{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/th1/th108.htm","path":"gno/th1/th108.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/th1/th108.htm","text":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906]\nThe more intimate contact of Greek thought and philosophy with Egyptian lore and mystic tradition began immediately with the brilliant era of the Lagides, who gradually made Alexandria the intellectual and religious, philosophic and scientific, centre of the Hellenistic world.\nThoth-Hermes, as we have seen, had been for the Egyptians from the earliest times the teacher of all ancient and hidden wisdom; he was par excellence the writer of all sacred scripture and the scribe of the gods. We should then naturally expect that his dominating influence would play a leading part in the new development; and this, indeed, is amply demonstrated by the evidence of the religious art of the time, which presents us with specimens of statues of the Greek type of Hermes, bearing at the same time either the feather of truth (the special symbol of Ma\u0101t) on the head, or the papyrus-roll in the hand 1\u2014both symbols of Thoth in his dual character as revealer and scribe.\nOf the complex nature of the mystic and apocalyptic literature that thus came into existence we have very distinct testimony. 1 In keeping with its Egyptian prototype it was all cast in a theological and theosophical mould, whether it treated of physics, or medicine, or astrology. Thus we learn that Pamphilus, the grammarian, 2 was intimately acquainted with a Greek-Egyptian literature dealing with \u201csacred plants\u201d and their virtues as determined by the influences of the thirty-six Decans; this lore, he tells us, was derived from the \u201cBooks ascribed to the Egyptian Hermes.\u201d 3\nOf still greater interest are the Greek fragments of Petosiris and Nechepso which have come down to us. 4 These Greek fragments are to be dated at least before the end of the second century B.C., 5 and afford us striking parallels with our extant Trismegistic literature.\nIn them we find the Prophet Petosiris represented as the teacher and counsellor of King Nechepso, as Asclepius of Ammon in one type of our literature; while it is Hermes who reveals the secret wisdom to two younger gods, Asclepius and Anubis, as in our sermons he does to Asclepius and Tat.\nAs to Petosiris himself, Suidas (s.v.) tells us that he was an Egyptian philosopher who wrote on comparative\n[paragraph continues] Greek and Egyptian theology, making selections from the \u201cHoly Books,\u201d and treating of astrology and the Egyptian Mysteries. Moreover, Proclus 1 tells us that Petosiris had an intimate knowledge of every order of the Gods and Angels, and refers to a hieratic formula of theurgic invocation to the greatest of the goddesses (Necessity), for inducing the vision of this Power, and the ritual of the manner of addressing her when she appeared, as handed on by the same Petosiris.\nThe mystical nature of this literature is still more clearly shown in what Vettius Valens 2 tells us of Nechepso, who surpassed the Ammon of our literature and attained to direct knowledge of the Inner Way.\nVettius, in the first half of the first century A.D., laments that he did not live in those days of initiate kings and rulers and sages who occupied themselves with the Sacred Science, when the clear \u00c6ther spake face to face with them without disguise, or holding back aught, in answer to their deep scrutiny of holy things. In those days so great was their love of the holy mysteries, so high their virtue, that they left the earth below them, and in their deathless souls became \u201cheaven-walkers\u201d 3 and knowers of things divine.\nVettius then quotes from a Greek apocalyptic treatise of Nechepso, where the King tells us that he had remained in contemplation all night gazing into the \u00e6ther; and so in ecstasy he had left his body, 4 and had then heard a heavenly Voice 5 addressing him. This Voice was not merely a sound, but appeared as a\nsubstantial presence, who guided Nechepso on his way through the heaven-space.\nIt is, moreover, exceedingly probable that the magnificent spectacle of the star-spheres 1 to which Vettius refers, speaking of it as \u201cthe most transcendent and most blessed vision (\u03b8\u03b5\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b1) of all,\u201d was taken directly from the same source.\nWith this we may compare the wish of Trismegistus that Tat might get him the wings of the soul and enjoy that fair sight, 2 and the seeing of it by Hermes himself through the Mind. 3\nAll of which proves the existence of books in Greek in middle Ptolemaic times treating in the same manner of identical subjects with those contained in our Trismegistic literature.\nWhen, then, the sovereignty of Egypt passed into the hands of the Diadochi of Alexander, and the Ptolemies made Alexandria the centre of learning in the Greek world, by the foundation of the ever-famous Museum and Library and Schools in their capital, there arose an extraordinary enthusiasm for translating, paraphrasing, and summarising into Greek of the old scriptures and records of the nations. The most famous name of such translators and compilers and comparative theologians is that of Manetho, 4 who introduced the\ntreasures of Egyptian mysticism, theology, mythology, history, and chronology to the Grecian world. Moreover, seeing that the veracity and reliability of Manetho as a historian is with every day more and more accepted as we become better acquainted with the monuments, he seems to have done his work loyally enough.\nManetho was contemporary with the first two Ptolemies; that is to say, he lived in the last years of the fourth and the first half of the third century B.C. He was a priest of Heliopolis (On), 1 and was thoroughly trained in all Greek culture 2 as well as being most learned in the ancient Wisdom of Egypt. 