Editing Hermes Trismegistus (section)

==Origin and identity==
[[File:Hermes Ingenui Pio-Clementino Inv544.jpg|thumb|upright|Hermes depicted with a ''kerykeion'' ([[caduceus]]), a ''[[kithara]]'', a ''[[petasos]]'' (round hat) and a traveler's cloak, [[Vatican Museums]]]]
[[File:Thoout, Thoth Deux fois Grand, le Second Hermés, N372.2A.jpg|thumb|''Thoout, Thoth Deux fois Grand, le Second Hermès'', N372.2A, [[Brooklyn Museum]]]]

Hermes Trismegistus may be associated with the [[Ancient Greek religion|Greek god]] [[Hermes]] and the [[Ancient Egyptian deities|Egyptian god]] [[Thoth]].<ref name="Bull 2018"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Budge|first=E.A. Wallis|title=The Gods of the Egyptians Vol. 1|year=1904|url=https://archive.org/stream/godsofegyptianso00budg#page/414/mode/2up|pages=414–5}}</ref> Greeks in the [[Ptolemaic Kingdom]] of Egypt recognized the equivalence of Hermes and Thoth through the {{lang|la|[[interpretatio graeca]]}}.<ref name="Hart">Hart, G., ''The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses'', 2005, Routledge, second edition, Oxon, p 158</ref> Consequently, the two gods were worshiped as one, in what had been the Temple of Thoth in Khemenu, which was known in the [[Hellenistic period]] as [[Hermopolis]].<ref>Bailey, Donald, "Classical Architecture" in Riggs, Christina (ed.), ''The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt'' (Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 192.</ref>

Hermes, the Greek god of interpretive communication, was combined with Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom. The Egyptian priest and [[polymath]] [[Imhotep]] had been deified long after his death and therefore assimilated to Thoth in the [[Classical Greece|classical]] and Hellenistic periods.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Artmann |first=Benno |title=About the Cover: The Mathematical Conquest of the Third Dimension |url=https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/2006-43-02/S0273-0979-06-01111-6/S0273-0979-06-01111-6.pdf |date=22 November 2005 |page=231 |volume=43 |number=2 |journal=[[Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society]] |series=New Series |access-date=7 August 2016|doi=10.1090/S0273-0979-06-01111-6 |doi-access=free }}</ref> The renowned scribe [[Amenhotep, son of Hapu|Amenhotep]] and a wise man named Teôs were coequal deities of wisdom, science, and medicine; and, thus, they were placed alongside Imhotep in shrines dedicated to Thoth–Hermes during the Ptolemaic Kingdom.<ref>''Thoth or the Hermes of Egypt: A Study of Some Aspects of Theological Thought in Ancient Egypt'', p.166–168, Patrick Boylan, Oxford University Press, 1922.</ref>

[[Cicero]] enumerates several deities referred to as "Hermes": a "fourth [[Mercury (mythology)|Mercury]] (Hermes) was the son of the Nile, whose name may not be spoken by the Egyptians"; and "the fifth, who is worshiped by the people of Pheneus [in [[Arcadia (ancient region)|Arcadia]]], is said to have killed [[Argus Panoptes]], and for this reason to have fled to Egypt, and to have given the Egyptians their laws and alphabet: he it is whom the Egyptians call [[Thoth|Theyt]]".<ref>''De natura deorum'' III, Ch. 56</ref> The most likely interpretation of this passage is as two variants on the same [[syncretism]] of Greek Hermes and Egyptian Thoth (or sometimes other gods): the fourth (where Hermes turns out "actually" to have been a "son of the Nile," i.e. a native god) being viewed from the Egyptian perspective, the fifth (who went from Greece to Egypt) being viewed from the Greek-Arcadian perspective. Both of these early references in Cicero (most ancient Trismegistus material is from the early centuries AD) corroborate the view that Thrice-Great Hermes originated in Hellenistic Egypt through syncretism between Greek and Egyptian gods (the ''Hermetica'' refer most often to Thoth and Amun).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/nd3.shtml#56 |title=Cicero: De Natura Deorum III |publisher=Thelatinlibrary.com |access-date=2015-06-25}}</ref>

The Hermetic literature among the Egyptians, which was concerned with conjuring spirits and animating statues, inform the oldest Hellenistic writings on Greco-[[Babylon]]ian [[astrology]] and on the newly developed practice of [[alchemy]].<ref>Fowden 1993: pp65–68</ref> In a parallel tradition, [[Hermetic philosophy]] rationalized and systematized religious [[cult|cult practices]] and offered the adept a means of personal ascension from the constraints of physical being. This latter tradition has led to the confusion of Hermeticism with [[Gnosticism]], which was developing contemporaneously.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Merkur.html |title=Stages of Ascension in Hermetic Rebirth |publisher=Esoteric.msu.edu |access-date=2015-06-25}}</ref>