Hermes Trismegistus: Hermetic Excerpts and Fragments - Part 2

II

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I.

i. Cohortatio ad Gentiles, xxxviii.; Otto (J. C. T.), ii. 122 (2d ed., Jena, 1849). 1

Now if any of you should think that he has learnt the doctrine concerning God from those of the philosophers who are mentioned among you as most ancient, let him give ear to Ammon and Hermes. For Ammon in the Words (Logoi) concerning himself 2 calls God “utterly hidden”; while Hermes clearly and plainly declares:

To understand God is difficult; to speak [of Him] impossible, even for one who can understand. 3

This passage occurs at the very end of the treatise. Justin will have it that the most ancient of all the philosophers are on his side.

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These are Ammon and Hermes. Justin, moreover, knows of certain Words (Logoi), or Sermons, or Sacred Utterances of Ammon, which must have been circulating in Greek, otherwise it is difficult to see how Justin was acquainted with them. They were evidently of an apocalyptic nature, in the form of a self-revelation of Ammon or God.

These “Words of Ammon” have clearly nothing to do with the Ammonian type of the surviving Trismegistic literature, where Ammon is a hearer and not an instructor, least of all the supreme instructor or Agathodaimon. In them we may see an intermediate stage of direct dependence of Hellenistic theological literature on Egyptian originals, for we have preserved to us certain Hymns from the El-Khargeh Oasis which bear the inscription “‘The Secret Words of Ammon’ which were found on Tables of Mulberry-wood.” 1

The sentence from Hermes is from a lost sermon, a fragment of which is preserved in an excerpt by Stobæus. It was probably the opening words of what Stobæus calls “The [Sermon] to Tat,” 2 that is to say, probably one of the “Expository Sermons to Tat,” as Lactantius calls them. 3

The idea in the saying was a common place in

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[paragraph continues] Hellenistic theological thought, and need not be always directly referred to the much-quoted words of Plato: “To find the Father and the Maker of this universe is a [great] work, and finding [Him] it is impossible to tell [Him] unto all.” 1 Indeed, it is curious to remark that Justin reproduces the text of the Hermetic writer far more faithfully than when he refers directly to the saying of Plato. 2

ii. I. Apologia, xxi.; Otto, i. 54.

And when we say that the Word (Logos) which is the first begetting of God, was begotten without intercourse,—Jesus Christ, our Master,—and that he was crucified, and was dead, and rose again and ascended into heaven, we bring forward no new thing beyond those among you who are called Sons of Zeus. For ye know how many Sons the writers who are held in honour among you ascribe to Zeus:—Hermes, the Word (Logos), who was the interpreter and teacher of all; and Asclepius, who was also 3 a healer, 4 and was smitten by the bolt [of his sire] and ascended into heaven . . . [and many others] . . .

iii. Ibid., xxii.; Otto, i. 58.

But as to the Son of God called Jesus,—even though he were only a man [born] in the common way, [yet] because of [his] wisdom is he worthy to be called Son

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of God; for all writers call God “Father of men and gods.” And if we say [further] that he was also in a special way, beyond his common birth, begotten of God [as] Word (Logos) of God, let us have this in common with you who call Hermes the Word (Logos) who brings tidings 1 from God.

It is remarkable that Justin heads the list of Sons of God—Dionysus, Hercules, etc.—with Hermes and Asclepius. Moreover, when he returns to the subject he again refers to Hermes and to Hermes alone. This clearly shows that the most telling parallel he could bring forward was that of Hermes, who, in the Hellenistic theological world of his day, was especially thought of under the concept of the Logos.

The immediate association of the name of Asclepius with that of Hermes is also remarkable, and indicates that they were closely associated in Justin’s mind; the indication, however, is too vague to permit of any positive deduction as to an Asclepius-element in the Trismegistic literature current in Rome in Justin’s time. Justin, in any case, has apparently very little first-hand knowledge of the subject, for he introduces the purely Hellenic myth of Asclepius being struck by a thunderbolt, which, we need hardly say, is entirely foreign to the conception of the Hellenistic Asclepius, the disciple of Hermes.

To these quotations Chambers (p. 139) adds the following passage from II. Apologia, vi.,—which in date may be placed some four or five years after the First.

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“Now to the Father of all no name can be given; seeing that He is ingenerable; for by whatsoever name one may be called, he has as his elder the one who gives the name. But ‘Father,’ and ‘God,’ and ‘Creator,’ and ‘Lord,’ and ‘Master’ are not names, but terms of address [derived] from His blessings and His works.”

It is quite true that this passage might be taken verbally from a Hermetic tractate, but I can find no authority in the text of Justin for claiming it as a quotation. For the same idea in Hermes compare C. H., v. (vi.) 10, and Lact., D. I., i. 6. Footnotes

215:1 The Exhortation is considered by most pseudepigraphic, but is supposed by others to be the earliest work of Justin, which may be placed conjecturally about 130 A.D.; the First Apology is generally ascribed to the year 148 A.D.

215:2 Taking the reading περὶ ἑαυτοῦ (Otto, n. 13), adopted in R. 138.

215:3 Quoted also by Lactantius, D. I. Epit., 4; Cyril Alex., Con. Jul., i. 31; and Stobæus, Flor., lxxx. [lxxviii.], 94 (Ex. ii. 1).

216:1 R. 138. The connection between this Ammon and Hermes was probably the same as that which is said to have existed between the king-god Thamus-Ammon and the god of invention Theuth-Hermes. Thamus-Ammon was a king philosopher, to whom Theuth brought all his inventions and discoveries for his (Ammon’s) judgment, which was not invariably favourable. See the pleasant story told by Plato, Phædrus, 274 C. Cf. also the notes on Kneph-Ammon, K. K., 19, Comment.

216:2 Stob., loc. infra cit.

216:3 See Fragg. xi., xii., xiii., xv., xx., xxii., xxiii., xxiv. (?).

217:1 Timæus, 28 C.

217:2 See Cohort., xxii.; II. Apol., x. Clemens Alex., Origen, Minutius Felix, Lactantius, and other of the Fathers also quote this saying of Plato.

217:3 That is, like Jesus.

217:4 θεραπευτὴν (therapeut).

218:1 τὸν παρὰ θεοῦ ἀγγελτικόν. Compare Plutarch, De Is. et Os., xxvi. 5.

II.

Libellus pro Christianis, 1 xxviii.; Schwartz (E.), p. 57, 24 (Leipzig, 1891). 2

Athenagoras was acquainted with a Greek literature circulated under the name of Hermes Trismegistus, to whom he refers as authority for his euhemeristic contention that the gods were once simply men. 3

Footnotes

220:1 Written probably about 176-177 A.D.

220:2 In Texte u. Untersuchungen (von Gebhardt and Harnack), Bd. iv.

220:3 Cf. R, pp. 2 and 160.

III.

1

i. Protrepticus, ii. 29; Dindorf (G.), i. 29, (Oxford, 1869)—(24 P., 8 S.).

(After referring to the three Zeuses, five Athenas, and numberless Apollos of complex popular tradition, Clement continues:)

But what were I to mention the many Asclepiuses, or the Hermeses that are reckoned up, or the Hephæstuses of mythology?

Clement lived in the very centre of Hellenistic theology, and his grouping together of the names of Asclepius, Hermes and Hephæstus, the demiurgic Ptah, whose tradition was incorporated into the Pœmandres doctrine, is therefore not fortuitous, but shows that these three names were closely associated in his mind, and that, therefore, he was acquainted with the Trismegistic literature. This deduction is confirmed by the following passage.

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ii. Stromateis, I. xxi. 134; Dindorf, ii. 108 (399 P., 144 S.).

Of those, too, who once lived as men among the Egyptians, but who have been made gods by human opinion, [are] Hermes of Thebes and Asclepius of Memphis.

(To this we may appropriately append what Clement has to tell us about the “Books of Hermes,” when, writing in the last quarter of the second century, he describes one of the sacred processions of the Egyptians as follows:)

iii. Ibid., VI. iv. 35; Dind., iii. 156, 157.

First comes the “Singer” bearing some one of the symbols of music. This [priest], they tell us, has to make himself master of two of the “Books of Hermes,” one of which contains (1) Hymns [in honour] of the Gods, 1 and the other (2) Reflections 2 on the Kingly Life.

After the “Singer” comes the “Time-watcher” bearing the symbols of the star-science, a dial after a hand and phœnix. He must have the division of the “Books of Hermes” which treats of the stars ever at the tip of his tongue—there being four of such books. The first of these deals with (3) the Ordering of the

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apparently Fixed Stars, 1 the next [two] (4 and 5) with the conjunctions and variations of Light of the Sun and Moon, and the last (6) with the Risings [of the Stars].

