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Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906], at sacred-texts.com


p. 87

EXCERPT XXI.


OF ISIS TO HORUS

(Title in Patrizzi (p. 45) is “From Isis.”

Text: Stob., Flor., xiii. 50, under the heading: “Of Hermes from the [Sermon] of Isis to Horus”; G. i. 328; M. i. 265; H. iii. 467.

Schow gives another heading, which Gaisford (in a note) thinks is from the Vienna codex, namely: “Of Hermes from the Intercession (or Supplication,—Πρεσβείας) of Isis.” 1

Ménard, Livre IV., No. ii. of “Fragments Divers,” p. 272.)

A refutation, when it is recognized, O greatest King, carries the man who is refuted towards the desire of things he did not know before.


COMMENT

This fragment is clearly not in the style of the excerpt from the “Sermon of Isis to Hermes” (Ex. xxvii.); it is far more closely reminiscent of C. H., xvi. or xvii., and is, therefore, probably from the Sermon of Asclepius to the King.


Footnotes

87:1 R. (p. 134, n. 3) says simply that the last word (“Horus”) is missing in the Vindobonensis, and finds no difficulty in recognizing a type of literature in which King (Ammon) is a pupil of Isis.


Next: Excerpt XXII. An Apophthegm