kwaw said:
Thanks for the correction, as you say the classical conflation (with varying spellings of thoth) was known from other sources anyway.
Kwaw.
Thoth in medieval literature
Hermes-Mercury-Woden-Thoth-Moses
“Litteras et leges primos Mercurius aegyptiis dedit.”
(Mercury first gave letters and laws to the Egyptians - Marziano de San’Alosio (Marziano da Tortona), “Tractatus de deificatione sexdecim heroum” (before 1425)).
An extremely erudite 15th century reader could have known, with a reading in mostly standard sources (in the case of Eusebius, newly translated into Latin) that Mercury or Hermes had the Egyptian name Theyt, Thoyt or Thoth, if they had read Cicero (De Natura Deorum, 3, 56), Eusebius (Praeparatio Evangelica I, 9) or Lactantius (Divinae Institutiones, I, 6).
Lactantius quotes Cicero: “According to Cicero, Caius Cotta the Pontiff... says that there were five Mercuries; and having enumerated four in order, says that the fifth was he by whom Argus was slain, and that on this account he fled into Egypt, and gave letters and laws to the Egyptians. The Egyptians call him Thoth; and from him the first month of the year, that is, September, received its name among them. He also built a town, which is even now called in Greek Hermopolis.”
Eusebius: “Sanchuniathon... searched out with great care the history of Taautus, knowing that of all men under the sun Taautus was the first who thought of the invention of letters, and began the writing of records: and he laid the foundation, as it were, of his history, by beginning with him, whom the Egyptians called Thoyth, and the Alexandrians Thoth, by the Greeks Hermes, which interpreted, is Mercury” (Aegyptii Thoyth vocarunt, Alexandrini Thoth, Graeci Hermen, hoc est, Mercurium interpretati).
They could also have known that Hermes-Mercury-Thoth was also Moses, if they had read Eusebius (Praeparatio Evangelica IX, 27, 4; Eusebius has quoted a long passage of Artapanus, Hellenistic Jewish apologist of the 2nd century b.c.e.).
“Since she (the daughter of the Pharaoh, Merris) was barren, she adopted the child of one of the Jews and named it Moses. As a grown man he was called Mousaeus by the Greeks. This Mousaeus was the teacher of Orpheus. As a grown man he bestowed many useful things on mankind, for he invented boats and devices for stone construction and the Egyptian arms and the implements for drawing water and for warfare, and philosophy. Further he divided the state into 36 nomes and appointed for each of the nomes the god to be worshipped, and for the priests the sacred letters, and that they should be cats and dogs and ibises.”
(J.J. Collins trans., “Artapanus”, in James H. Charlesworth, ed. “The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha” (Doubleday, 1985) vol. II, pp. 898-899).
From the etymological dictionary of Hugutio of Pisa (Uguccione da Pisa), “Magnae Derivationes” (1192-1201), the only dictionary Dante mentions by name, readers could have made the connection between Mercury and Theut, and the Teutonic (German pagan) peoples.
"Theutates, tis, the god of death so named is Mercury, because being sacrificed to with human blood, or composed of "theos" and "athanatos", that is "immortal god", whence Theutonus, a, um, a certain people, (so named) because they are savage."
(445.
Theutates, tis, deus mortis sic dictus est Mercurius quia humano sanguine sacrificabatur, uel componitur a theos et athanatos, id est deus immortalis, unde Theutonus, a, um, quedam gens quia fera est.)
Hugutio may have learned of blood sacrifices to Mercury from Tacitus, “Germania” (Chapter 9), who says that among the Germans, “of the gods, Mercury is the principal object of their adoration; whom, on certain days, they think it lawful to propitiate with human victims”; or from Lucan, “Pharsalia” (Civil War, bk. I):
And they that use with cursed bloud their Idol-gods to please,
Teutates fell, and Hesus grim, whom nought else may appease
But sacrifice of humane flesh; and Taranis likewise,
Worhsip'd curst Diana is, just after Scythicke guise.
(Et quibus immitis placatur sanguine diro
Teutates, horrensque feris altaribus Esus
et Taranis Scythicae non mitior ara Dianae.)
(Trans. Philemon Holland, of William Camden, "Britannia" (1607))
Paulus Diaconus (Paolo Diacono, Paul the Deacon, c. 720-799) attested to the Germans worshipping Mercury as “Wodan” in his “Historia Langobardorum” (History of the Lombards, obviously a popular text among Lombardy's ruling classes):
“Wotan indeed, whom by adding a letter they called Godan [or Guodan] is he who among the Romans is called Mercury, and he is worshiped by all the peoples of Germany as a god, though he is deemed to have existed, not about these times, but long before, and not in Germany, but in Greece.”
(Wotan sane, quem adiecta littera Godan dixerunt, ipse est qui apud Romanos Mercurius dicitur et ab universis Germaniae gentibus ut deus adoratur; qui non circa haec tempora, sed longe anterius, nec in Germania, sed in Grecia fuisse perhibetur.)
Both Adam of Bremen (d. 1075) and Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1100-1155) know Woden as Mercury as well.
I think an extremely erudite person could have gathered these conflations, with the possible exception of Eusebius (Praeparatio Evangelica was only translated into Latin by George Trapezuntios (born 1403) sometime around the Council of Ferrara-Florence, which began in 1438), any time before the early 15th century.
Nothing about Moses-Thoth-Mercury-Hermes-Woden inventing games here though. Relation to Tarot's invention? No. Interesting in its own right? Certainly. But even Bernardino and the following preachers of the Diabolique Liturgy didn't mention such conflations. They could not have been common knowledge, but they might have been uncommon knowledge.
Ross