C 35 J tarried a God in his Pocket, or had a Levee of them at leaft in his Houle ? The firft Heathens, though they had a corrupt, yet entertained a better Notion ofthe divine Effence than was afterwards inculcated, when Idolatry grew fo confuted and perplexed, as to lofe all Sight of its own firft Prin- ciples. Thofe Principles, erroneous as they were, had their Foundation in Nature; but the laft Opinions were built upon the moft fordid, bate, and filthy Parlions, that can bedifcovered in a Beaft. Hermes Trifinegiftus, or Mer- curius ter- maximus [literally, the thrice greateft Interpre- . ter], on whole Capacity and Knowledge; as the Founder of all the Egyptian Learning, Diodorus Siculus makes the higheít Encomiums, is Paid to have received his Name from his explicit Doarine, or Definition of the. Doétrine, ofa triune GOD. Thus the Chronicum Alex- andrinum, quoted by Kircher, afferts; that there lived among the Egyptians the firft of the Family of Cham Sefofiris (i. e. the Branch of Ofiris) a Man venerable for his Wifdom and admirable Learning, who held, that there were THREE principal Powers, Virtues, or Forms in GOD, and that the NAME of the ineffable Creator implied ONE Deity; for which Reafon the Egyptians called him Hermes Trifinegif1us. Cedrenus, a Writer of the Eleventh Century, coïncides with that Opinion, and gives a large Account of this Hermes.* To the fame Purport, Suidas alto obferves in his hiftorical Greek Lexicon, and lays, That Hermes Trifinegus, the wife Egyptian, florirhed before Pharoah [meaning perhaps the Pharoah who oppreffed the Children of IfraelJ, and that he was called Trifineg/us, becaufe he afferted that there was a Trinity, and that in the Trinity there was but one Deity. -[ What this Name of the Creator was, appears from Infcriptions upon many Egyptian Columns, which are thus decyphered ; " I, Ifis, am all that WILL 5E, is, and was;" J which is as plain a Copy of the * CEDREN Synops. Hi,/tor. p. 16. Edit.Xylandri. 1566. SUIDAS in verb. Epn.nç, n. T. T. I ()edit. Synt. ii, c. 7. D 2 Word..
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