbe Grod of Fire, and we should not forget that it is Hepbaistos in Greek myth who catches Aphrodite and Ares in a Net which be has cunningly contrived — at which tbe gods laughed in High Olympus.
1 King (L. W.X Babylonian Beligion, p. 71.
62 THBICB-ORKATBST HERMES
In the list of titles of the numerouB works belonging to the cycle of Orphic literature, one is called The Veil (IlrTXoy) and another Th$ Net {£uictvw)}
In the Panathensea the famous Peplum, Veil, Web, or Bobe of Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, was borne aloft like the sail of a galley ; but this was the symbol only of the Mysteries. Mystically it signified the Veil of the Universe, studded with stars, the many- coloured Veil of Nature,* the famous Veil or Bobe of Isis, that no " mortal " or " dead man " has raised, for that Veil was the spiritual nature of the man himself, and to raise it he had to transcend the Umits of individuality, break the bonds of death, and so become consciously immortaL
Eschenbach * is thus quite correct when, in another of its aspects, he refers this Veil to the famous Net of Vulcan. Moreover Aristotle, quoting the Orphic writ- ings, speaks of the " living creature bom in the webs of the Net" ;^ while Photius tells us that the book ol Dionysius JSgeensis, entitled Netting, or Cojieeming Nets (Aiicn/ouca), treated of the generation of mortals.* And Plato himself likens the intertwining of the nerves, veins, and arteries to the " network of a basket ** or a bird-cage.*
All of which, I think, shows that Thoth's Temple of the Net must have had some more profound significance in its name than that it was a building in which "the emblem of a net, or perhaps a net itself, was venerated," as Budge lamely surmises.
> See my OrpKeui (London, 1896), pp. 39 and 44 ill
s Cf. Pbilo, De SonL, I (v. 92— Pfeiff)— t» v^funUiXw «^«#^
9 EBchenbach (A Q.\ Epigerm di Poiti Orphiea (NtLmbexg, 1702), p. 61. « De Om. Amm^ IL I 6180. • BiU^ dxxxv. • IVbs 107«».
THOTH THE MASTER OF WISDOM 63
Thoth the Logos
But to resume. We have seen that Thoth was con- sidered to be the "heart" and "tongue" of lUL the Supreme— that is, not only the reason and mental powers of the god lUL, and the means whereby they were translated into speech, but rather the Controller of the life and Instrument of the utterance of the Supreme Will ; He was the Logoe in the fullest sense of that mysterious name, the Creative Word. He it is who utters the " words" whereby the Will of the Supreme is carried into effect, and his utterance ia that of Necessity and Law ; his " words " are not the words of feeble human speech, but the compelling orders of the Creative Will.
" He spoke the words which resulted in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and he taught Isis the words which enabled her to revivify the dead body of Osiris, in suchwise that Osiris could beget a child by her ; and he gave her the formuke which brought back her son Horus to life after he had been stung to death by a scorpion,"
All of which, I believe, refers microcosmically to the mystery of the resurrection from the dead, by the power of the Logos. *' Osiris " must die before he can be raised; and beget a son, who is himself, by im- maculate conception within his own spiritual nature. ** Horus " must be poisoned to death by the scorpion of " Typhon " before he can be raised by the baptism of the pure waters of Life.
The Wobds of Thoth
Thoth's "knowledge and powers of calculation measured out the heavens and planned the earth, and
64 THBICB-ORBATBST HBRMES
everTthing which is in them ; his will and power kept the forces in heaven and earth in equilibrium ; it was his skill in celestial mathematics which made proper use of the laws {moat) upon which the foundation and main- tenance of the universe rested ; it was he who directed the motions of the heavenly bodies and their times and seasons ; and without his words the gods, whose exist- ence depended upon them, could not have kept their place among the followers of Ba" — but would presum- ably have disappeared into another universe.
Thoth is the Judge of the dead, the Secorder and Balancer of all " words," the Becording Angel ; for the testing of the soul in the Balance of the Hall of Osiris is called the " weighing of words " and not of " actions." But these " words" were not the words a man uttered, nor even the " reasons ** he thought he had for his deeds, but the innermost intentions of his soul, the ways of the will of his being.
