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Logos-mlnd the good Daimon. Chnum good mind the æon. Isis, Lady of wisdom, disciple of Thrice-Greatest Hermes. Footnotes
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LOGOS-MlND THE GOOD DAIMON
So also in the early Alchemical literature there is a treatise of Agathodaimon addressed to Osiris, and in it others are presupposed. 2 These Alchemical teachings of the Good Daimon are frequently in close contact with
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our Trismegistic doctrines; moreover, in the same literature, Hermes refers to Agathodaimon and appears to regard himself as his disciple. 1 It thus may be supposed that it was from Chnum that was originally derived the tradition of the Agathodaimonites. So thinks Reitzenstein; but I do not think that we have sufficient evidence as yet for so general a conclusion. The term Agathodaimon is a very general one, it is true, but the whole idea cannot be refunded into Chnum; in fact, Osiris is quite as much Agathodaimon as Chnum, and in C. H., xii. (xiii. ), which deals with the General Mind, Good Mind, or Good Daimon, Agathodaimon is taken in the most general sense, and in the three quotations there made by Hermes from the “Sayings of the Good Daimon” (§§ 1, 8, 13), 2 we find that they are in the words of Heracleitus as inspired by the Logos; so that in reality Agathodaimon must be equated with Logos. The origin of Agathodaimon is then not solely Chnum; and Hermes therefore cannot be spoken of as the disciple of Chnubis, unless we can cite texts in which Thoth is so described.
In our Trismegistic literature the teaching is quite simple and distinct; as, for instance, in C. H., x. (xi. ) 23: “He [Mind] is the Good Daimon. ”
When, however, Reitzenstein (p. 128) declares that the sentence in § 25 of the same sermon, “For this cause can a man dare say that man on earth is God subject to death, while God in heaven is man from death immune, ” 3 is a saying belonging to the
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[paragraph continues] Chnuphis-literature, we think he is going beyond the limits of probable conjecture, unless we substitute for Chnuphis the general term Agathodaimon in the sense of Logos.
When again Reitzenstein (p. 129) says that the fragments he has adduced show that Hermes was a later addition in the Agathodaimon-literature, and gradually pushed on one side Osiris the Son of the God of Revelation, we are not convinced that we have correctly recovered the “history”—for in the great Osiris-myth it is Hermes who is always the teacher of wisdom and not Osiris.
CHNUM GOOD MIND THE Æ ON
Nevertheless that a wide-spread Chnuphis-literature, in the Agathodaimonistic sense, existed prior to the second century B. C., Reitzenstein has shown by a number of interesting quotations (pp. 129-133). In Hellenistic times the worship of Chnuphis as the Primal Deity and God of Revelation was strongly established, and, most interesting of all for us, his symbol was the serpent. The symbol, then, of Agathodaimon as Logos was the Serpent of Wisdom, and we are in contact with the line of tradition of the Gnostic Ophites and Naassenes. And so also in Ptolemaic times we find his syzygy, Isis, also symbolised as a serpent, and both of them frequently as serpents with human heads; they are both “as wise as serpents. ” And as Horus was their son, so we find the hawk-headed symbol of that God united with a serpent body. So also we find Agathodaimon, in his sun-aspect, symbolised as a serpent with a lion’s head. 1 He is the Æ on.
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ISIS, LADY OF WISDOM, DISCIPLE OF THRICE-GREATEST HERMES
In addition to the types of Hermes and his disciples, and Agathodaimon and his disciples, we have also in our Trismegistic literature another type—namely, Isis and her disciples. Isis is the ancient Lady of all wisdom, and Teacher of all magic. In the early Hellenistic period she is substituted for Hermes as Orderer of the cosmos, 1 while Plutarch calls her Lady of the Heart and Tongue even as is Hermes. 2 She “sees” the teaching.
As her disciple, she has in the Stobæ an Ex. xxxi. 3 a king, probably King Ammon.
In a Magic Papyrus she even appears as teacher of Asclepius. 4 But the more usual and natural type is that of Isis as teacher of her son Horus, and so we find Lucian speaking of Pythagoras visiting Egypt to learn wisdom of her prophets, and saying that the sage of Samos descended into the adyta and learned the Books of Horus and Isis. 5 To this type of literature belongs our lengthy Stobæ an Exx. xxv. -xxvii.
But in all of this Isis owes her wisdom to face to face instruction by the most ancient Hermes, with whom she gets into contact through spiritual vision. All this I have discussed in the Commentaries to Exx. xxv. -xxvii.; the conclusion being that to the mind of the Pœ mandrists, no matter how ancient might be any line of tradition, whether of Agathodaimon or Osiris or Isis, the direct teaching of the Mind transcended it.
Footnotes
460: 1 See Maspero, op. cit., p. 80. Which of the numerous opp. citt. of Maspero’s this may be is not clear from Budge’s reference.
