Thoth was among
the most diverse and popular of all the Egyptian gods. Like many of his
colleagues he was a composite, even an accumulation, rather than a figure
cast whole and unambiguously defined. In particular, Thoth was regarded even
in the most primitive period as the moon-god; and from this lunar
association arose many of his most distinctive functions. Just as the moon
is illuminated by the sun, so Thoth derived much of his authority from being
secretary and counselor to the solar divinity Re. The moon, 'ruler of the
stars, distinguishes seasons, months and years';[83] and so Thoth became the
lord and multiplier of time, and the regulator of individual destines.
Indeed, so important were the moon's phases in determining the rhythms of
Egyptian life, that Thoth became regarded as the origin both of cosmic order
and of religious and civil institutions. He presided over almost every
aspect of the temple cults, law and the civil year, and in particular over
the sacred rituals, texts and formulas, and the magic arts that were so
closely related. To him, as divine scribe, inventor of writing and lord of
wisdom, the priesthood attributed much of its sacred literature, including,
for example, parts of the Book of the Dead. Of occult powers latent in all
aspects of the cult of the gods, Thoth was the acknowledged source. By
extension he became regarded as the lord of knowledge, language and all
science-even as Understanding or Reason personified. Esoteric wisdom was his
special preserve, and he was called 'the Mysterious,' 'the Unknown.' His
magical powers made of him a doctor too; and when the body finally succumbed
to mortality, it was Thoth who conducted the dead person to the kingdom of
the gods, and sat in judgment on his soul. However, it was at Hermoupolis
Magna, the main center of his cult, that Thoth attained the pinnacle of his
glory-indeed, his distinctly Hermoupolitan character was recognized
throughout Egypt. Naturally enough his clergy were eager to aggrandize their
patron; and the obvious way to do so was through the development of a
distinct cosmogony, Hermoupolis being widely regarded as the oldest place on
earth. So it was that Thoth acquired a leading role in the drama of creation
itself, as a demiurge who called things into being merely by the sound of
his voice. Besides the common near Eastern idea that speech has creative
power, we can surely detect here the influence of Thoth the god of Magic.
Perhaps,
though, it was to be his role as guide of souls and judge of the dead that
Thoth most owed his popularity with ordinary people. He continued to inspire
strong popular devotion throughout the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.[84] His
was an inescapable presence; and it is easy to see why foreign settlers in
Egypt were tempted to try to establish some sort of link with him. The
second-century BCE Jewish romancer Artapanus, for instance, wrote an account
of the life of Moses in which he assimilated his hero to 'Hermes' (i.e.
Thoth), making him responsible for introducing the Egyptians to ships,
machines, weapons, and philosophy; for dividing the country up into nomes,
each with its own divine patron; for inventing the hieroglyphs; and for
assigning lands of their own to the priests. And the Greek settlers, also,
identified Thoth with their god Hermes. Like Thoth the classical Hermes was
associated with the moon, medicine and the realm of the dead. Furthermore,
both had a reputation for inventiveness and trickery, and both functioned as
messenger of the gods, which in Hermes's case prepared him as well for his
characteristic function in the Hellenistic period, as the
logos
or 'word', the interpreter of the divine will to humanity. This Hellenistic
Hermes-logos
was a thoroughly cosmopolitan divinity: The Lycaonians, who were
sufficiently un-Hellenized to have retained their native language, had no
difficulty in recognizing the apostle Paul as Hermes come down to earth,
'because he was the chief speaker.'[85] The Stoics assigned Hermes a still
more central role in their theology, magnifying his function from the merely
expressive to the creative, and regarding him as both
logos
and demiurge. It may even be that this development owed something to the
Egyptian understanding of Thoth as creator.
Hermes
Trismegistus, then, was the cosmopolitan, Hellenistic Hermes, Egyptianized
through his assimilation to Thoth, and in fact known throughout the Roman
world as 'the Egyptian' par excellence.[86] To some extent this
intermingling of Egyptian and Greek theology and Hellenistic philosophy
produced a sum that was greater than its parts, a divinity who could
deservedly be placed among the
dei magni
of the pagan pantheon that presided over the Roman world.[87] Yet around and
within the Egyptian Hermes there persisted serious tensions, mirroring the
peculiarities of the Graeco-Egyptain mileu that had produced him.
In the beginning
it had no doubt seemed enough to say that the Greek god Hermes was
equivalent to the Egyptian god Thoth, and leave it at that. But the
temptation to provide a mythological explanation could not be resisted
forever; and that was one of the reasons why Cicero was eventually able to
enumerate no less than five individuals who claimed the name Hermes, the
third being the familiar offspring of Zeus and Maia,
while the fifth, who is worshipped by the people of Pheneus
[in Arcadia?], is said to have killed Argus, 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 Theyn [Thoth].[88]
In other words,
the story that was produced-and widely circulated-to explain the emergence
of Hermes Trismegistus invoked a relatively human Hermes who was recognized
to be distinct from the messenger of the gods. So it is not surprising to
find that people of Greek culture did not always envisage Trismegistus in
the same terms as did those of a more Egyptian background.
