book deseryee oarefol study, and camiot be hastily set aside with

the impatience of piejudice.
112 THRICE-GRSATEST HERMES
of the revolutions of the cycles of the star Surios (sic) in tenns of the standard astrogeological cubit."
Doubtless our author flogs his theory too severely, as all such writers do ; but nilometry and the rest was certainly one of the most important branches of the priestly science.
The Stela of Hbricss
But before we deal with the last objection urged i^ainst the authenticity of Manetho's Saihis, we will add a few words more concerning these Seriadic monu- ments known in antiquity as the Stel» of Hermes or of Seth, and erroneously spoken of in Latin and English as the " Columns " or " Pillars " of Hermesi
The general reader may perhaps be puzzled at the variety of spelling of the name of the star, but he should recollect that the difficulties of transliteration from one language to another are always great, and especially so when the two languages belong to different families. Thus we find the variants of Tehuti, the Egyptian name of Hermes, transliterated in no less than nineteen various forms in Oreek and two in Latin — such as Thoyth, Thath, Tat, etc.^ Similarly we find the name of the famous Indian lawgiver transliterated into English as Manu, Menu, Menoo, etc
With regard to these ''Mercurii Ck)lumn8B,'* it was the common tradition, as we have already pointed out, that Pythagoras, Plato, and others got their wisdom from these columns, that is to say, monuments.' The
1 See Pietschmann, op, cit,^ pp. 31, 32; also Spiegdbeig, ReeueU de$ Dravaux relates d la Philologie ft d rArdMogU ^yptiennes et assyriennu, xxiii. Id9. R 117, n. 1.
* See the last chapter of the book from which the foUowing passage is quoted. See also lamblichua, D who in a very clear statement of the soorcet of his information.
MAIN SOURCE OF TRISMBQISTIC LITERATURE 113
historian Ammianus Marcellinus,^ the friend of the Emperor Julian, has preserved for us a peculiarity of the construction of some of these pyramids or temples which is of interest. The passage to which we refer runs as follows :
''There are certain underground galleries and passages full of windings, which, it is said, the adepts in the ancient rites (knowing that the flood was coming, and fearing that the memory of the sacred ceremonies would be obliterated) constructed in various places, distributed in the interior [of the buildings], which were mined out with great labour. And levelling the walls,' they engraved on them numerous kinds of birds and animals, and countless varieties [of creatures] of another world, which they called hieroglyphic characters."^
We are thus told of another peculiarity of some of the Seriadic monuments, and of the " Books preserved from the Flood " of which there were so many traditions. These are the records to which Sanchuniathon and Manetho make reference.
The Sons of Seth-Hebmes
The Egjrptian account is straightforward enough ; but when Josephus, following the traditional practice of his race in exploiting the myths of more ancient nations for the purpose of building up Jewish history — for the
and the method of treating the numerous points raised by Porphyry, says : '* And if thou proposest any philosophical problem, we will resolve it for thee according to the ancient mommients of Hermes, on the thorough study of which Plato, and prior to him Pythagoras^ founded their philosophy."
^ Who flourished in the early second half of the fourth century A.D.
' The passages and chambers being hewn out of the solid rock.
' Ammdam MarceUdni Berwn Oettarum Ltbri qui tuperturU, xxii. zv. 30 ; ed. Y. Qardthausen (Leipzig, 1874), p. 301.
VOL.L 8
114 THRIC»-ORSATB8T HSRMn
Mosaic Books supply innumerable examples of Ae working-up of elements which the Jews found in the records of older nations — ^runs away with tiie idea that Seth (the Egyptian Sirius) was the Biblical patriaidi Seth, the Jewish *' antiquarian " enters on a path of romance and not of history. Tis thus he uses the Egyptian Seriadic tradition for his own purposes :
''All of these [the Sons of Seth] being at good disposition, dwelt happily together in the same country free from quarrels, without any misfortune happening to the end of their lives. The [great] subject of their studies was that wisdom which deals with the heavenly bodies and their orderly arrangement. In order that their discoveries should not be lost to mankind and perish before they became known (for Adam had foretold that there would be an alternate disappearance of all things ^ by the force of fire and owing to the strength and mass of water) — they made two monuments,' one of brick and the otiier of stone, and on each of them en- graved their discoveries. In order that if it should happen that the brick one should be done away with by the heavy downpour,' the stone one might survive and let men know what was inscribed upon it,at the same time informing them that a brick one had also been made by them. And it remains even to the present day in the Siriad land." ^
This passage is of great interest not only as affording a very good example of the method of inventing Jewish *' antiquities," but also as permitting us to recover the outlines of the original Egyptian account which Joeephus purloined and adapted. The Sons of Seth were the initiates of the archaic priesthood of the First Hermes.
* iwo/ifipttu, a downpour or flood of rain.
* Joaephiu^ AfiU^ L ii. ; Cory's ^ti. Fiagg,^ ppt 171, 171.
BftAIN SOURCE OF TRISMEOISTIG LrTEaATUEE 115
Adam has been substitated for the First Man, in the sense of our *" Shepherd *' tradition ; and the two kinds of monuments (which Josephus seems to regard as two single structures and not as relating to two classes of buildings) may refer to the brick structures and temples of that age, and to speciaUy constructed and more lasting monuments of stone — perhaps rock-cut temples, or the most ancient pyramida I have also asked myself the question as to whether there may not be some clue concealed in this " brick monument " reference to the puzzling statement in the Babylonian Talmud^ that Jesus set up a '* brick-bat " and worshipped it. Jesus is said in the Talmud Jeschu Stories to have " learned magic in Egjrpt," and the magical wisdom of ancient Egypt is here said to have been recorded on monuments of brick.*
Keitzenstein (p. 183), after pointing to the similarity of tradition as to the Seriadic Land contained in Josephus, and in what he characterises as Pseudo-Manetho,' adds the interesting information that the Seriadic Land is borne witness to by an inscription as being the home and native land of Isis ; indeed, the (Goddess herself is given the name of Neilotis or SeiriM; she is the fertile earth and is Egy^t.^
To continue, then, with the consideration of the arguments urged against the authenticity of Manetho's Sothis, With regard to objection (iv.), we have given very good reasons for concluding that so far from Egypt ''knowing no Seriadic land," Egypt was t?ie Seriadic Land par excellence, and the Boo^ of Hermes
> &iiiA«2rfii,107B; £fota, 47 A.
