Hermes Trismegistus (
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
: , "thrice-great Hermes"; ) is the representation of the combination of the
GreekGreek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
god
HermesHermes is the Messenger of the gods in Greek mythology as well as a guide to the Underworld. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of...
and the Egyptian god
ThothThoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Ibis. His feminine counterpart was Seshat. His chief shrine was at Khemennu, where he led the local pantheon, later renamed Hermopolis by the Greeks and Eshmûnên in Coptic...
. In Hellenistic Egypt, the Greeks recognised the congruence of their God
HermesHermes is the Messenger of the gods in Greek mythology as well as a guide to the Underworld. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of...
with the Egyptian god
ThothThoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Ibis. His feminine counterpart was Seshat. His chief shrine was at Khemennu, where he led the local pantheon, later renamed Hermopolis by the Greeks and Eshmûnên in Coptic...
. Subsequently the two gods were worshipped as one in what had been the Temple of Thoth in
KhemnuHermopolis Magna or simply Hermopolis or Hermopolis Megale or Hermupolis Hermopolis Magna or simply Hermopolis (Ammian, ii. 16) or Hermopolis Megale (Greek: , Steph. B. s.v.; Ptol. iv. 5. § 60) or Hermupolis Hermopolis Magna or simply Hermopolis (Ammian, ii. 16) or Hermopolis Megale (Greek: ,...
, which the Greeks called
HermopolisHermopolis Magna or simply Hermopolis or Hermopolis Megale or Hermupolis Hermopolis Magna or simply Hermopolis (Ammian, ii. 16) or Hermopolis Megale (Greek: , Steph. B. s.v.; Ptol. iv. 5. § 60) or Hermupolis Hermopolis Magna or simply Hermopolis (Ammian, ii. 16) or Hermopolis Megale (Greek: ,...
.
Origin and identity
Both
ThothThoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Ibis. His feminine counterpart was Seshat. His chief shrine was at Khemennu, where he led the local pantheon, later renamed Hermopolis by the Greeks and Eshmûnên in Coptic...
and
HermesHermes is the Messenger of the gods in Greek mythology as well as a guide to the Underworld. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of...
were gods of
writingWriting is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and the recording of language via a non-textual medium such as magnetic tape audio.In Eurasia writing began as a...
and of
magicA belief in magic as a means of influencing the world seems to have been common in all cultures. Some of these beliefs crossed over into nascent religions, influencing rites and religious celebrations. Over time, religiously-based supernatural events acquired their own flavor, separating...
in their respective cultures. Thus, the Greek god of interpretive communication was combined with the Egyptian god of wisdom as a patron of
astrologyAstrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of celestial bodies and related details can provide information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters. A practitioner of astrology is called an astrologer...
and alchemy. In addition, both gods were
psychopompPsychopomps are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly-deceased souls to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply provide safe passage...
s; guiding souls to the afterlife. And there is also a connection with the Egyptian Priest and Polymath
ImhotepImhotep , fl. 27th century BC was an Egyptian polymath, who served under the Third Dynasty king, Djoser, as chancellor to the pharaoh and high priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis...
.
A very early Greek reference found on a
Linear BLinear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It predated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization. Most of the tablets inscribed in Linear B were found in Knossos, Cydonia, Pylos, Thebes...
clay tablet to a deity or semi-deity called
TI-RI-SE-RO-E, Trisheros (the "thrice or triple hero") could be connected to the later "thrice wise" "Trismegistus". On the same Tn 316 tablet as well as other
Linear BLinear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It predated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization. Most of the tablets inscribed in Linear B were found in Knossos, Cydonia, Pylos, Thebes...
tablets, found in Pylos and Knossos, appears the name of the deity "Hermes" as E-MA-A, but not in any apparent connection with the "Trisheros". This interpretation of poorly understood Mycenaean material is disputed, since Hermes is not referenced in well-documented archaic and classical times and only emerges in Hellenistic Egypt.
The majority of
GreeksAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
, and later
RomansAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
, did not accept Hermes Trismegistus in the place of Hermes. The two gods remained distinct from one another. Cicero noted several individuals referred to as "Hermes": "the fifth, who is worshipped by the people of Pheneus [in
ArcadiaArcadia, Arkadía , or Arcady is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas.-Modern times:...
], is said to have killed
ArgusARGUS, all capitalized, may refer to:* ARGUS , a particle physics experiment that ran at DESY* ARGUS distribution, a function used in particle physics named after the above experiment...
, and for this reason to have fled to Egypt, and to have given the Egyptians their laws and alphabet: he it is whom the Egyptians call
TheytThoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Ibis. His feminine counterpart was Seshat. His chief shrine was at Khemennu, where he led the local pantheon, later renamed Hermopolis by the Greeks and Eshmûnên in Coptic...
