Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

In the known oldest references to the Thoth-Hermes literature, there has so far not been discovered anything that suggests the existence of a distinction between Hermes [Thoth] and Tat [Thoth]; but the absence of references proves little. Already, however, Nechepso and Petosiris, in the second century B.C., make Hermes the teacher of the younger God-disciples Anubis and Asclepius; in which connection it is of interest to note the following passage from a horoscope for the first year of the Emperor Antoninus Pius,2 set up by the priests of Hermes at Thebes — the Greek of which is very faulty and evidently written by " Barbari " :

" After enquiry based on many books, handed down to us by the wise Ancients, the Chaldseans, — both Petosiris,and especially King Necheus [sic; i.e. Nechepso], in as much as they also took counsel of our Lord Hermes and of Asclepius, that is of Imouthes, son of Hephestus. . . . " 3

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.

2 R. (p. 119) has " des Kaisers Antonius" ; hut I know of no Emperor so called. The first years of Antoninus Pius would be 138-139 A.D.

3 Pap. du Louvre, 19 bis, Notices et Extraits, xviii. 2, 136.

From this we learn that in the second century A.D. the writings of Petosiris and Nechepso, together with the " Chaldaean Books," still formed part of the Temple Library at Thebes ; moreover, that Petosiris and Nechepso, in the second century B.C., based themselves on these Books as well as on Books ascribed to both Hermes and Asclepius. Moreover, from the Fragments of Nechepso l we learn that he had before him a sermon of Asclepius called Moirogenesis, concerning the Genesis of Fate, and also Dialogues in which Hermes instructs Asclepius and Anubis concerning the mysteries of astrology. These Trismegistic works must thus be dated prior to the beginning of the second century B.C.

Sethe, in his essay on Asclepius - Imhotep, has endeavoured to show that this Imuth was originally a man, and that divine honours were first paid to him in the reign of Amasis (Amosis — Aah-mes), about 1700 B.C.

TOSOTHRUS- ASCLEPIUS

Manetho, however, tells us another story, when he writes of a certain king of the Third Dynasty (B.C. 3700) : " Toso[r]thrus reigned twenty-nine years. He is called Asclepius by the Egyptians, for his medical knowledge. He built a house of hewn stones, and greatly patronised literature." 2

Tosothrus is Tcheser or Tcheser-sa (Doser), the second king of the Third Dynasty from Memphis. The " house of hewn stones " which he built, received remarkable confirmation from the excavations which were carried out by the Prussian General Minutoli in 181 9,3 in the Step-Pyramid of Sakkara. This temple,

1 Riess, Fr. 25.

says Budge (op. cit., i. 219) " is certainly the oldest of all the large buildings which have successfully resisted the action of wind and weather, and destruction by the hand of man."

2 Cory, An. Frags., p. 100. Budge, A History of Egypt (London, 1902), i. 218.

3 Reise zum Tempel des Jupiter Ammon, pp. 296 ff.

In the Inscription of the Seven Famine Years,1 moreover, belonging in its present form to the later Ptolemaic period, but a copy of a far more ancient record, we read, in Sethe's restored Greek text :

"Tosothrus, in whose days (lived) Imouthes. He was considered by the Egyptians to be Asclepius because of his knowledge of the healing art ; he discovered the art of building with hewn stones, and, moreover, occupied himself with literature."

We thus learn that long before Manetho's time there was an Asclepian literature, and not only did this deal with medicine but also with scripture in general and with " masonry."

IMUTH- ASCLEPIUS THE MASTER MASON AND POET

That Asclepius was specially occupied with the sacred building-art, may be seen from Sethe's study, whose industry has discovered a book on Temple-building ascribed to Imuth, a " Book that came from Heaven northwards from Memphis." It was according to this Book that Ptolemy X. (Soter II.) and Ptolemy XI. (Alexander I.) enlarged the building of their ancestors at Edfu, " in agreement with the writing concerning the plans of the Temple of Horus, which the chief prelector of the priests, Imhotp, the son of Ptah, had written."