3 Manetho not only wrote on historical subjects, but also on the mystic philosophy and religion of his country, and it is from his books in all probability that Plutarch and others drew their information on things Egyptian. Manetho derived his information from the hieroglyphic inscriptions in the temples 4 and from the rest of the priestly records; but unfortunately his books are almost entirely lost, and we only possess fragments quoted by later writers.\nOne of these quotations is of great importance for our present enquiry. It is preserved by Georgius\n[paragraph continues] Syncellus, 1 and is stated to be taken from a work of Manetho called Sothis 2 a work that has otherwise entirely disappeared. The passage with the introductory sentence of the monk Syncellus runs as follows:\n\u201cIt is proposed then to make a few extracts concerning the Egyptian dynasties from the Books of Manetho. [This Manetho,] being high priest of the Heathen temples in Egypt, based his replies [to King Ptolemy] on the monuments 3 which lay in the Seriadic country. [These monuments,] he tells us, were engraved in the sacred language and in the characters of the sacred writing by Thoth, the first Hermes; after the flood they were translated from the sacred language into the then common tongue, 4 but [still written] in hieroglyphic characters, and stored away in books by the Good Daimon\u2019s son and the second Hermes, father of Tat\u2014in the inner chambers of the temples of Egypt.\n\u2018\u201cIn the Book of Sothis Manetho addresses King Philadelphus, the second Ptolemy, personally, writing as follows word for word:\n\u201c\u2018The Letter of Manetho, the Sebennyte, to Ptolemy Philadelphus.\n\u201c\u2018To the great King Ptolemy Philadelphus, the venerable: I, Manetho, high priest and scribe of the holy fanes in Egypt, citizen of Heliopolis but by birth a Sebennyte, 5 to my master Ptolemy send greeting.\n\u201c\u2018We 1 must make calculations concerning all the points which you may wish us to examine into, to answer your questions 2 concerning what will happen to the world. According to your commands, the sacred books, written by our forefather Thrice-greatest Hermes, which I study, shall be shown to you. My lord and king, farewell.\u2019\u201d\nHere we have a verbal quotation from a document purporting to be written prior to 250 B.C. It is evidently one of a number of letters exchanged between Manetho and Ptolemy II. Ptolemy has heard of the past according to the records of Egypt; can the priests tell him anything of the future? They can, replies Manetho; but it will be necessary to make a number of calculations. Ptolemy has also expressed a strong desire to see the documents from which Manetho derived his information, and the high priest promises to let him see them.\nThese books are ascribed to Hermes, the Thrice-greatest, and this is the first time that the title is used in extant Greek literature. This Hermes was the second, the father of Tat, we are told elsewhere by Manetho, and son of the Good Spirit (Agathodaimon), who was the first Hermes. Here we have the precise grading of the degrees in our treatises: (i.) The Shepherd of Men, or The Mind; (ii.) Thrice-greatest; (iii.) Tat. This refers to the ever-present distinction of pupil and master, and the Master of masters.\nIf, however, we seek for historical allusions, we may perhaps be permitted to conclude that the first Hermes, that is to say the first priesthood among the Egyptians, used a sacred language, or in other words a language which in the time of the second Hermes, or second priesthood, was no longer spoken. It was presumably archaic Egyptian. The two successions of priests and prophets were separated by a \u201cflood.\u201d This \u201cflood\u201d was presumably connected with, if not the origin of, the flood of which Solon heard from the priest of Sa\u00efs, which happened some nine thousand years before his time, and of which we have considerable information given us in the Tim\u00e6us and Critias of Plato. 1 The Good Angel is the same as the Mind, as we learn from the Trismegistic literature, and was regarded as the father of Hermes Trismegistus. This seems to be a figurative way of saying that the archaic civilisation of Egypt before the flood, which presumably swept over the country when the Atlantic Island went down, was regarded as one of great excellence. It was the time of the Gods or Divine Kings or Demi-Gods, whose wisdom was handed on in mystic tradition, or revived into some semblance of its former greatness, by the lesser descendants of that race who returned from exile, or reincarnated on earth, to take charge of the new populations who had gradually returned to the lower Nile plains after the flood had subsided.\nThus we have three epochs of tradition of the Egyptian mystery-cultus: (i.) The first Thoth or Agathodaimon, the original tradition preserved in the sacred language and character in the stone monuments of the\n[paragraph continues] Seriadic land, presumably the Egypt prior to the Atlantic flood; (ii.) the second Thoth, the Thrice-greatest, the mystery-school after the period of the great inundation, whose records and doctrines were preserved not only in inscriptions but also in MSS., still written in the sacred character, but in the Egyptian tongue as it was spoken after the people reoccupied the country; and (iii.) Tat, the priesthood of Manetho\u2019s day, and presumably of some centuries prior to his time, who spoke a yet later form of Egyptian, and from whose demotic translations further translations or paraphrases were made in Greek.