> [God] has then one Idea, which is His proper own, which incorporeal, may not be subject of the sight; and shows all [ideas] by means of the bodies.
— Hermes Trismegistus, Poemandres, XI, 16
It’s interesting to me here that ideas seem to be entirely meta and unknowable. Like, we can think and imagine things without them being corporeal (cf. dreams,) but Hermes somehow ignores human capacity for abstract thought? Dunno.
@aartaka
This thing you're quoting from -- you're implying that it is a reasonably authoritative collection of the original surviving multiple documents, and reasonably translated?
The Egyptian origin with priests of Thoth merged with Greek secret societies' Hermes was a rather confused origin, and the secret society business wasn't just then, versions of it continue to the current day.
So I've always found it to be a confusing subject, and one in which it's hard to find certainty about much of anything.
I do know, however, that much of the knowledge of the Old Kingdom was lost in the Mediterranean Dark Ages, in Egypt apparently related to invasion by "The Sea People" (mysteriously otherwise unknown to history), and it's a thousand years later in the New Kingdome when these Thoth priest activities apparently began.
Which is clearly yet another topic of deep confusion.
Anyway, what text did you find?
@dougmerritt I mean, the identity and provenance of Hermes is secondary here, I was posting more about the idea (🥁) here.
But the edition I use is a 1882 J. D. Chambers’ translation of Poemandres.