Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/702

 684 IIERMAS HERMES TRISMEGISTUS helminths ; planaria ; hirudinei (leeches) and lumbricini (earth worms) among annelids; some acephalous and cephalophorous mollusks ; cirripeds among crustaceans.; and the tardi- grada among arachnoids. It does not exist in insects, unless as a monstrosity. In some of these, as in the trematodes and planarice, each individual may be self-impregnating, but gener- ally the sexual act is accomplished by two in- dividuals, respectively impregnating each other. II Kit MAS, an ecclesiastical writer of the 1st century, author of the book Pastor Hermce. He is thought by some to be the Hermas men- tioned by St. Paul in Rom. xvi. 14. The Her- mas of the epistle is a saint of the Roman cal- endar, whose feast is on May 9. The writer appears from intrinsic evidence to have been married and the father of a family. His book derives its title of " Shepherd " or Uoipfiv from the fact that the author in the second book in- troduces his guardian angel in the character of a shepherd. Irenssus cites the "Shepherd" under the title of "the Scripture;" Clement of Alexandria considers its revelations as di- vine ; and Origen deems it an inspired book. It was very popular with Christians of the 2d and 3d centuries. Jerome accuses Hermas of foolishness in his commentary on Habakkuk ; Tertullian designates his book as apocryphal. Dugnet says it contains the germ of all heresies ; and Mosheim calls its author an impostor. Of late years this book has been the subject of more editing and literary criticism than any other relic of the early church. It is supposed to have been originally written in Greek, but at present it exists entire only in a Latin version, which has been often published since the 16th century. It is inserted in Cotelier's Patres Apostolici &oi (Paris, 1672), and in French in Desprez's Bible (Paris, 1715). A Greek ver- sion discovered in Ethiopia, and translated into Latin by D'Abbadie, was published in Leipsic in 1860. In 1857 a new Latin version from a manuscript discovered in Rome was edited at Leipsic by Dressel, together with a Greek text brought from Mount Athos by Simonides and revised by Tischendorf. The latter considers this Greek text a retranslation from the Latin ; and in Dressel's Patres Apostolici (Leipsic, 1866) is a Greek text discovered by Tischen- dorf himself in the Sinaitic codex, and contain- ing book i. of the " Shepherd " and the first four chapters of book ii. This is also given in Hilgenfeld's Nonum Testamentum extra Cano- nem receptum (Leipsic, 1866). An English translation of Hilgenfeld's Pastor Hermce is found in the " Ante-Nicene Christian Libra- ry " (Edinburgh, 1867). Another HERMAS or HERMES, mentioned by St. Paul in the same verse, is held by the Greeks to have been one of the 70 disciples, and afterward bishop of Dalmatia. His feast in the eastern church oc- curs on April 8. HERMES. See MEEOUEY. HERMES, Georg, a German theologian, born at Dreyerwalde, Westphalia, April 22, 1775, died in Bonn, May 26, 1831. He studied the- ology at the university of Minister, and in 1798 became teacher in the gymnasium of that city, and in 1807 professor of positive divinity at the university. Having closely studied Kant's philosophy, he occupied himself in refuting the doctrines of that philosopher so far as they were inconsistent with the Roman Catholic faith. When the Prussian government estab- lished the university of Bonn, Hermes in 1820 was appointed to the chair of Catholic the- ology. Here he began to found a speculative philosophic and dogmatic school in the church itself, delivering lectures aiming at an alliance between Protestants and Catholics, insisting that the difference between their views was not so great as is popularly supposed. He attempt- ed to base the Dogmatik or positive theology of the Catholic church on speculative philoso- phy, founding a doctrine known as Hermesian- ism, and drew around him great numbers of followers. The philosophico-dogmatic method which Hermes advocated, as propounded in an " Introduction to the Catholic Christian Theol- ogy," insisted that the truth of Christian rev- elation and of the Catholic church should first be tested by reason, and that revelation should then be followed. Hermesianism was in fact a most ingenious effort to base the doctrines of the church on Kant's system of philosophy. It awoke powerful opposition, being condemned as heretical by a papal letter of Sept. 26, 1835. The Hermesians defended their orthodoxy vig- orously; Braun, Achterfeld, Rosenbaum, and others appealing to the pope, but in vain. HERMES TRISMEGISTUS, a mythical person, the reputed author of a great variety of works that were probably written by Egyptian Neo- Platonists. The Egyptian god Thoth (the in- tellect) was identified by the Greeks with Her- mes (Mercury) as early as the time of Plato. In the conflict between Neo-Platonism and Chris- tianity, the former sought to give a profounder and more spiritual meaning to the pagan phi- losophy, by combining the wisdom of the Egyp- tians and the Greeks, and representing it as a very ancient divine revelation. They therefore ascribed the authorship of the highest attain- ments of the human mind to Thoth or the Egyptian Hermes, regarded him as the source of all knowledge and inventions, the embodied Logos, thrice greatest (rpig /^y^rrof), from whose thoughts Pythagoras and Plato had de- rived their ideas, and whose works contained the sum total of human and divine wisdom. Clement of Alexandria mentions the contents of 42 books of Hermes which were extant in his time. Of those which now remain, some seem to have proceeded from the school of Philo, and others are much later and not un- affected by Christianity ; some are written in a sober philosophical spirit, and others abound in fantastic astrological and thaumaturgical speculations. The most important is the Poe- mander, a dialogue on nature, the creation, the Deity, the soul, knowledge, and similar topics,