A decorative woodcut headpiece spanning the width of the text block, featuring elaborate foliage, scrolls, and two circular medallions containing small animals, possibly rabbits or foxes, flanking a central mask-like face.

CRITIQUE

OF THE MORE FAMOUS

AUTHORS.

HERMES TRISMEGISTUS.

An ornamental woodcut initial 'M' depicting two figures or cherubs amidst vines and foliage. HE is remembered to have been a contemporary of Moses. Diodorus Siculus, in his first book, reports that Mercury The Roman name for the Greek Hermes, often conflated with the Egyptian Thoth. was held in the highest honor by Osiris, serving as his intimate counselor and sacred scribe. According to Eusebius, he was called Thoyth Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom and writing. by the Egyptians. Iamblichus, in "On the Egyptian Mysteries," records that letters were discovered by him and that many thousands of books were written by him.

Mercury was an Egyptian, called in Greek trismegistos original: "τρισμέγιστος", which is to say "thrice-greatest," because he stood out as the greatest Philosopher, the greatest Priest, and the greatest King. For, as Plato writes, it was the custom of the Egyptians to choose Priests from among the Philosophers, and Kings from among the Priests. Lilius Gregorius Gyraldus, in Dialogue II on the History of Poets.

Suidas says that he flourished before Pharaoh and was called Thrice-Great because he had issued an oracle concerning the Trinity; but Augustine, in "The City of God," book 18, chapter 39, proves that this Mercury lived even after Moses himself, who was the God of Pharaoh A reference to Exodus 7:1, where God tells Moses, "See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh." Augustine uses this to argue that Hermes' wisdom was derived from Hebrew scripture.; thus, it should be believed that if he said anything relevant to the matter, he drew it from Moses.

Eusebius, in "Preparation for the Gospel," book 7, cites his book On the Origin of the World. It is also established by the Ancients that, so his teaching would not perish in the flooding of the Nile, he carved it onto columns, which Proclus, in his commentary on Plato, reports still existed in his own time.