Next comes the “Scribe of the Mysteries,” with wings on his head, having in either hand a book and a ruler 2 in which is the ink and reed pen with which they write. He has to know what they call the sacred characters, and the books about (7) Cosmography, and (8) Geography, (9) the Constitution of the Sun and Moon, and (10) of the Five Planets, (11) the Survey of Egypt, and (12) the Chart of the Nile, (13) the List of the Appurtenances of the Temples and (14) of the Lands consecrated to them, (15) the Measures, and (16) Things used in the Sacred Rites.

After the above-mentioned comes the “Overseer 3 of the Ceremonies,” bearing the cubit of justice and the libation cup [as his symbols]. He must know all the books relating to the training [of the conductors of the public cult], and those that they call the victim-sealing 4

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books. There are ten of these books which deal with the worship which they pay to the gods, and in which the Egyptian cult is contained; namely [those which treat] of (17) Sacrifice, (18) First-fruits, (19) Hymns, (20) Prayers, (21) Processions, (22) Feasts, and (23-26) the like.

After all of these comes the “Prophet” clasping to his breast the water-vase so that all can see it; and after him follow those who carry the bread that is to be distributed. 1 The “Prophet” as chief of the temple, learns by heart the ten books which are called “hieratic”; these contain the volumes (27-36) treating of the Laws, and the Gods, and the whole Discipline of the Priests. For you must know that the “Prophet” among the Egyptians is also the supervisor of the distribution of the [temple] revenues.

Now the books which are absolutely indispensable 2

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for Hermes 1 are forty-two in number. Six-and-thirty of them, which contain the whole wisdom-discipline 2 of the Egyptians, are learned by heart by the [grades of priests] already mentioned. The remaining six are learned by the “Shrine-bearers” 3; these are medical treatises dealing with (37) the Constitution of the Body, with (38) Diseases, (39) Instruments, (40) Drugs, (41) Eyes, 4 and finally (42) with the Maladies of Women.

This exceedingly interesting passage of Clement gives us the general catalogue of the Egyptian priestly library and the background of the Greek translations and adaptations in our Trismegistic writings.

The whole of these writings fall into this frame, and the oldest deposit or “Pœmandres” type fits in excellently with the content of the hieratic books (the titles of which Clement has unfortunately omitted), or with those that were kept secret. These hieratic books were evidently the more important and were in charge of the “Prophet,” that is to say, of those high priests of the temples who were directors of the prophetic discipline, the very subject of our “Pœmandres” treatises. 5

Footnotes

221:1 Fl., 175-200 A.D.

222:1 I have numbered the books and used capitals for greater clearness.

222:2 ἐκλογισμόν; I do not know what this term means in this connection. The usual translation of “Regulations” seems to me unsatisfactory. Some word such as “Praise” (? read εὐλογισμόν) seems to be required, as may be seen from the title of C. H., (xviii.), “The Encomium of Kings.”

223:1 τῶν ἀπλανῶν φαινομένων ἄστρων.

223:2 κανόνα.; this must mean a hollow wooden case shaped like a ruler.

223:3 στολιστής, called also ἱερόστολος. This priestly office is usually translated as the “keeper of the vestments,” the “one who is over the wardrobe.” But such a meaning is entirely foreign to the contents of the books which are assigned to him. He was evidently the organiser of the ceremonies, especially the processions.

223:4 μοσχοσφραγιστικά—that is to say, literally, books relating to the art of one who picks out and “seals calves” for sacrifice. The literal meaning originally referred to the selection of the sacred Apis bull-calf, into which the power of the god was supposed to have re-incarnated, in the relic of some primitive magic rite which the conservatism of the Egyptians still retained in the public cult. Its meaning, however, was later on far more general, as we see by the nature of the books assigned to this division. Boulage, in his Mystères d’Isis (Paris, 1820, p. 21), says that “the seal of the priests which marked the victims was a man kneeling with his hands bound behind his back, and a sword pointed at his throat, for it was in this attitude that the neophyte received the first initiation, signifying that he agreed to perish by the sword if he revealed any of the secrets revealed to him.” This he evidently deduced from Plutarch’s De Is. et Os., xxxi. 3.

224:1 οἱ τὴν ἔκπεμψιν τῶν ἄρτων βαστάζοντες. The “Prophet” belonged to the grade of high priests who had practical knowledge of the inner way. As the flood of the Nile came down and irrigated the fields and brought forth the grain for bread, and so gave food to Egypt, so did the living stream of the Gnosis from the infinite heights of space pour into the Hierophant, and he in his turn became Father Nile for the priests, his disciples, who in their turn distributed the bread of knowledge to the people. A pleasing symbolism, of which the bread and water of the earlier ascetic schools of Christendom, who rejected wine, was perhaps a reminiscence. Nor has even the General Church in its older forms forgotten to sprinkle the people from the water-vase and distribute among them the bread.

224:2 This seems to suggest that there were others, the knowledge of which was optional, or rather reserved for the few. There may perhaps have been forty-nine in all.

225:1 That is, the priesthood.

225:2 Lit. philosophy.

225:3 παστοφόροι, those who carried the pastos as a symbol; this apparently symbolized the shrine or casket of the soul; in other words, the human body. These Pastophors were the priests who were the physicians of the body, the higher grades being presumably physicians of the soul.

225:4 This seems to be an error of the copyist.

225:5 As to the hieroglyphic inscription at Edfu, which was thought by Jomasd to contain references to the titles of these forty-two books, see Parthey, Über Isis und Osiris, p. 255.

IV.

1

i. Contra Valentinianos, xv.; Œhler (F.), ii. 402 (Leipzig, 1844).

(Writing sarcastically of the Gnostic Sophia-myth, Tertullian exclaims:)

Well, then, let the Pythagoreans learn, the Stoics know, [yea,] Plato even, whence matter—which they [sc. the Pythagoreans and the rest] would have to be ingenerable—derived its source and substance to [form] this pile of a world,—[a mystery] which not even the famous Thrice-greatest Hermes, the master of all physics, has thought out.

The doctrine of Hermes, and of Hellenistic theology in general, however, is that matter comes from the One God. It is remarkable that Tertullian keeps his final taunt for that school which was evidently thought the foremost of all—that of the “famous Thrice-greatest Hermes.”

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ii. De Anima, ii.; Œhler, ii. 558.

(Inveighing against the wisdom of the philosophers, Tertullian says:)

She [philosophy] has also been under the impression that she too has drawn from what they [the philosophers] consider “sacred” scriptures; because antiquity thought that most authors were gods (deos), and not merely inspired by them (divos),—as, for instance, Egyptian Hermes, with whom especially Plato had intercourse, 1 . . . [and others] . . . .

Here again, as with Justin, Hermes heads the list; moreover, in Tertullian’s mind, Hermes belongs to antiquity, to a more ancient stratum than Pythagoras and Plato, as the context shows; Plato, of course, depends on Hermes, not Hermes on Plato; of this Tertullian has no doubt. There were also “sacred scriptures” of Hermes, and Hermes was regarded as a god.

iii. Ibid., xxviii.; Œhler, ii. 601.

What then is the value nowadays of that ancient doctrine mentioned by Plato, 2 about the reciprocal migration of souls; how they remove hence and go thither, and then return hither and pass through life, and then again depart from this life, made quick again from the dead? Some will have it that this is a doctrine of Pythagoras; while Albinus 3 will have it to

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be a divine pronouncement, perhaps of Egyptian Hermes.

iv. Ibid., xxxiii.; Œhler, ii. 610.

(Arguing ironically against the belief in metempsychosis, Tertullian writes:)

Even if they [souls] should continue [unchanged] until judgment [is pronounced upon them] . . . a point which was known to Egyptian Hermes, when he says that the soul on leaving the body is not poured back into the soul of the universe, but remains individualized 1:

That it may give account unto the Father of those things which it hath done in body.

This exact quotation 2 is to be found nowhere in the existing remains of the Trismegistic literature, but it has every appearance of being genuine.

Œhler (note c) refers to C. H., x. (xi.) 7, but this passage of “The Key” is only a general statement of the main idea of metempsychosis.

A more appropriate parallel is to be found in P. S. A., xxviii. 1: “When, [then,] the soul’s departure from the body shall take place,—then shall the judgment and the weighing of its merit pass into its highest daimon’s power”—a passage, however, which retains far stronger traces of the Egyptian prototype of the idea than does that quoted by Tertullian.

Footnotes

226:1 Fl., c. 200-216 A.D.

227:1 Adsuevit.

227:2 Cf. Phædo, p. 70.

227:3 A Platonic philosopher, and contemporary of Galen (130-?200 A.D.).

228:1 Determinatam.

228:2 Tertullian marks it by an “inquit.”

V.

1

i. De Idolorum Vanitate, vi.; Baluze, p. 220 (Paris, 1726).

Thrice-Greatest Hermes speaks of the One God, and confesses Him beyond all understanding and all appraisement.

This is evidently a reference to the most quoted sentence of Hermes. See Justin Martyr i. below, and other references.

Chambers (p. 140), after this notice in Cyprian, inserts a passage from Eusebius (c. 325 A.D.), which he says is “a clear quotation from the ‘Pœmandres’ of Hermes, whom, however, he [Eusebius] probably confounds with the Shepherd of Hermas.”