\nThis natural line of descent of the fundamental doctrines in the tradition of the Trismegistic literature, however, is scouted by encyclop\u00e6dism, which would have our sermons to be Neoplatonic forgeries, though on what slender grounds it bases its view we have already seen. It will now be interesting to see how the testimony of Manetho is disposed of. Our encyclop\u00e6dias tell us that the book Sothis is obviously a late forgery; parrot-like they repeat this statement; but nowhere in them do we find a single word of proof brought forward. Let us then see whether any scholars have dealt with the problem outside of encyclop\u00e6dism. Very little work has been done on the subject. The fullest summary of the position is given by C. M\u00fcller. 1 M\u00fcller bases his assertion on B\u00f6ckh, 2 and B\u00f6ckh on Letronne. 3\nThe arguments are as follows: (i.) That the term \u201cvenerable\u201d (\u03c3\u03b5\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2) is not used prior to the time of the Roman emperors; (ii.) that Egypt knows no flood; (iii.) that the ancient mythology of Egypt knows no first and second Hermes; (iv.) that Egypt has no Seriadic land; (v.) that the term \u201cTrismegistus\u201d is of late use.\nLet us take these arguments in order and examine them, bearing in mind, however, that the whole question has been prejudiced from the start, and that encyclop\u00e6dism, in order to maintain its hypothesis of the spuriousness of our Trismegistic writings, is bound to argue the spuriousness of Manetho\u2019s Sothis. The categorical statements of Manetho are exceedingly distressing to the former hypothesis; in fact, they give it the lie direct. As to the arguments, then:\n(i.) The term \u03c3\u03b5\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 is in later times equated with \u201cAugustus,\u201d the honorific title of the Roman emperors. Therefore, it is argued, it could not have been used prior to their times. But why not? The king to an Egyptian was divine\u2014every inscription proves it\u2014and the term \u201cvenerable\u201d was in early times always applied to the Gods. Why not then apply it to the \u201cGreat King\u201d? Indeed, what could be more natural than to do so?\n(ii.) We have already shown that, according to Plato, Egypt knew most accurately of a Flood; Plato further tells us that Solon got his information from the priests of Sa\u00efs, who told him that all the records were preserved in the temple of Ne\u00efth.\nIt is not here the place to discuss the Atlanticum of Plato and the long history of opinion connected with\nit, for that would require a volume in itself. I have, however, acquainted myself with all the arguments for and against the authenticity of at least the germ of this tradition, and with the problems of comparative mythology and folklore involved in it, and also with the recent literature of the subject which seeks to corroborate the main conceptions of Plato by the researches of seership. All this, taken in conjunction with the general subject of the \u201cmyths\u201d of Plato, and the latest views on this subject, has convinced me that the greatest of Greek philosophers did not jest when, his dialectic having gone as far as it could, he sought refuge in the mystery-traditions for corroboration of those intuitions which his unaided intellect could not demonstrate.\nIt can of course be argued that every reference to a flood in Egyptian Hellenistic literature is but a repetition of what the incredulous must regard as Plato\u2019s brilliant romance; but in this connection, as in many others, it is equally arguable that all such references\u2014Plato\u2019s included\u2014are derivable from one and the same source\u2014namely, Egypt herself.\nAnd, indeed, on 9th November 1904, at a meeting of the Society of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology, a paper by Professor Naville was read by Mr F. Legge on \u201cA Mention of a Flood in the Book of the Dead.\u201d The flood in question is that described in the Leyden version as Ch. clxxv. 1\n(iii.) Cicero (106-44 B.C.) speaks of five Mercurii, the last two of whom were Egyptian. 2 One was the \u201cson of Father Nile,\u201d whose name the Egyptians considered it impiety to pronounce\u2014and for whom, presumably, they substituted the term Agathodaimon; and the\nsecond was the later Thoyth, the-founder of Hermopolis. 1 Cicero could hardly have invented this; it must have been a commonplace of his day, most probably derived in the first instance from the writings of Manetho, from which generally the Greeks, and those imbued with Greek culture, derived all their information about Egypt.\nAnd, indeed, Reitzenstein (p. 139), though he refers the information given by Syncellus to a Pseudo-Manetho (without a word of explanation, however), admits that the genealogy of Hermes there given is in its main features old. 2\n(iv.) The statement that Egypt knew no Seriadic land or country seems to be a confident assertion, but the following considerations may perhaps throw a different light on the matter.\nIn the astronomical science of the Egyptians the most conspicuous solar system near our own, represented in the heavens by the brilliant Sirius, was of supreme interest. Cycles of immense importance were determined by it, and it entered into the highest mysticism of Egyptian initiation. Sirius was, as it were, the guardian star of Egypt. Now ancient Egypt was a sacred land, laid out in its nomes or provinces according to the heavens, having centres in its body corresponding to the centres or ganglia of the heavens. As the Hindus had a Heavenly Ganges (\u0100k\u0101sha-Gang\u0101) and an earthly Ganges, so had the heavens a Celestial\n[paragraph continues] Nile, and Egypt a physical Nile, the life-giver of the land. The yearly inundation, which meant and means everything for ancient and modern Khem, was observed with great minuteness, and recorded with immense pains, the basis of its cycle being the Sothiac or Siriadic; Sirius (Seirios) being called in Greek transliteration Sothis and Seth (Eg. Sep\u1e6d). What more natural name, then, to give to the country than the Seriadic Land?