Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3 · 44 of 46

In the Philosophers: IV. Fulgentius the Mythographer

IV.

FULGENTIUS THE MYTHOGRAPHER

An intermediate of the parent copy of our Corpus in every probability lay before Fulgentius. Thus we find him (p. 26, 18 H ) referring to the first sermon, though barbarously enough, in the phrase: “Hermes in Opinandre libro,” and quoting from the introductory words; he also quotes (p. 88, 3) some words from C. H., xii. (xiii.), stupidly referring them to Plato, adding in Greek:

FRAGMENT XXVIII.

The human mind is god; if it be good, God [then] doth shower His benefits [upon us].

And twice (p. 85, 21, and p. 74, 11) Fulgentius refers in all probability to the lost ending of “The Definitions of Asclepius,” in the latter passage telling us, “as Hermes Trismegistus says,” that there were three kinds of music,—namely “adomenon, psallomenon, aulumenon,”—that is, singing, harping, and piping.

Footnotes

305:1 The date of this Afro-Latin writer cannot be later than the sixth century.

305:2 Helm (R.), Fabii Planciadis Fulgentii V. C. Opera (Leipzig, 1898).