* See my Did Jwiu Live 100 b.c, ?— pp. 137 fiL and 147 ff. ' A similarity already pointed out by Plew, Jahrh, /. Phil, (ISeSX p. 839. « Drexler in Boecher's Lex. d. Myth., ii. 388, 408, 446.
116 THRIGB-GBRATB8T HERMES
were the direct descendants of the archaic stone monu- ments of that land. And farther, we have shown that our Trismegistic vnitings are a step or two further down in the same line of descent The whole hangs together logically and naturally.
We have thus removed four of the five props which support the hypothesis of forgery with r^ard to the Sathis document Let us now see whether the remain- ing prop will bear the weight of the structure.
Thk Eprrrarr "Thbicb-gbeatest"
(v.) We are told that the term '* Trismegistus " is of late use. This assertion is based entirely on the hypothesis that all our extant Trism^istic writings are Neoplatonic forgeries of the third or at best the second century, before which time the name Thrice-greatest was never heard of. The term Trismegistus must go as far back as the earliest of these writings, at any rate, and where we must place that we shall see at the end of our investigations.
That the peculiar designation Trism^;istus was known in the first century even among the Komans, however, is evident from the famous Latin epigrammatist Martial (v. 24), who in singing the praise of one Hermes, a famous gladiator, brings his psean to a climax with the line :
Hermei omnia 9olu$ it Ur vwub.^
A verse which an anonymous translator in 1695 freely
renders as :
Hermes engToeBes all men's gifts in one, And Trismegistus' name deserves alone.
Such a popular reference shows that the name
Trismegistus was a household word, and argues for
^ Pietschmann misquotes this line, giving ^ ter maximns" for *
MAIN SOURCE OF TRISMEGISTIC LITERATURE 117
many years of use before the days of Martial (a.d. 43-104 ?). But have we no other evidence ?
In the trilingual inscription (hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek) on the famous Bosetta Stone, which sings the praises of Ptolemy Epiphanes (210-181 B.C.X Hermes is called the " Great-and-Great." ^ Letronne renders this deux fats grand ; ' and in his notes ^ says that the term '' Trism^istus " was not known at this date, thus contemptuously waving aside Manetho's Sothis. Had it been known, he says, it would undoubtedly have been used instead of the feebler expression " great-and- great,"* But why undoubtedly? Let us enquire a little further into the matter. The Egyptian re- duplicated form of this attribute of Hermes, da da, the "great-great," is frequently elsewhere found with a prefixed sign which may be transliterated ur.^ So that if the more simple form is translated by "great, great," the intensive form would naturally be rendered "great, great, great," or "three times great." But we have to deal with the form "thrice-greatest," a superlative intensive. We have many examples of adjectives intensified with the particle rp/f in Greek,^
1 itMwtp 'EpM^f 6 iiiyas icol ii^yus, line 19 ; the reading is perfectly dear, and I cannot understand the remark of Chambers (op. eU,y Pre!, vii.) that Hermes is called " /idyas, /ih»s, /i4yas" on the Bosetta Stone.
* ** Inscription grecque de Rosette,** p. 3, appended to Midler, Frag. Hid, Grose. (Paris, 1841).
» Urid., p. 20.
* Recuail de$ Interiptions greeques et latina de Vigypte, L 283 (Pftris, 1842).
^ See Pietschmann, op. iup. eit., p. 35.
* In Qreek not only is the term rpiv/ioKap (thrice-blessed) applied to Hermes in the inscriptions of Pselcis (see Letronne*B RmuoU, L 206 n.), but abo in a Magical Prayer (Wessely, 1893— p. 38, U. 550 fL ; Kenyon, p. 102) he is addressed as rpi^fidyasj or ** thrics-great" simply.
118 THRICE-ORBATBST HERMES
but no early instances of their superlatiyes; therefore, what ? Apparently that the term " Trismegistos" is a late invention.
But may we not legitimately suppose, in the absence of further information, that when the Egyptian had intensified his reduplicated form he had come to an end of his resources — ^it was the highest term of great- ness that he could get out of his language? Not so when he used Greek. He could go a step further in the more plastic Hellenic tongue. Why, then, did he not use "thrice-greatest" instead of ''great-and-great" on the Rosetta Stone ?
Because he was translating da dd and not its intensified form. But why did he not use the intensified form in the demotic inscription? Well, " whys " are endless ; but may we not suppose that, as Ptolemy was being praised for his jtuitoe, which he is said to have exerdsed " as Hermes the great-and-great," the reduplicated form was sufficient for this attri- bute of the idealised priesthood, while the still more honorific title was reserved for Hermes as the per- sonified Wisdom? Or, again, may it not have been politic to refrain from adjectives which would have dimmed the greatness of Ptolemy?
