Clavis Mythologiarum

BOOK III. OF DEIFIED PATRIARCHS. HEAD III. OF HERMES THE SCRIBE AND COUNSELLOR.

○It will be sufficient, in the present head, to examine what the Greek writers say of the person whom they call Hermes, and to determine, so far as the testimonies at present collected permit, whether he is to be placed with the Thoth of the preceding head, and with the deified patriarchs; and it is to be premised that the Greek witnesses who are most commonly cited for the identity, Diodorus and Plutarch, do not themselves make it, but speak throughout of Hermes, and that the equation of the two names is therefore my own, resting upon the testimony of Philo Byblius, who has joined them, and upon the correspondence of the inventions.1 The question is not whether a person so named existed, which the witnesses do not doubt, but what station he held, and whether it is the station of a man or of a power; and I shall endeavour to show that the station, as it is described, is that of a man, and in particular of a man about a king. The objections which may be urged against this, and which I do not affect to underrate, will be considered at the close. NB-10-022 NB-56-002

×Diodorus, in the sixteenth section of his first book, relates that Osiris took Hermes for his priestly scribe, and communicated with him upon every matter, and used his counsel above that of all others (Diod. Sic. i. 16).2 The office is a priestly one, and he who holds it serves a king: it is the description of a man in a station, and not of a power. The sentence does not shew whether the scribe of Osiris was the first of those who bore the name, or one of a succession in the office; and I take it that this is a question upon which the sentence is not able to be pressed, and that it is sufficient, for the present, that the person is placed by it in the court of a sovereign, and not above him. NB-10-022

×In the next section the same writer relates that Osiris, having established the affairs of Egypt and turned the supreme power over to Isis his wife, placed Hermes at her side as counsellor, because his prudence raised him above the king's other friends (Diod. Sic. i. 17).3 One who is placed by another, and ranked among a king's friends, has a king above him; and it is to be remarked that the place assigns to Hermes no rank except that of the first of the friends, and no power over the king. Mr. Bryant, on the other hand, gives Hermes and Thoth to the Patriarch, in the opening of one chapter: "They represented him as Thoth, Hermes, Menes, Osiris, Zeuth, Atlas, Phoroneus, Prometheus."4 In another he says of Cadmus, whom he makes the same as Hermes, Thoth and Osiris, that he "may principally be esteemed Ham." The same titles go in the one place to the father, in the other to the son, and the place of Diodorus allows neither. Mr. Bryant adds that more than one person is alluded to under these characters; the admission is to be taken, and the persons are then to be named, which the words he has cited do not enable him to do. It is to be asked, I conceive, whether the counsellor be not of a later generation than either. NB-14-004

×Huet, in his chapter upon Moses reckoned a god by the Egyptians, judges of Mercury that "This Mercury, led not by vain opinions but by the most probable conjectures, I judge to be Moses himself."5 He says also that Vulcan is Moses, because Amun, Phtha, Vulcan and Osiris are one, and Osiris has been established to be Moses; and that Serapis is Moses, the name being derived from a Hebrew verb which signifies to burn, and the horns and the rays upon an engraved Serapis being read as the symbols of the lawgiver.6 In Diodorus the one is the sovereign and the other his counsellor, and the sovereign takes his counsel above that of all others. If both be Moses, the relation as Diodorus gives it falls to the ground; and it is not apparent that a conclusion drawn from a derivation, or from a premise which I have not seen proved, is to be preferred to a relation which names two persons. I enter the three identifications and do not adopt them; it may be added that Huet himself, in the same place, makes the Egyptians call the Mercury of whom he speaks Theuth, and so far agrees with the equation of the names which I have proposed. NB-13-014

○Plutarch reports that many have held a certain goddess to be the daughter of Hermes, and that this Hermes is esteemed the author of letters and music.7 He reports it of others, and does not say that he holds it himself; and I enter the place only as one of those in which the Greek name is found with the invention of letters, which in the preceding head was given to Theuth and to Taautus. Whether he who first made letters was a man and not a power, the testimonies are not yet gathered which would decide; and I make no entry here beyond the place, further than to say that, if he was a man, he is to stand with the deified patriarchs. NB-56-002

