Bridge of Reason

Hermes Jesus is no-one’s Hermes, a strange title, but stick with me and we’ll see what we can make of it. Hermes was the Greek god of translators and interpreters. More clever than all the other gods, he was the messenger of the gods. The Roman equivalent is, of course, Mercury. God’s have messengers, other gods who run errands for them. Oberon, king of the faeries in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, sent the mischievous Puck on an errand to find a special plant with magical qualities. More prosaically, human kings have messengers, such as the character Herald, in Shakespeare’s Henry V, who passes through the battlefield unscathed because of his role carrying messages between the French king and England’s Henry. God’s Messengers The God of the Bible has messengers, human prophets and apostles, but also angels. ‘Angel’ comes from the Latin angelus ; Greek aggelos ; from the Hebrew for "one going" or "one sent," a messenger. These messengers from the throne-...