Thk Club of Griffiths
So I wrote in November 1899, when the major part of this chapter was first published in Tfie Theasophicai Review, Shortly afterwards, however, I came across an entirely new clue. In his Stories of the High Prieste of Memphis : the Sethon of Herodotus arid the Demotic Tales of Khamuas (Oxford, 1900), F. LI. Griffiths presents us with the translation of an exceedingly interesting demotic text, found on the verso of two Greek docu-
MAIN SOURCB OP TRISBOEOISTIC UTERATURE 119
ments, the contents of which prove them to be official land-registers of the seventh year of Claudius (a.d. 46-47). There is also *' strong evidence for attributii^ the demotic text to some time within thirty years from that date" (p. 41). So much for the copy of the original ; but what of its contents ? As they belong to the most important cycle of folk-tales of Egypt, it is to be assumed that their foxm and substance is old.
In this papyrus we are told that on an occasion of great need when the Pharaoh of Egypt was being over- come at a distance by the sorceries of the Ethiopian en- chanters, he was saved, and the magic of the Black Ones sent back upon them, by a certain Hor, son of Pa-neshe, most learned in the Books. Before his great trial of strength with the Ethiopian spells, we read of this Hor that:
" He entered the temple of Khmfin ; he made his offerings and his libations before Tboth, the Eight-times- great, the Lord of Ehmdn, the Great God " (p. 58).
To this Griffiths appends the following note :
"'Thoth, eight times great'; the remains of the signs indicate this reading. The title, which here appears for the first time in Egyptian literature, is the equivalent of rpurfAeyitrrog [thrice - greatest], a late epithet first used about the date of this MS.^ 6 is fjjyag [great], which we may represent algebraically by a; 6 6 (2a), a common title of Thoth in late hiero- glyphic, is fieya^ kcu fieya^ [great and great] on the Sosetta Stone, but probably represents fUyiairaf [greatest], and 86 is therefore rpurfityitrTOi [thrice- greatest], ie. (2a)'. The famous epithet of Hermes which has puzzled commentators thus displays its mathematical formation. 66 = 3(2a) would not fill the
* GriffithB here refers to Pietscbmann as his authority for this abatement
120 THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
lacuna on the papyrus, nor would it give the obviously intended reference to the name of Thoth's dty, 'the Eighth/ and the mythological interpretation of that name."
The mythological interpretation of that name, namely Elhmiin (Khemen-nw), which Budge transliterates Khemennu, GriflBths says is "the eighth city," ie. *' the eighth in Upper Egrpt going up the river."*
We are loth to deprive any one of a so fair adaptation to environment in the evolution of purely physical interpretation; but we are afraid that our readers will have already learned for themselves that Khemennu was the City of the Eight, the City of the Ogdoad, and will expect some less mundane explanation of the name ; not that we altogether object to Khemennu being the " Eighth City up the Eiver," if that river is interpret^ as the Celestial Nile on which the soul of the initiated sailed in the solar boat
Reitzenstein then is wrong in supposing (p. 117, n. 6) t^hat Griffiths connects the honorific title Trismegistus with the eight cynocephali who form the patU of Thoth ; but we may do so.
The nature of this symbolic Ogdoad is most clearly seen in the inscription of Ddr^l-Bahari, of the time of the Twenty-second Dynasty which Maspero has lately published.*
In it the Osirified says to the Supreme :
"I am One who becomes Two; I am Two who becomes Four ; I am Four who becomes Eight ; I am the One after that"
So also in the first Hermes Prayer, quoted in a preceding chapter, addressed to Hermes as Agatho-
1 Cf, Proc, 8oc, Bib. Ank. (1899), p. 279.
* BdcueU des Travaux rdai, H la PhiL ei d fArekdol. ^gypi. $t oityr,, xxiiL 196. QT. R. 54.
MAIN SOURCE OF TRISMEGISTIC LITERATURE 121
daimon, Thoth is he " whom the Eight Wardeus guard."
These Eight, we may perhaps be permitted to specu- late, were generated Two from One, ad ad, Greatest ; Four from Two, Twice-greatest; Eight from Four, Thrice-greatest.
Such a combination would specially commend itself to men trained in Pythagorean mathematical symbols, as were doubtless many who took part in compiling the Egyptian Hellenistic theosophical literature.
I, therefore, conclude that the honorific title Thrice- greatest can very well go back to early Ptolemaic times ; and therefore, as far as I can see, the authenticity of Manetho's Sothds stands unimpugned as far as any arguments so far brought against it are concerned. I therefore regard the quotation of Syncellus as a most valuable piece of information in tracing the genesis of the Trismegistic literature. Whether or not any of our extant sermons can be placed among these earlier forms of this literature will be discussed later on.
The Earliest Tbisksoistic Lttsbature
That, however, literature of a similar nature existed in early and middle Ptolemaic times we have already seen from the material adduced at the beginning of this chapter; we may therefore fitly conclude it by pointing out that in later Ptolemaic times, and down to the first century A.D., we find in the same litera- ture specimens of cosmogenesis closely resembling the main elements of the world-formation given in our ''Shepherd "treatise.
An excellent example is that of the fragmentary cosmogonical poem, the text of which Beitzenstein has printed in his J^ei religumsgeseh, Fragen^ to which we
122 THRICE-GRKATIEST HERMES
have already referred. Tbia poem Beitzenstein (p. 92) dates as belonging to the first century ac, though it may probably be earlier ; it declares itself to be of the Hermes tradition, both in its statement about itself and also in the fact that it is Hermes, the Beloved Son of Zeus, who is the Logos-Creator of the cosmos, and also the progenitor or ''father" of the prophet- poet who writes the vision.
Philo Byblius
But not only did the tradition of Egyptian Hermes dominate the Greek forms of cosmogony which emanated from Alexandria and spread through the Hellenic world, but it also imposed itself upon the forms of cosmogony and the history-writing of other nations; the most striking example of this is to be found in the Ph43Bnician ffistaries of Philo Byblius, who lived in the second half of the first century a.d.