." In the same place, Cicero mentions a "fourth
MercuryMercury was a messenger, and a god of trade, profit and commerce, the son of Maia Maiestas, also known as Ops, the Roman version of Rhea, and Jupiter. His name is related to the Latin word merx...
(Hermes) was the son of the Nile, whose name may not be spoken by the Egyptians." The most likely interpretation of this passage is as two variants on the same
syncretismSyncretism is the attempt to reconcile disparate or contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. This may involve attempts to merge and analogise several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an...
of Greek Hermes and Egyptian Thoth (or sometimes other gods); the one viewed from the Greek-Arcadian perspective (the fifth, who went from Greece to Egypt), the other viewed from the Egyptian perspective (the fourth, where Hermes turns out "actually" to have been a "son of the Nile," i.e. a native god). Both these very good early references in Cicero (most ancient Trismegistus material is from early centuries CE) corroborate the view that Thrice-Great Hermes originated in Hellenistic Egypt through syncretism with Egyptian gods (the
Hermetica refer most often to Thoth and Amun).
The Hermetic literature added to the Egyptian concerns with conjuring spirits and animating statues that inform the oldest texts, Hellenistic writings of Greco-
BabylonBabylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
ian astrology and the newly developed practice of alchemy (Fowden 1993: pp65–68). In a parallel tradition, Hermetic philosophy rationalized and systematized religious
cult practicesCult may popularly refer to a religious group with relatively few adherents whose beliefs or practices are regarded by others as strange or sinister.The term "cult" was originally used to denote a system of ritual practices...
and offered the adept a method of personal ascension from the constraints of physical being, which has led to confusion of Hermeticism with
GnosticismGnosticism refers to diverse, syncretistic religious movements in antiquity consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect god, the demiurge; this being is frequently identified with the...
, which was developing contemporaneously.
As a divine source of wisdom, Hermes Trismegistus was credited with tens of thousands of writings of high standing, reputed to be of immense antiquity.
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
's
TimaeusTimaeus is a theoretical treatise of Plato in the form of a Socratic dialogue, written circa 360 BC. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world. It is followed by the dialogue Critias....
and
CritiasCritias, one of Plato's late dialogues, contains the story of the mighty island kingdom Atlantis and its attempt to conquer Athens, which failed due to the ordered society of the Athenians. Critias is the second of a projected trilogy of dialogues, preceded by Timaeus and followed by Hermocrates,...
state that in the temple of
NeithIn Egyptian mythology, Neith was an early goddess in the Egyptian pantheon. She was the patron deity of Sais, where her cult was centered in the Western Nile Delta of Egypt and attested as early as the First Dynasty...
at
SaisSAIS can refer to:* Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, part of The Johns Hopkins University.* Sharjah American International School* Southern Association of Independent Schools...
, there were secret halls containing historical records which had been kept for 9,000 years.
Clement of AlexandriaTitus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...
was under the impression that the Egyptians had forty-two sacred writings by Hermes, encapsulating all the training of Egyptian priests. Siegfried Morenz has suggested (
Egyptian Religion) "The reference to Thoth's authorship...is based on ancient tradition; the figure forty-two probably stems from the number of Egyptian
nomesA nome was a subnational administrative division of ancient Egypt. Today's use of the Greek nome rather than the Egyptian term sepat came about during the Ptolemaic period. Fascinated with Egypt, Greeks created many historical records about the country...
, and thus conveys the notion of completeness." The
Neo-PlatonicNeoplatonism is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists...
writers took up Clement's "forty-two essential texts".
The so-called "Hermetic literature", the
HermeticaHermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth...
, is a category of
papyriPapyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
containing spells and initiatory induction procedures. In the dialogue called the
AsclepiusAsclepius is the god of medicine and healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia , Iaso , Aceso , Aglæa/Ægle , and Panacea...
(after the Greek god of healing) the art of imprisoning the souls of demons or of angels in statues with the help of herbs, gems and odors, is described, such that the statue could speak and engage in prophecy. In other papyri, there are recipes for constructing such images and animating them, such as when images are to be fashioned hollow so as to enclose a
magicMagic, sometimes known as sorcery, is the practice of consciousness manipulation and/or autosuggestion to achieve a desired result, usually by techniques described in various conceptual systems...
name inscribed on gold leaf.
