![]() ![]() Inventiveness, trade and exchange, communication however carried out, can be forces for good just as they can be forces for destruction just don’t blame the messenger. That is why it is folly to worship both the one and the other, just as it is folly to fear or try to appease one or the other, by whatever sorts of worship and sacrifices. You do not expect Hermes to be morally accountable any more than you can expect the internet to be morally accountable – although that still seems to come as a shock to some people. The gods of the Greeks were never meant to be ethical examples to follow. When Zeus heard of Hermes’ cattle-rustling he laughed even while he also restored the herd to Apollo. But perhaps at the same time hacking into webcams or infiltrating email accounts in order to exercise the sort of hidden but all-seeing surveillance that is surely the right of the unaccountable gods, whoever and wherever they might be. Exploiting the creative potential of the internet, for developing, for testing and for selling the latest must-have device. Perhaps not above sending one of those messages from a mysterious source offering miraculous promises of untold wealth, if only you disclose your bank details. In our world the internet would be his metier guaranteeing next day delivery of goods ordered from Amazon or Olympia, even if you could never be quite sure whether what you were getting really was the genuine article oiling the wheels of money exchange and transfer, while perhaps smiling with approval on those who manipulated the foreign exchanges or the libor rate to their own gain. So messenger of the gods, icon of invention, patron of trade and commerce, quick thinking and not above a little chicanery, even a fraudster: you can see why I have called Hermes the internet God. You can thank Hermes for the guitar, or its prototype the lyre, and for competitive athletics, or at least for boxing. But such resourcefulness also had its positive side he also stood for invention and inventiveness. Indeed he himself excelled in trickery and in theft while not yet out of nappies – if gods wear nappies which I doubt – he stole the cattle of the god Apollo, herding them backwards and across the sands to confuse pursuers. And being unprejudiced, he was equally concerned for the dishonest merchant as he was for the honest one. ![]() He did not limit his responsibilities to the divine postal service under his care came travel but also trade. But perhaps that is also why he is such a two-sided character, as well as being the ultimate multi-tasker. Hermes was the outcome of one of Zeus’s typical nightime sexual forays his mother was the mountain nymph Maia, so he could hardly help but be the go-between between the worlds of the gods and of humans. Trust Cambridge to choose for its email system not some neologism like google nor a fashionable appeal like ‘hot’, but the name of a Greek God, and not just any Greek God but the God responsible for communication, for messages from the gods, or in modern jargon from cyberspace. You use Hermes to connect with each other, to submit your essays or your excuses to your supervisor, to find out or tell others about the event they cannot afford to miss. Nearly every one of you could not manage without Hermes. “Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker” (Acts 14.12) In Memory of Steve: Enhancing Robinson’s Gardens.Robinson's Giving Day 2023: Binson Gives. ![]()
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