Eusebius (Hist. Ecc., v. 8), however, quotes Irenæus (iv. 20, 2), who quotes literally The Shepherd of Hermas (Mand., i.). Indeed, it is the most famous sentence in that early document. See the list of its quotations by the Fathers in the note to Gebhardt and Harnack’s text (Leipzig, 1897), p. 70. Such verbal exactitude is not to be found in the remaining Trismegistic literature; the idea, however, is the basis of the whole Trismegistic theology.

Footnotes

229:1 About 200-258 A.D.

VI.

1

i. Adversus Nationes, ii. 13; Hildebrand (G. F.), p. 136 (Halle, 1844).

(Arnobius complains that the followers of the philosophic schools laugh at the Christians, and selects especially the adherents of a certain tradition as follows:)

You, you I single out, who belong to the school of Hermes, or of Plato and Pythagoras, and the rest of you who are of one mind and walk in union in the same paths of doctrine. 2

Footnotes

230:1 He was a converted philosopher, and the teacher of Lactantius; flourished about 304 A.D.

230:2 Here again, as elsewhere, Hermes comes first; he was evidently regarded as the leader of philosophic theology as contrasted with popular Christian dogmatics. See R. 306.

VII.

1

i. Divinæ Institutiones, i. 6, 1; Brandt, p. 18; Fritzsche, i. 13. 2

Let us now pass to divine testimonies; but, first of all, I will bring into court testimony which is like divine [witness], both on account of its exceeding great age, and because he whom I shall name was carried back again from men unto the gods.

In Cicero, 3 Caius Cotta, 4 the Pontifex, arguing against the Stoics about faiths and the diversity of opinions which obtain concerning the gods, in order that, as was the way of the Academics, 5 he might bring all things into doubt, declares that there were five Hermeses; and after enumerating four of them in succession, [he adds] that the fifth was he by whom

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[paragraph continues] Argus was slain, 1 and for that cause he fled into Egypt, and initiated the Egyptians into laws and letters.

The Egyptians call him Thoyth, and from him the first month of their year (that is, September) has received its name. He also founded a city which even unto this day is called Hermopolis. The people of Phenëus, 2 indeed, worship him as a god; but, although

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he was [really] a man, still he was of such high antiquity, and so deeply versed in every kind of science, that his knowledge of [so] many things and of the arts gained him the title of “Thrice-greatest.”

He wrote books, indeed many [of them], treating of the Gnosis 1 of things divine, in which he asserts the greatness of the Highest and One and Only God, and calls Him by the same names as we [do]—God and Father. 2 And [yet], so that no one should seek after His name, he has declared that He cannot be named, in that He doth not need to have a name, owing, indeed, unto the very [nature of His] unity. 3 His words are these 4:

But God [is] one; and He who’s one needs not a name, for He [as one] is The-beyond-all-names.

For Lactantius, then, Hermes was very ancient; moreover, he was one who descended from heaven and had returned thither. When, however, Firmianus attempts the historical origins of the Hermetic tradition, as was invariably the case with the ancients, he can do nothing better than refer us to a complex though

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interesting myth, and to a legend of it devised to flatter the self-esteem of its Hellenic creators: A Greek god, whose cult, moreover, was known to be intimately connected with an ancient mystery-tradition, was the originator of the wisdom of Egypt. Of course; and so with all nations who had any ancient learning—their special tradition was oldest and best and originator of all others!

For the rest, Lactantius knows nothing historically of the tradition which he esteemed so highly, and the mention of the Latinized name Thoyth 1 and of Hermopolis 2 does but throw the paucity of his knowledge into deeper relief. What Lactantius does know is a large literature in Greek and its general tendency.

The sentence he quotes is not found textually in any of the extant Trismegistic literature. 3

ii. Ibid., i. 11, 61; Brandt, p. 47; Fritzsche, i. 29, 30.

And so it appears that he [Cronus] was not born from Heaven (which is impossible), but from that man who was called Uranus; and that this is so, Trismegistus bears witness, when, in stating that there have been very few in whom the perfect science has been found,

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he mentioned in their number Uranus, Cronus and Hermes, his own kinsfolk. 1

iii. Ibid., ii. 8, 48; Brandt, p. 138; Fritzsche, i. 89.

For the World was made by Divine Providence, not to mention Thrice-greatest, who preaches this. 2

iv. Ibid., ii. 8, 68; Brandt, p. 141; Fritzsche, i. 91.

His [God’s] works are seen by the eyes; but how He made them, is not seen even by the mind, “in that,” as Hermes says:

Mortal cannot draw nigh 3 to the Immortal, nor temporal to the Eternal, nor the corruptible to That which knoweth no corruption. 4

And, therefore, hath the earthly animal not yet capacity to see celestial things, in that it is kept shut within the body as in a prison house, lest with freed sense, emancipate, it should see all.

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The first part of this citation (which Lactantius gives in Latin) is identical in idea with a sentence in Frag. iv.—that favourite source of quotation, which Stobæus, Ex. ii. (Flor. lxxx. [lxxviii.] 9), excerpted from “The [Sermon] to Tat.” 1 It might, then, be thought that this was simply a paraphrase of Lactantius’, or that he was quoting from memory, and that the second sentence was not quotation but his own writing. But the second sentence is so thoroughly Trismegistic that it has every appearance of being genuine. 2

v. Ibid., ii. 10, 13; Brandt, p. 149; Fritzsche, i. 96.

But the making of the truly living man out of clay 3 is of God. And Hermes also hands on the tradition of this fact,—for not only has he said that man was made by God after the Image of God, 4 but also he has attempted to explain with what skilfulness He has formed every single member in the body of man, since there is not one of them which is not admirably suited not only for what it has to do, but also adapted for beauty. 5

Man made after the Image of God is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Trismegistic tradition. For instance, P. S. A., vii. 2: “The [man] ‘essential,’ as say the Greeks, but which we call the ‘form of the

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[paragraph continues] Divine Similitude’”; and x. 3: “Giving the greatest thanks to God, His Image reverencing,—not ignorant that he [man] is, too, God’s image, the second [one]; for that there are two images of God—Cosmos and man.” 1

vi. Ibid., ii. 12, 4; Brandt, p. 156; Fritzsche, i. 100.

Empedocles 2 . . . [and others] . . . laid down four elements, fire, air, water, and earth,—[in this] perchance following Trismegistus, who said that our bodies were composed of these four elements by God.

“For that they have in them something of fire, something of air, something of water, and something of earth,—and yet they are not fire [in itself], nor air, nor water, nor earth.”

All this about the elements is, of course, a commonplace of ancient physics, and we may, therefore, dismiss the naïve speculation of Lactantius, who evidently thought he had the very words of the first inventor of the theory before him; for he renders into Latin word for word the same text which Stobæus has preserved to us in an excerpt from “The [Sermons] to Tat”—Ex. iii. I. 3

vii. Ibid., ii. 14, 5; Brandt, p. 163; Fritzsche, i. 105.

Thus there are two classes of daimons,—the one celestial, and the other terrestrial. The latter are impure spirits, the authors of the evils that are done, 4

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of whom the same Diabolus is chief. Whence Trismegistus calls him the “Daimon-chief.” 1

viii. Ibid., ii. 15, 6; Brandt, p. 166; Fritzsche, i. 106.

In fine, Hermes asserts that those who have known God, not only are safe from the attacks of evil daimons, but also that they are not held even by Fate. 2 He says:

The one means of protection is piety. For neither doth an evil daimon nor doth Fate rule o’er the pious man. 3 For God doth save the pious [man] from every ill. The one and only good found in mankind is piety.

And what piety means, he witnesses in another place, saying:

“Devotion is God-Gnosis.” 4

Asclepius, his Hearer, has also explained the same idea at greater length in that “Perfect Sermon” which he wrote to the King.

Both, then, assert that the daimons are the enemies and harriers of men, and for this cause Trismegistus

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calls them “evil ‘angels’,” 1—so far was he from being ignorant that from celestial beings they had become corrupted, and so earthly.

This passage is given in Greek, and is quoted, but with numerous glosses, also by Cyril (Contra Julianum, iv. 130); it is also practically the same as the sentence in P. S. A., xxix.: “The righteous man finds his defence in serving God and deepest piety. For God doth guard such men from every ill.”

Now we know that Lactantius had the Greek of this “Perfect Sermon” before him, and we know that our Latin translation is highly rhetorical and paraphrastic.

The only difficulty is that Lactantius’ quotation ends with the sentence: “The one and only good found in mankind is piety”; and this does not appear in the Latin translation of P. S. A. On the other hand, Firmianus immediately refers by name to a Perfect Sermon, which, however, he says was written by Asclepius, and addressed to the King. Our Fragment is, therefore, probably from the lost ending of C. H., xvi. (see Commentary on the title).

ix. Ibid., iv. 6, 4; Brandt, p. 286; Fritzsche, i. 178.