It is in
the Greek magical papyri, rather than in the
Hermetica,
that we most clearly discern the lineaments of Hermes Trismegistus, and that
the Egyptian aspects of his identity are given the fullest rein.[89] In a
country as renowned for its magic as was Egypt, that was only to be
expected. The Papyri presents the new syncretistic Hermes as a cosmic power,
creator of Heaven and earth and almighty world-ruler. Presiding over fate
and justice, he is also lord of the night, and of death and its mysterious
aftermath-hence his frequent association with the moon (Selene) and Hecate.
He knows 'all that is hidden under the heavenly vault, and beneath the
earth',[90] and is accordingly much revered as a sender of oracles-many of
the magical spells that are addressed to Hermes aim to elicit arcane
information, frequently by inducing the god to appear in a dream. In this
capacity, Hermes often becomes involved in the minutiae of his devotees'
everyday existence. The Hermes of the magical papyri is a cosmic deity, but
one who may also dwell within the heart of individuals; and the magician
often assumes towards him a tone of intimacy shading off into
self-identification. One magical invocation begins: 'come to me, Lord
Hermes, as fetuses into the wombs of women'; and after a shopping-list of
gifts that the god is supposed to bestow, ends with the assertion that: 'I
know you Hermes, and you know me. I am you and you are me.' On occasion the
magician might even impersonate Thoth-Hermes (or any other god) to put
pressure on one of his divine colleagues.[91] This self-identification with
a god, common in the magical papyri, is an authentically Egyptian trait.[92]
It highlights both the variety of the magician's approach to his gods, and
the persistence of Egyptian ways of thought. The traditional Greek Hermes,
clad in chlamys and winged hat and sandals, is not unknown to the magical
papyri, but the autochthonous Thoth is commoner;[93] and if Hermes succeded
in becoming a dynamic element in Graeco-Egyptain popular religion, it was
largely thanks to his alliance with his native counterpart, which allowed
him to be thought of as more Egyptian than Greek. At first Hermes
Egyptianized by translating, either literally or metaphorically, the
attributes of Thoth. One can see this in his titulature, as well as the
celebration of the Hermaea that came to coincide exactly with one of the
major festivals of Thoth.[94] With time, naturally enough, this carefulness
bred of unfamiliarity came to seem less necessary. As far as Hermes was
concerned, the popularity of his cult at Hermoupolis must have contributed a
great deal to the dissolving of cultural barriers and the evolution of the
composite Hermes Trismegistus of late antiquity. We can see the same process
at work in the centuries-long accumulation of pious inscriptions and
graffiti left by pilgrims Egyptian, Greek and Roman of all stations of life,
at the temple of Thoth-Hermes Paotnouphis at Pselchis (al-Dakka) on the
Nubian frontier;[95] and in a mid-third-century soldier's votive inscription
at Panopolis to 'the Great god Hermes Trismegistus'. By the later Roman
period there had emerged a
koine
of Graeco-Egyptain religious discourse; and of this
koine
Hermes Trismegistus was a central constituent.[96] But, for all that, the
native Thoth as never wholly absorbed. He was too commanding a figure. Even
in the Greek literary milieu there were those prepared to take the line of
least resistance and propagate a version of Trismegistus that was scarcely
Hellenized at all except in name. Cyril of Alexander quotes a good example
of this approach from a Hermetic text that he says was composed at
Athens.[97] The author presents 'our Hermes as seen through the eyes of an
Egyptian priest. He is an adept of the temple cults, a law-giver and an
authority on astronomy, astrology, botany, mathematics, geometry, the arts
and grammar. He it was who divided the country into nomes and other units,
measured it, cut irrigation canals and established the exchange of
contracts. In short, the anonymous Athenian Hermetist depicts Hermes in the
same unmistakably Egyptian terms as those in which Artapanus had envisaged
Moses.[98]
However, most of
those who looked at things from a Greek point of view had a rather different
image of Hermes Trismegistus, which to some extent played down specifically
Egyptian elements and assumed that, in origin at least, Hermes had been
human. After all, Plato had queried whether even Thoth was a god or just a
divine man.[99] Ammianus Marcellinus mentions Trismegistus, alongside
Appollonius of Tyana and Plotinus, as an example o a human endowed with a
particularly strong guardian spirit;[100] and it is usually in human or at
most heroic company that Hermes appears when cited as one of a string of
authorities by late antiquity writers.[101] So too in the philosophical
Hermetica. Hermes is a mortal who received revelations from the divine world
and eventually himself achieves immortality through self-purification, but
remains among men in order to unveil to them the secrets of the divine
world.[102] It is significant how many of the philosophical Hermetica are
presented in epistolary or dialogue form. In this way the Hermetist, while
preserving the divine and revelatory character of his doctrines, imparts to
their expositions a certain air of historical reality, stirring in his
audience, perhaps, echoes of Socrates and his circle as depicted in the
Platonic dialogues.