\nThe Nile records in ancient times were self-registered by pyramids, obelisks, and temples, and in later times nearly all monuments were built according to the type of the masonic instruments of the Egyptian astrogeological science. This science has been studied in our own times by an Egyptian, and the results of his researches have been printed \u201cfor private circulation,\u201d and a copy of them is to be found in the British Museum. In his Preface the author writes as follows: 1\n\u201cThe astrogeological science gave birth to a monumental system, by means of which the fruits of the accumulated observations and experience of the human race have been preserved, outliving writings, inscriptions, traditions, and nationalities. The principal monuments had imparted to them the essential property of being autochronous landmarks of a geochronological nature. Many of them recorded, hydromathematically, the knowledge in astronomy, in geography, and in the dimension and figure of the earth obtained in their respective epochs. They were Siriadic monuments, because their magistral lines were projected to the scale\nof the revolutions of the cycles of the star Surios (sic) in terms of the standard astrogeological cubit.\u201d\nDoubtless 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.\nBut before we deal with the last objection urged against the authenticity of Manetho\u2019s Sothis, we will add a few words more concerning these Seriadic monuments known in antiquity as the Stelae of Hermes or of Seth, and erroneously spoken of in Latin and English as the \u201cColumns\u201d or \u201cPillars\u201d of Hermes.\nThe 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 Te\u1e25uti, the Egyptian name of Hermes, transliterated in no less than nineteen various forms in Greek and two in Latin\u2014such as Thoyth, Thath, Tat, etc. 1 Similarly we find the name of the famous Indian lawgiver transliterated into English as Manu, Menu, Menoo, etc.\nWith regard to these \u201cMercurii Column\u00e6,\u201d 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. 2 The\nhistorian Ammianus Marcellinus, 1 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:\n\u201cThere 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, 2 they engraved on them numerous kinds of birds and animals, and countless varieties [of creatures] of another world, which they called hieroglyphic characters.\u201d 3\nWe are thus told of another peculiarity of some of the Seriadic monuments, and of the \u201cBooks preserved from the Flood\u201d of which there were so many traditions. These are the records to which Sanchuniathon and Manetho make reference.\nThe Egyptian 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\u2014for the\n[paragraph continues] Mosaic Books supply innumerable examples of the working-up of elements which the Jews found in the records of older nations\u2014runs away with the idea that Seth (the Egyptian Sirius) was the Biblical patriarch Seth, the Jewish \u201cantiquarian\u201d enters on a path of romance and not of history. \u2019Tis thus he uses the Egyptian Seriadic tradition for his own purposes:\n\u201cAll of these [the Sons of Seth] being of 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 1 by the force of fire and owing to the strength and mass of water)\u2014they made two monuments, 2 one of brick and the other of stone, and on each of them engraved their discoveries. In order that if it should happen that the brick one should be done away with by the heavy downpour, 3 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.\u201d 4\nThis passage is of great interest not only as affording a very good example of the method of inventing Jewish \u201cantiquities,\u201d but also as permitting us to recover the outlines of the original Egyptian account which Josephus purloined and adapted. The Sons of Seth were the initiates of the archaic priesthood of the First Hermes.\n[paragraph continues] Adam has been substituted for the First Man, in the sense of our \u201cShepherd\u201d 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 specially constructed and more lasting monuments of stone\u2014perhaps rock-cut temples, or the most ancient pyramids. I have also asked myself the question as to whether there may not be some clue concealed in this \u201cbrick monument\u201d reference to the puzzling statement in the Babylonian Talmud 1 that Jesus set up a \u201cbrick-bat\u201d and worshipped it. Jesus is said in the Talmud Jeschu Stories to have \u201clearned magic in Egypt,\u201d and the magical wisdom of ancient Egypt is here said to have been recorded on monuments of brick. 2\nReitzenstein (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, 3 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 Seirias; she is the fertile earth and is Egypt. 4\nTo continue, then, with the consideration of the arguments urged against the authenticity of Manetho\u2019s Sothis. With regard to objection (iv.), we have given very good reasons for concluding that so far from Egypt \u201cknowing no Seriadic land,\u201d Egypt was the Seriadic Land par excellence, and the Books of Hermes\nwere the direct descendants of the archaic stone monuments of that land. And further, we have shown that our Trismegistic writings are a step or two further down in the same line of descent. The whole hangs together logically and naturally.