This doctrine of ''words" as expressions of will, however, had, in addition to its moral significance, a magical application. ''The whole efficacy of prayer appears to have depended upon the manner and tone of voice in which the words were spoken."
It was Thoth who taught these words-of-power and how to utter them; he was the Master of what the Hindus would call mantra-vidya, or the science of in- vocation or sacred chanting. These maTUrak were held in ancient Egypt, as they were and are to-day in India, and elsewhere among knowers of such matters, of special efficacy in afiTecting the "bodies" and con- ditions of that fluid nature which exists midway between the comparative solidity of normal physical nature and the fixed nature of the mind.
These " words " were connected with vital " breath " and the knowing use of it ; that is to say, they were
THOIfi THB MASTSB OF WISDOM 65
only really eflScadous when the spoken words of I^yBical sound corresponded naturaUy in their Towels and consonants, or their fluid and fixed elements, with the permutations and combinations of the inner elements of Nature; they then and only then were mad or true or authentic or real — that is to say, they were " words-of -power " in that they compelled matter to shape itself according to true cosmic notions.
Thus in a book called The Book of Breathings, it is said: ''Thoth, the most mighty God, the Lord of Ehemennu, cometh to thee, and he writeth for thee TJu Book of Breathings with his own fingers.^ Thus thy soul shall breathe for ever and ever, and thy form shall be endowed with life upon earth, and thou shalt be made a God, along with the souls of the Gods, and they shall be the heart of B& [for thee], and thy members shall be the members of the Great God."
THOTH and TBI OsntifiXD
In the Bitual we learn of the services which Thoth performs for ''Osuris," that is for the Osirified, for he repeats them for every man who has been acquitted in the Judgment Of tluree striking passages quoted by Budge, we will give the following as the most compre- hensible, and therefore the seemingly most important for u& It is to be found in Ch. clzzxiii and runs as follows, in the words placed in the mouth of the one who is being resurrected into an Osiris.
** I have come unto thee, O son of Nut, Osiris, Prince
of everlastingness ; I am in the following of God Thoth,
and I have rejoiced at everything which he hath done
for thee. He hath brought unto thee sweet air for thy
nose, and life and strength for thy beautiful face, and
1 The qnB^bol of his aetualiiing powsr. VOL. L 5
66 THRICB-GREATBST HERMES
the North wind which cometh forth from Tern for thy noBtrils. ... He hath made God Shu to shine upon thy body ; he hath illumined thy path with rays of splendour ; he hath destroyed for tiiee [all] the evil defects which belong to thy members by the magical power of the words of his utterance. He hath made the two Horus brethren to be at peace for thee ; ^ he hath destroyed the storm wind and the hurricane ; he hath made the Two Combatants to be gracious unto thee, and the two lands ' to be at peace before thee ; he hath put away the wrath which was in their hearts, and each hath become reconciled unto his brother/'
Thoth thx Mkasurkr
Budge then proceeds to give the attributes of Thoth as connected with time-periods and the instruments of time, the sun and moon. As Aah-Tebuti, he is the Measurer and Begulator of times and seasons, and is clearly not the Moon-god simply — though Budge says that he clearly is — for Thoth as Aah is the " Great Lord, the Lord of Heaven, the King of the Gods " ; he is the ''Maker of Eternity and Creator of Everlastingness." He is, therefore, not only the iEon, but its creator; and that is something vastly different from the Moon- god.
The Tttlb " Thricr-Greatkst "
On p. 401 our authority has already told us that one of the titles of Thoth is " Thrice-great," and that the Greeks derived the honorific title Trism^iistus from this; but on p. 415 he adds: ''The title given to him in some inscriptions, ' three times great, great '
^ Showing that Set is Horua in his fonn of darknen. * Mystically, the upper and lower kingdoms in man.
THOTH THE liASTER OF WISDOM 67
[that is, greatest], from which the Greeks derived their appellation of the god 6 rpia-fiiyiaTog, or 'ter maximus,' has not yet been satisfactorily explained, and at present the exact meaning which the Egyptians assigned to it is unknown."
