The epithet Trismegistus (6 tpuopéyeoros, or “ superla- tively” greatest), as applied to Hermes, is of comparatively late origin, and cannot be traced to any author earlier than the 2d Christian century. Most probably it arose out of the earlier forms péyas kai péyas or péytoros, derived by the Greeks from early Egyptian sources ; but various other explanations of the appellation have been offered, such as that of the author of the Chronicon Alexandrinum (47 a.d.), who maintains that it was because Hermes, while maintaining the unity of God, had also asserted the existence of three supreme or greatest powers that he was called by the Egyptians Trismegistus.[1] This view, which is also adopted by Suidas, seems preferable at least to that met with in Nicolai’s History of Greek Interature, according to which an apocryphal author named Hermes was called tpicpeyiorwos, Simply in order to indicate that he had succeeded and outdone a certain Megistias of Smyrna in astrological, physiognonical, and alchemistic theories. The name of Hermes seems during the third and following centuries to have been regarded as a convenient pseudonym to place at the head of the numerous syncretistic writings in which it was sought to combine Neo-Platonic philosophy, Philonic Judaism, and cabbalistic theosophy, and so provide the world with some acceptable substitute for the Christianity which had even at that time begun to give indications of the ascendency it was destined afterwards to attain. Of these pseudepigraphic Hermetic writings some have come down to us in the original Greek ; others survive in Latin or Arabic translations; but the majority appear to have perished. That which is best known and has been most frequently edited is the zrowudvdpyns sive De Potestate et Saprentia Divina (xou.avdpys being the Divine Intelligence zoyrnv dvdpav), which consists of fifteen chapters treating of such subjects as the nature of God, the origin of the world, the creation and fall of man, and the divine illumina- tion which is the sole means of his deliverance. The Fditio Princeps appeared in Paris in 1554; and there has been a recent edition by Parthey (1854); the work has also been translated into German by Tiedemann (1781). Along with it are usually printed the certainly later épo. or Definitions of Asclepius, which have sometimes but erroneously been attributed to Apuleius. Other Hermetic writings which have been preserved, and which have been for the most part collected by Patricius in the Vova de Universis Philosophia (1593), are (in Greek) “IatpopaOqparixa mpos “Appwva Aiyirriov, Tept xataxXicews voootytwy mepiyvwotud, "EK HS pabypatuns émuotiyns mpos “Appova; (in Latin) Aphorismi sive Centiloquium, Cyranides ; (in Arabic, but doubtless from a Greek original) an address to the human soul, which has been translated by Fleischer (An die menschliche Seele, 1870). The connexion of the name of Hermes with alchemy will explain what is meant by hermetic sealing, and will account for the use of the phrase “hermetic medicine” by Paracelsus, as also for the so-called “hermetic freemasonry ” of the Middle Ages.
See Ursinus, De Zoroastre, Hermete, &c., Nuremberg, 1661; Leng- let Dufresnoy, L’Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique, Paris, 1742; Baumgarten-Crusius, De librorwm hermeticorum origine atque indole, Jena, 1827; Hilger, De Hermetis Trismegisti Poémandro, 1855 ; Menard, Herméis Trismégiste: Traduction complete, précédée WVune étude sur Vorigine des livres hermétiques, 1866; Pietschmann, flermes Trismegistus, nach yyptischen, Gricchischen, und Orient- alischen Ueberlieferungen, 1875.
HERMESIANAX, an elegiac poet of the Alexandrian school, was born at Colophon, and flourished in the time of Philip and Alexander, or a little later. He was a friend and admirer—probably also a pupil—of the grammarian and poet Philetas, whom he outlived. His chief work was a poem in three books, which he, following the example of his countrymen Mimnermus and Antimachus, inscribed with the name of his mistress Leontium (said by some to be the same as the mistress of Epicurus). Of this poem a fragment of about one hundred lines has been preserved by Athenczeus (xili. 597) ; and it may serve as a specimen of the style of the school. Erotic in character, and plaintive in tone, it enumerates instances, mythological and historical, of the irresistible power of love, and redeems the monotony of its ground plan by its picturesque language, and by the alternate force and tenderness of its treatment. Hermesianax was exceedingly popular in his own times, and was highly esteemed even in the Augustan period. Propertius follows his example in dedicating the first book of his Llegdes to his mistress Cynthia.
Many scholars have laboured upon the text, but it is still in a very unsatisfactory condition. See Hermann, Opuscula, iv. ; Schneidewin, Delect. Poes. Eleg.; Bergk, De Hermesianactis Elegia ; the editions of Bailey (London, 1839), &c.
HERMOGENES, of Tarsus, Greek rhetorician, flourished in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, His precocious ability secured him a public appointment as teacher of his art while as yet he was only a boy; but at the age of twenty-five his faculties gave way, and he spent the long remainder of his life in a state of intellectual impotency. In the nine or ten years, however, of his activity he composed a whole series of treatises on matters rhetorical, which became popular text-books, and the subject of subsequent commentaries. Of his Téxvy pyropuxy we still possess Tepi Tov otdoewv; Tlepi cipécewr; Tlepi ideGv; epi pebodov dewdryros; and IIpoyypvaopara.
The last-mentioned was only known from Priscian’s Latin translation till the publication by Heeren of the Greek original dis- covered at Turin (Bibl. fiir alte Lit. wnd Kunst, Gott., 1791). Richard Volkmann, in <Animadversiones critice in nonniullos velerum de preexercitationibus rhetoricis locos (Jauer, 1869), discusses the relation of the original to Priscian’s translation, and treats them as sources of reciprocal emendation.
- ↑ [ Greek ].
