It remains to be known whether this work, as much celebrated as little read, was the work of a Greek or of an Egyptian. St. Augustine hesitates not in believing that it is the work of an Egyptian, who pretended to be descended from the ancient Mercury, from the ancient Thaut, the first legislator of Egypt. It is true that St. Augustine knew no more of the Egyptian than of the Greek; but in his time it was necessary that we should not doubt that Hermes, from whom we received theology, was an Egyptian sage, probably anterior to the time of Alexander, and one of the priests whom Plato consulted.
It has always appeared to me that the theology of Plato in nothing resembled that of other Greeks, with the exception of Timæus, who had travelled in Egypt, as well as Pythagoras.
The Hermes Trismegistus that we possess is written in barbarous Greek, and in a foreign idiom. This is a proof that it is a translation in which the words have been followed more than the sense.
Joseph Scaliger, who assisted the lord of Candale, bishop of Aire, to translate the Hermes, or Mercury Trismegistus, doubts not that the original was Egyptian. Add to these reasons that it is not very probable that a Greek would have addressed himself so often to Thaut. It is not natural for us to address ourselves to strangers with so much warm-heartedness; at least, we see no example of it in antiquity.
The Egyptian Æsculapius, who is made to speak in this book, and who is perhaps the author of it, wrote to Ammon, king of Egypt: "Take great care how you suffer the Greeks to translate the books of our Mercury, our Thaut, because they would disfigure them." Certainly a Greek would not have spoken thus; there is therefore every appearance of this book being Egyptian.
There is another reflection to be made, which is, that the systems of Hermes and Plato were equally formed to extend themselves through all the Jewish schools, from the time of the Ptolemies. This doctrine made great progress in them; you see it completely displayed by the Jew Philo, a learned man after the manner of those times.
He copies entire passages from Mercury Trismegistus in his chapter on the formation of the world. "Firstly," says he, "God made the world intelligible, the Heavens incorporeal, and the earth invisible; he afterwards created the incorporeal essence of water and spirit; and finally the essence of incorporeal light, the origin of the sun and of the stars."