Hermes, in that book which is entitled the “Perfect Sermon,” uses these words:

The Lord and Master of all things (whom ’tis our custom to call God), when He had made the

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second God, the Visible and Sensible, 1—I call Him sensible, not that He hath sensation in Himself (for as to this, whether or no He hath Himself sensation, we will some other time enquire), but that He is object of senses and of mind,—when, then, He’d made Him First, and One and Only, 2 He seemed to Him most fair, and filled quite full of all things good. At Him he marvelled, and loved Him altogether as His Son. 3

Lactantius here quotes from the lost Greek original of “The Perfect Sermon,” viii. 1. We have thus a means of controlling the old Latin translation which has come down to us.

It is, by comparison, very free and often rhetorical; inserting phrases and even changing the original, as, for instance, when in the last clause it says: “He fell in love with him as being part of His Divinity.”

It is, however, possible that the translator may have had a different text before him, for there is reason to believe that there were several recensions of the P. S. A. 4

x. Ibid., iv. 6, 9; Brandt, p. 291; Fritzsche, i. 179.

(Speaking of the Son of God and identifying Him with the pre-existent Wisdom spoken of in Proverbs viii. 22, Lactantius adds:)

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Wherefore also Trismegistus has called Him the “Demiurge of God.” 1

xi. Ibid., iv. 7, 3; Brandt, p. 292; Fritzsche, i. 179.

Even then [when the world shall be consummated], 2 it [God’s Name] will not be able to be uttered by the mouth of man, as Hermes teaches, saying:

But the Cause of this Cause is the Divine and the Ingenerable Good’s Good-will, which 3 first brought forth the God whose Name cannot be spoken by the mouth of man. 4

xii. Ibid., iv. 7, 3; Brandt, p. 293; Fritzsche, i. 179, 180.

THE HOLY WORD ABOUT THE LORD OF ALL.

And a little after [he says] to his son:

For that there is, [my] son, a Word [Logos] of wisdom, that no tongue can tell,—a Holy 5

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[paragraph continues] [Word] about the only Lord of all, the God before all thought,—whom to declare transcends all human power. 1

xiii. Ibid., iv. 8, 5; Brandt, p. 296; Fritzsche, i. 181.

But Hermes also was of the same opinion when he says:

“His own father and His own mother.” 2

xiv. Ibid., iv. 9, 3; Brandt, p. 300; Fritzsche, i. 182, 183.

Trismegistus, who has tracked out, I know not how, almost all truth, has often described the power and greatness of the Word (Logos), as the above quotation 3 from him shows, in which he confesses the Word to be Ineffable and Holy, and in that its telling forth transcends the power of man.

xv. Ibid., iv. 13, 2; Brandt, p. 316; Fritzsche, i. 190.

For God, the Father, and the Source, and Principle of things, in that He hath no parents, is very truly called by Trismegistus “father-less” and “mother-less” 4 in that He is brought forth from none. 5

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xvi. Ibid., v. 14, 11; Brandt, p. 446; Fritzsche, i. 256.

But “piety is nothing else than Gnosis of God,” 1 as Trismegistus has most truly laid down, as we have said in another place. 2

xvii. Ibid., vi. 25, 10; Brandt, p. 579; Fritzsche, ii. 60.

Concerning justice, he [Trismegistus, who in this (namely concerning sacrifice) “agrees substantially and verbally with the prophets”] has thus spoken:

“Unto this Word (Logos), my son, thy adoration and thy homage pay. There is one way alone to worship God,—[it is] not to be bad.”

Here Lactantius translates literally from C. H., xii. (xiii.) 23, a sermon which now bears the title, “About the Common Mind to Tat.” Hermes, however, in the context of the quoted passage, is not writing “about justice,” and much less could the whole sermon be so entitled, if indeed Lactantius intended us so to understand it. But see the Commentary, C. H., xii. (xiii.) 6, and Ex. xi., “On Justice.”

xviii. Ibid., v. 25, 11; Brandt, p. 579; Fritzsche, ii. 60.

Also in that “Perfect Sermon,” when he heard Asclepius enquiring of his son, 3 whether it would be pleasing to his 4 father, that incense and other perfumes

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should be offered in their holy rite to God, [Hermes] exclaimed:

Nay, nay; speak more propitiously, O [my] Asclepius! For very great impiety is it to let come in the mind any such thought about that One and Only Good.

These things, and things like these, are not appropriate to Him. For He is full of all things that exist and least of all stands He in need [of aught].

But let us worship pouring forth our thanks. The [worthiest] sacrifice to Him is blessing, [and blessing] only.

With this compare the passage in P. S. A., xli. 2 (p. 61, 16, Goldb.). Here again we have the means of controlling the old Latin translator, but not with such exactitude as before, for Lactantius has also turned the Greek text into Latin. But not only from the other specimens of Lactantius’ Hermes translations, but also from his present close reproduction of the ordinary wording of the Trismegistic treatises, we may be further confident that the Old Latin translation is free, paraphrastic, and rhetorical, as we have already remarked.

xix. Ibid., vii. 4, 3; Brandt, p. 593; Fritzsche, ii. 69.

But Hermes was not ignorant that man was made by God and in the Image of God. 1

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xx. Ibid., vii. 9, 11; Brandt, p. 612; Fritzsche, ii. 82.

(Speaking of man being the only animal that has his body upright, and face raised to heaven, looking towards his Maker, Lactantius says:)

And this “looking” Hermes has most rightly named contemplation. 1

xxi. Ibid., vii. 13, 3; Brandt, p. 624 Fritzsche, ii. 90.

Hermes, in describing the nature of man, in order that he might teach how he was made by God, brings forward the following:

From the two natures, the deathless and mortal, He made one nature,—that of man,—one and the self-same thing; and having made the self-same [man] both somehow deathless and somehow mortal, He brought him forth, and set him up betwixt 2 the godlike and immortal

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nature and the mortal, that seeing all he might wonder at all.

This idea of “wondering” was, doubtless, a commonplace in Hellenistic philosophical circles and looked back to the Platonic saying: “There is no other beginning of Philosophy than wondering.” Compare also one of the newest found “Logoi of Jesus,” from the rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus, which runs: “Let not him that seeketh . . . cease until he find, and when he finds he shall wonder; wondering he shall reign, and reigning he shall rest.” 1

Wondering is the beginning of Gnosis; this makes a man king of himself, and thus master of gods and men, and so he has peace. The translation of βασιλεύσει by Grenfell and Hunt as “reach the kingdom” seems to me to have no justification.

Lactantius here quotes the Greek text of P. S. A., viii. 3, and so once again we can control the Old Latin version. The Church Father is plainly the more reliable, reproducing as he does familiar Hermetic phrasing and style; and we thus again have an insight into the methods of our rhetorical, truncated, and interpolated Latin Version.

xxii. Ibid., vii. 18, 3; Brandt, p. 640; Fritzsche, ii. 99.

And Hermes states this [the destruction of the world] 2 plainly. For in that book which bears the title

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of “The Perfect Sermon,” after an enumeration of the evils of which we have spoken, he adds:

Now when these things shall be, as I have said, Asclepius, then will [our] Lord and Sire, the God and Maker of the First and the One God, 1 look down on what is done, and, making firm His Will,—that is the Good,—against disorder, recalling error, and purging out the bad, either by washing it away with water-flood, or burning it away with swiftest fire, or forcibly expelling it with war and famine,—He [then] will bring again His Cosmos to its former state, and so achieve its Restoration. 2

xxiii. Ibid., Epitome, 4, 4; Brandt, p. 679; Fritzsche, ii. 117.

Hermes,—who, on account of his virtue and knowledge of many arts, gained the title of Thrice-greatest, who also in the antiquity of his doctrine preceded the philosophers, and who is worshipped as god among the Egyptians,—declaring the greatness of the One and Only God with unending praises, calls Him God and Father, [and says] He has no name, for that He has no need for a distinctive name, 3 inasmuch as He alone is,

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nor has He any parents, in that He is both from Himself and by Himself. 1

In writing to his son [Tat] he begins as follows:

“To comprehend God is difficult, to speak [of Him] impossible, even for one who can comprehend; for the Perfect cannot be comprehended by the imperfect, nor the Invisible by the visible.” 2

xxiv. Ibid., Ep., 14; Brandt, p. 685; Fritzsche, ii. 121.

(Lactantius repeats in almost identical words what he has written in i. 11.)

xxv. Ibid., Ep., 37 (42), 2; Brandt, p. 712; Fritzsche, ii. 140.

By means of him [the Logos] as Demiurge, 3 as Hermes says, He [God the Father] hath devised the beautiful and wondrous creation of the world. . . .

Finally Plato has spoken concerning the first and second God, not plainly as a philosopher, but as a prophet, perchance in this following Trismegistus, whose words I have added in translation from the Greek.

(Lactantius then translates verbally from the Greek text he has quoted in iv. 6, 4, omitting, however, the last clause and the parenthesis in the middle.)

