HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 



PAET III. 



NOTICES OF HERMES IN THE FATHERS, 



I. 



JUSTIN MAETYH (born circa A.D. 100; martyr. A.D. 165). 

 " Uapaiverfabe it fa 'EXfojvag," " Parsenetica ad Grsecos " 

 Opera Edit. Colon. 1636, p. 37, ad fin. 



" BUT if any one should think it worth (a) while to have 

 learnt from the most ancient philosophers named among 

 them, as to the discourse concerning The God, let him 

 hear both Acrnon 1 and Hermes; Acmon indeed in his 

 discourses concerning Him calling Him 'The altogether 

 hidden God/ and Hermes wisely and openly saying, ' To 

 understand The God indeed is difficult, but to express [or 

 declare] Him impossible.' To whom then it is possible to 

 understand it is altogether therefore becoming to know." 2 



(a) o'totro. 



1 This Acmon was probably the Greek philosopher who lived just 

 previously to the Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 76-138), and was master of 

 Plutarch, and taught at Delphi in the 12th year of Nero's reign (A.D. 

 66). He professed Syncretism, and endeavoured to reconcile Aristotle 

 with Platonism (Plutarch, " De adulatoribus," Fabricius Bibliotheca 

 Grseca, v. 153). He has been confounded wrongfully with Ammo- 

 nius Saccas, the master of Plotinus and the reputed founder of Neo- 

 platonism, who died at Alexandria A.D. 241. A reference, however, 

 may be intended to the Egyptian Ammon. 



2 See " Poemandres," ch. v., sec. 10, and more particularly the 