If this title is found in the texts, it will settle a point of long controversy, for it has been strenuously denied that it ever occurs in the hieroglyphics; unfortunately, however, Dr Budge gives us no references. To the above sentence our distinguished Egyptologist appends a note to the efifect that a number of valuable facts on the subject have been collected by Pietschmann in the book we have already made known to our readers. We have, however, not been able to find any valuable facts in Pietscbmann which are in any way an elucidation of the term Thrice- greatest; but to this point we will return in another chapter.
The Suprbmact of Thoth
The peculiar supremacy ascribed to Thoth by the Egyptians, however, has been amply demonstrated, and, as the great authority to whom we are so deeply indebted, says in his concluding words : '' It is quite clear that Thoth held in their minds a position which was quite different from that of any other god, and that the attributes which they ascribed to him were unlike the greater number of those of any member of their com- panies of gods. The character of Thoth is a lofty and a beautiful conception, and is, perhaps, the highest idea of deity ever fashioned in the Egyptian mind, which, as we have already seen, was somewhat prone to dwell on the material side of divine matters. Thoth, how- ever, as the personification of the Mind of God, and as the all-pervading, and governing, and directing power
68 IHaiGB-GRBATBST HSRM88
of heaven and earth, f onns a feature ci the Egyptian religion which is as sublime as the belief in the resurrection of the dead in a spiritual body, and as the doctrine of everlasting life."
Thoth is then the Logos of God, who in his relation to mankind becomes the Supreme Master of Wisdom,^ the Mind of all masterhood.
We will now turn to one whose views are considered heterodox by conservative and unimaginative critics,* who confine themselves solely to extemab, and to the lowest and most physical meanings of the hiero- glyphics— to one who has, I believe, come nearer to the truth than any of his critics, and whose labours are most highly appreciated by all lovers of Egyptian mystic lore.
The Vhwb of a ScHOLAB-MTsno
The last work of W. Marsham Adams' deserves the closest attention of every theosophical student. Not, however, that we think the author's views with regard to a number of points of detail, and especially with r^ard to the make-up of the Great Pyramid, are to be accepted in any but the most provisional manner, for as yet we in all probability do not know what the full contents of that pyramid are, only a portion of them being known to us according to some seers. The chief merit of the book before us is the intuitional grasp of
» " Thoth the Wise ** of the « Inscription of London " § 4 (R 64), to which we shall refer later on.
s See the reviews on the below-mentioned work in The Athtnaum of 3l8t December 1898, and The Acadmy of Slat December 1888 and 7 th January 1899.
3 The Book of the Maeter^ or The EgypUan Doctrine of the Light horn of the Virgin Mother (London, 1896) — a sequel to hia study entitled The Route of the Hidden Placee, a Clue to the Oreed of Smrly Egypt from EgypUan Snmm (London, 1896).
THOTH THE MASTKR OF WISDOM 69
its author on the general nature of the mystery-cultuB, as derived from the texts, and especially those of the Bitual or the so-called Book of the Dead^ as Lepsius named it, setting a bad fashion which is not yet out of fashion. The Eg3rptian priests themselves, according to our author, called it The Book of the Master of the Secret Houee^ the Secret House being, according to Adams, the Great Pyramid, otherwise called the '' light"
Thb Sn&rruAL Nature of ths Innib Tradition OF EoTPTiAN Wisdom
In his Ptef ace the author gives us clearly to understand that he regards the Wisdom of Egypt as forming the main background of some of the principal teachings of Early Christianity; and that this view is strongly confirmed by a careful study of the Trismegistic literature and its sources, will be made apparent in the course of our own labours. But before we proceed to quote from the former Fellow of New Collie, Oxford, whose recent death is regretted by all lovers of Egypt's Wisdom, we must enter a protest.
