As an introduction to the tradition, The Corpus Hermeticum is beyond doubt a good starting point. It introduces and distinguishes the main pillars of Hermeticism in a manner easily comprehended, and is itself a primary source. This translation by G. Mead originally appeared in , and has been considered authoritative and faithful to the ancient Hermetic texts ever since. Most of the texts are presented as dialogues in which a teacher, generally identified as Hermes Trismegistus, enlightens a disciple.
This literature came out of the same religious and philosophical ferment that produced Neoplatonism, Christianity, and the diverse collection of teachings usually lumped together under the label "Gnosticism": a ferment which had its roots in the impact of Platonic thought on the older traditions of the Hellenized East. The treatises divide up into several groups. A collection of short philosophical treatises, it was written in Greek between the first and third centuries C. In addition to this new translation of The Corpus Hermeticum, which seeks to reflect the inspirational intent of the original, The Way of Hermes includes the first English translation of the recently rediscovered manuscript of The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius, a collection of aphorisms used by the hermetic student to strengthen the mind during meditation.
With the proper mental orientation, a state of pure perception can be achieved in which the true face of God appears.
This document is of enormous value to the contemporary student of gnostic studies for its insights into the actual workings of this spiritual path. The so-called Hermetic writings have been known to Christian writers for many centuries. Stobaeus collected fragments of them. The Humanists knew and valued them. They were studied in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in modern times have again been diligently examined by many scholars.
The book is often divided into two main categories: The technical astrology, medicine and pharmacology, alchemy, and magic and the religio-philosophical anthropology, cosmology, theology.
The Hermetica, and Hermeticism from it, claims that there is One true theology of the world, and said theology is the Root and Source. While a lot of The Hermetica is presented as gospel, it is mainly a discourse on principles concerning a hermetic philosophy. In this Book, though so very old, is contained more true knowledge of God and Nature, than in all the Books in the World besides, except only Sacred Writ; And they that shall judiciously read it, and rightly understand it, may well be excused from reading many Books; the Authors of which, pretend so much to the knowledge of the Creator, and Creation.
If God ever appeared in any man, he appeared in him, as it appears by this Book. That a man who had not the benefit of his Ancestors' knowledge, being as I said before, The first inventor of the Art of Communicating Knowledge to Posterity by writing, should be so high a Divine, and so deep a Philosopher, seems to be a thing more of God than of Man; and therefore it was the opinion of some That he came from Heaven, not born upon Earth [Goropius Becanus].
There is contained in this Book, that true Philosophy, without which, it is impossible ever to attain to the height, and exactness of Piety, and Religion.
Methought a Being more than vast, in size beyond all bounds, called out my name and saith: What wouldst thou hear and see, and what hast thou in mind to learn and know? Author : N. This literature came out of the same religious and philosophical ferment that produced Neoplatonism, Christianity, and the diverse collection of teachings usually lumped together under the label "Gnosticism": a ferment which had its roots in the impact of Platonic thought on the older traditions of the Hellenized East.
The treatises divide up into several groups. A collection of short philosophical treatises, it was written in Greek between the first and third centuries C. These treatises were central to the spiritual work of hermetic societies in Late Antique Alexandria C. In addition to this new translation of The Corpus Hermeticum, which seeks to reflect the inspirational intent of the original, The Way of Hermes includes the first English translation of the recently rediscovered manuscript of The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius, a collection of aphorisms used by the hermetic student to strengthen the mind during meditation.
With the proper mental orientation, a state of pure perception can be achieved in which the true face of God appears. This document is of enormous value to the contemporary student of gnostic studies for its insights into the actual workings of this spiritual path.
Author : Hermes Trismegistos,G. This OMTO edition is based upon the classic translation by GRS Mead, lightly updated into more contemporary English to make the writings more accessible, however, with every effort made to leave Mead's masterful grammatical style intact.
This is one of the world's greatest religio-philosophical and spiritual texts. It speaks directly to the human spirit and is the antithesis of an exoteric work, but rather one that aims to promote personal Gnosis. For these reasons, this edition resists the temptation to impose further interpretation or commentary upon the reader.
The treatises we now call the Corpus Hermeticum were collected into a single volume in Byzantine times, and a copy of this volume survived to come into the hands of Lorenzo de Medici's agents in the fifteenth century. Marsilio Ficino, the head of the Florentine Academy, was pulled off the task of translating the dialogues of Plato in order to put the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin first.
His translation saw print in , and was reprinted at least twenty-two times over the next century and a half. The treatises divide up into several groups.
The Perfect Sermon or Asclepius, which is also included here, reached the Renaissance by a different route. It was translated into Latin in ancient times, reputedly by the same Lucius Apuleius of Madaura whose comic-serious masterpiece The Golden Ass provides some of the best surviving evidence on the worship of Isis in the Roman world.
Augustine of Hippo quotes from the old Latin translation at length in his City of God, and copies remained in circulation in medieval Europe all the way up to the Renaissance. The original Greek version was lost, although quotations survive in several ancient sources.
The Perfect Sermon is substantially longer than any other surviving work of ancient Hermetic philosophy. It covers topics which also occur in the Corpus Hermeticum, but touches on several other issues as well - among them magical processes for the manufacture of gods and a long and gloomy prophecy of the decline of Hermetic wisdom and the end of the world. The Corpus Hermeticum landed like a well-aimed bomb amid the philosophical systems of late medieval Europe.
Quotations from the Hermetic literature in the Church Fathers who were never shy of leaning on pagan sources to prove a point accepted a traditional chronology which dated "Hermes Trismegistus," as a historical figure, to the time of Moses. As a result, the Hermetic tractates' borrowings from Jewish scripture and Platonic philosophy were seen, in the Renaissance, as evidence that the Corpus Hermeticum had anticipated and influenced both.
The Hermetic philosophy was seen as a primordial wisdom tradition, identified with the "Wisdom of the Egyptians" mentioned in Exodus and lauded in Platonic dialogues such as the Timaeus.
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