Amos's River of Justice

Tag: Hermes

  • The Names of God

    Greek mythology and religion have an interest in the names of God. God is often said to be Lord of Animals. Hermes received the following mandate from Zeus.

    And from heaven father Zeus himself gave confirmation to his words, and commanded that glorious Hermes should be lord over all birds of omen and grim-eyed lions, and boars with gleaming tusks, and over dogs and all flocks that the wide earth nourishes, and over all sheep; also that he only should be the appointed messenger to Hades, who, though he takes no gift, shall give him no mean prize.

    Homer, Hymn 4 to Hermes

    There is a comparable command in the Book of Genesis, which gave humans dominion over every living thing, including all animals, wild or domesticated.

    Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over all the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

    So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them.

    God blessed them, and God said unto them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

    (Gen. 1:26-28)

    Religion is Concerned With the Relationship Between Humans and Animals

    Although the religious traditions are fundamentally different, they both indicate the importance of the relationship between humans and animals.

    The purpose of this essay is to examine three similar names describing the deity involved in these relationships: the Lord of Creatures in the Hindu Pantheon; the Lord of Animals or paśupati, a name of Rudra, (and later of Rudra-Śiva); and the Master of Animals.1

    Moor mentioned the impossibility of correctly interpreting the complex meanings in the Hindu Pantheon. The stories about the deities and their natures are not simple to properly define or even describe. Even with the help of this book, it is difficult to write briefly about the deities. The entire book is a treatise on God in all his various aspects.

    Dumézil must have been expressing the same sentiment when he prefaced an idea by saying, “If this comparison is correct…” Here are some of the similarities and differences in these mythological and religious figures.  Sources are provided for further research.

    The Place of the Lord of Creatures

    There are three major deities in the Hindu pantheon and their places are the earth, the intermediate region, and heaven. These are associated with fire, air and the sun. Collectively, they are Prajapati.

    Only Brahm, the Supreme One exists absolutely. The others are Maya or delusion. The body of the Sun is also considered as Maya. However, the Sun is the “active emblem of God” and therefore receives veneration.

    In Mythology, Brahma is the first of the three “personified attributes of Brahm.” He is called the first of the gods, framer of the universe and guardian of the world, and he has also been referred to as Prajapati. In him the universe pre-existed. Here Moor quotes Darwin:

    Grain within grain, successive harvests dwell,
    And boundless forests slumber in a shell.

    Brahm

    Brahm is said to be incomprehensible. It is stated in one place that he is neither male nor female (“neuter”). He manifests his power by the operation of his divine spirit. Vishnu (the pervader), and Narayana (or moving on the waters) are in the masculine gender. For this reason, Brahm is often named the first male.

    Mahadeva

    In a previous post, Mahadeva was pictured as Ardha Nari, or half woman. This is a typical characteristic of a god who creates by himself from nothing. But apparently, the creation can be discussed without this information. According to Moor, “there is no general orthodoxy among Hindus, any more than among Christians.”

    The Matrix of Brahma and the Linga of Siva

    Brahma is sometimes called Kamalayoni. “Kamal is the lotos, Yoni the pudendum muliebre, the mystical matrix, into which is inserted the equally mysterious Linga of Siva.” According to the Vaishnavas, or worshippers of Vishnu, Brahma appeared on a Lotus, which sprung from the navel of Vishnu.

    Vishnu v Brahma

    The Names of God

    Vishnu on Ananta Naga

    The Quarrel Between Vishnu and Brahma

    But the Saivas, or worshippers of Siva, tell a different story. Brahm willed the creation of the world and produced two beings, male and femal. Their names were Purusha and Pracriti. These were later called Narayana and Narayani. The lotos grew from Narayana’s navel, bearing Brahma, “and from her sprung Vishnu.”  A quarrel ensued between Vishnu and Brahma, and the Linga arrived to reconcile them. In this Purana, Brahma is associated with Siva. Also in this account, another form similar to Siva’s sprang from a wrinkle in Brahma’s forehead and was named Rudra with all of the same characteristics as the three deities–Siva, Brahma and Vishnu.

    Paśupati, The Lord of Animals

    Previously I assumed that Dumézil’s paśupati was the same as the Lord of Creatures and therefore the deity of humans as well as animals. This seemed to make sense in the story of Kṛṣṇa who received the luminous essence of Śiśupāla, and was thereafter deified as the Lord of the Universe. However, based on the structure of the story, it wasn’t necessary for Śiśupāla himself to be the Lord of Creatures.

