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A key to Egypt’s wisdom. The suggested answers to our questions. Footnotes
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A KEY TO EGYPT’S WISDOM
But there is another and still more profoundly interesting side of the subject which we cannot expect to find treated in a purely philological, technical, and critical treatise. The more one studies the best of these mystical sermons, casting aside all prejudice, and trying to feel and think with the writers, the nearer one is conscious of approaching the threshold of what may well be believed to have been the true Adytum of the best in the mystery-traditions of antiquity. Innumerable are the hints of the greatnesses and immensities lying beyond that threshold—among other precious things the vision of the key to Egypt’s wisdom, the interpretation of apocalypsis by the light of the sun-clear epopteia of the intelligible cosmos.
Such greatnesses and such mysteries have a power and beauty which the most disreputable tradition of the texts through unknowing hands cannot wholly disguise, and they are still recognisable, even though thus clad in the rags of their once fair garments, by those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
But to return to the points we raised in the opening of this chapter.
THE SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO OUR QUESTIONS
If we now re-state the problems we are considering in the interrogative form, we shall have to find answers to the following questions:
Why did the early Church Fathers accept the
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Trismegistic writings as exceedingly ancient and authoritative, and in their apologetic writings quote them in support of the main impersonal dogmas of Christianity?
Why, in the revival of learning, for upwards of a century and a half did all the Humanists welcome them with open arms as a most valuable adjunct to Christianity, and as being in accord with its main doctrines, so much so that they laboured to substitute Trismegistus for Aristotle in the schools?
Finally, why during the last two centuries and a half has a body of opinion been gradually evolved, infinitesimal in its beginnings, but well-nigh shutting out every other view, that these writings are Neoplatonic forgeries?
The answers to these questions are simple: —The Church Fathers appealed to the authority of antiquity and to a tradition that had never been called in question, in order to show that they taught nothing fundamentally new—that, in brief, they taught on main points what Hermes had taught. They lived in days too proximate to that tradition to have ventured on bringing any charge of plagiarism and forgery against it without exposing themselves to a crushing rejoinder from men who were still the hearers of its “living voice” and possessors of its “written word. ”
The scholars of the Renaissance naturally followed the unvarying tradition of antiquity, confirmed by the Fathers of the Church.
Gradually, however, it was perceived that, if the old tradition were accepted, the fundamental originality of general Christian doctrines—that is to say, the philosophical basis of the Faith, as apart from the historical dogmas peculiar to it—could no longer be maintained. It, therefore, became imperatively necessary to discredit the ancient tradition by every possible
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means. With what success this policy has been attended we have already seen; we have also reviewed this growth of opinion, and shown its baseless character and the straits to which its defenders have been put.
From the clouds of this obscurantism the sun of Thrice-greatest Hermes and the radiance of his Gnosis have once more shone forth in the skies of humanistic enquiry and unprejudiced research. He is no longer to be called bastard, and plagiarist, and thief of other people’s property, but must be regarded as a genuine teacher of men, handing on his own, and giving freely of his substance to all who will receive the gift.
Footnotes
19: 1 For a list of those who thought Hermes was prior to Moses, and even identical with Joseph, or even Adam, see Harles, p. 49 ff. and notes.
19: 2 A Platonic philosopher who lived probably in the 4th century A. D.
20: 1 Op. cit., p. 3a.
20: 2 In which Patrizzi did but echo the opinion of his predecessors, such as Vergecius, the editor of the first edition of the Greek text, Candalle and many more.
21: 1 De Zoroastre Bactriano Hermete Trismegisto Sanchoniathone Phœ nicio eorumque Scriptis, et Aliis contra Mosaicæ Scripturæ Antiquitatem; Exercitationes Familiares, pp. 73-180—a book now very scarce.
21: 2 Jacobi Bruckeri, Historia Critica Philosophiæ (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1767), i. 252 ff. Lib. ii., cap. vii., “De Philosophia Æ gyptiorum. ” See also Meiners’ Versuch ü ber die Religionsgeschichte der ä ltesten Vö lker besonders der Egyptier (Gö ttingen, 1775).
21: 3 De Rebus Sacris. . . Exercitationes ad Card. Baronii Prolegomena, i., n. 10 (London, 1614). Casaubon concludes that the whole book, i. e. the “Pœ mandres, ” is a pseudepigraph, the pure invention of some Christian or other, or perhaps better, of some semi-Christian (p. 56).
22: 1 See his dissertation on Hermes and the Hermetic writings in the edition of 1820, vol. ii., pp. 128-155.
22: 2 Though Reitzenstein (p. 1) speaks of the”schneidende Kritik“ of Casaubon.
22: 3 Vol. i., p. 89, of the following amply entitled work, Das Platonisch-Hermetisches [sic] Christenthum, begriffend die historische Erzehlung vom Ursprung und vielerley Secten der heutigen Fanatischen Theologie, unterm Namen der Paracelsisten, Weigelianer, Rosencreutzer, Quä ker, Bohmisten, Wiedertä uffer, Bourignisten, Labadisten und Quietisten, by M. Ehre Gott Daniel Colberg, 2 vols. (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1690, 1691).