\nWe have thus removed four of the five props which support the hypothesis of forgery with regard to the Sothis document. Let us now see whether the remaining prop will bear the weight of the structure.\n(v.) We are told that the term \u201cTrismegistus\u201d is of late use. This assertion is based entirely on the hypothesis that all our extant Trismegistic 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.\nThat the peculiar designation Trismegistus was known in the first century even among the Romans, however, is evident from the famous Latin epigrammatist Martial (v. 24), who in singing the praise of one Hermes, a famous gladiator, brings his p\u00e6an to a climax with the line:\nHermes omnia solus et ter unus.\u00a01\nA verse which an anonymous translator in 1695 freely renders as:\nHermes engrosses all men\u2019s gifts in one, \nAnd Trismegistus\u2019 name deserves alone.\nSuch a popular reference shows that the name Trismegistus was a household word, and argues for\nmany years of use before the days of Martial (A.D. 43-104?). But have we no other evidence?\nIn the trilingual inscription (hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek) on the famous Rosetta Stone, which sings the praises of Ptolemy Epiphanes (210-181 B.C.), Hermes is called the \u201cGreat-and-Great.\u201d 1 Letronne renders this deux fois grand; 2 and in his notes 3 says that the term \u201cTrismegistus\u201d was not known at this date, thus contemptuously waving aside Manetho\u2019s Sothis. Had it been known, he says, it would undoubtedly have been used instead of the feebler expression \u201cgreat-and-great.\u201d 4 But why undoubtedly? Let us enquire a little further into the matter. The Egyptian reduplicated form of this attribute of Hermes, \u0227\u0101 \u0227\u0101, the \u201cgreat-great,\u201d is frequently elsewhere found with a prefixed sign which may be transliterated ur. 5 So that if the more simple form is translated by \u201cgreat, great,\u201d the intensive form would naturally be rendered \u201cgreat, great, great,\u201d or \u201cthree times great.\u201d But we have to deal with the form \u201cthrice-greatest,\u201d a superlative intensive. We have many examples of adjectives intensified with the particle \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c2 in Greek, 6\nbut no early instances of their superlatives; therefore, what? Apparently that the term \u201cTrismegistus\u201d is a late invention.\nBut 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\u2014it was the highest term of greatness 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 \u201cthrice-greatest\u201d instead of \u201cgreat-and-great\u201d on the Rosetta Stone?\nBecause he was translating \u0227\u0101 \u0227\u0101 and not its intensified form. But why did he not use the intensified form in the demotic inscription? Well, \u201cwhys\u201d are endless; but may we not suppose that, as Ptolemy was being praised for his justice, which he is said to have exercised \u201cas Hermes the great-and-great,\u201d the reduplicated form was sufficient for this attribute of the idealised priesthood, while the still more honorific title was reserved for Hermes as the personified Wisdom? Or, again, may it not have been politic to refrain from adjectives which would have dimmed the greatness of Ptolemy?\nSo I wrote in November 1899, when the major part of this chapter was first published in The Theosophical Review. Shortly afterwards, however, I came across an entirely new clue. In his Stories of the High Priests of Memphis: the Sethon of Herodotus and the Demotic Tales of Khamuas (Oxford, 1900), F. Ll. Griffiths presents us with the translation of an exceedingly interesting demotic text, found on the verso of two Greek\ndocuments, the contents of which prove them to be official land-registers of the seventh year of Claudius (A.D. 46-47). There is also \u201cstrong evidence for attributing the demotic text to some time within thirty years from that date\u201d (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-tates of Egypt, it is to be assumed that their form and substance is old.\nIn this papyrus we are told that on an occasion of great need when the Pharaoh of Egypt was being overcome at a distance by the sorceries of the Ethiopian enchanters, 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:\n\u201cHe entered the temple of Khm\u00fbn; he made his offerings and his libations before Thoth, the Eight-times-great, the Lord of Khm\u00fbn, the Great God\u201d (p. 58).\nTo this Griffiths appends the following note:\n\u201c\u2018Thoth, eight times great\u2019; the remains of the signs indicate this reading. The title, which here appears for the first time in Egyptian literature, is the equivalent of \u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 [thrice-greatest], a late epithet first used about the date of this MS. 1 \u1f41 is \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2 [great], which we may represent algebraically by a; \u1f41 \u1f41 (2a), a common title of Thoth in late hieroglyphic, is \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2 [great and great] on the Rosetta Stone, but probably represents \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 [greatest], and 8\u1f41 is therefore \u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 [thrice-greatest], i.e. (2a)\u00b3. The famous epithet of Hermes which has puzzled commentators thus displays its mathematical formation. 6\u1f41 = 3(2a) would not fill the\nlacuna on the papyrus, nor would it give the obviously intended reference to the name of Thoth\u2019s city, \u2018the Eighth,\u2019 and the mythological interpretation of that name.\u201d\nThe mythological interpretation of that name, namely Khmun (Khemen-nw), which Budge transliterates Khemennu, Griffiths says is \u201cthe eighth city,\u201d i.e. \u201cthe eighth in Upper Egypt going up the river.