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

In the Ritual we learn of the services which Thoth performs for " Osiris," that is for the Osirified, for he repeats them for every man who has been acquitted in the Judgment. Of three striking passages quoted by Budge, we will give the following as the most comprehensible, and therefore the seemingly most important for us. It is to be found in Ch. clxxxiii. and runs as follows, in the words placed in the mouth of the one who is being resurrected into an Osiris.

" I have come unto thee, 0 son of Nut, Osiris, Prince of everlastingness ; I am in the following of God Thoth, and I have rejoiced at everything which he hath done for thee. He hath brought unto thee sweet air for thy nose, and life and strength for thy beautiful face, and

1 The symbol of his actualising power.

the North wind which cometh forth from Tern for thy nostrils. ... He hath made God Shu to shine upon thy body ; he hath illumined thy path with rays of splendour ; he hath destroyed for thee [all] the evil defects which belong to thy members by the magical power of the words of his utterance. He hath made the two Horus brethren to be at peace for thee ; l he hath destroyed the storm wind and the hurricane ; he hath made the Two Combatants to be gracious unto thee, and the two lands 2 to be at peace before thee ; he hath put away the wrath which was in their hearts, and each hath become reconciled unto his brother."

TROTH THE MEASURER

Budge then proceeds to give the attributes of Thoth as connected with time-periods and the instruments of time, the sun and moon. As Aah-Tehuti, he is the Measurer and Regulator of times and seasons, and is clearly not the Moon-god simply — though Budge says that he clearly is — for Thoth as Aah is the " Great Lord, the Lord of Heaven, the King of the Gods " ; he is the "Maker of Eternity and Creator of Everlastingness." He is, therefore, not only the JEon, but its creator; and that is something vastly different from the Moongod.

THE TITLE "THRICE-GREATEST"

On p. 401 our authority has already told us that one of the titles of Thoth is " Thrice-great, " and that the Greeks derived the honorific title Trismegistus from this; but on p. 415 he adds: "The title given to him in some inscriptions, ' three times great, great '

1 Showing that Set is Horus in his form of darkness.
1 Mystically, the upper and lower kingdoms in man.

[that is, greatest], from which the Greeks derived their appellation of the god o Tpio-/ue'yto'To?, or 'ter maximus,' has not yet been satisfactorily explained, and at present the exact meaning which the Egyptians assigned to it is unknown."

If this title is found in the texts, it will settle a point of long controversy, for it has been strenuously denied that it ever occurs in the hieroglyphics; unfortunately, however, Dr Budge gives us no references. To the above sentence our distinguished Egyptologist appends a note to the effect that a number of valuable facts on the subject have been collected by Pietschmann in the book we have already made known to our readers. We have, however, not been able to find any valuable facts in Pietschmann which are in any way an elucidation of the term Thricegreatest; but to this point we will return in another chapter.

THE SUPREMACY OF THOTH

The peculiar supremacy ascribed to Thoth by the Egyptians, however, has been amply demonstrated, and, as the great authority to whom we are so deeply indebted, says in his concluding words : " It is quite clear that Thoth held in their minds a position which was quite different from that of any other god, and that the attributes which they ascribed to him were unlike the greater number of those of any member of their companies of gods. The character of Thoth is a lofty and a beautiful conception, and is, perhaps, the highest idea of deity ever fashioned in the Egyptian mind, which, as we have already seen, was somewhat prone to dwell on the material side of divine matters. Thoth, however, as the personification of the Mind of God, and as the all-pervading, and governing, and directing power