    Kṛṣṇa was connected to Brahma by his birth and also to Viṣṇu as his avatara. I haven’t found ‘the Lord of Animals’ as a name of Siva, but he has 1000 names. As it turned out my assumption that he is the same as the Lord of Creatures was not correct. Online definitions of paśupati give the meaning as ‘the Lord of tethered or sacrificed animals’. (Paśupati can have a similar meaning to the Lord of Creatures.  See (the next post)

    The Master of Animals

    Please see this footnote for a download. The focus is on archaeological evidence.2  Available here: 

    Is the Master of Animals in the Bible?

    I became aware of the Master of Animals concept through a new translation of the Book of Job. (cited below) I include it here because it proposes a theory about the changing relationship between humans and animals.

    The Book of Job

    At the time the Book of Job was written there were many reasons for disillusionment among the Hebrews. “Israel had lost its land for two generations and its autonomy forever.” Apparently, Job is considered heroic in this story. He is not heroic because of his patience but because of his loyalty to a conception of God as both all-powerful and fair. But as the story indicates, this conception does not match reality. We are left to contemplate the mystery of it. The only explanation offered by this author is that Job was written as a comedy.

    The Sky God as The Master of Animals

    In any case, the content of the story suggests a different type of deity. Job addresses God as a sky-god. But judging from the answer he receives, God is nothing like Canaanite El, the sky-god, nor Baal, the storm-god. The content of God’s answer to Job identifies him as the Master of the Animals, “an order of deity who is associated with Paleolithic hunter-gatherer society, and who guarantees the well-being and fecundity of life and has no especial concern with humans. This is a god neither of the sky nor of the land, but of the superabundance of life, the cosmic generosity.”

    Elihu and His Greek Ideas

    A discordant element is added to the story by Elihu, who unlike Job’s other friends develops a new concept of man as The Reasoner. It is argued that the supremacy of reason at the expense of custom has had direct bearing on the relationship between humans and animals.

    Elihu was not an original part of the story. His ideas are Greek, not Hebrew. Also his speeches have stylistic differences. Finally, his ideas completely change the story’s conclusion and its assertions about the nature of God. These points have been generally accepted, but current Rabbinic and Christian translations force the rest of the book to conform to Elihu’s ideas. For this reason, it shouldn’t be surprising that the Master of Animals is not in the Jewish Encyclopedia.

    Reason

    Elihu calls reason ruah El, “the spirit of God.” He considers ‘pure knowledge’ superior to customary belief.

    But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding.
    The majority are not always wise, nor do the aged always understand what’s right.

    (Job 32:8-9)

    The Re-definition of Man as a Rational Being Distinguishes Him from the Animals

    By contrast, Job’s friends appealed to customary belief and the experience of elders. There has been a tremendous cost involved in this redefinition of man, the one most relevant to this article being, “The definition of man as a rational being entails a distinction made between him and the animals.”

    But none saith, where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night,
    Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser
    than the fouls of heaven.

    (Job 35:10-11)

    In the Book of Genesis man was given dominion because of God’s will, not because man had superior reason.

    Elihu also redefines sin as arrogance. “Once rationality becomes the queen of the faculties, its opponent is the non-rational in Man: desire, passion, willfulness.” The definition of Man as the Reasoner is a partial definition because it omits those things, along with imagination. It gives Man an impossible ideal that can never be achieved–a “robotic self-mastery”.

    Two Versions of Man’s Nature

    Psalms 8:4-6 is quoted to illustrate the Biblical concept of man’s nature.

    What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou
    visitest him?
    For thou has made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned
    him with glory and honor.
    Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands: thou has
    put all things under his feet.

    The idea of man The Reasoner is better illustrated by another author.

    What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite
    in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in
    action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god! the
    beauty of the world; the paragon of animals…

    (Hamlet, 2:303-307) 3

  • Hermes Trismegistus and American Healthcare

    Hermes’ caduceus came to symbolize medicine in a process full of confusion and mistaken associations. There may have also been an element of guile worthy of Hermes the trickster. In this article I will trace the connection between Hermes Trismegistus and American Healthcare.