Thrice Great
The origin of the description
Trismegistus or "thrice great" is unclear. Copenhaver reports that this name is first found in the minutes of a meeting of the council of the
IbisThe ibises are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae. They all have long down curved bills, and usually feed as a group, probing mud for food items, usually crustaceans...
cultCult may popularly refer to a religious group with relatively few adherents whose beliefs or practices are regarded by others as strange or sinister.The term "cult" was originally used to denote a system of ritual practices...
, held in 172 BCE near Memphis in Egypt. Fowden however asserts that the earliest occurrence of the name was in the Athenagora by
Philo of ByblosPhilo of Byblos was an antiquarian writer of grammatical, lexical and historical works in Greek. He is chiefly known for his Phoenician history assembled from the writings of Sanchuniathon.-Life:...
circa 64–141 CE. Another explanation is that the name is derived from an epithet of Thoth found at the Temple of
EsnaThe Egyptian city of Esna , known to the ancient Egyptians as Egyptian: Iunyt or Ta-senet; Greek: or or ; Latin: Lato, is located on the west bank of the River Nile, some 55 km south of Luxor, in the modern Qena Governorate.-The ancient city:The name "Latopolis" is in honor of the Nile...
, "Thoth the great, the great, the great."
The date of his sojourn in Egypt in his last incarnation is not now known, but it has been fixed at the early days of the oldest dynasties of Egypt, long before the days of
MosesMoses was, according to biblical texts, a religious leader, lawgiver, and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed. Also called Moshe Rabbeinu in Hebrew Moses was, according to biblical texts, a...
. Some authorities regard him as a contemporary
of
AbrahamAbraham is the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Ishmaelites, Midianites and Edomite peoples, as described in the book of Genesis. He is widely regarded as the patriarch of Jews, Christians, and Muslims....
, and some Jewish traditions go so far as to claim that Abraham acquired a portion of his mystical knowledge from Hermes himself (
KybalionThe Kybalion: Hermetic Philosophy is a 1908 book claiming to be the essence of the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, published anonymously by a group or person under the pseudonym of "the Three Initiates".- General description :...
).
Many Christian writers, including
LactantiusLucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius was an early Christian author .-Biography:Lactantius, a Latin-speaking native of North Africa, was a pupil of Arnobius and taught rhetoric in various cities of the Eastern Roman Empire, ending in Constantinople...
, Augustine,
Giordano BrunoGiordano Bruno, born Filippo Bruno , was an Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer best known as a proponent of heliocentrism and the infinity of the universe...
,
Marsilio FicinoMarsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin...
,
CampanellaTommaso Campanella , baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet.-Biography:...
and
Giovanni Pico della MirandolaCount Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was an Italian Renaissance philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the famous Oration on the Dignity of...
considered Hermes Trismegistus to be a wise pagan prophet who foresaw the coming of Christianity. They believed in a 'Prisca Theologia', the doctrine that a single, true, theology exists, which threads through all religions, and which was given by God to man in antiquity and passed through a series of prophets, which included
ZoroasterZoroaster or Zarathushtra , also referred to as Zartosht , was an ancient Iranian prophet and religious poet. The hymns attributed to him, the Gathas, are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrianism...
and
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
. In order to demonstrate the verity of the 'priscia theologia' Christians appropriated the Hermetic teachings for their own purposes. By this account Hermes Trismegistus was either, according to the fathers of the Christian church, a contemporary of Moses or the third in a line of men named Hermes, i.e. Enoch, Noah and the Egyptian priest king who is known to us as Hermes Trismegistus, or "thrice great" on account of being the greatest priest, philosopher and king.
This last account of how Hermes Trismegistus received the appellation "Trismegistus," meaning "Thrice Great," is derived from statements in the
The Emerald Tablet of Hermes TrismegistusThe Emerald Tablet, also known as Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes, is a text purporting to reveal the secret of the primordial substance and its transmutations...
, that he knows the three parts of the wisdom of the whole universe. The three parts of the wisdom are
alchemyAlchemy is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties...
,
astrologyAstrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of celestial bodies and related details can provide information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters. A practitioner of astrology is called an astrologer...
, and
theurgyTheurgy describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving henosis, and perfecting oneself.See also...
. The pymander, from which Marsilio Ficino formed his opinion, states that "they called him Trismegistus because he was the greatest philosopher and the greatest priest and the greatest king."
Another explanation, in the
SudaThe Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century historical encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly wrongfully attributed to an author called Suidas. The text belongs to the Byzantine Empire and was written in Greek...
(10th century), is that "He was called Trismegistus on account of his praise of the trinity, saying there is one divine nature in the trinity."
Hermetic writings
The
AsclepiusAsclepius is the god of medicine and healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia , Iaso , Aceso , Aglæa/Ægle , and Panacea...
and the
Corpus HermeticumHermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth...
are the most important of the
HermeticaHermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth...
, writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, which survive. During the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
it was accepted that Hermes Trismegistos was a contemporary of Moses, however after
Casaubon’sIsaac Casaubon was a classical scholar and philologist, first in France and then later in England, regarded by many of his time as the most learned in Europe.-Early life:...
dating of the Hermetic writings as no earlier than the second or third century CE, the whole of Renaissance Hermeticism collapsed.
As to their actual authorship:
"... they were certainly not written in remotest antiquity by an all wise Egyptian priest, as the Rennaissance believed, but by various unknown authors, all probably Greeks, and they contain popular Greek philosophy of the period, a mixture of PlatonismPlatonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism. The central concept of Platonism is the Theory of Forms: the transcendent, perfect archetypes, of which...
and StoicismStoicism was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The stoics considered destructive emotions to be the result of errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not undergo such emotions...
, combined with some Jewish and probably some Persian influences.
Hermes Trismegistus is described in the Corpus Hermeticum in a
EuhemeristEuhemerus was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily or Messene in the Peloponnese as the most probable locations, while others champion Chios, or Tegea.He is chiefly known for a rationalizing method of...
fashion, as a man who became a god, or as a man who was the son of a god.
Hermetic revival
- For the main article, see Hermeticism
Hermeticism is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the Hellenistic Egyptian pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus who is the representation of the congruence of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek Hermes...
. For the texts of the Corpus Hermeticum, see HermeticaHermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth...
.
During the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
and the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
, the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, known as
HermeticaHermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth...
, enjoyed great prestige and were popular among alchemists. The "hermetic tradition" consequently refers to alchemy, magic, astrology and related subjects. The texts are usually divided into two categories: the "philosophical", and the "technical" hermetica. The former deals mainly with issues of
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
, and the latter with practical magic, potions and alchemy. Spells to magically protect objects, for example, are the origin of the expression "Hermetically sealed".
The classical scholar
Isaac CasaubonIsaac Casaubon was a classical scholar and philologist, first in France and then later in England, regarded by many of his time as the most learned in Europe.-Early life:...
in
De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI (1614) showed, through an analysis of the Greek language used in the texts, that those texts which were believed to be of ancient origin were in fact much more recent: most of the "philosophical"
Corpus Hermeticum can be dated to around AD 300. However, flaws in this dating were discerned by the 17th century scholar
Ralph CudworthRalph Cudworth was an English philosopher, the leader of the Cambridge Platonists.-Life:Born at Aller, Somerset, he was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, gaining his MA and becoming a Fellow of Emmanuel in 1639. In 1645, he became master of Clare Hall and professor of Hebrew...
, who argued that Casaubon's allegation of forgery could only be applied to three of the seventeen treatises contained within the
Corpus Hermeticum. Moreover, Cudworth noted Casaubon's failure to acknowledge the codification of these treatises as a late formulation of a pre-existing oral tradition. According to Cudworth, the texts must be viewed as a
terminus ad quem and not
a quo.
In Islamic tradition
Antoine FaivreAntoine Faivre is a prominent French scholar of esoterism. Until his retirement, he held a chair in the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne, University Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Haute-Normandie, director of the Cahiers del Hermétisme and of Bibliothèque de...
, in
The Eternal Hermes (1995) has pointed out that Hermes Trismegistus has a place in the
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic tradition, though the name
HermesHermes is the Messenger of the gods in Greek mythology as well as a guide to the Underworld. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of...
does not appear in the
Qur'anThe Qur’an is the central religious text of Islam...
. Hagiographers and chroniclers of the first centuries of the Islamic
HegiraThe Hijra is the migration of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers to the city of Medina in 622 . Alternate spellings of this Arabic word in the Latin alphabet are Hijrah, or Hegira in Latin.- Hijra of Muhammad :...
quickly identified Hermes Trismegistus with
IdrisIdris or Idriz , is a prophet of Islam. He is known in the Bible as Enoch.-Prophet Idris in the Qur'an:There are four verses related to Prophet Idris in the Qur'an. These are found as consecutive verses in the surahs Maryam and Al-Anbiya ."And mention Prophet Idris in the Book; surely he was a...
, the
nabiMuslims regard as prophets of Islam those non-divine humans chosen by Allah . Mere humans rely on revelation or tradition to identify prophets....
of
suraA Surah is a "chapter" of the Qur'an, traditionally arranged roughly in order of decreasing length...
hs 19.57 and 21.85, whom the
Arabs also identified with
EnochEnoch is a name occurring twice in the generations of Adam. In one reference, Enoch is described as a grandson of Adam via Cain, and as having had a city named after him...
