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Footnotes. The history of the evolution of opinion. The chief points of interrogation
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Footnotes
3: 1 Reitzenstein (R. ), Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-ä gyptischen und frü hchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig; 1904).
3: 2 Variously translated, or metamorphosed, as Pœ mandres, Pœ mander, Poemandre, Pymandar, Pimander, Pimandre, Pimandro. Already Patrizzi, in 1591, pointed out that only one treatise could be called by this title; but, in spite of this, the bad habit inaugurated by the editio princeps (in Latin translation) of Marsiglio Ficino has persisted to the last edition of the text by Parthey (1854) and the last translation by Chambers (1882).
5: 1 Vol. i., lib. i., cap. vii. See the fourth and last edition (Leipzig, 1790), with up to that time unedited supplements by Fabricius and G. C. Heumann, and very numerous and important additions by G. C. Harles.
6: 1 For the Hermetic writing in Pitra, Analecta Sacra et Classica, pt. ii., see R., pp. 16, n. 4, and 259, n. 1; and for reference to the Arabic literature, pp. 23, n. 5, and 172, n. 3.
8: 1 This study was published in the Theosophical Review, May 1899, and is independent of Reitzenstein’s work.
9: 1 S. F. W. Hoffmann’s Bibliographisches Lexicon der gesammten Litteratur der Griechen (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1839) simply copies Harles, while his appendix of “Erlä uterungsschriften” is of no value.
9: 2 R. (p. 320), as we have seen, gives the date as 1463, but I have found no trace of this edition.
9: 3 The dates of these editions are as follows, though doubtless there were other editions of which we have lost record: 1471, ’72, ’81, ’83, ’91, ’93, ’94, ’97; 1503, ’05, ’16, ’22, ’32, ’49, ’52, ’54, ’61, ’70, ’76, ’77; 1611, ’41. They were printed at Venice, Paris, Basle, Lyons, and London.
10: 1 The writer has painfully perused it, for, more fortunate than the British Museum, he possesses a copy of this rare work.
11: 1 These on perusal prove of little value.
11: 2 R. 322 calls him a Minorite.
12: 1 It is clear, however, that Everard translated from Ficinus’ Latin version, and that the “Arabick” is a myth.
12: 2 Of which only 200 copies were issued to subscribers, as though, forsooth, they were to come into great “occult” secrets thereby.
13: 1 Part of the full title runs: K. W. -S. d. Wissenschaften, Mysterien, Theosophie, gö ttlichen und morgenlä ndischen Magie, Naturkrä fte, hermet. u. magnet. Phil., Kabbala, u. and. hö hern Kentnissen, and much more in the same strain, but I have no doubt the reader has already had enough of it. From 1855 to 1857 fourteen parts appeared, mostly taken up with German translations of Hermes, of Agrippa’s Philosophia Occulta from the Latin, and of The Telescope of Zoroaster from the French.
13: 2 Op. inf. cit., p. 10.
14: 1 I have, therefore, not been able to avail myself of Tiedemann’s labours. R. 322 speaks highly of them.
14: 2 The last edition prior to Parthey’s was the reprint of Flussas’ text, at Cologne in 1630, appended to Rossel’s lucubrations.
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16: 1 As already remarked, I have not been able to see a copy of the German of Tiedemann.
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II
THE HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF OPINION
THE CHIEF POINTS OF INTERROGATION
We have now to consider the following interesting points:
The early Church Fathers in general accepted the Trismegistic writings as exceedingly ancient and authoritative, and in their apologetic writings quote them in support of the main general positions of Christianity.
In the revival of learning, for upwards of a century and a half, all the Humanists welcomed them with open arms as a most valuable adjunct to Christianity, and as being in accord with its doctrines; so much so that they laboured to substitute Trismegistus for Aristotle in the schools.
During the last two centuries and a half, however, a body of opinion was gradually evolved, infinitesimal in its beginnings but finally well-nigh shutting out every other view, that these writings were Neoplatonic forgeries and plagiarisms of Christianity.
Finally, with the dawn of the twentieth century, the subject has been rescued from the hands of opinion, and has begun to be established on the firm ground of historical and critical research, opening up problems of the greatest interest and importance for the history of Christian origins and their connection with Hellenistic
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theology and theosophy, and throwing a brilliant light on the development of Gnosticism.
The first point will be brought out in detail in the volume in which a translation of all the passages and references to Thrice-greatest Hermes in the writings of the Church Fathers will be given; while the last will be made abundantly apparent, we hope, in the general course of our studies. The second and third points will now demand our immediate attention, especially the third, for we have endeavoured with great labour to become acquainted with all the “arguments” which have tended to build up this opinion; and unless we have to change all our ideas as to the time-frame of so-called Neoplatonism, we are entirely unconvinced; for we find that it has been evolved from unsupported assertions, and that not one single work exists which ventures in any satisfactory fashion to argue the question (most writers merely reasserting or echoing prior opinions), or in which the statements made may not as easily prove the priority of the Trismegistic school to the Neoplatonic as the reverse.
We will then proceed to give some account of this chaos of contradictory opinions, picking out the most salient points.
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