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[Alexandr Korol]

And what’s most interesting is that alchemists often depict Mercury in black, and it’s also the caduceus — so it’s Hermes, and it turns out that it’s also Wednesday. That is, Monday is the Moon, Sunday is the Sun, and Wednesday is Mercury. And this third element, that is, the seventh. Then I begin reading in Wikipedia, beyond what Mercury is, naturally, who Hermes is. Although, of course, I always attached great importance to Hermes Trismegistus, and I’ve always liked his figure, and so much has been written about him. But now I decided to look at this figure from a different angle, since I came to this while exploring the Philosopher’s Stone.

“Hermes, archaically also known as Ermys, is in ancient Greek mythology the god of commerce and good fortune, trickery and theft, youth and eloquence. He is the patron of heralds, envoys, shepherds, and travelers. He is the messenger of the gods and the guide of souls of the dead (hence his epithet Psychopomp — “guide of souls”) to the underworld of Hades.
According to numerous ancient myths, he is the son of the Pleiad Maia and Zeus. Among the most well-known myths about Hermes are the theft of Apollo’s cattle, committed by the young god while still an infant, as well as the lulling and killing of Argus, who had many eyes and never fully slept.
Mercury was originally the Roman adaptation of the ancient Greek god Hermes. As a god-mediator, Hermes was an ideal figure to become the patron of exchange and commerce. Over time, Mercury’s original image as the Roman god of trade became more complex — he acquired traits characteristic of Hermes: guide of souls to the realm of the dead, messenger and servant of the gods, patron of arts and crafts, and a master of magic and astrology. During the Imperial period, the images of the Greek Hermes and the Roman Mercury merged so completely that they became indistinguishable. In the later periods of Antiquity, Hermes came to be known as Trismegistus (“thrice-greatest”). The Latin translation by Marsilio Ficino in the second half of the 15th century of fourteen ancient treatises comprising the “Hermetic Corpus” — in which Hermes Trismegistus shares secret knowledge with the world under the title “Poimandres” — shaped the development of modern occultism. The ideas from this work were used, among other things, in alchemy, Kabbalah, and Freemasonry.