    Hermes Through the Ages

    Ancient historians knew of several different Hermes. Their characteristics vary. However, the belief that all traits belong to the same god remains. Dr. Walter Friedlander 4 separated historical accounts of Hermes in this way:

    1. pre-Homeric Hermes
    2. Homeric or archaic Hermes
    3. Traditional or classical Hermes
    4. Thoth
    5. Pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus or Hermetic Hermes.

    Pre-Homeric Hermes

    Pre-Homeric Hermes was associated with stone boundaries, or Herms. Herms were phallic symbols and thought to avert the evil eye. This Hermes was a fertility god, but not a vegetation god. He was a psycho pomp and so was associated with ghosts. Herms were often put at crossroads.

    Homeric (or Archaic) Hermes

    Hermes may have had weak ties to medicine in Homer and Hesiod. He cured impotence, bestowed sleep, and brought the dead to life. He continued to be a psycho pomp, but he was also a messenger, ambassador, bringer of good luck and wealth, the god of athletic contests, and inventor of shoes. Hermes taught people how to make fire with sticks, and played the lyre and pipe or syrinx. He had bawdy humor, was a schemer, a thief, and associated with the number four.

    Traditional or Classical Hermes

    There are two divisions for Classical Hermes; traditional Hermes and Hermes-Thoth.

    The attributes of archaic Hermes persisted in traditional Hermes with changes in emphasis. In both versions he was a messenger, psycho pomp, trickster, inventor, and craftsman. He was concerned with those who used the roads, those who bartered, and those who wanted to prophecy. But he was explicitly made more than a messenger.

    The biggest change from the archaic was the emphasis on commerce and merchants. Classical Hermes became the inventor of buying and selling. This was probably the influence of Rome, which resulted in Mercury’s power becoming identified with the Greek Hermes. But Hermes was not opposed to lying and fraud. In other words, he had characteristics that were not unique to healers.

    Traditional Hermes

    According to Greek myth, traditional Hermes was also involved in the birth of Dionysus and several others, often taking the child from a dead mother. The Roman Aesculapius was himself the son of Coronis and Apollo.

    In a jealous rage Apollo killed Coronis. Apollo did not know at the time that Coronis was pregnant and when he discovered this, he sent Hermes to deliver the baby while the mother lay on her funeral pyre. (It is possible that Aesculapius was considered a healer because of his association with the goddess Hygeia.)

    Hermes delivered a baby from the dead Callisto. He delivered Pan, Helen, and Heracles. In addition, he assisted in the birth of the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeuces.

    Aristaeus was the keeper of bees, son of Apollo and Cyrene. Hermes took him to Gaia and Horae, the hours or seasons, who fed him nectar and ambrosia and made him immortal.

    Hermes-Thoth

    Both Hermes-Thoth and Hermes Trismegistus were Egyptian. In the 5th century B.C. Herodotus referred to Hermopolis as the place where ibises were buried, and where Thoth was worshipped.

    Hermes became associated with Thoth through the Greek creation story. The gods ran to Egypt in fear of Typhon and disguised themselves as animals. Jupiter was a ram, Apollo a crow, Bacchus a goat, Juno a cow, Venus a fish, and Mercury was an ibis.

    Greco-Roman authors assumed on the one hand that the Egyptian god Hermes-Thoth had different characteristics than Aarchaic Hermes. But they spoke of them as one.

    Much of Egyptian religion was connected with magic. For this reason, Thoth probably had more connections to medicine than Greek Hermes.

    Hermes and Thoth Compared

    Thoth’s other attribute was a scribe for the gods. At least by 2900 BC, he was Thoth, lord of writing and of books. Thoth was the heart and tongue of Ra, or the reason and mental powers of Ra, and the means by which his will was translated into speech. However neither archaic nor traditional Hermes were the mind of Zeus.

    Thoth’s wisdom had to do with accumulation of knowledge but also with prudence of heart. He invented astronomy and math. His statue was in the library of Egyptian scholars. Both Thoth and Hermes were associated with magic, but Thoth’s magic was that of a serious god, the essence of right and truth, not a trickster.

    Plutarch and Diodorus Sisulus thought Egyptian Hermes was a psycho pomp, but did not consider that to be a characteristic of Thoth. It is not clear why the Greeks chose to associate the two.

    Pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus or Hermetic Hermes

    Two additional characters became identified with Hermes-Thoth: philosophic pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus and alchemic pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus. These together are Hermetic Hermes. According to Clement, both Plato and Diodorus Sisulus credited Hermes Trismegistus with the invention of the arts, philosophy, science and medicine. However, Hermetic Hermes is connected to western medicine mostly through alchemical medicine.

