Thoth-Hermes

Definition

Thoth-Hermes is the merged Greco-Egyptian god formed by identifying the Egyptian god Thoth (Ḏḥwty — the moon god, scribe of the gods, lord of Ma'at, and master of writing and wisdom) with the Greek god Hermes (messenger, guide of souls, go-between). The fusion grew naturally in Ptolemaic-era Egypt, in the Greek-and-Egyptian world of Alexandria and the Sakkara ibis-cult. It became the divine ground from which the legendary Hermes Trismegistus ("Thrice-Greatest Hermes") and the whole Hermetic body of writings emerged.

In Tradition

Egyptologists and scholars of Hermetic studies (Copenhaver, Fowden, Belmonte and Lull, Campion) treat the Thoth-Hermes identification as the founding case of Greco-Egyptian religious blending — the move that made the Hermetic literature possible. Copenhaver describes Thoth as "Hermes to the Greeks, and like Hermes the guide of dead souls": the native Egyptian moon god who took on the imagery of Greek Hermes during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.

In Practice

For astrologers and historians of esotericism, the Thoth-Hermes fusion is the hinge for understanding how Egyptian decan and star doctrine entered Hellenistic horoscopic astrology under the pen-name of Hermes. The Hermetic maxim quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius ("as above, so below"), stated in the Tabula Smaragdina credited to Hermes Trismegistus, becomes the philosophical permission to read patterns in the sky as mirrors of events on earth — an idea that runs on through medieval Latin, Arabic-Persian, and modern Western astrology's sense of itself.

Historical Origin

The earliest surviving use of the "thrice-great" Hermes title appears in the Demotic Sakkara ostraca of Hor of Sebennytos, around 172 BCE, rendering the Egyptian megistou kai megistou theou megalou Hermou (per Copenhaver, Hermetica, Cambridge, 1992, Introduction, §"Hor and Manetho," pp. xiii-xv, xli). Manetho of Sebennytos (active under Ptolemy II Philadelphus, 282-229 BCE) is later placed in the chain of Hermetic pseudepigraphic transmission by the Byzantine chronographer Syncellus. The fully developed Greek Corpus Hermeticum dates to the 1st-3rd centuries CE, and the Latin Asclepius to the 4th century CE.

Further Reading

• Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius
• Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind
• Nicholas Campion, A History of Western Astrology, Volume I: The Ancient World