THE FRENCH THEORY OF EGYPTIAN ORIGIN
In France , moreover , the Egyptian paternity of the Trismegistic writings , and that too on very sensible lines , was asserted about the same time , namely , in 1858 , by Artaud in his article on “ Hermès Trismegiste , ” in Hoeffer's Nouvelle Biographie Générale , published at Paris by Messrs Firmin Didot . Artaud writes :
" In the mystic sense Thoth or the Egyptian Hermes was the symbol of the Divine Mind ; he was the incarnated Thought , the living Word — the primitive type of the Logos of Plato and the Word of the Christians . .
“ We have heard Champollion , the younger , giving ex pression to the formal opinion that the books of Hermes Trismegistus really contained the ancient Egyptian doctrine of which traces can be discovered from the hieroglyphics which cover the monuments of Egypt . Moreover , if these fragments themselves are examined , we find in them a theology sufficiently in accord with the doctrines set forth by Plato in his Timous - doctrines which are entirely apart from those of the other schools of Greece , and which were therefore held to have been derived by Plato from the temples of Egypt , when he went thither to hold converse with its priests . '
Artaud is also of the opinion that these Trismegistic treatises are translations from the Egyptian .
#49 (p.27)
Source: Hermes, T., Mead, G. R. S. (George Robert Stow). (1906). Thrice-greatest Hermes; studies in Hellenistic theosophy and gnosis. London and Benares: The Theosophical publishing society.
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