HERMETIC B00B5. Amongst the Egyptians, all books or literary compositions appear to have been dedicated to Thoth, and notices of this nature are appended to several papyri. The earlier religious books, such as the Ritual, were supposed to have been written by the fingers or under the dictation of the god Thoth himself, and several chapters of this and other works are stated to have been found on monuments written by tile god. IIence the word hermetic, taken in its most extended sense, meant inspired, as Thoth was the scribe of the gods. Various traditions prevailed as to the numheramd nature of these books. Clement of Alexandria mentions 42 ]hermetic books, which con tained the sum of all knowledge, whether human or divine; while others, as IunbBchm , raise their number to 20,000; and Manetho gives the astronomical cipher of 36,525. 'fie series of books mentioned by the great authors were: 1. Sacred hymns of Osiris; 2. On the Life of a King; 3-3. Astrological precepts and observations; 7-17. Cosmogrnphy. geography, and chorography of Egypt and the Nile: 18-27. Laws and discipline of priests; 23-33. Medicine. I'ortions of these books have bceu undoubtedly found in the hieratic papyri. Uder the name of hermetic books, several writings, principally iu Greek, have been handed down, which pretend to be translated from the Egyptian, and similar books may have existed in the 2d century. But these books contain notions of the Nto-Platonic school of Phorpinyry and Iambliehus. amid appear to be intended as philosophical works givingan explanation of the genesis of the casinos, the nature of God and man, in antagonism to the books of the 61d and New Testanhent, from sources partly Egyptian, partly Persian and Rabbinical, amid other traditions of the Alexandrian school. 'fie name of hermetic writings was partially affected by the alchemists and
astrologers of the middle ages, as the Traetatus Vere Aureus, by Dominicus Gnostus, in 1610; the Tabula Smaraqdina, or "Emerald Table of Alchemy," in 1541; and various others. The principal tenets of the hermetic books are, that the Creator made the Cos ntos by his word out of fluid; that the soul is a union of light and life, and proceeded from the cosmic soul; that death and life are only changes, and that nothing is destruc tible; that the soul transmigrates; that passion or suffering is the resplt of motion. Baumgarten-Cruzius, de Ltroruni lie rmetieorumlndole(Jena, 1827): Hermes a Scheible (12nio, Stuttg. 1855); Hermes Trismegislus (Tvemander) a Parthey (8vo, Berol. 1854).
1IERlIIAS. a slave of Eubulus, tyrant of Atarneus, Asia Minor, and succeeded him on the throne in 347 BC. IIe was a favorite of Eubulus, and was treated as a freeman, being permitted to go to Athens where he made the acquaintance of I'lato and Aristotle. The latter spent some years at Hermias's court, but fled when Artaxerxes captured llermias, who was put to death. The philosopher erected a statue in his honor and married one of his relatives.