460: 2 Cf. Brugsch, Thesaurus, p. 783; Religion, p. 527. Sethe, Imhotep, 1903—so Budge; but, more accurately, Sethe (K. ), Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde Ä gyptens, ii. 4 (“Imhotep, der Asklepios der Ä gypter”).
461: 1 For Asclepius among the Greeks, see Thraemer’s article “Asklepios” in Reseller’s Lex. d. . . . Mythologie (Leipzig, 1884-1900), i. 615-641; also the “Cornell Studies in Classical Philosophy, ” No. III., The Cult of Asklepios, by Alice Walton, Ph. D. (Ithaca, N. Y., U. S. A., 1894).
462: 1 Wessely, Denkschr. d. K. K. Akad. (1893), p. 38, 11. 550 ff.; Kenyon, Cat. of Gk. Pap., p. 102.
462: 2 Griffith, in Zeitschr. f. ä g. Sprache (1900), p. 90.
462: 3 According to Manetho; see Mü ller, Manetho Fragm., 4.
463: 1 Teephibis. Cf. Catal. Cod. Astral. Græ c., i. 167: “Hermes Phibi the Thrice-greatest. ” Sethe (op. sup. cit. ) would equate this Teephibis with Hermes of Thebes, in connection with the statement of Clement of Alexandria (Strom., I. xxi. 134): “Of those, too, who once lived as men among the Egyptians, but who have been made Gods by human opinion, are Hermes of Thebes and Asclepius of Memphis. ” If this is correct, we have our Trismegistus nourishing as Teephibis at the end of the second century B. C. But there seems to my mind to be nothing definite in Sethe’s contention.
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464: 1 There is also an older and younger Isis in the K. K. extracts, and also in both these and in P. S. A. an older and younger Asclepius.
464: 2 R. (p. 119) has “des Kaisers Antonius”; but I know of no Emperor so called. The first years of Antoninus Pius would be 138-139 A. D.
464: 3 Pap. du Louvre, 19 bis, Notices et Extraits, xviii. 2, 136.
465: 1 Riess, Fr. 25.
465: 2 Cory, An. Frags., p. 100. Budge, A History of Egypt (London, 1902), i. 218.
465: 3 Reise zum Tempel des Jupiter Ammon, pp. 296 ff.
466: 1 A rock inscription found on the cataract island Sehê l. R., p. 129.
467: 1 R., p. 124. Cf. Sethe, Æ gyptiaca, Festschrift fü r G. Ebers, pp. 106 ff.
467: 2 Ammian. Marc., xxii. 14. 7; Vit, Hil., 21.
468: 1 “Christianity in the Light of Historical Science, ” in The Examiner (London), Oct. 21, 1905, pp. 668 ff.
470: 1 Cod. Antinori 101, fol. 361.
471: 1 Probably our C. H. (xvi. ).
471: 2 Camerarius, Astrologica (Nü rnberg, 1537); Hermetis Iatromath., ed. Hoeschel (1597); Ideler, Physici et Medici Græ ci Minores, i. 387 and 430. Iatromathematici were those who practised medicine in conjunction with astrology, as was done in Egypt (Procl., Paraph. Ptol., p. 24).
472: 1 Diodor., I. 15, 16.
473: 1 Brugsch, Religion u. Myth. d. alt. Ä g., p. 451.
473: 2 Op. sup. cit., ibid.
474: 1 Published by Wilcken in the “Festschrift fü r Ebers, ” pp. 142 ff.
475: 1 Given by Thilo, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti (Leipzig, 1832), p. 880. Cf. Pick (B. ), The Extra-Canonical Life of Christ (New York, 1903), p. 279.
477: 1 Cramer, Anecd. Ox., iii. 171, 20.
477: 2 Fir. Mat., iv. proœ m. 5 (Skutsch and Kroll, p. 196, 21). The “and Chnubis” is the emendation of R. for the unintelligible letters “einhnusuix. ”
478: 1 Cf. Lactantius Fragg., xiv., xix., xxi., xxii.
478: 2 Berthelot, Les Alchimistes grecs, Texte, p. 268.
479: 1 Op. cit., pp. 125, 156-263.
479: 2 We meet with a similar collection of Sayings, or Summaries of the chief points of teaching, in the Stobæ an Ex. i. 7 ff., belonging to the Tat-literature, and also in (C. H., x. (xi. ), xiv. (xv. ), and (xvi. ).
479: 3 A very similar phrase occurs in Dio Cassius, Fr. 30; i. 87, ed. Boiss.
480: 1 See the Nechepso Fragment 29 (Riess, p. 379).
481: 1 R., Zwei relig. Frag., 104 ff.
481: 2 De Is. et Os., xlviii.
481: 3 With heading: “Of Hermes from the [Sermon] of Isis to Horus. ”
481: 4 Wessely, Denkschr. d. K. K. Akad. (1893), p. 41, 1. 633.
481: 5 Alectruon, 18.
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