Footnotes

231:1 A pupil of Arnobius; flourished at the beginning of the fourth century.

231:2 Brandt (S.), L. Caeli Firmiani Lactanti Opera Omnia,—Pars I., Divinae Institutiones et Epitome (Vienna, 1890). Pars II., to be edited by G. Laubmann, has not yet appeared. Fritzsche (O. F.), Div. Institt. (Leipzig, 1842), 2 vols.

231:3 De Natura Deorum, iii. 22, 56.

231:4 C. Aurelius Cotta, 124-76 (?) B.C.

231:5 Cicero makes Cotta maintain the cause of this school both here and in the De Oratore.

232:1 Argos, according to the many ancient myths concerning him, was all-seeing (πανόπτης), possessed of innumerable eyes, or, in one variant, of an eye at the top of his head. Like Hercules, he was of superhuman strength, and many similar exploits of his powers are recorded. In the Io-legends, Hera made Argos guardian of the cow into which the favourite of Zeus had been metamorphosed. Zeus accordingly sent Hermes to carry off his beloved. Hermes is said to have lulled Argos to sleep by means of his syrinx, or pipe of seven reeds, or by his caduceus, and then to have stoned him or cut off his head. See Reseller’s Ausführ. Lex. d. griech. u. röm. Myth., s.v. “Argos.” It is to be noticed that instead of Argum, four MSS. read argentum, which is curious as showing a Medieval Alchemical influence. See n. 4 to Ciceronis Opera Philosophica (Delph. et Var. Clas.), vol. ii. (London, 1830).

232:2 Pheneatæ,—Phenëus was a town in Arcadia, that country of ancient mysteries. (It is remarkable that Hermas is taken by the “Shepherd” in spirit to a mountain in Arcadia. See Shepherd of Hermas, Sim. ix. 1.) Cicero begins his description of the fifth Hermes with this statement, and Lactantius has thus awkwardly misplaced it. Pausanias (viii. 14, 6) tells us that Phenëus itself was considered as a very ancient city, and that its chief cult was that of Hermes. This cult of Hermes, moreover, was blended with an ancient mystery-tradition, for Pausanias (ibid., 15, 1) tells us that:

“The Pheneatians have also a sanctuary of Demeter sumamed Eleusinian, and they celebrate mysteries in her honour, alleging that rites identical with those performed at Eleusis were instituted in their land. . . . Beside the sanctuary of the Eleusinian goddess is what is called the Petroma, two great stones fitted to each other. Every second year, when they are celebrating what they call the Greater Mysteries, they open these stones, and taking out of them certain writings which bear on the mysteries, they read them in the hearing of the initiated, and put them back in their place that same night. I know, too, that on the weightiest matters most of the Pheneatians swear by the Petroma.” Frazer’s Translation, i. 393 (London, 1898).

233:1 Cognitionem.

233:2 Cf. P. S. A., xx. (p. 42, 16, Goldb.) et pass.; C. H., v. (vi.) 2.

233:3 Compare with Epitome 4 below.

233:4 Lactantius here quotes in Greek. Cf. P. S. A., xx. (p. 42, 27-43, 3, Goldb.).

234:1 Was, however, this the spelling found in Cicero, for Firmianus takes it from the text of Tully? It is a pity we have no critical apparatus of the text of Lactantius, for the MSS. of Cicero present us with the following extraordinary list of variants: Then, Ten, Their, Thoyt, Theyt, Theyn, Thetum, Them, Thernum, Theutatem, Theut, Thoyth, Thoth. See n. 5 to the text of Cicero, cited above. Cf. R. 117, n. 2.

234:2 Which he probably took from P. S. A., xxxvii. 4: “Whose home is in a place called after him.”

234:3 Chambers (p. 41, n. 1), in referring it to C. H., v. (vi.) 10, is mistaken.

235:1 Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 5; P. S. A., xxxvii. 1. Also Lact., Epit., 14. In my commentary on the first passage I have shown that Lactantius is probably here referring to a lost Hermetic treatise.

235:2 Cf. Fragg. ap. Stob., Ecl., i. 5, 16, 20. It is to be noticed from the context that Lactantius places Trismegistus in a class apart together with the Sibylline Oracles and Prophets, and then proceeds to speak of the philosophers, Pythagoreans, Platonists, etc. He also repeats the same triple combination in iv. 6.

235:3 Propinquare. L. glosses this as meaning “come close to and follow with the intelligence.”

235:4 Cf. Frag. ap. Cyril, C. I., i. (vol. vi., p. 31 C).

236:1 Compare also Lact., Epit., 4.

236:2 It is interesting to note, in the history of the text-tradition, that the received reading σημήναι (“be expressed”) in Stobæus stands in one MS. (A) συμβῆναι, which seems to be a transference from the original of L.’s propinquare.

236:3 Limo,—slime or mud.

236:4 Lact. repeats this in vii. 4. Cf. C. H., i. 12.

236:5 Cf. C. H., v. (vi.) 6.

237:1 Cf. also Hermes-Prayer, iii. 11. R. 21, n. 11.

237:2 Date c. 494-434 B.C.

237:3 See also Ex. vii. 3; C. H., ii. (iii.) 11.

237:4 Cf. C. H., ix. (x.) 3; C. H., xvi. 10.

238:1 δαιμονιάρχην. This term is not found in the extant texts; “Diabolus” is, of course, not to be referred to Hermes, but to the disquisition of Lactantius at the beginning of 14.

238:2 Cf. Cyril, C. J., iv. (vol. vi. 130 E, Aub.).

238:3 For the same idea, see C. H., xii. (xiii.) 9.

238:4 ἡ γὰρ εὐσέβεια γνῶσις ἐστι τοῦ θεοῦ,—which Lactantius in another passage (v. 14) renders into Latin as “Pietas autem nihil aliud est quam dei notio,—is given in C. H., ix. (x.) 4 as: εὐσέβεια δέ ἐστι θεοῦ γνῶσις (where Parthey notes no various readings in MSS.).

239:1 ἀγγέλους πονηροὺς,—these words do not occur in our extant Greek texts; but the Lat. trans, of P. S. A., xxv. 4, preserves “nocentes angeli.”

240:1 Sc. the Logos as Cosmos.

240:2 Cf. Frag. x.

240:3 For last clause, see C. H., i. 12. Cf. also Ps. Augustin., C. Quinque Hæreses, vol. viii., Append, p. 3 E, Maur.

240:4 Lactantius himself also gives a partial translation of this passage in his Epitome, 42 (Fritz., ii. 140).

241:1 δημιουργὸν τοῦ . The exact words do not occur in our extant texts, but the idea is a commonplace of the Trismegistic doctrine; see especially P. S. A., xxvi.: “The Demiurgus of the first and the one God,” and Lact., ibid., vii. 18, 4: “God of first might, and Guider of the one God.” See also C. H., i. 10, 11, xvi. 18; Cyril, C. Jul., i. 33 (Frag. xiii.), and vi. 6 (Frag. xxi.); and Exx. iii. 6, iv. 2. Cf. also Ep. 14 below.

241:2 Cf. vii. 18 below.

241:3 Sc. will (βούλησις). Cf. especially P. S. A., Commentary.

241:4 This is plainly from the same source as the following Fragment.

241:5 Cf. C. H., i. 5; and Lact. and Cyril, passim (e.g. Fragg. xxi., xxii.).

242:1 This passage and the preceding, then, are evidently taken from “The Sermons to Tat.” Lactantius quotes in Greek, and again refers to the passage in iv. 9.

242:2 αὐτοπάτορα καὶ αὐτομήτορα—not found in the extant texts; but for the idea see C. H., i. 9. See also iv. 13, and Ep. 4 below.

242:3 Ibid., iv. 7.

242:4 ἀπάτωρ et ἀμήτωρ. Cf. Lact., D. I., i. 7, 2 (Brandt).

242:5 Terms not found in our extant texts; probably taken from the same source as the terms in iv. 8 above.

243:1 Notio dei.

243:2 Namely ii. 15, 6; q.v. for comment.

243:3 That is, Hermes’ son Tat.

243:4 That is, Tat’s father, Hermes.

244:1 See above, ibid., ii. 10, 13, Comment.

245:1 θεοπτίαν = θεωρίαν. See, for instance, C. H., xiv. (xv.) 1, and K. K., 1, 38, 51; also Frag. ap. Stob., Flar., xi. 23; and also compare C. H., iv. (v.) 2: “For contemplator (θεατής) of God’s works did man become.” It is also of interest to note that Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Tryph., 218 c) enumerates the Theoretics or Contemplatives, among the most famous sects of Philosophers, naming them in the following order: Platonics, Stoics, Peripatetics, Theoretics, Pythagorics.

245:2 Compare the “setting up betwixt” (ἐν μέσῳ . . . ἵδρυσεν) with the “setting up” of the mind “in the midst” of C. H., iv. (v.) 3.