The fragments of this work are of great interest to our present enquiry, as they tend to show that both E^ypt and Phoenicia, the two most sacred nations, derived their cosmogonical knowledge and mystery- traditions from the same source; that source being traced to the most archaic Books of Thoth.
This is all, no doubt, an overwriting of Phoenician records in the light of Egyptian tradition; Philo, however, would have us rej^rd his work as a Greek translation or paraphrase of a compilation made by an ancient and learned Phoenician priest, Sanchuniathon, based immediately upon archaic Phoenician records by one who was also learned in the oral tradition of Ms own mysteries.
The initial question as to whether Philo had a genuine Phoenician document before him or not^need
MAIN SOURCE OP TRISMEOISTIC UTBRATURE 123
not occupy us here, save in the most superficial fashion, as we are at present interested in the Egyptian elements of his account solely, and not in disentangling the native Phoenician substratum.
It must, however, in fairness be said that though the Byblian prefaces his account with an introduction and intersperses it with occasional remarks, all this is transparently his own, and is clearly distinguishable from what have every appearance of being translated nassaces.
Abs his "* Ph(emician Histories " a Fobgbbt ?
The general theory, however, since the time of Orelli ^ has been that Philo forged the whole of this cosmogony and history. On the contrary, it was made considerable use of by Porphyry in his criticism of Christianity, and Eusebius^ quotes the passages used by Porphyry.* The whole work of Philo, moreover, is claimed to be recovered by Wagenfeld, who has elaborately defended its genuineness.^ There indeed seems no reason to
' J. C. Orelli, SamcKoniathonU BeryUi qua fervmtur Fragmenia (Leipaog, 1826).
' Pn^panUio EvangeUca^ I. vL, viL
'These are collected by Cory in his Ancient FragmenUy pp. 3 ff. (London, 1832) ; and they may also be found in C. Muller, FntgmmUa Hiiknicorum Qrmooruim^ " Fhilo Byblins," iii. pp. 660 ff. (Paris, 1848).
* F. Wagenfeld, Sanchwniathon^s UrgesckieKU der PhSnitner in eintm Autmge atu der ioieder a^gefundmm HandachHft von Philo*$ voUddndiger (/benetsmng (Hanover, 1836). In the following year Wagenfeld published the Qreek text with a Latin translation under the title SanekoniathoniB Hittonarum Phcsniicia lAbri IX. (Bremae, 1837). For the further consideration of the reliability of Sanchuniathon, see Count (Wolf Wilhelm) Baudissin's Siudim fur Hmitikktn RdigionaguMMey Heft ii, " Uber den religions- geachichtlichen Werth der phonidschen Geechichte Sanchnni- athon's" (Leipng, 1876).
124 THRICE-ORSATEST HERMES
accept the forgery-hypothesis, which apparently rests on an even flimsier basis than the forgery-tiieoiy of the Trismegistic writings. The work, on the contrary, considered as a specimen of Phoenician story strongly influenced by Egyptian tradition, is a most interest- ing document for understanding the ancient Semitic mystery-tradition as distinguished from Jewish adapta- tions of general Semitic legend — in other words, the distinction of SemUismm and Igra&Uisnvvs. Porphyry was not only a Semite himself but also a good criUc, and not likely to base his arguments on a forgery; nor would Philo have ventured to put forward a forgery when there were thousands of learned and fanatical Jews who would have been only too glad to expose it.
Philo tells us that the Phoenician public traditions being chaotic, " Sanchuniathon, a man of great learning and a busy searcher [after knowledge], who especially desired to know the first principles from which all things are derived, most carefully examined the Books of Taaut, for he knew that Taaut was tiie first of all under the sun who discovered the use of letters and the writing of records. So he started from him, making him as it were his foundation — ^from him the Logos whom the Egyptians called Thouth, the Alexandrians Thoth,^ but whom the Greeks have turned into Hermes."^
Sanchunuthon ai«d thi Books of Hirmxs
This evidently means that the source of Sanchuni- athon's information as to the mystic beginning of things was derived from the Books of Thoth, and
^ Perhaps attempts at tranaliteratiiig the dialectic yariants of Upper and Lower Egypt of the name Tehuti.
MAIN SOURCE OF TRISMEGISTIC LITERATURE 125 that this was so may be seen from the following
" He supposes the beginning of all things to consist of a Dark Mist of a spiritual nature, or as it were a Breath of dark mist, and of a turbid Chaos black as Erebus ; ^ that these were boimdless, and for many an age * remained without a bound. * But when,' he * says, ' the Spirit fell in love with his own principles,* and they were interblended, that interweaving was called Love ; ^ and this Love was the origin of the creation of all things. But [Chaos] did not know its own creation.^ From its embrace with Spirit Mdt was born.^ From her [Mot, the Great Mother] it was that every seed of the creation came, the birth of all the cosmic bodies.
" '[First of all] there were [Great] Lives' devoid of sensation, and out of these came subsequently [Great]
1 This is the beginning of the out-breathing of the universe or of any system ; it is the Qreat Breath or Spirit moving on the Waters of Chaos, the primal nebula. Erebus was fabled to be a region of nether darkness separating Earth and Hades (not Hell). It was the Dark Side of Heaven.
* Lit,8eon.
* That is, Sanchuniathon ; so that we may take this passage as a direct quotation, or rather translation.
* Or sources ; that is, the primal states of Matter or Chaos.
