It is Nicotheus, then, who identifies Thoth with the primal Human, not the Adam of flesh. A perennial question in Hermetic studies is whether Thoth was originally human or divine. Some Greeks, following Euhemerus, said that all the gods were originally human inventors and kings. But to say that Hermetists were Euhemerists misses the point.

The reality is that Thoth is both divine and Human. He is God, the God called “Human,” the first Human, the primal Human, though certainly not human in our sense. The body-soul compound we identify with humanity is not human. It is a mask, a tunic, a fetter, a prison. You are not your body, the husk that you point to and say “I” is not you. This is the first lesson of Hermetic lore: you are not who you think you are.