¶ The Argument of Marsilio Ficino the Florentine: on the book of Mercury Trismegistus: to Cosimo de' Medici.

At that time when Moses was born, there flourished Atlas the astrologer, brother of Prometheus the Natural Philosopher Physici: a scholar of the natural world and its laws and the maternal grandfather of the elder Mercury, whose grandson was Mercury Trismegistus. Augustine writes this concerning him; although Cicero and Lactantius maintain there were five Mercuries in succession, and that the fifth was he who was called Theut original: theut, identifying Hermes with the Egyptian god Thoth by the Egyptians, but Trismegistus meaning 'Thrice-Greatest' by the Greeks. They assert that this man killed Argus, ruled over the Egyptians, and handed down laws and letters to them. Indeed, he established the characters of their letters in the figures of animals and trees Ficino is describing hieroglyphics as a sacred symbolic script. This man was held in such great veneration by men that he was recorded among the number of the gods. Many temples were constructed to that divinity. Out of a certain reverence, it was not permitted for the common people to pronounce his proper name rashly or at random. Among the Egyptians, the first month of the year is named after him; a town was founded by him which even now is called in Greek Hermopolis meaning 'the City of Mercury'. Hermopolis

They called him Trismegistus (the Thrice-Greatest) because he stood out as the greatest philosopher, the greatest priest, and the greatest king. For it was the custom of the Egyptians (as Plato writes) to choose priests Plato. from the ranks of philosophers, and from the company of priests to choose a king. Therefore, just as he had surpassed all philosophers in sharp wit and learning, so, having been appointed a priest from among them, he excelled all priests in the holiness of his life and his worship of the divine; and finally, having attained royal dignity, he [surpassed] through his administration of laws and his great deeds the glory of previous kings— The text ends mid-sentence at the bottom of the page.