    Hermes Trismegistus and Medicine

    There are actually three Hermes in the Hermetic Corpus. About the second century A.D. there appeared writings ascribed to a certain Hermes Trismegistus. Friedlander thought the true authors may have been Egyptians teaching philosophy and religion with the ideas of Plato. They lived near Alexandria and may have been influenced by Jewish, Persian and/or Gnostic thought.

    The oldest philosophical/religious text on the subject of Hermes Trismegistus was not written before 100 B.C. Most were written by 300 A.D. and all were written by 400 A.D. They were all put together by 1050.

    A “huge historical error” was derived from these writings when Lacantius (260-340 A.D.) and Augustine (354-430 A.D.) accepted Hermes Trismegistus as ancient and authoritative because he predicted the rise of Christianity.

    Friedlander thinks Philosophical Hermes is connected to medicine mainly because of Augustine and Lactantius. This may be why some European doctors in the 16th century began to use the caduceus.

    Three Times Great

    In 1182 Robert of Chester said that there were three Hermes, and “three times great” was changed to “triplex” or 3-fold, although in Egypt, “Three times great” had been an honorary title for Thoth. Chester said the three Hermes were Enoch, Noah, and the king-philosopher-prophet reigning in Egypt after the flood. Francis Bacon repeated this idea and said that King James (1605) was a king-priest-philosopher.

    Alchemical Pseudo-Hermes

    Alchemical pseudo-Hermes came into being some centuries after the philosophical one, although alchemy was known in earlier times. This Hermes was considered authoritative since the 7th century, although he is not currently distinguishable from the philosophic Hermes Tristmegistus.

    Egyptian alchemy claimed to change metals into gold, based on the theory of transmutation, which was based on the “unity of matter”. This required the use of a tincture–the philosopher’s stone. Greco-Egyptian alchemy came to Europe by the 12th century by way of Arabia. But mercury was considered an essential element since ancient times. The symbol is the same for the element Mercury and for the god Hermes/Mercury.

    In the field of medicine, Paracelsus (1493-1541) replaced Galenic medicine and its humors with three principles, sulfur, mercury, and salt. Mercury was the spirit, sulfur was the soul, and salt was the body. In medicine, alchemy tried to heal by correcting the body’s chemical process.

    Alchemy and the Soul

    American General Ethan Allen Hitchcock (1798-1870) said that alchemy concerned the soul.  This was popularized in the literature of psychology by Herbert Silberer and Carl Jung.

    The Caduceus in the United States

    In the early 20th century a debate arose in the United States over the appropriateness of the caduceus of Hermes as a symbol of the medical profession. Fielding Garrison and Colonel John Van R. Hoff, U.S. Army retired, defended its use. Others, such as Colonel C. C. McCullock Jr., Medical Librarian of the Surgeon General’s Office said it was not appropriate. There were also dissenting articles in medical publications. However, the defenders of the caduceus symbol in medicine were unmoved by arguments against its use.

    The U.S. recognized the caduceus as a symbol of medicine in 1917, although some organizations later returned to using the staff of Aesculapius. These include the American Women’s Medical Association, the Arizona Medical Association, and the Medical Library Association. (This may explain why Mike Stathis mentions Arizona’s Mayo Clinic favorably.)

    A Connection Not Mentioned by Friedlander

    One connection that has not yet been made with Hermes’ caduceus concerns the historical struggle by male doctors for supremacy over traditional female healers. Hermes, a male figure loosely associated with medicine, may have been useful in the efforts of the men of “science” to replace women in the healing arts. However, the question of why they chose Hermes rather than Aesculapius has not been answered.  Perhaps Hermes’ other attributes, such as his connection with commerce, were important to them.

    In Europe this process took place earlier than in America, which would explain Europe’s earlier use of the caduceus. The last bastion in this assault was female midwifery.

    In America, Garrison’s defense of the caduceus took place about the time a new anesthetic, “twilight sleep”, was being offered to women who gave birth in the hospital. The changeover from midwives to male doctors continued during the decade following the adoption of the caduceus of Hermes. Midwifery replaced hospital birth by 1930.

    Among medical professionals who complete most of their work outside of the operating room, OBGYNs are the best paid. Overall, they are the third highest medical earners in the United States.

    See also: Hermes in India

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