Genealogies of the Triplex

I spoke above of slippages and transitions, taking place in more than one direction. Trismegistus is a fictional personage who nonethe- 

Relying on different sources still. Saint Augustine in the City of God makes Mercury the great-grandson of a contemporary of Moses  

In [King Saphrus s] time Prometheus (as some hold) lived, who was said to make men out of earth, because he taught them wisdom so excellently well, yet there are no wise men recorded to live in his time. His brother Atlas indeed is said to have been a 

In other words, Trismegistus is the grandson of the divine or human Hermes of Hermopolis. One can see how the shift took place it is this very ancestor whom many other authorities attest to having been Trismegistus, and not the descendant who talks with Asclepius. 

The other reason for our interest in the genealogy of Hermes as presented by Augustine is that it would serve more or less as a prototype in the following centuries, copied in this form or presented in a more or less fragmented or contradictory fashion. The book believed to be the earliest Latin work on alchemy, dated 1144, includes a preface by the translator from the Arabic original (Robert of Chester), who writes  

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