Yet if
once Hermes had been mortal, that had been in remote antiquity,[103] and he
had long since been assumed into the company of the gods. The technical
Hermetica are studiously vague, usually envisaging Trismegistus as a sage
who lived at a remote period and conversed freely with the gods, though on
occasion they speak of him as a divine being. The
Kore kosmou,
which Stobaeus included in his selection of Hermetic philosophical texts for
his Anthologium, but which was considerably influenced by technical
Hermetism, treats Hermes straightforwardly as a god, and surrounds him with
an unashamedly mythological narrative. The figure of Thoth, the divine
author of the Egyptian temple literature, lurks only just below the surface
of the Kore's
Hermes, all-knowing revealer of wisdom to humanity-and in general Egyptian
ideas are particularly prominent in this text.
The
ambiguity of a figure who hovered between the divine and human worlds will
have struck many as an advantage and attraction. Late paganism cultivated
with enthusiasm such figures as Heracles, Dionysus, Asclepius and Orpheus.
Hermes was one more of these intermediaries, who were much in demand in a
world increasingly fascinated by the transcendental quality of the divine.
But not everybody relished such ambiguities. Just as what seemed to some the
simplistic identification of Hermes with Thoth was eventually 'explained',
so too the tension in Trismegistus's character between the venerable and
remote figure of Thoth and the more human Hermes of the Greeks had to be
accounted for, if only to clear up the doubts of those who, like the
Christian writer Lactantius, were not sure whether to treat the Hermetic
books as divine revelation or human speculation.[104] So at some point the
Hermetists began to propagate the idea that there had been two Egyptian
Hermes, grandfather and grandson.[105] In the
Perfect Discourse
(Asclepius),
Hermes Trismegistus refers to the tomb of his grandfather and namesake
Hermes in Hermoupolis, 'the city where he was born (patria)
and which is named after him'.[106] Clearly the author envisages Hermes I as
identical with Thoth-and the Egyptians were indeed used to the idea that
gods might be born and then die, not in the euhemeristic sense, but as part
of a perpetual process of regeneration.[107] The identification is made
explicit in a passage from a text attributed to the early Ptolemaic priest
and historian Manetho, but certainly of a much later date, in which
reference is made to 'stelae inscribed in the sacred languages and with
hieroglyphic characters by Thoth, the first Hermes'.[108] Who was his
grandson, the second Hermes?
The Hermetists,
while insisting that their compositions had indeed been written in Egyptian,
and inscribed on stelae in hieroglyphic characters, were also well aware
that they could not have been rendered into Greek without losing the
authority that attached to sacred texts in the native language-'for the very
quality of the sounds and the [intonation] of the Egyptian words contain in
itself the force of the things said'.[109] A translation would require, at
the very least, the active assistance of the priestly guardians of the
originals. Iamblichus, for example, records that an Egyptian priest named
Bitys was supposed to have translated some of the hieroglyphic texts of
Thoth into Greek, and had made use of (Greek) philosophical vocabulary in
doing so.[110] These texts Bitys had found 'in temples at Sais in Egypt',
which of course is where Solon was supposed to have encountered Egyptian
priests more learned in the history of Greece than any Greek, and to have
translated parts of their archives.[111] Iamblichus also tells us that
Pythagoras and Plato, during their visits to Egypt, 'read through' the
stelae of Hermes with the help of native priests.[112] Whether these stories
are true is not important for this discussion. What is important is first,
that the Hermetists wished it to be believed that their compositions were
books of Thoth rendered from Egyptian into Greek; and secondly that the
legitimacy and prestige of these books depended on the finding of a
plausible explanation of how this translation had been brought about. Hence
the last twist in the evolution of the myth of the Egyptian Hermes, namely
the presentation of none other than Hermes the younger as the translator of
the Thoth texts. At any rate, this appears to be the idea underlying the
obscure and corrupt pseudo-Manetho passage already mentioned. After
referring to the hieroglyphic texts inscribed by Thoth, the first Hermes,
pseudo-Manetho goes on to assert that 'after the Flood they were translated
from the sacred language into Greek, and deposited in books in the
sanctuaries of Egyptian temples by the second Hermes, the son of Agathos
Daimon and father of Tat.[113] That the Thoth-literature was believed to
have been rendered into Greek at such an early date has struck modern
scholars as so improbable that they have emended the passage.[114] However,
Plato had spoken of the translation of Greek records into Egyptian after the
deluge(s); and anyway this was exactly the sort of claim that Hermetists had
to make if they were to overcome the well-known inadequacies of translations
from Egyptian into Greek.
Thus the
two Hermes in the
Asclepius
now stand revealed as separate emboidments of the divine Egyptian and more
human Greek dimensions of the composite deity Hermes Trismegistus. This not
only provided a mythological explanation and sanction for the existence of a
Hermetic literature in Greek, rather than in the sacred tongue of Egypt, but
also left the Greek Hermes flexible enough to play his traditional role of
intermediary between God and men.
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