Mr Adams has severely handicapped lus work; indeed, he has destroyed nine-tenths of its value for scholars, by neglecting to append the necessary references to the texts which he cites. Such an omission is suicidal, and, indeed, it would be impossible for us to quote Mr Adams were it not that our Trismegistic literature permits us — we might almost say compels us — to take his view of the spiritual nature of the inner tradition of Eg3rptian Wisdom. Not, however, by any means that our author has traversed the same ground ; he has not even mentioned the name of the Thrice- greatest one, and seems to have been ignorant of our kvatiaes. Mr Adams claims to have arrived at his
70 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
conclusions solely from the Egyptian texts themselves, and to have been confirmed in his ideas by personal inspection of the monuments. In fact, he considers it a waste of time to pay attention to anything written in Greek about Egyptian ideas, and speaks of " the distor- tion and misrepresentation wherein those ideas were involved, when filtered through the highly imaginative but singularly unobservant intellect of Greece." ^ Thus we have a writer attacking the same problem from a totally dififerent standpoint — for we ourselves regard the Greek tradition of the Egyptian Gnosis as a most valuable adjunct to our means of knowledge of the Mind of Egypt — and yet reaching very similar con- clusion&
The Holt Land or Eotft and its Initiates
The Holy Land of those who had gone out from the body, watered by the Celestial Nile, the Kiver of Heaven, of which the earthly river was a symbol and parallel, was divided into three regions, or states: (1) Rusta, the Territory of Initiation ; (2) Aahlu, the Territory of Illumination; and (3) Amenti, the Place of Union with the Unseen Father.*
"In the religion of Egypt, the deepest and most fascinating mystery of antiquity, the visible creation, was conceived as the counterpart of the unseen world.' And the substance consisted not of a mere vague belief in the life beyond the grave, but in tracing out the Path whereby the Just, when the portal of the tomb is lifted up,^ passes through the successive stages of
* Op. ««., pref. V.
' Op. cit,j 13. Compare with this the three grades of Initia- tion given by Pietachmann (p. 24 n.), as cited above, p. 61. 9 The image-doctrine of our treatises. ^ This is an error ; true iniUation consisted in the fact that
THOTH THE MASTER OF WISDOM 71
Initiation, of Illumination, and of Perfection, necessary to fit him for an endless union with light, the Great Creator." 1
Thus we are told that at a certain point in Aahlu, the Territory of Illumination, the Osirified, the purified soul, has achieved the '* Passage of the Sun " — that is to say, has passed beyond the mortal mind-plane ; he opens the Gates of the Celestial Nile and receives the Atf -crown of Illumination, "fashioned after the form of the Zodiacal light, the glory of the supreme heaven." This is presumably the "crown of lives" referred to in our sermons, which he receives in the sphere called "Eight," and with which he goes to the Father.
Hie Guide and Conductor through all these grades was Thoth the Eternal Wisdom ; ' and we are told that:
Thoth thb Initutob
** Thoth the Divine Wisdom, clothes the spirit of the Justified ' a million times in a garment of true linen,^ of
cosmic conBciousnefls was realised in the body, while a man still lived. This consciousness naturally included the after-death oonactonsness as part of its content.
» Op. eU., p. 24.
« Oj). eit., pp. 14, 16.
* That is, he who has the " balanced " nature.
and the wild statements of the puzzled and puzzling Epiphanius, I asked : ** lilay there not have been a mystery-teaching behind the beautiful historicised story of the sisters Mary and Martha, and of Lazarus, their brother, who was ' raised from the dead ' after being 'three days ' in the grave % Was not Lazarus raised as a ' mummy ' swathed in grave-clothes ? " In this connection it is interesting to find Tertullian {De ChronOy viii. ; Oehler, i. 436) referring to the ** linen cloth " with which Jesus girt himself in John ziii. 4, 6, as the '' proper garment of Osiris." The proper garment of Osiris at one stage consisted most probably of the symbolic linen wrappings of the " mummy."
