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Concerning Ammon. Prophet and King. Amenhotep-asclepius
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CONCERNING AMMON
Of the Trismegistic writings of Asclepius, Lactantius (D. I., ii. 15, 7) mentions a “Perfect Sermon” to the King (Ammon), 1 and also refers to a rich ancient literature by Asclepius addressed to the same king.
Reitzenstein (p. 123), moreover, says that C. H., (xvii. ) presupposes writings addressed to the same King Ammon by Tat; but I gather that the persons of the dialogue are really Asclepius and the King, and not Tat, and that Tat has been substituted for Asclepius by some copyist in error.
However this may be, there was a large literature addressed by Hermes himself to Ammon, as we may see from the distinct statement in P. S. A., i. 2, and also from Stobæ us, Exx. xii. -xix. The same tradition is preserved in the presumably later Hermetic treatise, Iatromathematica, which is also addressed to Ammon. 2
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PROPHET AND KING
Here, then, we have another type of literature, and that, too, very ancient, in which the wise Priest and Prophet is set over against the King as teacher or discoverer of hidden wisdom. This we have already seen to have been the relationship between the Priest and Prophet Petosiris and King Nechepso. But the type goes still further back to pre-Greek times in Egypt. It was, as we have learned from Plutarch, who probably hands on the information direct from Manetho, a necessity that the King, to be a true King, should be initiated into the wisdom of the Priests.
As we have already seen, Imuth-Asclepius appears in Manetho as an inventor, so also in the charming story put into the mouth of Socrates by Plato in his Phæ drus (274 C) about “the famous old God whose name was Theuth, ”—Thoth is the inventor par excellence. In this story—which elicits the remark from Phæ drus: “Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of Egypt, or of any other country”—Thoth takes his inventions to a certain King Thamus for his approval or disapproval, as to whether or no the Egyptians might be allowed the benefit of them. This Thamus was “King of the whole country of Egypt, and dwelt in that great city of upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the God Himself is called by them Ammon. ”
In Hecatæ us, also, Osiris, King of Thebes, has all inventions laid before him, and gives special honour to Hermes whose inventions were far and wide renowned. 1
In this connection it is to be noted that in the Theban Thoth-cult, Thoth was regarded as the Representative
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of the King and Light-God Rā (or Ammon). And so we read on the tomb of Seti I.:
“Thou art in my place, my representative. Wherefore are thou moreover called Thoth, Representative of the Light-God Rā. ” 1
From these and other indications it is quite possible to conclude that Plato has used an ancient Egyptian logos as the basis of his story, and that this logos at a very early period found an echo in written instructions given by Thoth to the King.
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All this took place on purely Egyptian ground, and hence the type of instruction from Thoth-Hermes to Ammon was fairly established in tradition before it was taken over by our Hellenistic Trismegistic writers.
AMENHOTEP-ASCLEPIUS
So far, however, I believe, no reference to books written by Imhotep (Asclepius) to Ammon in the pre-Greek period has been discovered. Sethe, 2 however, tells us that a certain Amenhotep who lived as early as the fifteenth century B. C., was a disciple and seer of Thoth. This Amenhotep was famous as a teacher of wisdom and discoverer of magic books; he was probably also renowned for his own writings as well. Gradually this Amenhotep became blended with Imhotep-Asclepius as his twin-brother, and finally in Ptolemaic times received divine honours at Thebes. Here, then, we have the blending in of another tradition, of a writer of books who was a disciple of Thoth, and was gradually confounded with Asclepius-Imuth, son of Ptah. And that there were two Asclepiuses, an older and a later, we are told distinctly by P. S. A., xxxvii. 3.
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Of the Sayings of this Asclepius a Greek porcelain 1 gives us some idea. The first three Sayings, however, are simply taken from the Sayings of the Seven Sages of Greece; the rest may be partially Egyptian. This scrap of evidence, however, is of importance; for already in the third century B. C., Orphic Sayings are known to have been worked up with Egyptian material, and here we have Greek gnomic material blended with an Egyptian Imuth-tradition of Sayings.
Perhaps still more careful research may reward us with further side-lights on the development of this Asclepius-literature prior to the Greek period, and in its earliest Hellenistic forms. As it is, we are left with the impression that the traces which have been already discovered, justify the remarks made by the writer of our Trismegistic “Definitions of Asclepius unto the King” or “The Perfect Sermon of Asclepius unto the King”—C. H., (xvi. )—as based upon a well-established tradition in the School, concerning the change brought about by putting the Egyptian forms of the Asclepian writings, which were of a very mystical nature, into the more precise forms of the Greek tongue.
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