246:1 Grenfell (B. P.) and Hunt (A. S.), New Sayings of Jesus, p. 13 (London, 1904).

246:2 Cf. iv. 7 above.

247:1 Cf. Frag. v.

247:2 Lactantius quotes the original Greek of P. S. A., xxvi. 1 (p. 48, 24, Goldb.), so that we can thus once more remark the liberties which the Old Latin translation has taken with the text.

247:3 Cf. Frag. ii.

248:1 See i. 6 and iv. 8 above.

248:2 The first clause is a verbatim translation of the text of the Stobæan Extract ii., while the second is a paraphrase even of L.’s own version from the Greek (see ii. 8 above). We learn, however, the new scrap of information that the quotation is from the beginning of the sermon.

248:3 The reference to the “Demiurge” looks back to iv. 6, 9.

VIII.

i. De Civitate Dei, xxiii.; Hoffmann (E.), i. 392 (Vienna, 1899-1900). 1

Augustine is arguing against the views of Appuleius (first half of the second century) on the cult of the “daimones,” and in so doing introduces a long disquisition on the doctrine of “Egyptian Hermes, whom they call Thrice-greatest,” concerning image-worship, or the consecrated and “ensouled,” or “animated,” statues of the gods.

In the course of his remarks the Bishop of Hippo quotes at length from a current Latin version 2 of “The Perfect Sermon” or “Asclepius” (though without himself giving any title), which we see at once must have been the very same text that has come down to us in its entirety. It is precisely the same text, word for word, with ours; the variants being practically of the most minute character.

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First of all Augustine quotes from P. S. A., xxiii. 3, xxiv. 2. This “prophecy” of the downfall of the Egyptian religion Augustine naturally takes as referring to the triumph of Christianity, and so he ridicules Hermes “[qui] tam impudenter dolebat, quam imprudentur sciebat.”

ii. Ibid., xxiv.; Hoffmann, i. 396.

The Bishop of Hippo begins his next chapter with a quotation from P. S. A., xxxvii. 1, 2, on the same subject, and proceeds scornfully to criticise the statements of the Trismegistic writer.

iii. Ibid., xxvi.; Hoffmann, i. 402.

After quoting the sentence, from P. S. A., xxiv. 3, in which Hermes says that the pure temples of Egypt will all be polluted with tombs and corpses, Augustine proceeds to contend that the gods of Egypt are all dead men, and in support of his contention he quotes P. S. A., xxxvii. 3, 4. Footnotes

249:1 Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. xxx. (Imp. Acad. of Vienna). The date of the writing of the treatise, De Civitate Dei, is fixed as being about 413-426 A.D.

249:2 Hujus Ægyptii verba, sicut in nostram linguam interpretata sunt.

IX.

1

i. Contra Julianum, i. 30; Migne, col. 548 A. 2

(Cyril, after claiming that Pythagoras and Plato obtained their wisdom in Egypt from what, he professes, they had heard of Moses there, proceeds:)

And I think the Egyptian Hermes also should be considered worthy of mention and recollection—he who, they say, bears the title of Thrice-greatest because of the honour paid him by his contemporaries, and, as some think, in comparison with Hermes the fabled son of Zeus and Maia.

This Hermes of Egypt, then, although an initiator into mysteries, 3 and though he never ceased to cleave to the shrines of idols, is [nevertheless] found to have grasped the doctrines of Moses, if not with entire correctness, and beyond all cavil, yet still in part.

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For both [Hermes] himself has been benefitted [by Moses], and reminder of this [fact] has also been made in his own writings by [the editor] at Athens who put together the fifteen books entitled “Hermaïca.” [This editor] writes concerning him [Hermes] in the first book, putting the words into the mouth of one of the priests of the sacred rites:

“In order then that we may come to things of a like nature (?),—have you not heard that our Hermes divided the whole of Egypt into allotments and portions, measuring off the acres with the chain, 1 and cut canals for irrigation purposes, and made nomes, 2 and named the lands [comprised in them] after them, and established the interchange of contracts, and drew up a list of the risings of the stars, and [the proper times 3] to cut plants; and beyond all this he discovered and bequeathed to posterity numbers, and calculations, and geometry, and astronomy, and astrology, and music, and the whole of grammar?”

This Corpus of XV. Books is evidently the source of Cyril’s information, and he takes the above quotation from the Introduction, which purported to be written by an Egyptian priest (as is also the case in the treatise De Mysteriis, traditionally ascribed to Jamblichus), but which Cyril says was written at Athens, by presumably some Greek editor. 4

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ii. Ibid., i. 31; Migne col. 549 B.

Thrice-greatest Hermes says somewhat as follows:

(Cyril then quotes, with four slight verbal variants, the first four paragraphs of the passage excerpted by Stobæus, Ex. ii., and then proceeds without a break:)

If, then, there be an incorporeal eye, 1 let it go forth from body unto the Vision of the Beautiful; let it fly up and soar aloft, seeking to see not form, nor body, nor [even] types 2 [of things], but rather That which is the Maker of [all] these,—the Quiet and Serene, the Stable and the Changeless One, the Self, the All, the One, the Self of self, the Self in self, the Like to Self [alone], That which is neither like to other, nor [yet] unlike to self, and [yet] again Himself. 3

Though Cyril runs this passage on to the four paragraphs which in the Stobæan Extract are continued by three other paragraphs, I am quite persuaded that the Archbishop of Alexandria took the above from the same “Sermon to Tat” 4 as the Anthologist. 5

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iii. Ibid., i. 33; Migne, col. 552 D.

And Thrice-greatest Hermes thus delivers himself concerning God:

For that His Word (Logos) proceeding forth, 1—all-perfect as he was, and fecund, and creative in fecund Nature, falling on fecund 2 Water, made Water pregnant. 3

And the same again [declares]:

The Pyramid, then, is below [both] Nature and the Intellectual World. 4 For that it 5 hath above it ruling it the Creator-Word 6 of the Lord of all,—who, being the First Power after

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[paragraph continues] Him, [both] increate [and] infinite, leaned forth 1 from Him, and has his seat above, and rule o’er all that have been made through him. He is the First-born of the All-perfection, His perfect, fecund and true Son. 2

And again the same [Hermes], when one of the Temple-folk 3 in Egypt questions him and says:

But why, O most mighty Good Daimon, was he 4 called by this name 5 by the Lord of all?—replies:

Yea, have I told thee in what has gone before, but thou hast not perceived it.

The nature of His Intellectual Word (Logos) is a productive and creative Nature. This is as though it were His Power-of-giving-birth, 6 or [His] Nature, or [His] Mode of being, or call it

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what you will,—only remembering this: that He is Perfect in the Perfect, and from the Perfect makes, and creates, and makes to live, perfect good things.

Since, then, He hath this nature, rightly is He thus named. 1

And the same [Hermes], in the First Sermon of the “Expository [Sermons] to Tat,” 2 speaks thus about God:

The Word (Logos) of the Creator, O [my] son, transcends all sight; He [is] self-moved; He cannot be increased, nor [yet] diminished; Alone is He, and like unto Himself [Alone], equal, identical, perfect in His stability, perfect in order; for that He is the One, after the God alone beyond all knowing.

The first two Fragments (xi. and xii.) seem to be taken from the same sermon, the contents of which resembled the first part of the “Shepherd of Men” treatise; it has all the appearance of a discourse addressed to Tat, and probably came in “The Expository Sermons.”

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The third Fragment (xiii.) belongs to the more frankly Egyptian type, the Agathodaimon literature, in which Hermes, as the Good Spirit, figures as the teacher of the Mystery-god Osiris. 1

The last Fragment (xv.) is so similar in its phrasing to Fragment xi., already given by Cyril (i. 31), that I am strongly inclined to think the Archbishop took both from the same source. If so, we can reconstruct part of “The First Sermon of the Expository [Sermons] to Tat,” the beginning of which (see Lact., Ep., 4) is also given by Stobæus, Ex. ii., with the heading from “The [Book] to Tat,” while he heads other extracts “From the [pl.] to Tat.” 2

v. Ibid., ii. 35; Migne, col. 556 A.

And Hermes also says in the Third Sermon of those to Asclepius:

It is not possible such mysteries [as these] should be declared to those who are without initiation in the sacred rites. But ye, lend [me] your ears, [ears] of your mind!

There was One Intellectual Light alone,—nay, Light transcending Intellectual Light. He is for ever Mind of mind 3 who makes [that] Light to shine.

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There was no other; [naught] save the Oneness of Himself [alone]. For ever in Himself [alone], for ever doth He compass all in His own Mind,—His Light and Spirit. 1

And after some other things he says:

Without Him 2 [is] neither god, nor angel, nor daimon, nor any other being. For He is Lord of all, [their] Father, and [their] God, and Source, and Life, and Power, and Light, and Mind, and Spirit. For all things are in Him and for His sake. 3

And again, in the same Third Sermon of those to Asclepius, in reply to one who questions [him] concerning the Divine Spirit, the same [Hermes] says as follows:

Had there not been some Purpose 4 of the Lord of all, so that I should disclose this word

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[paragraph continues] (logos), ye would not have been filled with so great love 1 to question me about it. Now give ye ear unto the rest of the discourse (logos).

