The Hymns of Hermes

<p>Thoth as the inspirer of all sacred writings and the president of all priestly discipline was as Iamblichus tells us a name which was held by the Egyptians to be common to all priests-that is to say every priest as priest was a Thoth because he showed forth in his sacred office some characteristic or other of the Great Priest or Master Hierophant among the Gods whose earthy name was Thoth Tehuti.</p><p><br></p><p>Thoth was thus the Oversoul of all priests; and when some of the Greeks came to know better what the inner discipline of the true priestly mysteries connoted they so felt the inadequacy of plain Hermes as a suitable equivalent for the Egyptian name which designated this great ideal that they qualified 'Egyptian Hermes' with the honorific epithet 'Thrice-greatest.'</p><p><br></p><p>It is of the Hymns of this Thrice-greatest Hermes that I shall treat in the present small volume hymns that were inspired by the still-living tradition of what was best in the wisdom of ancient Egypt as 'philosophized' through minds trained in Greek thought and set forth in the fair speech of golden-tongued Hellas.</p>