Book 1. Of the Egyptian-Greek Hieroglyphics.

they say that he gave names to things; he was also the inventor of letters, and established with what honor and with what sacred rites the gods were to be worshipped. First, he was an observer of the courses of the stars, and discovered the harmonies of voices. They report that he was the discoverer of the gymnasium, of numbers, of the art of medicine for healing bodies, and furthermore of the lyre from the nerves of three strings, like the three seasons of the year. For he instituted three sounds: high, low, and middle, taking the high from summer, the low from winter, and the middle from spring. He also taught the Greeks the interpretation of words, whence they called him Hermes original: "Hermen", that is, the Interpreter. Finally, those who were writers of sacred letters in the time of Osiris report these same things as received from him. They say Osiris also used his counsel very much; and that the plant of the olive was discovered by him, not by Minerva, as the Greeks say. From
Note.

which it is evident that great honors were held by the Egyptians for Vulcan and Mercury on account of the discovery of so many things useful to human life. But who is Vulcan? Is he not the master of fire and works? Who is Mercury? Is it not everything about which, from which, and with which chemists work, although it may not be a common thing? Yet what fire do the Egyptians understand? Is it that of which Diodorus speaks in these words: for when a tree had burned up on the mountains by a lightning strike, the nearby wood was caught by the flame in the winter season, from which event Vulcan, delighted by the heat, added new material to it when the fire was failing, and in that way, having continued the fire, he called other men to its sight as if it were discovered by him. That is in no way likely. Because that fire was most well-known even before the deluge to the first men, just as the sowing of crops was to Abel and Cain, the invention of the smiths' arts to Tubalcain, and wine to Noah. Whence it follows that the invention of another fire is attributed to Vulcan, namely the philosophical one, or the way in which fire should be applied to Mercury, not the common one. Hence it is said that Vulcan was the first to reign among the Egyptians. Thus, Mercury is the inventor of all arts and hieroglyphic letters among them. For because of him, the arts and