Mead's translation opens with a being who names himself Man-Shepherd, and here Mead admits what that rendering rests on. The name Poimandres is irregular Greek; Granger had proposed a Coptic phrase meaning the witness, and Mead allows that it may transliterate some Egyptian name. He keeps Man-Shepherd because it "was certainly the idea conveyed to the Non-Egyptian" reader, "however philologically unsound its form" may be. The English name therefore translates an impression rather than a word. Wherever Man-Shepherd appears in the text, the reader is meeting Mead's judgement of how Greek ears heard the name, not a settled etymology, and the question of what the name originally meant is still open.
Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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the widely spread legend of Hermes as witness,1 a legend which is verified for us from several sources. But the writer has adapted the details to his purpose. Hermes is not himself the witness, but the herald of the witness." 2
Granger then propounds the very strange theory, contradicted by all the phenomena and opposed to every authority, that the Coptic Gnostic works of the Askew and Bruce Codices were originally composed in Coptic with the adoption of Greek technical terms, whereas they are manifestly translations from the Greek. He, however, continues :
"There seems no adequate reason why such works may not have been composed in Coptic. The Egyptian Gnostic writings of the third century exhibit the same qualities of style as the Coptic biographies and apocalypses of the fourth and following centuries. And so I am prepared to believe that the Poemandres may have been first composed in Coptic. Or shall we say that the work was current from the first in both languages ? " 3
We should say that the last guess is most highly improbable, and only denotes the indecision of the writer. The original " Poemandres " may very well have been composed not in Coptic but in Demotic ; but the reasons given by Granger, as based on the phenomena of the Gnostic Coptic writings, are not to be seriously considered. Nevertheless, the name "Poimandres " may be a Greek transliteration of an Egyptian name, though we hardly think that " The Witness "
will suit the theme. In any case " Man-Shepherd " was certainly the idea conveyed to the Non-Egyptian by the name, however philologically unsound its form may be in Greek.
1 G. has just referred to the story of Hermes being witness for Horus when indicted on a charge of bastardy by Typhon, as related in Plutarch.
2 Granger (F.), "The Poemandres of Hermes Trismegistus," /. Th. Stud., vol. v., no. 191, p. 400.
3 Ibid., p. 401.
THE GOOD SHEPHERD
It has been no part of our task to attempt to trace the Hermes-idea along the line of pure Greek descent, for this would have led us too far from our immediate subject. There is, however, one element of that tradition which is of great interest, and to which we may draw the attention of the reader in passing. The beautiful idea of the Christ as the " Good Shepherd " is familiar to every Christian child. Why the Christ is the Shepherd of all men is shown us by this first of our marvellous treatises. In it we have the universal doctrine apart from any historical dogma, the eternal truth of an ever-recurring fact, and not the exaggeration of one instance of it.
The representation of Christ as the Good Shepherd was one of the earliest efforts of Christian art; but the prototype was far earlier than Christianity — in fact, it was exceedingly archaic. Statues of Hermes Kriophoros, or Hermes with a ram or lamb standing beside him, or in his arms, or on his shoulder, were one of the most favourite subjects for the chisel in Greece. We have specimens dating to the archaic period of Greek art.1 Hermes in these archaic statues has a pointed cap, and not the winged head-dress and sandals of later art. This type in all probability goes back to Chaldsean symbolic art, to the bearers of the twelve "signs of the zodiac," the "sacred animals." These were, in one human correspondence, the twelve
1 See Reseller's Lexikon, art. "Hermes." "Hermes in der Kunst "— " Periode des Archaismus."