Of this same Spirit, of which I have already spoken many times, all things have need; for that it raises up all things, each in its own degree, and makes them live, and gives them nourishment, and [finally] removes them from its holy source, 2 aiding the spirit, 3 and for ever giving life to all, the [one] productive One.”

From the above statements of Cyril we learn that in addition to “The Expository Sermons to Tat,” he had also before him a collection of “Sermons to Asclepius”; of these there were at least three. Was “The Perfect Sermon” one of this collection? It may have been; for the style of it is cast in the same mould as that of these Fragments in Cyril.

Hermes, in the Third Sermon of Cyril’s collection, is addressing several hearers, for he uses the plural; so also in P. S. A., i. 2. Hermes addresses Asclepius, Tat, and Ammon.

In the Third Sermon, Hermes also says: “It is not possible such mysteries should be declared to those

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who are without initiation in the sacred rites”; in P. S. A., i. 2, Hermes declares: “It is a mark of an impious mind to publish to the knowledge of the crowd 1 a tractate 2 brimming o’er with the full grandeur of divinity.” The numinis majestas (grandeur of divinity) is precisely the same idea as the Spirit, the “Divine supremacy and power,” as Cyril says referring to Hermes.

Finally, in the Third Sermon, Hermes makes the striking remark that the Love (ἔρως) of the Gnosis which urges on the disciples, is inspired by the Providence or Foresight of God—that is, by His Spirit; P. S. A., i. 28, ends with the words: “To them, sunk in fit silence reverently, their souls and minds pendent on Hermes’ lips, thus Love (ἔρως) Divine 3 began to speak.”

The setting of the mode of exposition is then identical in the two Sermons, and we may thus very well refer them to the same collection.

v. Ibid., ii. 52; Migne, col. 580 B.

To this I will add what Thrice-greatest Hermes wrote “To his own Mind,”—for thus the Book is called.

(Cyril then quotes, with very slight verbal variants, the last question and answer in C. H., xi. (xii.) 22.)

In our Corpus the treatise is not written by Hermes to the Mind, but, on the contrary, it is cast in the mould of a revelation of “The Mind to Hermes,” and is so

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entitled. Cyril thus seems to have been mistaken. 1 It may, then, have been that in the copy which lay before the Church Father, the title read simply: “The Mind.”

vi. Ibid., ii. 55; Migne, col. 586 D. 2

But I will call to mind the words of Hermes the Thrice-greatest; in “The Asclepius” 3 he says:

Osiris said: How, then, O thou Thrice-greatest, [thou] Good Spirit, 4 did Earth in its entirety appear?

The Great Good Spirit made reply:

By gradual drying up, as I have said; and when the many Waters got commandment . . . 5 to go into themselves again, the Earth in its entirety appeared, muddy and shaking.

Then, when the Sun shone forth, and without ceasing burned and dried it up, the Earth stood compact in the Waters, with Water all around. 6

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Further, in yet another place [he writes]:

The Maker and the Lord of all thus spake: Let there be Earth, and let the Firmament appear 1!

And forthwith the beginning of the [whole] creation, Earth, was brought into existence. 2

So much about the Earth; as to the Sun, he again says as follows:

Then said Osiris: O thou Thrice-greatest, [thou] Good Spirit, whence came this mighty one?

Would’st thou, Osiris, that we tell to thee the generation of the Sun, whence he appeared?

He came from out the Foresight of the Lord of all; yea, the Sun’s birth proceedeth from

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the Lord of all, through His Creative Holy Word. 1

In like manner also in the “First Expository Sermon to Tat,” he says:

Straightway the Lord of all spake unto His own Holy and Intelligible—to His Creative Word (Logos): Let the Sun be!

And straightway with His word (logos), the Fire that hath its nature tending upward, 2—I mean pure [Fire], that which gives greatest light, has the most energy, and fecundates the most,—Nature embraced 3 with her own Spirit, and raised it up aloft out of the Water. 4

(After referring to Genesis i. 6: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters,”—Cyril proceeds:)

vii. Ibid., ii. 57; Migne, col. 588 C.

Moreover the Hermes who is with them 5 Thrice-

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greatest mentions this [that is, the firmament] again. For he describes God as saying to His creations:

I will encompass you with this Necessity, you who are disobedient to me, 1 which hath been laid on you as a Command through My own Word (Logos); for him ye have as Law.

This quotation also is probably taken from the same source as the previous passage—that is, from the “First Expository Sermon to Tat.” The idea and setting, however, should also be compared with the parallel in the K. K. Excerpt (Stob., Phys., xli. 44; Gaisf., p. 408): “O Souls, Love and Necessity shall be your lords, they who are lords and marshals after me of all,”—where the “after me” (μετ᾽ ἐμέ) might perhaps confirm the “up to me” in the preceding note as the more correct rendering.

viii. Ibid., ii. 64; Migne, col. 598 D.

For Hermes, who is called Thrice-greatest, writes thus to Asclepius about the nature of the universe:

(Here follows with a few slight verbal variants the text of C. H., xiv. (xv.) 6, 7, beginning: “If, then, all things have been admitted to be two.”)

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And some lines after he proceeds in warmer language, setting forth a striking argument, and says:

(Then follows §§ 8, 9 of the same sermon, except the third sentence, and § 10 omitting the last sentence.) 1

The same treatise must have lain before Cyril as that contained in our Corpus in the form of a letter with the heading, “Unto Asclepius good health of soul!”—for the Archbishop says that Hermes “writes thus to Asclepius.” 2

ix. Ibid., iv. 130; Migne, col. 702.

(After quoting Porphyry as warning against participation in blood-rites for fear of contamination from evil daimons, Cyril proceeds:)

And their Thrice-greatest Hermes seems also to be of the same opinion; for he, too, writes as follows, in the [sermon] “To Asclepius,” concerning those unholy daimons against whom we ought to protect ourselves, and flee from them with all the speed we can:

“The sole protection—and this we must have—is piety. For neither evil daimon, yea nor Fate, can ever overcome or dominate a man who pious is, and pure, and holy. For God doth save the truly pious man from every ill.” 3

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x. Ibid., viii. 274; Migne, col. 920 D.

Moreover, their Thrice-greatest Hermes has said somewhere about God, the Supreme Artist 1 of all things:

Moreover, as perfectly wise He established Order and its opposite 2; in order that things intellectual, as being older and better, might have the government of things and the chief place, and that things sensible, as being second, might be subject to these.

Accordingly that which tends downward, and is heavier than the intellectual, has in itself the wise Creative Word (Logos). 3

xi. Ibid. (?).

(Chambers (p. 154) gives the following, “Cyrill. Contra Julian., citing Hermes” but without any reference, and I can find it nowhere in the text:)

If thou understandest that One and Sole God, thou wilt find nothing impossible; for It is all virtue.

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Think not that It may be in some one; say not that it is out of some one.

It is without termination; it is the termination of all.

Nothing contains It; for It contains all in Itself.

What difference is there then between the body and the Incorporeal, the created and the Uncreated; that which is subject to necessity, and what is Free; between the things terrestrial and things Celestial, the things corruptible and things Eternal?

Is it not that the One exists freely and that the others are subject to necessity?

Footnotes

251:1 The date of Cyril’s patriarchate is 412-444 A.D.

251:2 Migne (J. P.), Patrologiæ Cursus Completus, Series Græca, tom. lxxvi. (Paris, 1859). S. P. N. Cyrilli . . . Pro Christiana Religione adversus Julianum Imperatorem Libri Decem. The text is also given R. 211, n. 1.

251:3 τελεστής.

252:1 “Acres,” lit. = areas 100 Egyptian cubits square; and “chain,” lit. = measuring cord.

252:2 Or provinces; Migne’s Latin translator gives this as “laws”!

252:3 Sc. of the moon.

252:4 ὑ συντεθεικὼς Ἀθήνησι,—a phrase which Chambers (p. 149) erroneously translates by “which he [Hermes] having composed for Athenians”! R. (p. 211, n. 1) thinks this redactor was some Neoplatonist.

253:1 Sc. the soul.

253:2 Sc. ideas.

253:3 Masc., not neut., as are all the preceding “self’s.” There is also throughout a play on “self” and “same” which is unreproducible in English.

253:4 That is, presumably, the “First Sermon of the Expository [Sermons] to Tat” (see Comment to the Stobæan Excerpt).

253:5 See also Fragg. xii., xiii., xv., xx., xxii., xxiii., xxiv. (?).

254:1 R. (p. 43) glosses this with “out of the month of God,” but I see no necessity for introducing this symbolism.

254:2 The adjective γόνιμος (“fecund”) is applied to both Logos and Physis (Nature); it might thus be varied as seedful and fruitful, or spermal and productive. Cf. Frag. xiii. Text reproduced R. 43.