72 THRICB-ORBATBST HBR1IE8
that substance, that is to say, which by its purity and its brilliancy reminds us of the mantles, woven out of rays of light, wherewith the sun enwraps the earth afresh each day as she rotates before him ; just as the soul of man is invested with new radiance each time that he turns to the presence of his Creator." Again* "in the harmonious proportion of .the universe," the Egyptians saw " the Eternal Wisdom, Thoth, ' the Mind andWUlof Qod.'"i
We have seen that Pietschmann considers the or^^inal of Thoth, the Qod of Wisdom, to be nothing more than the ibis-headed moon-god, thus intentionally deriving the origin of the Great Initiator from what he considers to be the crude beginnings of primitive ideas. But Thoth was the Great Beckoner, the Beoorder of the Balance of Justice, the Teller of the Karmic Scales. Now the mortal time-recorder for the Egyptians was the moon, " for if we consider the motion of the moon relatively to the sun, we shall find that the time that it takes in covering a space equal to its own disc is just an hour. . . . Now, that measure of the 'Hour' was peculiarly sacred in Egypt; each of the twenty-four which elapse during a single rotation of the earth being consecrated to its own particular deity, twelve of light and twelve of darkness. ' Explain the God in the hour,' is the demand made of the adept in the Bitual when standing in the Hall of Truth. And that God in the hour, we learn, was Thoth, the ' Lord of the Moon and the Beckoner of the Universe.'"*
Again, with regard to the moon-phases, the first day of the lunar month was called " the conception of the moon," the second its "birth," and so on step by step tin it was full. Now the time of all lower initiations was the full moon. Thus " in the lunar representations > Op. e^., p. 23. « Op. eU^ p. 3a
THOTH THE BCASTER OF WISDOM 73
on the walls of the temple of Denderah we have fourteen steps leading up to the fifteenth or highest, whereon was enthroned Thoth, the Lord of tiie Moon." ^
For some such reasons was Thoth called Lord of the Moon, not that the moon gave birth to the idea of Thoth. We must not seek for the origin of the Wisdom-tradition in its lower symbols. For in the inscription on the coffin of Ankhnes-Ra-Neferab — that is of her " whose life was the Sacred Heart of Sa " — we read : ** Thy name is the Moon, the Heart of Silence, the Lord of the Unseen World"* — of the space "as far as the moon," or the "sublunary region," as the old books say, the first after-death state, where souls are purified from earthly stains.
SOia OF THE DOGTBINIS OF ImTunoN
The end set before the neophyte was illumination, and the whole cult and discipline and doctrines insisted on this one way to Wisdom. The religion of Egypt was essentially the Seligion of the Light.
But ** most characteristic of all was the omnipotent and all-dominating sense of the fatherhood of God, producing the familiar and in some respects even joyous aspect which the Egyptians imparted to the idea of death." And ** to the sense which the priests at least possessed, both of the divine personality and of their own ultimate union with the personal deity [the Logos], far more probably than to any artificial pretension to a supposed exclusiveness, may be ascribed the mystery enshrouding their religion." '
And as Light was the Father of the Religion of Illumination, so was Life, his consort or sjrzygy, the Mother of the Religion of Joy. " Life was the centre,
Op. eU., p. 194. ^Op.eti.,]^ 161. > Op. ed., pp. 18, 20.
74 THRICB-OREATEST HERMES
the circumference, the totality of Good. life was the sceptre in the hand of Amen ; life was the richest ' gift of Osiris.' ' Be not ungrateful to thy Creator/ says the sage Ptah-Hotep, in what is perhaps the oldest document in existence, 'for he has given thee Ufa' 'I am the Fount of Light/ says the Creator in the BituaL ' I pierce the Darkness. I make clear the Path for all ; the Lord of Joy.' " ^ Or again, as the postulant prays to the setting sun: ''O height of Love, thou openest the double gate of the Horizon/' '
Here we have the full doctrine of the Light and Life which is the keynote of our treatises. Again, the doctrine of the endless turning of the spheres, which ** end where they begin," in the words of '*The Shepherd," is shown in the great fourth year festival of Hep-Tep or ** Completion-Banning/' when " the revolution and the rotation of our planet were simultaneously completed and begun afresh." '
Thb Temples of Initiation
That the ancient temples of initiation in Egypt were models of the Sophia Above, or of the ** Heavenly Jerusalem," to use a Jewish Gnostic term, or, in other words, of the Type of the world-building, we may well believa Thus it is with interest that we read the re- marks of Adams on the temple of Denderah (or AnnuX rebuilt several times according to the ancient plans, and an important centre of the mystery-cultus. The temple was dedicated to Hat-Hor, whose ancient title was the Virgin-Mother.