^ Pothos, wi0os ; yearning, longing— love for all that lives and breathes. This union was symbolised not only among the Phoenicians but also among most of the other nations by an egg, round which a serpent twines. When the egg and serpent are represented apart they stand for " Chaos " and " Ether,** matter and spirit ; but when united they represent the hermaphrodite or male-female first principle of the universe, spirit-matter, called in Qreek translation Pothos or Eros.
* Cf,^ The Darkness comprehended it not " of the Proem to the Fourth Gospel
^ Here Philo^ the translator, volunteers the information that some call this prime plasm of Chaos, ** Fermentation," in a watery sort of medium.
* The primal elements and their subdivisions.
126 THRICE-ORKATBST HSRMB8
lives possessed of intelligenoa^ The latter were called Zophasemin (that is to say, " Overseers of the Heavens "). The latter were fashioned in the form of eggs, and shone forth as Mot, the Son and Moon, the Stars and the great Planetary Spheres.
'"Now as the [original] nebula began to lighten, through its heat mists and clouds of sea and earth' were produced, and gigantic downpours and torrents of the waters in the firmaments. Even after they were separated,' they were still carried from their proper places by the heat of the sun, and all the [watery and earthy elements] met together again in the nebula one with the other, and dashed together, amid thunder and lightning ; and over the crash of the thunderings the [Great] Rational lives before-mentioned watched,^ while on the land and sea male and female cowered at their echo and were dismayed.'
" After this our author proceeds to say : ' These things we found written in the Cosmogony of Taaut, and in his commentaries, based on his researches and the evidences which his intelligence saw and discovered, and so enlightened us.' " ^
There are many other points of interest in Philo's translation, but we need not elaborate them here. One point, however, must not be omitted, because of its importance with regard to the Hermes-.£sculapius tradition, an important factor in the Trism^^istic writings.
1 The same distinction is made in the ooamogonic acoount in •
' Presumably still mingled together, as in the aoooont in ** The Shepherd."
' That is to say, after the land and water were separated.
* ^7pin^piV0' tion of The Book 0/ ^noeA, in speaking of the Watchen {Sgriffomy
* Op. ctt^ i. ii., pp. a ff.
MAIN SOURCE OF TBISMEGISTIC LITERATURE 127
"And Cronus [Ammon] going to the land of the South gave the whole of Egypt to the Ood Taaut to be his kingdom. All these things were first recorded by the Seven Sons of Sydyk, the Cabiri, and their eighth brother, Asclepius, as it was commanded them by the God Taaut." 1
.£sculapius is here at once identified with the cult of the "Great Gods" (113, KBR, Kabirim), who were, according to the old Semitic tradition, the Sons of King Sydyk (? Melchizedec). The whole subject of the very ancient mysteries of these Great Gods is one of immense interest, but we must not be tempted to follow this alluring bye-path.^ Enough has been said to show that both Sanchuniathon and the writer of "The Shepherd " drew their accounts of cosmogony from the same sources, namely, the " Books of Thoth," or, in other words, the Egyptian mystery-tradition.
1 Op. cU,^ viii. p. 26.
* The best source of information is the art. " Megaloi Theoi," in Roscher's AutfuhfrUcKa LexUeon der griechiithm ti. rifnUiehm MyUiologie, II. iL (Leipsig, 1894-97).
VI
AN EGYPTIAN PROTOTYPE OF THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE P(EMANDRES' COSMOGONY
Thk Higher Criticism of thi "Pckmandres"
Onb has only to read through the remains of the Trismegistic literature preserved to us to assure him- self that the whole of it looked back to the Poemandres instruction as the most primitive form of the tradition in the language of Greece. The extant form of our " Poemandres " sermon is clearly not the most primitive form ; but whatever that form was, it must have con- tained the cosmological part
Now, if we regard this cosmogeneeis as a purely literary compilation, the task of the higher criticism will be to try to sift out the various elements in it, and if possible to trace them to their sources.
But before making any attempt of this nature, it will be as well to consider the nature of the literary art of our document It purports itself to be an apoca- lypse, or rather the record of an apocalyptic vision, and not a purely literary compilation from already existing literary sources It declares itself to be the work of a seer and prophet and not of a scribe or commentator ; it claims to be an inspired docmnent, a scripture, and not the work of a schoolman.
Of this class of writing we have very many examples in other scriptures, and it will be as well to consider
128
A PROTOTYPE OP THE P(EMANDRES' COSMOGONY 1 29
briefly the nature of such documents. In the original form of apocalypses we do not as a rule find that prior formal literary material is used — that is to say, we do not find that previously existing written sources are incorporated ; what we do find is that in almost every case the seer uses the forms and terms of previously existing ideas to express what he sees. These forms and terms are foimd in already existing written and oral traditions, and the prophetical writer is compelled to use the thought-language of his own mind and of that of his age to express himself. This, however, does not negate the possibility of his having seen a true vision, of his having been inspired.
It is evident that whoever wrote the " Poemandres " must have been saturated with the religious, mystical, I^oBophic, and scientific thought of his age, clothed in the forms of the thought-language of his day ; and it is also clear that whatever " newness " there may have been in him, was owing to the nature of the " touch " of inspiration he had received. This striking of a new keynote, as it were, in his inner nature, enabled him to regroup and reconstruct tiie previous ideas he had imbibed from his studies.
A Pboiottps of its Gosmogenssis
Now as far as our cosmogenesis is concerned, it has not yet been found possible to trace the exact verbal forms of its elements to any precise literary sources, but it has been found possible to point to written sources which contain similar ideas ; and not only so, but with regard to the main features of it, a distinct prototype has been found in Egypt itsell This dis- covery is due to Beitzenstein (pp.59 ff.),and the prototype is to be found in an Egyptian inscription in the British
VOL. I. 9
130 THRICE-OREATEST HERMBS
Museum, which was first read correctly and interpreted by Dr J. H, Breasted. ^ Before using it, however, Beit- zenstein got his colleague Professor Spiegelberg to go through it; and again when Maspero, in reviewing* Breasted's work, had further confirmed the view of it which Seitzenstein had in his mind, Spiegelberg again revised certain points in the translation owing to Maspero's suggestions.