○It is proper to add, for the sake of what will be said in the Book which concerns the Mysteries, a distinction which the present head requires. Diodorus gives Hermes an office about the king, scribe and counsellor, and names no book as his; and my ancestor, who sets passages of the Poemander beside the Gospel of John, says that "Non puto esse aliquem vere Christianum, qui opus habeat moneri, quo ex fonte ista sint deriuata" (that is, "I do not think there is anyone truly a Christian who needs to be told from what fountain these things were drawn"), and asks whether a pagan Egyptian older than Moses could have known the Word, the Son of God.8 The Hermes of the counsel and the Hermes of the Poemander are therefore to be kept apart in the tractate which I have already laid before the public: from an office no book follows. How the name came to stand upon writings is a matter which belongs to the Mysteries; and whether the tradition of the priestly counsellor be older than the writings, the testimonies at present collected do not determine. NB-59-004

○The view which I propose, as at present sketched, is that the Hermes of the Greeks, so far as Diodorus and Plutarch describe him, is a man in the court of Osiris and of Isis, a priestly scribe and counsellor, to whom the invention of letters and of music was ascribed; that he is the Thoth of the preceding head, the son of Misor and of the line of Ham; and that, being thus a person who served the king of the Egyptians, and not the king himself, he is to be numbered with the deified patriarchs, and not with the titles of the sun or with the Moses of Huet. The proof of the identity, which requires the Greek and the Phenician testimonies to be set side by side, is reserved for its place. It may be objected that Diodorus makes Hermes the servant of Osiris, and that a servant is not a patriarch; to which I answer that a man may be deified who served a king, and that the office, which is related of him, is the proof of the station which he held and not of any power. It may be objected, in the second place, that Plutarch's attribution of letters to Hermes is a report of others, and has no authority; to which I answer that I do not rest upon it more than it will bear. And it may be objected, lastly, that the equation of Hermes with Thoth is mine and not the ancients'; to which I answer that it is, and that it is submitted as such, and will be judged by the correspondence of the offices, which is a testimony to which I attach more weight than to any title.9 NB-10-022 NB-14-004 NB-13-014 NB-56-002 NB-59-004

Footnotes

  1. The equation is made upon Philo Byblius, who gives the Greek name Hermes as that of Taautus; the place has been set down in the head which precedes, and I do not repeat it here. ↩

  2. Diod. Sic. i. 16. I have the place in an English translation printed after the date of this work, and I report it in substance, quoting nothing from it. ↩

  3. Diod. Sic. i. 17. The preceding words of the sentence relate that Osiris had established the affairs of Egypt and turned the supreme power over to Isis his wife; the sentence is thus not about the king himself but about the person whom he leaves at the side of the queen. ↩

  4. Bryant, Analysis, vol. ii. Of some Titles and Personages. Mr. Bryant adds, in the same opening, that the history of the Patriarch was recorded by the ancients through their whole theology, and that it has been obscured by their describing him under so many titles and characters; he says too that the history of Noah is plainest in Saturn and Janus. The second place is Bryant, Analysis, vol. ii. Cadmus, in which he adds that the person who may principally be esteemed Ham was by his posterity looked up to as the Sun, and worshipped under his titles. ↩

  5. Huet, Demonstr. Evang. prop. iv. cap. 4. He adds that the store of arguments is such that there is no need to repeat what he had brought above when he showed that Taautus was Moses, and says that Varro, though learned, confused Taautus with Saturn; I give the Latin in my own English, since the translation is mine and not that of any printed version. ↩

  6. Huet, Demonstr. Evang. prop. iv. cap. 4. He cites Sanchoniathon and Macrobius for Serapis being Osiris, and a Latin writer upon the dream of Ptolemy; and he says that Moses took the name rightly from fire, who came back from the mountain to his people with a face of flame, and received the law from God amid fires. The identity of Serapis with Osiris is the point on which the argument turns, and it is not to be reached by derivation from a verb. ↩

  7. Plut. de Is. et Osir. The translation which I have is of a later date than the work, and I give the sentence in substance; the goddess whom he names is of the Egyptians, and the report is of many, so that the place is evidence of what was said and not of what was. ↩

  8. Is. Casaub. Exercit. i. § 10. He compares the Poemander's call of himself Poemander and light with the words of Christ in the Gospel, and says that the Poemander's calling himself Mind comes from Plato's school; my ancestor's argument I cite as it stands, and I have nothing to add to it. ↩

  9. The objection that Diodorus, upon the place which I have cited, makes Hermes the servant and not the first, is the reason why I have given the sixteenth and seventeenth sections separately; and the further objection, concerning the several Mercuries whom the Latin writers distinguish, is to be considered with the testimonies of Cicero under the head to which it belongs. ↩

← BOOK III. OF DEIFIED PATRIARCHS. HEAD II. OF THOTH, THEUTH AND TAAUTUS.BOOK III. OF THE DEIFIED PATRIARCHS. HEAD IV. OF THE CABEIRI: THEIR NAME AND PARENTAGE. →