We all know the Greek god Hermes – Mercury to the Romans – with his winged sandals or cap and strange staff. He appears in Homer as the messenger of the gods and guide of the dead in the underworld. But why does he appear in our oldest books of regulations, the ‘Old Charges’?
     During the later Middle Ages regulations for Freemasons began to be recorded; the earliest surviving document dates from the late fourteenth century. The text also contained a ‘traditional’ history of Freemasonry in which we find reference to an enigmatic event: before the Flood all the seven sciences were recorded on two great stone pillars. Many years afterwards, according to the Cooke manuscript for example, these two pillars were discovered: the first by Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher, and the second by the enigmatic Hermes, ‘the Philosopher’:
     ‘And after this flode many yeres, as the chronycle telleth these 2 pillers were founde and as the polycronicon seyth that a grete clerke that called putogoras fonde that one and hermes the philisophre fonde that other.’
     Pythagoras is well known to history: he was a famous teacher of philosophy, living in southern Italy. He is renowned for teaching that the universe is perceived as a musical harmony and for the mathematical theorem attributed (erroneously) to him which is depicted on the jewel of a Past Master: proposition No. 47 in the First Book of Euclid.
     But who was Hermes, ‘the Philosopher’? He is not the god Hermes from whom he is specifically distinguished. In fact, he is that ancient figure known as Hermes Trismegistus – Hermes ‘the thrice greatest’ – a title first attested in Egypt in 172 BC. This Hermes taught ‘a secret kept in silence.’
     The tradition of wisdom being carved upon two great stone pillars is old. We find it in On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, by the late third century AD philosopher, Iamblichus. He writes of, ‘the ancient pillars of Hermes which Plato and Pythagoras knew...and from thence constituted their philosophy’.
     And according to traditions recorded in the fourth century AD by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, before the Flood these pillars were hidden in caves near Thebes in Egypt – revealing that this wisdom of Hermes was both very ancient and linked with Egypt. It suggests too that Hermes ‘the Philosopher’ was Egyptian. This is correct: Hermes Trismegistus has his source in the ancient Egyptian god Djeuty - Thoth to the Greeks - god of writing, of ritual, of mysteries and the guide to the world of the dead. The teaching of Hermes came out of the Egyptian temples.

In 332 BC Alexander the Great captured Egypt and founded Alexandria which was to become the greatest city of learning in the classical world. In 305 BC one of Alexander’s generals, Ptolemy, assumed the title of king in Egypt; this dynasty of Greek rulers lasted until the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC.
     In time the Egyptian priesthood began expressing the ancient Egyptian teaching in the Greek style and often as dialogues. But whoever actually wrote them is unknown as all were attributed to Hermes:
     Iamblichus reported, ‘Our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of Hermes.’
     Compiled it is thought around the first century BC to the first century AD these texts soon became famous. In the late second century, bishop Clement of Alexandria, noted that the Books of Hermes held all the philosophy of the Egyptians. They gained a wide acceptance: when the Christian Gnostic codices were discovered at Nag Hammadi modern scholars were intrigued to discover Hermetic writings among them.
     At their heart, these texts teach a system of return to the source of all life; it is a very practical spirituality which presents humans as immortal beings clothed in an earthly body: ‘let all realise that they are immortal and that desire is the cause of death’ one text explains, ‘and may they truly know all that exists.’

In the set of texts which we have, normally termed the Corpus Hermeticum, the first tractate is named The Divine Pymander of Hermes Trismegistus or, in its original Greek, Poimandres, after the teacher in the dialogue. It begins with a mystical experience: the student who was in a state of meditation or contemplation had a vision. An infinite being, Poimandres, appeared who asked: ‘What do you want to hear and see; what do you want to learn and know...?’
     The student replied: ‘I wish to learn about the things that are, to understand their nature and to know god.’ At this point he was given a great vision of infinite light. Poimandres explained: ‘I am the light you saw... Understand the light, then, and recognize it.’
     It is this Being which reveals the Egyptian origins of these texts for he explains that Poimandres means the ‘mind of sovereignty’ according to one translation, or ‘nous of the Supreme’ according to another.1 Both are correct.
     This Greek word nous now means ‘intellect’ or ‘mind’ but in Hermetic thought it conveyed a more mystical concept. It represented the pure conscious light, a creative intelligence: nous is eternal, the maker of soul, and the cause of existence.
     In fact, the name Poimandres derives from the Egyptian P-eime-nte-re, the mind or nous of Ra, the sun-god, one expression of Atum, ‘the All’.
     After this profound experience Poimandres explains that ‘if you learn that you are from light and life...[then] you shall advance to life once again.’ For life is gained, according to the Hermetic way, by entering into divinity and becoming part of it.
     Earthly life, according to this perspective, is a kind of death: the texts ask ‘Why have you surrendered yourselves to death, earthborn men, since you have the right to share in immortality?’ And it describes those who have surrendered ‘to death’ as mocking those who teach of true life; they are described in derisory terms as those ‘who have surrendered ... to drunkenness and sleep and ignorance of god’.
     The student asks how he might take ‘the way up’? Poimandres explains that a guide is needed to lead to ‘the portals of knowledge’; the student must learn to see ‘not with the eyes but with [nous] and heart.’ Of the practical techniques used, first and foremost is the entry into silence and stillness.
     ‘Be still’, Poimandres says, ‘listen to the hymn of rebirth,’ but then he adds, ‘It cannot be taught; it is a secret kept in silence.’ At the end of this text the main task is revealed: that of sanctification, of bringing the spirit back into the daily life of the world in order to awaken those who are sleeping.

For our ‘Old Charges’ to mention Hermes, ‘the Philosopher’ as a source of the wisdom of humanity is testimony to the profound power which these texts had on the master architects of the medieval period. The School of Chartres had a profound influence on Gothic architecture; a student there in the twelfth century, Herman of Carinthia, translated several Hermetic texts.
     However, while few Hermetic texts were available prior to the fifteenth century when the Poimandres and other dialogues were first published in Europe, they were obviously sufficient to spark the devotion of the custodians of our heritage. For them, Hermes was indeed an important philosopher.
     Today, with the increasing interest in non-sectarian spirituality and morality, especially amongst younger men who seek entrance into Freemasonry because they can sense its spiritual core, these texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus are still relevant and dynamic.
     This new generation of Freemasons may not be card-carrying members of the established religions but they are well aware of matters sacred. I suggest that many would agree with the Hermetic charge that, ‘To be ignorant of the divine is the ultimate vice.’


1 Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica, Cambridge, 1992; Clement Salaman, Dorine van Oyen and William D. Wharton, The Way of Hermes, London, 1999. All Poimandres quotes are from Copenhaver.