23: 1 Op. supr. cit.; the most “advanced” writer on the subject being Tiedemann, to whose work we have already referred; but unfortunately we have not been able to procure a copy, and the British Museum is without it. Tiedemann thinks that none of the Trismegistic writings existed before the fourth century, while Fabricius himself, whose summary of prior opinion is overworked by Harles, assigns them to the time of Porphyry and Iamblichus, though Harles dates the earliest of them from the end of the first to the middle of the second century (p. 48, n. ).
23: 2 It may be worth while here to record the opinion of Gibbon, who would ascribe a Christian origin to some of the Trismegistic writings, and impatiently dismisses the subject by classing Hermes with Orpheus and the Sibyls as a cloak for Christian forgery (vol. ii. p. 69, Bury’s ed. ).
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24: 1 How the public is catered for may be seen from any popular “knowledge”-digest. The following will serve as a specimen, taken from the article “Hermes Trismegistus, ” in The American Encyclopæ dia: a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge, edited by Ripley and Dana (New York, 1874): “In the conflict between Neoplatonism and Christianity, the former sought to give a profounder and more spiritual meaning to the pagan philosophy, by combining the wisdom of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and representing it as a very ancient, divine revelation. ”
24: 2 Delivered before the University of Jena at Pentecost, 1827, by Lud. Frid. Otto Baumgarten-Crusius.
24: 3 Orelli (J. C. ), Sanchoniathonis Fragmenta de Cosmogonia et Theologia Phœ nicorum (Leipzig, 1826).
25: 1 Hilgers (B. J. ), De Hermetis Trismegisti Poimandro Commentatio (Bonn, 1855), suggested by the appearance of Parthey’s text in 1854.
25: 2 Mö hler (J. A. ), Patrologie, pp. 950-951—a brief note on Hermes. Ed. by F. X. Reithmayr (Regensberg, 1840).
26: 1 Op. cit., pp. 16-17.
27: 1 The whole of this article has been lifted, without acknowledgment, by M‘Clintock and Strong in their Cyclopæ dia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (New York, 1872).
28: 1 Pierret, Mé langes d’Arché ologie é gyptienne et assyrienne, i. (1873), p. 112; R. 1, n. 1.
28: 2 Op. sup. cit., 1866.
29: 1 The popular Christian solution, Mé nard should have said.
32: 1 Gesch. d. griech. Philos., III., ii., 225 ff. Zeller, while recognising the Gnostic nature of C. H. i. and C. H. xiii. (xiv. ), treats the rest of our Corpus as an expression of declining Paganism. So also Erdmann (Hist. Philos., i. 113, 2, Tr. ), who deals with our Corpus only, and assigns its sermons to different authors and times. He contends that C. H. xiii. (xiv. ) shows a Neo-pythagorean tendency, a term far vaguer than Neo-platonic even.
33: 1 Hermes Trismegistos n. ä gyp., griech. u. oriental. Ü berlieferungen (Leipzig, 1875).
33: 2 A laborious article replete with references, but dealing solely with the Hermes-saga and not with our writings.
33: 3 Aall (A. ), Geschichte der Logosidee in der Philosophie (Leipzig, vol. i. 1896, vol. ii. 1899), ii. 78, n. 4.
33: 4 Cf. Reitzenstein, Zwei religionsgeschichtliche Fragen (Strassburg, 1901), p. 93, n. 3.
34: 1 Art. “Hermes and Hermes Trismegistus, ” by L. Schmitz, in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (London, 1870), a work which is now entirely out of date; Jowett’s art., “Hermes Trismegistus, ” in the Encyclopæ dia Britannica (9th ed., London, 1880), repeated in the recent reprint without alteration; and Mozley’s art., “Hermes Trismegistus, ” in Smith and Wace’s Dictionary of Christian Biography (London, 1882); to both of which articles, if not to the works themselves, the above remark also applies.
34: 2 The Theological and Philosophical Works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian Neoplatonist.
35: 1 Op. cit., p. xii.
35: 2 In this repeating de Foix, who attempted the same task more than three hundred years before.
36: 1 “The Poemandres of Hermes Trismegistus, ” in The Journal of Theological Studies, vol. v. No. 19, April 1904 (London).
37: 1 Namely, that of the Good Shepherd.
37: 2 This is a reflection of Mé nard’s sensible view.
38: 1 Ibid., p. 406.
38: 2 Ibid., p. 411.
38: 3 I have never come across this statement before, and so regret that G. has not given his authority. If such were the tradition, it would be exceedingly instructive. Salome, however, in the fragments of this Gospel preserved to us, says categorically that she has never “brought forth. ”
39: 1 It is not, even if the “opening chapters” be reduced to the Proem. Heracleon, one of the disciples of Valentinus, comments directly on this Proem, but from the point of view of a quite independent tradition.
39: 2 The first commentator of any kind of which we have any knowledge, rather.
40: 1 Ibid., p. 412.
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