The inscription itself is dated about the eighth century B.C., but it states that it is the reproduction of a then old written text from the temple of Ptah at Memphis.
The chief content has to do with the Osiris-myth, but into this is inserted the distinctive Ptah-doctrine. Ptah is supposed by some to have originally been simply the god of handicraft, seeing that he is equated by the Greek interpreters of god-names with Hephaistos. He was, however, rather the Demiurgus, for in very early times he is found in the closest connection with the Gods of Heaven and Gods of light, and is conceived as the Dispenser of all life.
In our text Ptah is brought into the closest relations with the Supreme Deity (Atum). This ''God the Father" emanates from himself eight deities (the Ogdoad). Each one of these is Ptah with a distinctive epithet. To the fourth > of them, "Ptah the Greats" a theological system is attached, which, though not entirely ignoring the former presentation, is but loosely interwoven with it.
Before, however, Beitzenstein proceeds to deal with this, he gives Professor Spiegelberg's translation of a
1 ZeiUchr.f, tig. Sjnraehe (1901), pp. 39 ff.
d la Phil, . . . igypt, xxiv. 168 ff.

A PROTOTYPE OP THE PCBMANDRES' COSMOGONY 131
Prayer to Ptah, of the time of Bamses III. (c 1233 B.C.), from the Papyrus Harris (L 44, 3 ff.), in order to make clearer the circle of ideas into which we shall be introduced. This Prayer is as follows :
A Praibb-giying To Ptah
"Hail to thee! Thou art great, thou art old, Tatenen,^ Father of the gods, God ancient from the beginning ; Who fashioned men, Who made the gods,
Who began with the creation as the first creator, Who created for all who came after him. Who made the heaven ; as his heart ^ he created it ; Who hanged it up. As God Shu raised himself ; ' Who founded the earth of thy own power. Who circled in the primal water of the Great Green,^ Who created the invisible world, which brings the dead bodies to rest ;
' An epithet of Ptah. But compare the Hymn to Ra given by Badge (op. eit., I 339) : ' Ta-thenen, Bc^tter of his Goda.*' Sekhem is vital *' power " ; Tathenen is, therefore, presumably Creative Life, or the Demiurgic or Creative Power. On page 230 Badge tells as that Tathenen Ib elsewhere symbolised as a fire-spitting serpent armed with a knife.
* The Heaven is the Great Heart of the Great Cosmos ; in man the little cosmos, the heart, was the seat of the trae understanding and wilL
' Shu generally represents the dry air between the earth and sky. Cf. the Hymn to Amen-Ba : " Thoa art the One God, who did'st form thyself into two gods ; thou art the creator of the egg, and thou did'st produce thy Twin-gods " (Badge, op. cU,, ii. 89). Shu's twin or syzygj is Tefnut^ who in terrene physics represents the moist air ; but Shu is elsewhere equated with the Light
* The Ocean of Heaven.
\
132 THRICE-ORBATBST HBRME8
Who let lUt come to make them glad,
As Prince of Etemit j,
Lord of Eternity,
Lord of Life ;
Who fills the lungs with air,
Who gives breath to every nostril,
Who vivifies all beings with his gifts.
Length of life,fortane, and fate are subject unto him
They live by that which goeth forth out of his
mouth.^ Who made contentment for all the gods. In his form of ancient primal water ; * Lord of Eternity, to whom Eternity is subject, Breath of Life for all beings."
There are other hymns of an exactly similar nature in which other gods are praised, especially Thoth and Horns. And now to turn to our inscription, and to that part of the text assigned to the fourth of the Forms of Manifestation, or Aspects or Persons, of Ptah.
Ptah-Thoth the Wise One
/. 52. Ptah the Great is the heart and tongue of the god-circle.*
§ 1, /. 53. (Two gods)* are they, the one as heart, the other as tongue, emanations of Atum. Exceeding great is Ptah; if he . . . then are their ka's in this heart and tongue [of his].
/. 54. When Horus arose in him (Atum) as Ptah, and when Thoth arose in him as Ptah, the power of heart
> The life or breath of the Creator.
* Se. the water of the Qreat Green.
* Pa^a^ sphere, or group, or company, or hierarchy, or pletuma, —here an Ogdoad.
« Namely, Thoth and Horns.
A PROTOTYPE OF THE POBMANDRES' COSMOGONY 133
and tongue came into being through him. (It is Atum) who brings forth his being out of every body and out of every mouth of all the gods. All men, all quadru- peds, all creeping things live through his thinking and uttering whatsoever he will
§ 2, /. 55. His god-circle is before him ; he is teeth [and] lips, vessels [and] hands. Atum (is in his) god- circle; Atum is in his vessels, in his hands; the god- circle is also teeth and lips in that mouth which hatb uttered the name of everything, and out of which Shu and Tefnut have proceeded.^
/. 56. Then the god-circle organised the seeing of the eye, the hearing of the ear, the smelling of the nose, wherewith they made the desire of the heart to arise. And this [heart] it is which accomplishes every desire, but it is the tongue which repeats' what the heart desires.
§ 3. He (Ftah) gives existence' unto all gods, to Atum and his god-circle, for every god-word^ comes into existence through the desire of the heart and the command of the tongue.