'* In the centre of the temple is the Hall of the Altar, with entrances opening east and west; and beyond it lies the great hall of the temple entitled the Hall of
» Ojp. cit, p. 36. • Op, ctt., p. 163. » Op. cU., p. 37.
THOTH THE MASTER OP WISDOM 75
the Child in his Cradle, from whence access is obtained to the secret and sealed shrine entered once a year by the high priest, on the night of mid-summer." ^
There were also various other halls and chambers each having a distinctive name, " bearing reference, for the most part, to the Mysteries of the Light and of a divine Birth." We have such names as : Hall of the Golden Bays, Chamber of Gold, Chamber of Birth, Dwelling of the Golden One, Chamber of Flames.
Now as the famous planisphere of Denderah — a wall- painting transferred bodily from the temple to Paris, early in the last century — " contains the northern and southern points, we are enabled to correlate the parts of that picture with the various parts of the temple, and thereby to discover a striking correspondence between the different parts of the inscription and the titles of the chambers and halls occupying relative positions."'
Thus we have in the planisphere corresponding to the halls and chambers such names as: Horus, the Entrance of the Golden Heavens, the Golden Heaven of Isis, Horizon of Light, Palace Chamber of Supreme Light, Heavenly Flame of Burning Gold. ''And as the chief hall of the temple was the Hall of the Child in his Cradle, so the chief representation on the plani- sphere is the holy Mother with the divine Child in her arms."
The Mystery of the Bibth of Hobus.
Now the great mystery of Egypt was the second birth, the " Birth of Horus." In " The Virgin of the World," a long fragment of the lost Trismegistic treatise, **The Sacred Book," preserved by Stobaeus, Lns says to Horus: I will not tell of this birth; I 1 Op. ci*., p. 71. • Op. cU., p. 76.
76 THRICE-ORRATBST HSRME8
miut not, mighty HoruB, reveal the origin of thy race, lest men should in the future know the generation of the Gods. Of the nature of this rebirth we are familiar from our treatises. But in spite of such clear indica- tions the mystery of the Grolden Horus has not yet been revealed.
In another passage from the same book Isis declares that the sovereignty or kingship of philosophy is in the hands of Hamebescheni& This transliterated Egyptian name is given by Pietschmann^ as originally either Hot neb en -x/mnu (Horus the Lord of XennuX or as Ear nub en y/mnu (the Grolden Horus of XennuX His hieroglyph was the golden hawk, who flies nearest the sun, and gazes upon it with unwinking eyes, a fit symbol for the new-bom, the ** man " illuminata
Indeed, says Adams, ** throughout the sacred writings of Egypt, there is no doctrine of which more frequent mention is made than that of a divine birth."*
In what circle of ideas to place the Birth of Horus the theosophical student may perhaps glean by reversing tiie stages given in the following interesting passage of our author :
'* In the Teaching of Egypt, around the radiant being, which in its r^enerate life could assimilate itself to the glory of the Godhead, was formed the ' khaibit/ or luminous atmosphere, consisting of a series of ethereal envelopes, at once shading and di£Fusing its flaming lustre, as the earth's atmosphere shades and difiFuses the solar raya And at each successive transformation (Bitual, IxxviL-lxxxviL) it descended nearer to the moral [? normal] conditions of humanity. From the form of the golden hawk, the semblance of the absolute divine substance of the one eternal self-existent being, it passes to the ' Lord of Time,' the image of t^e Creator, 1 C^. eO., p. 44. > Qik oil, p. 89.
THOTH THE MASTER OF WISDOM 77
once with the creation time began. Preaentlj it assomes the /onn of a lily, the vignette in the Bitual representing the head of Osiris enshrined in that flower ; the Grodhead manifested in the flesh coming forth from immaculate purity. 'I am the pure lily/ we read, ' coming forth from the lily of light I am the source of illumination and the channel of the breath of immortal beauty. I bring the messages; Horus accomplishes them.' Later the soul passes into the form of the utobub^ 'the soul of the eartL' . . • And finally it assumes the semblance of a crocodile; becoming subject, that is, to the passions of humanity. For the human passions, being part of the nature wherein man was originally created, are not intrinsically evil but only become evil when insubordinate to tiie
""The Book of the Masteb"
And not only was the Deity worshipped as the Source of light and Life, but also as the Fount of Love. '' I am the Fount of Joy," says the Creator in the Bitual, and when the Atf-crown of illumination is set upon the head of the triumphant candidate after accomplishing the "Passage of the Sun," as referred to above, the hymn proclaims that ** north and south of that crown is Love." ' Lito this Love the catechumen was initiated from the Secret Scroll, whose name is thus given in one of the copies: ''This Book is the Greatest of Mysteries. Do not let the eye of anyone look upon it — that were an abomination. ' The Book of the Master of the Secret House' is its name."'
