((UNIVERSITY 



v .^ 



PREFACE. 



THE IMercurius or Hermes Trismegistus of legend was a 

 personage, an Egyptian sage or succession of sages, 

 who, since the time of Plato, has been identified with the 

 Thoth (the name of the month September) of that people. 

 This Thoth is the reputed author of the "Kitual of the 

 Dead," or, as styled in Egyptian phraseology, the "Manifes- 

 tation of Light" to the Soul, who through it declared the 

 will of the Gods and the mysterious nature of Divine 

 things to Man. 1 Dr Pietschmann, in his work on Hermes, 

 which exhaustively treats of this subject, 2 gives a list of 

 authorities for these facts, ranging from Plato down to 

 Syncellus, circa A.D. 790. He states, however (p. 33), that 

 by the time that the so-called Hermeneutical writings were 

 collected together, the identity of Hermes with Thoth was 

 forgotten, and Thoth became his son Tat, and Asclepius 

 his disciple, both of whom he instructs in the writings now 

 translated. Subsequently Pietschmann informs us, quot- 

 ing Letronne, 3 that the epithet " Trismegistus " appears 

 first in the second century of the Christian era, and that, 

 before that period, Hermes was designated by the repeti- A 1 

 tion of the " peyas, ft'eyas, neya; " only, as on the Eosetta 

 Stone. 



He was considered to be the impersonation of the reli- 

 gion, art, learning, and sacerdotal discipline of the Egyptian 

 priesthood. He was, by several of the Fathers, and, in 



oi-7 



TJ 



1 Rawlinson's Egypt, i. 136, and the authorities there quoted. 



2 Leipsic, Engelmann, 1875, pp. 31-33. 



3 Ibid. p. 35, " Inscription Grecque de Rosette," Letronne, Paris, 

 1841. 