/. 57. He makes the ia . . . ; he makes all nourish- ment and all ofiferings ^ with this word ; he makes what
^ That is, the heart (Horui) rules action by fingers (and toes), by means of the ducts or Teseels (arteries, veins, and nerves) leading to them, and all that these mean on the hidden side of things ; while the tongue in the mouth (Thoth), by means of teeth and lips, is the oigan of speech, or intelligent or meaning utterance.
* This appears to be a mistranslation ; it seems by what follows to mean "commands" or ''gives expression to.**
* Not being ; that is, brings them into manifestation. He is the Demiurge.
* R glosses this as hieroglyph ; but it should perhaps mean ** word of the language of the gods " — the language shown by action in the world.
* That is to say, apparently, the fruit of actions on which gods sod men feed. Of. Hermes-Prayer, II. 2, where Hermes is said to ** collect the nourishment of gods and men."
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is loved and what is hated. He gives life to the pious, death to the impious. He makes every fabric, and every fabrication.
/• 58. The doing of the arms, the going of the feet, the movement of all limbs, is accomplished by the utterance of the word, because of the desire of the heart, [the word] which comes from the tongue and effects the whole of all things. So arises the teaching: Atum has made the gods to become Ptah Tatenen^ so soon as the gods come into existenca All things proceed from him : sacrifice and food as well as oblation and all fair things.
§ 4, /. 59. He is Thoth the Wise, whose power is greater than that of the other gods. He (Thoth) at-oned himself with Ptah, after he had brought forth all things and all god-words;' after that he had fashioned the gods, had made the cities, settled the nomes, established the gods in their shrines,
/. 60. When he had ordained their sacrifices, founded their shrines, and had made statues of [?for] their bodies for their contentment.
§ 5. If the gods enter into their body, so is he (Ptah) in every wood, in every jewel, in every metal' All things thrive after him if they [the gods] are thera To him all gods and their hoCs make oblation, uniting and binding themselves together [for him who is] Lord of the Two Lands.^
1 That is, as we have seen above, Ptah as the Demiurgic Power.
' Hieroglyphics ; showing that the oldest hieroglyphics were symbols of the words of action — that is to say, modes of expression of being in action.
' Lit^ copper.
^ That is, the worlds of gods, or immortals, and of mentor mortals. But Reitzenstein says : *' Thus the Qod of Memphis [t.e. Ptah] is the divinity or ^ihe Qod' of all Egypt"— meaning thereby the physical upper and lower lands ; but I prefer a wider i
A PROTOTYPE OP THE PCBMANDRBS' COSMOGONY 135
With these words the special theological STstem attached to the fourth person of Ptah is concluded, and the text returns to the Osiris-mTth.
Egyptian Syncrktism 1000 b.c.
From this most interesting inscription copied from an ancient written document, we learn in the first place that in Egypt already, a good thousand years before the date of our " Foamandres," we have what the critical mind would call a distinct specimen of syncretism ; namely, an attempt to combine three God-myths, or traditions, into a single system. These, if we persist in taking a purely traditional view, are : (L) The Hermo- politan myth of Thoth as the Logos-Demiurge, who also in it frequently appears as an aspect of the Supreme; (ii) The doctrine of the Ftah-priests of Memphis, according to which Ptah as the Primal Deity creates himself and all gods and men, and fashions the world ; and (iii) The Heliopolitan theology, in which AUxm as the first of an ennead of gods unites his eight fellow- gods in himself and is the Primal God and Primal Basis of all things.
In all this the scribe or prophet has employed very early conceptions : on the one hand, that the plurality of gods are but " members " of a One and Only God ; and on the other, that a sharply-defined and in some respect special God is similar to another more-general God in some particular attribute of his. Thus Atum is really the Primal God; but the God-circle, his "Body" (or Pleroma), consists of Eight different Forms of Ptah. Atum has emanated them ; he is therefore " he who him- self creates himself"; but equally so has Ptah created Atum and himself. The most important Member of this universal Ptah-Being or Cosmic God is Ptah the Great,
136 THRICB-OR£AT£8T HBBMSS
who is Heart and Tongue — the former aa Homa, the latter as Thoth. Thoth proceeds into manifestation as Tongue or Word to accomplish the cosmic purpose; but the Word is only the thought which has proceeded, or in a certain fashion emanated, out of the Person. Thoth and Horus are inseparably united with Ptah.
Beitzenstein thinks that the occasion for introducing the whole of this system into an exposition which other- wise deals with the Osiris-myth, was afforded by the parts played by Horus and Thoth in that myth. But it is evidently in itself a special system in which Thoth was the One God, the Word by whom all things were made.
All of this must be quite manifest to any careful reader, and therefore there is no reason for its further elaboration. But though we have recovered one speci- men of this kind of syncretism only, it is not to be supposed that it was unusual ; indeed, it was a necessity in Egypt, where, beyond all other lands, the idea of a number of divinities united in one, each showing forth in separation some attribute dominantly, but in union possessing simultaneously the attributes of all the others, was the only key possible to a state of afiiedrs where a plurality of gods existed side by side with the doctrines of the One and the AIL
ThK DOCTBINE of "PoSBfAKDRBS" COMPABED WITH THAT OF ITS PbOTOTTPI
Nevertheless, our inscription is not only of general use, but of special use for an elucidation of the main elements in the '' Poemandres " cosmogony. Any attempt to translate the ideas of the Atum-Ptah-Thoth combination into Greek could have resulted in no other nomenclature than deo^ (God) — Sti/niovfyyo^ or ifffjuovpyof vwif (Demiurge or Demiurgic Mind)— -Fouip
A PROTOTYPE OF THE PCEMANDRES' COSMOGONY 137
and Xayo9 (Mind and Word), as is the case in our treatiae.