1 Op. ea., pp. lea, 164. > op. dt., p. 95.
' Op. cU.^ p. 96. The title aeeiiiB to be found only in the Utett recension of the twenty-sixth Saite dynasty— the time of onr King Amnum— but oertidnly no better one can be suggested.
78 THRICB-OREATSST HERM£S
The whole conception of the doctrine ezpoeed in its chapters is instruction in Light and Life.
But are we to suppose that the majority were really instructed in this wisdom ? — ^for we find it customary to wrap up some chapters of this Secret Scroll with almost every mummy. By no means. It seems to me that there are at least three phases in tiie use of this scrip- ture, and in the process of degeneration from knowledge to superstition which can be so clearly traced in the history of Egypt First there was the real instruction, followed by initiation while living; secondly, there was the recitation of the instruction over the uninitiated dead to aid the soul of the departed in the middle passage ; and thirdly, there was the burying a chapter or series of chapters of the Book of tiie Master as a talisman to protect the defunct, when in far later times the true meaning of the words written in the sacred characters had been lost, though they were still " superstitioualy " r^arded as magical "words of power."
The recitation of some of the chapters over the dead body of the uninitiated, however, is not to be set down as a useless " superstition/' but was a very efficacious form of " prayers for the dead." After a man's decease he was in conscious contact with the unseen world, even though he may have been sceptical of its existence, or at any rate unfit to be taught its real nature, prior to his decease. But after the soul was freed from the prison of the body, even the uninitiated was in a con- dition to be instructed on the nature of the path he then perforce must travel But as he could not even then properly pronounce the " words " of the sacred tongue, the initiated priest recited or chanted the passages.
THOTH THE MASTER OF WISDOM 79
Thi Stkps of thi Path
** For the doctrine contained in those mTstic writings ¥ra8 nothing else than an account of the Path pursued hj the Just when, the bonds of the flesh being loosed, be passed through stage after stage of spiritual growth — the Entrance on Light, the Instruction in Wisdom, the Second Birth of the Soul, the Instruction in the Well of life, the Ordeal of Fire, and the Justification in Judgment ; until, illumined in the secret Truth and adorned with the jewels of Immortality, he became indissolubly united with Him whose name, sajs the Egyptian Situal, is Light, Great Creator." ^
It should, however, be remembered that this must not be taken in its absolute sense even for the initiate, much less for the uninitiated. For even in the mystic schools themselves, as we may see from our treatises, there were three modes in which knowledge could be communicated — *' By simple instruction, by distant visiqp, or by personal participation."* For indeed there were many phases of being, many steps of the great ladder, each in ever greater fullness embracing the stages mentioned, each a reflection or copy of a higher phase.
Thus, for example, " the solemn address, described in the Sat^n-Sinsin, of the ' Gods in the House of Osiris,' followed by the response of the ' Gkxls in the House of Glory ' — the joyous song of the holy departed who stand victorious before the judgment-seat, echoed triumph- antly by the inner chorus of their beloved who have gone before them into the fullness of life"' — must be taken as indicative of several stages. Such, for instance, as the normal union of the man's consciousness with that
» Op. eit^ pp. 103, 104. * Op. ca., p. 148. * Op.eU^j^ 120.
80 THBICB-OREATKr HKRIOBB
of his higher ego, after exhausting his spiritual aspira- tions in the intermediate heaven-world — this is the joining the '^ thoee-thatHtre " of in other words, the harvest of those past lives of his that are worthy of immortality; or again the still higher onion of the initiated with the "pure mind"; or again the still sablimer union of the Master with the nirvanic consciousness; and so on perchance to still greater Glories.
