Note 149.1 — Chapter V · THE PERIOD AFTER ALEXANDER

Hermetic literature.—The strangest and most interesting manifestation that the ancient records have preserved for us of this fusion of Hellenic culture and Oriental religious sentiment is presented by the Hermetic literature. The origins of this fantastic product of the human mind are traced by Professor Petrie149.1 back to the sixth or fifth centuries B.C. But, though much of it is pre-Christian, its philosophic diction proves that it cannot be earlier than 300 B.C., and the bulk of it is probably later.149.2 A frequent Hermetic formula, addressed to the deity—ἐγώ εἰμι σὺ καὶ σὺ ἐγώ, “I am Thou and Thou art I”—may be taken as the master-word of these hieratic writings. This unnatural alliance between Greek philosophy and Oriental mystic theosophy is a momentous phenomenon of later Paganism; and the study of the origins of Christian metaphysic is much concerned with it.