\u201d 1\nWe 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 \u201cEighth City up the River,\u201d if that river is interpreted as the Celestial Nile on which the soul of the initiated sailed in the solar boat.\nReitzenstein then is wrong in supposing (p. 117, n. 6) that Griffiths connects the honorific title Trismegistus with the eight cynocephali who form the paut of Thoth; but we may do so.\nThe nature of this symbolic Ogdoad is most clearly seen in the inscription of D\u00ear-el-Bahari, of the time of the Twenty-second Dynasty which Maspero has lately published. 2\nIn it the Osirified says to the Supreme:\n\u201cI am One who becomes Two; I am Two who becomes Four; I am Four who becomes Eight; I am the One after that.\u201d\nSo also in the first Hermes Prayer, quoted in a preceding chapter, addressed to Hermes as Agathodaimon,\n[paragraph continues] Thoth is he \u201cwhom the Eight Wardens guard.\u201d\nThese Eight, we may perhaps be permitted to speculate, were generated Two from One, \u0227\u0101 \u0227\u0101, Greatest; Four from Two, Twice-greatest; Eight from Four, Thrice-greatest.\nSuch 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.\nI, 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\u2019s Sothis 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.\nThat, 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 literature specimens of cosmogenesis closely resembling the main elements of the world-formation given in our \u201cShepherd\u201d treatise.\nAn excellent example is that of the fragmentary cosmogonical poem, the text of which Reitzenstein has printed in his Zwei religionsgesch. Fragen, to which we\nhave already referred. This poem Reitzenstein (p. 92) dates as belonging to the first century B.C., 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 \u201cfather\u201d of the prophet-poet who writes the vision.\nBut 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 Ph\u0153nician Histories of Philo Byblius, who lived in the second half of the first century A.D.\nThe fragments of this work are of great interest to our present enquiry, as they tend to show that both Egypt and Ph\u0153nicia, 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.\nThis is all, no doubt, an overwriting of Ph\u0153nician records in the light of Egyptian tradition; Philo, however, would have us regard his work as a Greek translation or paraphrase of a compilation made by an ancient and learned Ph\u0153nician priest, Sanchuniathon, based immediately upon archaic Ph\u0153nician records by one who was also learned in the oral tradition of his own mysteries.\nThe initial question as to whether Philo had a genuine Ph\u0153nician document before him or not, need\nnot 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 Ph\u0153nician substratum.\nIt 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 passages.\nThe general theory, however, since the time of Orelli 1 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 2 quotes the passages used by Porphyry. 3 The whole work of Philo, moreover, is claimed to be recovered by Wagenfeld, who has elaborately defended its genuineness. 4 There indeed seems no reason to\naccept the forgery-hypothesis, which apparently rests on an even flimsier basis than the forgery-theory of the Trismegistic writings. The work, on the contrary, considered as a specimen of Ph\u0153nician story strongly influenced by Egyptian tradition, is a most interesting document for understanding the ancient Semitic mystery-tradition as distinguished from Jewish adaptations of general Semitic legend\u2014in other words, the distinction of Semitismus and Isra\u00eblitismus. Porphyry was not only a Semite himself but also a good critic, 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.\nPhilo tells us that the Ph\u0153nician public traditions being chaotic, \u201cSanchuniathon, 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 the 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\u2014from him the Logos whom the Egyptians called Th\u014duth, the Alexandrians Th\u014dth, 1 but whom the Greeks have turned into Hermes.\u201d 2\nThis evidently means that the source of Sanchuniathon\u2019s information as to the mystic beginning of things was derived from the Books of Thoth, and\nthat this was so may be seen from the following passage:\n\u201cHe 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; 1 that these were boundless, and for many an age 2 remained without a bound. \u2018But when,\u2019 he 3 says, \u2018the Spirit fell in love with his own principles, 4 and they were interblended, that interweaving was called Love; 5 and this Love was the origin of the creation of all things. But [Chaos] did not know its own creation. 6 From its embrace with Spirit M\u014dt was born. 7 From her [M\u014dt, the Great Mother] it was that every seed of the creation came, the birth of all the cosmic bodies.\n\u201c\u2018[First of all] there were [Great] Lives 8 devoid of sensation, and out of these came subsequently [Great]\n[paragraph continues] Lives possessed of intelligence. 1 The latter were called Zophasemin (that is to say, \u201cOverseers of the Heavens\u201d). The latter were fashioned in the form of eggs, and shone forth as M\u014dt, the Sun and Moon, the Stars and the great Planetary Spheres.\n\u201c\u2018Now as the [original] nebula began to lighten, through its heat mists and clouds of sea and earth 2 were produced, and gigantic downpours and torrents of the waters in the firmaments. Even after they were separated, 3 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, 4 while on the land and sea male and female cowered at their echo and were dismayed.\u2019\n\u201cAfter this our author proceeds to say: \u2018These 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.