(cf. Genesis 5.18–24). Idris/Hermes was termed "Thrice-Wise" Hermes Trismegistus because he had a threefold origin: the first Hermes, comparable to
ThothThoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Ibis. His feminine counterpart was Seshat. His chief shrine was at Khemennu, where he led the local pantheon, later renamed Hermopolis by the Greeks and Eshmûnên in Coptic...
, was a "civilizing hero," an initiator into the mysteries of the divine science and wisdom that animate the world: he carved the principles of this sacred science in hieroglyphs. The second Hermes, in
BabylonBabylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, was the initiator of
PythagorasPythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mystic and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy...
. The third Hermes was the first teacher of
alchemyAlchemy is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties...
. "A faceless prophet," writes the Islamicist Pierre Lory, "Hermes possesses no concrete or salient characteristics, differing in this regard from most of the major figures of the Bible and the Quran." A common interpretation of the representation of "Trismegistus" as "thrice great" recalls the three characterizations of Idris: as a messenger of god, or a prophet; as a source of wisdom, or
hikmet (wisdom from
hokmah); and as a king of the world order, or a "sultanate." These are referred to as,
müselles bin ni'me.
In the Bahá'í writings
Bahá'u'lláhBahá'u'lláh , born Mírzá usayn-`Alí Nuri , was the founder of the Bahá'í Faith...
, founder of the
Bahá'í FaithThe Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in nineteenth-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories.The Bahá'í Faith teaches a doctrine of...
, in a
TabletA tablet, in the religious context, is a term traditionally used for religious texts.Jews and Christians believe that Moses brought the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai in the form of two stone tablets. According to the Book of Exodus, God delivered the tablets twice, the first set having been...
identifies Idris with Hermes. He does not, however, specifically name Idris as the prophet of the
SabiansThe Sabians were a religious group; most of what is known of them comes from the writings of Maimonides and classical Arabic sources.The Fihrist of Al-Nadim, The Sabians were a religious group; most of what is known of them comes from the writings of Maimonides and classical Arabic...
.
New Age revival
Modern occultists suggest that some Hermetic texts may be of Pharaonic origin, and that the legendary "forty-two essential texts" that contain the core Hermetic religious beliefs and philosophy of life remain hidden in a secret library.
In some trance "readings" of
Edgar CayceEdgar Cayce was an American who was believed to be psychic. He is said to have demonstrated an ability to channel answers to questions on subjects such as health or Atlantis, while in a self-induced trance...
, Hermes or Thoth was an engineer from the submerged
AtlantisAtlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias.In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC...
, who also built, designed or directed the construction of the
Pyramids of EgyptThe Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt.There are 138 pyramids discovered in Egypt as of 2008. Most were built as tombs for the country's Pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods....
.
The book
Kybalion, by authors dubbed "The Three Initiates," addresses Hermetic principles.
Within the occult tradition, Hermes Trismegistus is associated with several wives, and more than one son who took his name, as well as more than one grandson. This repetition of given name and surname throughout the generations may at least partially account for the legend of his longevity, especially as it is believed that many of his children pursued careers as priests in mystery religions.
See also
- Alchemy
Alchemy is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties...
- Astrology
Astrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of celestial bodies and related details can provide information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters. A practitioner of astrology is called an astrologer...
- Emerald Tablet
The Emerald Tablet, also known as Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes, is a text purporting to reveal the secret of the primordial substance and its transmutations...
- Hermetic
* Hermeticism, a magical and religious movement stemming from the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus* Hermetics, the deliberate use of esoteric imagery...
- Hermetica
Hermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth...
- Hermeticism
Hermeticism is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the Hellenistic Egyptian pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus who is the representation of the congruence of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek Hermes...
- Hermetic Qabalah
Hermetic Qabalah , is a Western esoteric and mystical tradition. It is the underlying philosophy and framework for magical societies such as the Golden Dawn, Thelemic orders, mystical societies such as the Builders of the Adytum and the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, and is a precursor to the...
- Kybalion
The Kybalion: Hermetic Philosophy is a 1908 book claiming to be the essence of the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, published anonymously by a group or person under the pseudonym of "the Three Initiates".- General description :...
- Occultism
- Herbert Silberer
Herbert Silberer was a Viennese psychoanalyst involved with the professional circle surrounding Sigmund Freud which included other pioneers of psychological study as Carl Jung, Alfred Adler and others...
Further reading
- Copenhaver, Brian P. 1995.Hermetica: the Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a new English translation, with notes and introduction, Cambridge; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1995 ISBN 0-521-42543-3.
External links