254:3 Compare C. H., i. 8, 14, 15. This Fragment is also quoted, but plainly reproduced from Cyril, by Suidas (q.v.).

254:4 That is, the Logos.

254:5 Sc. the Pyramid, in physics the symbol of fire. See Frag. xxii.

254:6 δημιουργὸν λόγον. Compare Lact., D. I., iv. 6, 9.

255:1 προκύψασα—is, projected, presumably with the idea of emanation. Compare the hymn: “O Heavenly Word proceeding forth, Yet leaving not the Father’s side.” Compare the παρέκυψεν of C. H., i. 14, and note.

255:2 Compare C. H., i. 6, 9, 10; xiii. (xiv.) 3; xiv. (xv.) 3. For slightly revised text, see R. 243, n. 3. Reitzenstein thinks that the image which the writer had in his mind was the pyramid, or obelisk, with the sun-disk on the top.

255:3 τεμενιτῶν. The questioner was undoubtedly Osiris (see Frag. xix. below). Cyril then knows that “Osiris” was understood to stand for a grade of Egyptian priests. Cf. R. 131.

255:4 Presumably the Logos.

255:5 Presumably “Soul” (Psyche).

255:6 γένεσις.

256:1 This passage seems to refer to the identity of Soul and Logos. For revised text see R. 131, and the reference there to Plato, Cratylus, 400 B, where ψυχή, soul, is explained by the word-play φυσέχη, that is, that which has physis, or nature, or the power of production.

256:2 τῶν πρὸς τὸν Τὰτ διεξοδικῶν.

257:1 See Frag. xix. below, where Cyril (ii. 56) says that this type was found in the “Sermon to Asclepius,” that is, was put with the Asclepius-books in the collection which lay before him.

257:2 See also Fragg. xi., xii., xiii., xx., xxii., xxiii., xxiv. (?).

257:3 Cf. K. K., 16.

258:1 That is, Light and Life. See C. H., i. 9: “God, the Mind, . . . being Life and Light.”

258:2 Lit. outside of Him.

258:3 For a fuller statement of the idea in this paragraph, see C. H., ii. (iii.) 14. Cyril thinks that the above two Fragments refer to the Father, Son (Mind of mind and Light of light) and Holy Ghost (the Divine supremacy and power), and is thus the source of the statement in Suidas (s.v. “Hermes”) that Trismegistus spoke concerning the Trinity.

258:4 Or Providence, πρόνοια. R. (203, n. 2) refers this to a belief that only when some internal prompting gave permission to the master to expand the teaching, could he do so. Cf. Appul., Metam., xi. 21, 22; P. S. A., i.

259:1 ἔρως τοιοῦτος.

259:2 That is, presumably, causing their seeming death.

259:3 That is, the individual life-breath, unless the reading ἐπίκουρον πνεύματι is corrupt. The Latin translator in Migne goes hopelessly wrong, as, indeed, is frequently the case. Cf. C. H., x. (xi.) 13, Comment; P. S. A., vi. 4; Exx. iv. 2, xv. 2, xix. 3.

260:1 That is, the uninitiated, the profanum vulgus.

260:2 Tractatus; presumably logos in the original Greek.

260:3 Cf. also P. S. A., xx. 2 and xxi. 1, 3.

261:1 Cf. R. 128, n. 1.

261:2 Texts of quotations reproduced in R. 127, n. 1.

261:3 From the quotations we can see that this could not have been the special heading of the treatise from which Cyril quotes, and which plainly belongs to the Agathodaimon type. Cyril probably means that the treatise, in his collection, came under the general title, “The Asclepius.”

261:4 Ἀγαθὸς δαίμων.

261:5 The reading is an untranslatable ἀπὸ τοῦ, where the lacuna is probably to be completed with “from the Lord of all.”

261:6 A distinction is evidently drawn between the (heavenly) Water and water (the companion element of earth). The text is immediately continued in Frag. xxi. below.

262:1 See C. H., i. 18, Commentary.

262:2 This seems to be taken not from a different place in the “To Asclepius,” but from another sermon, or group of sermons, most probably from the “First Expository Sermon to Tat”—as may be seen by comparing its phrasing with Frag. xxii. See also Fragg. xi., xii, xiii., xv., xxii., xxiii., xxiv. (?).

263:1 This is evidently an immediate continuation of Frag. xix. above. Cf. R. 126, n. 1, where the texts are reproduced.

263:2 See Frag. xiii. below, concerning the pyramid.

263:3 Embraced the Fire.

263:4 Sc. the Water-Earth, one element, not yet separated, according to C. H., i. 5. For other probable quotations from this “First Expository Sermon to Tat,” see Fragg. xi., xii., xiii., xv., xx., xxiii., xxiv. (?).

263:5 Sc. the philosophers.

264:1 τοῖς ἐπ᾽ ἐμε,—lit. “against me,” or it may perhaps be “up to me.” Migne’s Latin translator gives “qui in mea potestatis estis,” and Chambers (p. 153), “those from me”; neither of which can be correct.

265:1 Cyril also twice omits the words “ignorance and jealousy” after “arrogance and impotence” in 8, and also the words “and yet the other things” in 9.

265:2 Cf. Frag. iv., Comment.

265:3 Cf. P. S. A., xxix. 1. A comparison of this with Frag. iv., quoted by Lactantius (ii. 15), and the Commentary thereon, shows clearly that Cyril has strengthened the original text by interpolations. Cyril’s quotation (v. 176) from Julian, in which the Emperor refers to Hermes, is given under “Julian.”

266:1 ἀριστοτεχνοῦ,—an epithet applied by Pindar (Fr. 29) to Zeus.

266:2 ἀταξίαν.

266:3 This seems somewhat of a piece with the contents of the “First Expository Sermon to Tat.” See Fragg. xi., xii., xiii., xv , xx., xxii., xxiii.

X.

1

Lexicon, s.v. Ἑρμῆς ὁ τρισμέγιστος; Im. Bekker (Berlin 1854).

Hermes the Thrice-greatest.—He was an Egyptian sage, and flourished before Pharaoh. He was called Thrice-greatest because he spoke of the Trinity, declaring that in the Trinity there is One Godhead, as follows:

“Before Intellectual Light was Light Intellectual; Mind of mind, too, was there eternally, Light-giving. There was naught else except the Oneness of this [Mind] and Spirit all-embracing.

“Without this is nor god, nor angel, nor any other being. For He is Lord and Father, and the God of all; and all things are beneath Him, [all things are] in Him. 2

(The source of Suidas, or of his editor, is manifestly

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[paragraph continues] Cyril, C. J., i. 35 (Fragg. xvi., xvii.), of which a very garbled edition is reproduced. The same statement and passage is also quoted by Cedrenus, John Malalas, and the author of the Chronicum Alexandrinum. See Bernhardy’s edition of Suidas (Halle, 1853), i. 527, notes.) Suidas then continues without a break:)

“His Word (Logos), all-perfect as he was, and fecund, and creative, falling in fecund Nature, yea in fecund Water, made Water pregnant.” 1

After saying this he has the following prayer:

“Thee, Heaven, I adjure, wise work of mighty God; thee I adjure, Word 2 of the Father which He spake first, when He established all the world!

“Thee I adjure, [O Heaven], by the alone-begotten Word (Logos) himself, and by the Father of the Word alone-begotten, yea, by the Father who surroundeth all,—be gracious, be gracious!”

This is not a prayer from Hermes, but three verses (the last somewhat altered) of an Orphic hymn excerpted from Cyril, ibid., i. 33 (Migne, col. 552 C),—lines also attributed to “Orpheus” by Justin Martyr. The last half of the prayer seems to be a pure invention of Suidas, or of his editor, based partially on Cyril’s comments.

Footnotes

268:1 Date uncertain; some indications point to as late as the twelfth century; if these, however, are due to later redaction, others point to the tenth century.

268:2 He is above them as Lord and Father, as Mind and Light; and they are in Him as Lady and Mother, as Spirit and Life.

269:1 This is again, and this time almost verbally, taken from Cyril ibid., i. 33; Frag. xii.

269:2 φωνήν.

XI.

And here we may conveniently append a reference to the Dialogue of an ancient Christian writer on astrology—a blend of Platonism, Astrology, and Christianity—entitled Hermippus de Astrologia Dialogus, 1 from the name of the chief speaker.

This writer was undoubtedly acquainted with our Corpus, for he quotes (p. 9. 3) from C. H., i. 5; (p. 21, 5) from C. H., x. (xi.) 12; (p. 70, 17) from C. H., x. (xi.) 6; in a general fashion (p. 24, 25) from C. H., xvi.; and phrases (p. 12, 21 and p. 14, 13) from C. H., xviii.

Footnotes

270:1 Kroll (G.) and Viereck (P.), Anonymi Christiani de Astrologia Dialogus (Leipzig, 1895). Cf. R. p. 210.