\u2019\u201d 5\nThere are many other points of interest in Philo\u2019s translation, but we need not elaborate them here. One point, however, must not be omitted, because of its importance with regard to the Hermes-\u00c6sculapius tradition, an important factor in the Trismegistic writings.\n\u201cAnd Cronus [Ammon] going to the land of the South gave the whole of Egypt to the God 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.\u201d 1\n\u00c6sculapius is here at once identified with the cult of the \u201cGreat Gods\u201d (\u05db\u05d1\u05e8, 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. 2 Enough has been said to show that both Sanchuniathon and the writer of \u201cThe Shepherd\u201d drew their accounts of cosmogony from the same sources, namely, the \u201cBooks of Thoth,\u201d or, in other words, the Egyptian mystery-tradition.\n99:1 R. 3, nn. 1, 2.\n100:1 See R. 3-7, to whom I am indebted for the indications.\n100:2 Of the school of Aristarchus (fl. 280-264). The great Lexicon of Pamphilus is supposed by some to have been the basis of that of Hesychius.\n100:3 Apud, Galen, \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u1f01\u03c0\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c6\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc., vi. Pro\u0153m. (tom. ix. p. 798 K).\n100:4 See Riess, Philologus Supplem., Fragg. 27-29.\n100:5 See Kroll, \u201cAus der Geschichte der Astrologie,\u201d Neue Jahrbb. f. Phil. u. P\u00e4d., vii. 559 ff.\n101:1 Kroll, ii. 344; Riess, Frag. 33.\n101:2 Riess, Frag. 1.\n101:3 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03b2\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd.\n101:4 So R. (5) completes a lacuna.\n101:5 \u03b2\u03bf\u03ae\u2014presumably a parallel with the Bath-kol of Talmudic Rabbinism.\n102:1 The same rapturous vision of the soul after death is translated by Seneca (Cons. ad Marciam, 18, 2) from Poseidonius (135-(?)51 B.C.), who also clearly derived it from the same Egyptian Hellenistic literature.\n102:2 C. H., v. (vi.) 5.\n102:3 C. H., xi. (xii.) 6, 7; also Stob., Ecl., i. 49 (386, 3, W.).\n102:4 There are some dozen variants in the spelling and accenting of this name in Greek transliteration; in Egyptian we are told it means \u201cBeloved of Thoth\u201d (Mai en Thoth).\n103:1 Plutarch, De Is. et Osir., ix. and xxviii.\n103:2 Josephus, C. Apion., i. 14.\n103:3 \u00c6lian, De Animalium Natura, x. 16.\n103:4 Budge, op. sup. cit., i. 332, says: \u201cA tradition says Solon, Thales, and Plato all visited the great college at Heliopolis, and that the last-named actually studied there, and that Manetho the priest of Sebennytus, who wrote a history of Egypt in Greek for Ptolemy II., collected his materials in the library of the priesthood of R\u0101.\u201d\n104:1 Chron., xl. See Cory (I. P.), Ancient Fragments, pp. 173, 174\u2014mispaged as 169 (2nd ed.; London, 1832); and Mitller, Fragmenta Historicorum Gr\u00e6corum, pp. 511 ff. (Paris, 1848).\n104:2 \u03b2\u03af\u03b2\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03a3\u03ce\u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2.\n104:3 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd, generally translated \u201ccolumns\u201d; but the term is quite a general one and denotes any monument bearing an inscription.\n104:4 Syncellus has \u201cinto the Greek tongue,\u201d an evident slip, as many have already pointed out.\n104:5 Sebennytus was the chief city of the Sebennyte province, situated about the centre of the Delta. Heliopolis or On, the City of the Sun, was situated some thirty miles north of Memphis.\n105:1 Presumably Manetho and his fellow priests.\n105:2 Lit., \u201cfor you questioning.\u201d\n106:1 See my article on \u201cThe Sibyl and her Oracles,\u201d in The Theosophical Review, vol. xxii. pp. 399 S. See also the passage preserved from the Ethiopian History of Marcellua by Proclus in his commentary on the Tim\u00e6us of Plato; Cory, Ancient Fragments, p. 233.\n107:1 Frag. Hist. Gr\u00e6c., ut sup. cit., p. 512.\n107:2 A. B\u00f6ckh, Manetho und die Hundsternperiode: em Beitrag zur Geschichte der Pharaonen, pp. 14-17 (Berlin, 1845).\n107:3 M. Letronne, Recueil des Inscriptions grecques et latines de l\u2019\u00c9gypte, tom, i., pp. 206, 280 ff. (Paris, 1842).\n109:1 See The Athen\u00e6um, 12th November 1904.\n109:2 De Nat. Deorum, iii. 22.\n110:1 Ursin, De Zoroastre, etc., p. 73.\n110:2 For a permutation of the elements in this genealogy, in the interests of Heliopolis, see Varro, De Genie Pop. Rom., as quoted by Augustine in De Civ. Dei, xviii. 3 and 8.\n111:1 Hekekyan Bey, C. E., A Treatise on the Chronology of Siriadic Monuments, demonstrating that the Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho are Records of Astrogeological Nile Observations which have been continued to the Present Time\u2014Preface, p. v. (London, 1863). The book deserves careful study, and cannot be hastily set aside with the impatience of prejudice.\n112:1 See Pietschmann, op. cit., pp. 31, 32; also Spiegelberg, Recueil des Travaux relatifs \u00e0 la Philologie et \u00e0 l\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes et assyriennes, xxiii. 199. R. 117, n. 1.\n112:2 See the last chapter of the book from which the following passage is quoted. See also Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, cap. ii., who in a very clear statement of the sources of his information, and the method of treating the numerous points raised by Porphyry, says: \u201cAnd if thou proposest any philosophical problem, we will resolve it for thee according to the ancient monuments of Hermes, on the thorough study of which Plato, and prior to him Pythagoras, founded their philosophy.\u201d\n113:1 Who flourished in the early second half of the fourth century A.D.