Ttus argument is all the stronger if we reflect that if Thoth, after the ordering of the cosmos, at-oned him- self again with Ptah, then he must have completed this ordering which was emanated from Ftah. It is thus that the writer has brought to clear expression the conception that the Word is the Proceeding Thought of Ptah, and that both are inseparably united with one another.
So, too, we find in the " Poemandres " that the Logos, after the completion of the cosmic ordering, returns to the Demiurgic Mind and is at-oned with him.
This similarity of fundamental conception cannot be due to chance, and we must therefore conclude that a doctrine essentially corresponding with the theology of our inscription is the main source of the " Poemandres " \cosmogony. This fairly establishes the main content of our cosmogony on an Egyptian ground.
If to this we add the general Egyptian belief that a man's soul, after being *' purified " in the after-death state, goes back to Grod, to live for the eternity as a god with the gods,^ then we have established the chief part of the " Poemandres " treatise as the Hellenised doctrine of the Egyptian priests — the mystery-tradition.
With fldl of this agrees the thought that the God as Mind dwells in the pious, as we learn from the Hermes Prayers. So also it is Ptah in our inscription who gives life to the pious and death to the impious. In very early accounts we find Ptah, the Mind, is the
^ This doet not mean, I hold, that there wai no '^reincar- natumy" that is, that the "being" of the man did not emanate other ^^eoula," but that the "soul" of a particular life did not retam— that all of it deserving of immortality became a god with the godsi or ** thoae-that-af^" and do not only «sB-iat.
138 THRICS-OREATEST HERMES
imparter of the gnosis for the gods — that is, as a Greek would say, he was the inventor of philosophy, as indeed Diogenes Laertius tells us (Prooem. 1) : " The Egyptians declare that Hephaistos was the source of philosophy, the presidents of which are priests and prophets." Ptah, the Mind, reveals himself to his own and gives them good counsel; ''Ptah hath spoken to thee," Suidas tells us («.9.)> was a Greek-Egyptian saying, which is best elucidated by the Stele of Intef, which tells us that the people say of the heart of Intef : '* It is an oracle of the god which is in every body." *
All of this and much more of a like nature make it indubitably clear that the fundamental conceptions of the " Poemandres " are Egyptian, and that the theory of Neoplatonic forgery must be for ever abandoned; so that even the dreams of Ddv^ria are nearer the truth than the confident assertions of many a great name in scholarship.
The Man-Doctbikk
But what, says Beitssenstein (p. 69), is not Egyptian, is the doctrine of the Man, the Heavenly Man, the Son of God, who descends and becomes a slave of the Fate-Sphere ; the Man who, though originally endowed with all power, descends into wealmess and bondage, and has to win his own freedom and regain his origincd state.
This doctrine seems to have been in its origin part and parcel of the Chaldsean mystery-tradition; but it was widely spread in Hellenistic circles, and had analogies in all the great mystery-traditions, as we shall now proceed to see, and chiefly by the analysis of what has hitherto been regarded as one of the most chaotic and puzzling documents of Gnosticism.
1 Cf. Breasted, Zeii.f. dg. 8pr. (1901X p. 47.
vn
THE MYTH OF MAN IN THE MYSTEEIES
The Gnostic Tradition
''But All-Father Mind, being life and light, did bring forth Man ("AyOptoTrov) co-equal to Himself." ^
So runs the opening paragraph of what we may call the soteriologicflJ part of the " Poemandres " treatise of our Trismegistic literature. This Man or Anthrdpos is the Spiritiial Prototype of humanity and of every •^individual man, and is a technical term found in a number of the early Christianised Gnostic systems. .
For instance, in a system some outlines of which are preserved in the polemical JRefiUation of Irenseus,' and
I which the Bishop of Lyons seems to associate with an phite tradition, while Theodoret' ascribes it to the Sethians, we are told that in the Unutterable Depth were two Great lights, — the First Man, or Father, and His Son, the Second Man; and also the Holy Spirit, the First Woman, or Mother of all living.
In this tradition, moreover, the Son of the Mother — the chief Formative Power of the seven Demiurgic Potencies of the sensible cosmos — is called laldabadth (? the Child of the Egg), who boasts himself to be
1 a H., i 12.
* Cc^Jtra Om. Ear., I. zxx.; ed. A Stderen (Leipzig, 1853), i 263 ff. » HcBT. Fab., I. xiv.
189
140 THRICB-GREATBST HKRME8
supreme. But his mother, Wisdom, reproves his pride, saying unto him : ^ lie not, laldabaoth, for above thee is the Father of All, First Man, and Man Son of Man." ^
The " Philobophumena " of Hippglytus
But the main source of our information on this Anthropos tradition, in its Christianised Gnostic form, is to be found in Hippolytus' Philosophumena ; or, BefiUcUian of all Heresies,
In 1842, Minoi'des Mjrnas, a learned Greek, sent on a literary mission by the French Grovemment, dis- covered in one of the monasteries on Mount Athos the only MS. (generally ascribed to the fourteenth century) which we possess of this extremely valuable work. It was originally in ten books, but, unfortunately, the first three and the beginning of the fourth are missing from our MS. The first book, however, was already Imown, though previously erroneously ascribed to Origen, and was accordingly prefixed to the text of the edUio princeps of our work by Emmanuel Miller (Oxford, 1851).
The missing Books IL and IIL dealt respectively with the doctrines and mysteries of the Egyptians and with those of the Chaldaeans. Hippolytus (Procem.) boasts that be has divulged all their mysteries, as well as the secrets of those Christian mystics whom he stigmatises as heretics, and to whom he devotes Books V.-IX.
It is a curious fact that it is precisely those Books wherein this divulging of the Mysteries was attempted, which should be missing; not only have they dis- appeared, but in the Epitome at the beginning of