Hermes Trismegistus

Lore & Background

Hermes Trismegistus may be associated with the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. Greeks in the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt identified Thoth with Hermes through the interpretatio graeca. Consequently, the two gods were worshiped as one, in what had been the Temple of Thoth in Khemenu, which was known in the Hellenistic period as Hermopolis. The Egyptian priest and polymath Imhotep had been deified long after his death, and therefore assimilated to Thoth in the classical and Hellenistic periods. The renowned scribe Amenhotep, son of Hapu, and a wise man named Teôs were coequal deities of wisdom, science, and medicine; and, thus, they were placed alongside Imhotep in shrines dedicated to Thoth–Hermes during the Ptolemaic Kingdom. Cicero enumerates several deities referred to as 'Hermes': 'fourth Mercury (Hermes) was the son of the Nile, whose name may not be spoken by the Egyptians'; 'the fifth, who is worshiped by the people of Pheneus [in Arcadia], is said to have killed Argus Panoptes, and for this reason to have fled to Egypt, and to have given the Egyptians their laws and alphabet: It is him whom the Egyptians call Theyt'. The most likely interpretation of this passage is as two variants on the same religious syncretism of Greek Hermes and Egyptian Thoth (or sometimes other gods).

Reader's Guide

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Hermetica enjoyed great prestige and were popular among alchemists. Hermes was also strongly associated with astrology, for example by the influential Islamic astrologer Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (787–886). The 'Hermetic tradition' consequently refers to alchemy, magic, astrology, and related subjects. By modern convention the texts are usually subdivided into two categories. The expression hermetically sealed comes from the alchemical procedure to make the Philosopher's Stone. This required a mixture of materials to be placed in a glass vessel which was sealed by melting and fusing the neck closed, a procedure known as the 'Seal of Hermes'. The vessel was then heated for 30–40 days. During the Renaissance, it was accepted that Hermes Trismegistus was a contemporary of Moses. However, after Isaac Casaubon's demonstration in 1614 that the Hermetic writings must postdate the advent of Christianity, 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 Renaissance believed, but by various unknown authors, all probably Greeks, and they contain popular Greek philosophy of the period, a mixture of Platonism and Stoicism, combined with some Jewish and probably some Persian influences.'

Did You Know?

• The epithet 'thrice great' is first found in the minutes of a meeting of the council of the Ibis cult, held in 172 BCE near Memphis, Egypt.
• Hermes Trismegistus is identified with the prophet Idris (the biblical Enoch) in both Muslim and Baháʼí writings.