\n113:2 The passages and chambers being hewn out of the solid rock.\n113:3 Ammiani Marcellini Rerum Gestarum Libri qui supersunt, xxii. xv. 30; ed. V. Gardthausen (Leipzig, 1874), p. 301.\n114:1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f45\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd.\n114:2 \u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bb\u03b1\u03c2.\n114:3 \u1f10\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03b2\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03c2, a downpour or flood of rain.\n114:4 Josephus, Antt., I. ii.; Cory\u2019s An. Fragg., pp. 171, 172.\n115:1 Sanhedrin, 107 B; Sota, 47 A.\n115:2 See my Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?\u2014pp. 137 ff. and 147 ff.\n115:3 A similarity already pointed out by Plew, Jahrb. f. Phil. (1868), p. 839.\n115:4 Drexler in Roscher\u2019s Lex. d. Myth., ii. 388, 408, 445.\n116:1 Pietschmann misquotes this line, giving \u201cter maximus\u201d for \u201cter unus\u201d (op. cit., p. 36).\n117:1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1 \u1f19\u03c1\u03bc\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f41 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2, line 19; the reading is perfectly clear, and I cannot understand the remark of Chambers (op. cit., Pref. vii.) that Hermes is called \u201c\u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2, \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2, \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2\u201d on the Rosetta Stone.\n117:2 \u201cInscription grecque de Rosette,\u201d p. 3, appended to M\u00fcller, Frag. Hist. Gr\u00e6c. (Paris, 1841).\n117:3 Ibid., p. 20.\n117:4 Recueil des Inscriptions grecques et latines de l\u2019\u00c9gypte, i. 283 (Paris, 1842).\n117:5 See Pietschmann, op. sup. cit., p. 35.\n117:6 In Greek not only is the term \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1 (thrice-blessed) applied to Hermes in the inscriptions of Pselcis (see Letronne\u2019s Recueil, i. 206 n.), but also in a Magical Prayer (Wessely, 1893\u2014p. 38, 11. 550 ff.; Kenyon, p. 102) he is addressed as \u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2, or \u201cthrice-great\u201d simply.\n119:1 Griffiths here refers to Pietschmann as his authority for this statement.\n120:1 Cf. Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch. (1899), p. 279.\n120:2 Recueil des Travaux relat. \u00e0 la Phil, et \u00e0 l\u2019Arch\u00e9ol. \u00e9gypt. et assyr., xxiii. 196. Cf. R. 54.\n123:1 J. C. Orelli, Sanchoniathonis Berytii qu\u00e6 feruntur Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1826).\n123:2 Pr\u00e6paratio Evangelica, I. vi., vii.\n123:3 These are collected by Cory in his Ancient Fragments, pp. 3 ff. (London, 1832); and they may also be found in C. M\u00fcller, Fragmenta Historicorum Gr\u00e6corum, \u201cPhilo Byblius,\u201d iii. pp. 560 ff. (Paris, 1848).\n123:4 F. Wagenfeld, Sanchuniathon\u2019s Urgeschichte der Ph\u00f6nizier in einem Auszuge aus der wieder aufgefundenen Handschrift von Philo\u2019 s vollst\u00e4ndiger \u00dcbersetzung (Hanover, 1836). In the following year Wagenfeld published the Greek text with a Latin translation under the title Sanchoniathonis Historiarum Ph\u0153nici\u00e6 Libri IX. (Bremse, 1837). For the further consideration of the reliability of Sanchuniathon, see Count (Wolf Wilhelm) Baudissin\u2019s Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, Heft ii., \u201c\u00dcber den religionsgeschichtlichen Werth der ph\u00f6nicischen Geschichte Sanchuniathon\u2019s\u201d (Leipzig, 1876).\n124:1 Perhaps attempts at transliterating the dialectic variants of Upper and Lower Egypt of the name Te\u1e25uti.\n124:2 Wagenfeld\u2019s text, Pro\u0153m., p. 2; Euseb., Pr\u00e6p. Ev., I. ix. 29.\n125:1 This is the beginning of the out-breathing of the universe or of any system; it is the Great 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.\n125:2 Lit., \u00e6on.\n125:3 That is, Sanchuniathon; so that we may take this passage as a direct quotation, or rather translation.\n125:4 Or sources; that is, the primal states of Matter or Chaos.\n125:5 Pothos, \u03c0\u03cc\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2; yearning, longing\u2014love for all that lives and breathes. This union was symbolised not only among the Ph\u0153nicians 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 \u201cChaos\u201d and \u201cEther,\u201d matter and spirit; but when united they represent the hermaphrodite or male-female first principle of the universe, spirit-matter, called in Greek translation Pothos or Er\u014ds.\n125:6 Cf. \u201cThe Darkness comprehended it not\u201d of the Proem to the Fourth Gospel.\n125:7 Here Philo, the translator, volunteers the information that some call this prime plasm of Chaos, \u201cSlime,\u201d others explain it as \u201cFermentation,\u201d in a watery sort of medium.\n125:8 The primal elements and their subdivisions.\n126:1 The same distinction is made in the cosmogonic account in \u201cThe Shepherd,\u201d but with more detail.\n126:2 Presumably still mingled together, as in the account in \u201cThe Shepherd.\u201d\n126:3 That is to say, after the land and water were separated.\n126:4 \u1f10\u03b3\u03c1\u03b7\u03b3\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd. The same expression is used in the Greek translation of The Book of Enoch, in speaking of the Watchers (Egr\u0113gores).\n126:5 Op. cit., i. ii., pp. 8 ff.\n127:1 Op. cit., viii. p. 26.\n127:2 The best source of information is the art. \u201cMegaloi Theoi,\u201d in Reseller\u2019s Ausf\u00fchrliches Lexikon der griechischen u. r\u00f6mischen Mythologie, II. ii. (Leipzig, 1894-97).","title":"Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1: V. The Main Source of the...","type":"page"}