Thus we are told that the new twice-born, on his initiation, ''clothed in power and crowned with li^t, traverses the abodes or scenes of his former weakness, there to diBcem, by his own enlightened perception, how it is ' Osiris who satisfies the balance of Him who rules the heavens'; to exert in its supernal freedom his creative will, now the lord, not the slave of the senses; and to rejoice in the just suffering which wrought his Illumination and Mastery."^
But higher and still higher he has yet to soar beyond earth and planets and even beyond the sun, ** across the awful chasms of the unfathomable depths to far-off Sethis, the Land of Eternal Dawn, to the Ante-chamber of the Infinite Morning." '
An Illxtkinativi Study
Many other passages of great beauty and deep interest could we quote from the pages of Marsham Adams' illuminative study, but enough has been said for our purpose. The Wisdom of £g]rpt was the main source of our treatises without a doubt. Even if only one-hundredth part of what our author writes were the truth, our case would be established ; and if Egypt did not teach this Wisdom, then we must perforce bow
1 Qp. eO., p. 185. • Oip. 00., p. 186.
THOTH THE MASTER OF WISDOM 81
down before Mr Adams as the inventor of one of the most grandiose religions of the universe. But the student of inner nature knows that it is not an inven- tion, and though, if he be a scholar at the same time, be cannot but regret that Mr Adams has omitted his references, he must leave the critics to one or other of the horns of the dilemma; they must either declare that our author has invented it all and pay homage to what in that case would be his sublime genius, or admit that the ancient texts themselves have inspired Mr Adams with these ideas. And if tins be a foretaste of what Egypt has preserved for us, what may not the future reveal to continued study and sympathetic interpretation I
VOL. L
IV
THE POPULAR THEURGIC HERMES-CXJLT IN THE GREEK MAGIC PAPYRI
The "Rsliqion of Hsrmis"
That at one period the " Religion of Hermes " was not only widely spread, but practicaUy supreme, in popular Hellenistic circles, may be seen from a study of the texts of the numerous magic papyri which have been preserved, and made accessible to us by the industry of such immensely laborious scholars as Leemans, Dieterich, Wessely, and Kenyon.
The Greek Hermes prayers, as with many others of a similar nature, are manifestly overworkings of more ancient types, and, as we might expect, are of a strongly syncretistic nature. In them we can distinguish in popular forms, based on the ancient traditions of Egyptian magic, most interesting shadows of the philo- sophic and theosophic ideas which our Trism^istic literature has set forth for us in the clear light of dignified simplicity.
But just as we now know that the once so-called "Gnostic," Abraxas and Abraxoid amulets, gems, and rings pertained to the general popular magical religion and had nothing to do with the Gnosis proper, so we may be sure that the circles of high mysticism, who refused to o£fer to God even so pure a sacrifice as
82
THE POPULAB THBUBGIC HKBMK-CULT 83
the burnt ofiferiiig of inoense, and deemed naught worthy of Him, ahort of the ** prayers and praises (rf the mind/' had nothing directly to do with the popular Hermes prayers, least of all with the inroca- tory rites of popular theurgy, and phylactery or amul^ consecration.
Nevertheless, there is much of interest for os in these invocations, and much that can throw side-lights on the higher teaching and practice which transformed all external rites into the discipline of inner qiiritual experience.
The following prayers, which, as far as I know, have not been previously translated, are rendered from the most recently revised texts of Beitzenstein, who has omitted the magic names, and emended the previous editions. I cannot but think, however, that these texts might be submitted to a more searching analysis than has yet been accorded them. They seem to present somewhat similar phenomena to the recensions of the Book of the Dead; that is to say^ fragments of material from the tradition of a greater past have been adapted and overworked for the needs of a lesser age. Indeed, the whole eflEbrt of the Trismegistic schools seems to have been to restore the memory of that greater pest; it had been forgotten, and its dim record had become a superstition instead of a living fait^ a degenerate magic instead of a potent theuigy. Hie theurgy of our prayers is that of dwarfs ; the theurgy of the past was believed to have been that of giants.
84 THRIQB-GKSATB8T HJEBMB8