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Part of a series on
Hermeticism
Hermes Trismegistus
Hermetic writings Liber Hermetis (astrological) Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus Corpus Hermeticum Poimandres Asclepius Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth Prayer of Thanksgiving Korē kosmou Cyranides The Book of the Secrets of the Stars The Secret of Creation Emerald Tablet Kitāb al-Isṭamākhīs Liber Hermetis de alchemia
Historical figures Ancient and medieval Zosimos of Panopolis Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (may be legendary) Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi Ibn Umayl Maslama al-Qurṭubī Aḥmad al-Būnī Early modern Marsilio Ficino Lodovico Lazzarelli Giovanni da Correggio Pico della Mirandola Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa Paracelsus John Dee Giordano Bruno Jakob Böhme Robert Fludd Christian Rosenkreuz (legendary, see Rosicrucianism)
Modern offshoots As above, so below Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Hermetic Qabalah Rosicrucianism The Kybalion Hermetism and other religions
v t e

The Hermetica are the philosophical texts attributed to the legendary Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus (a combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth). These texts may vary widely in content and purpose, but are usually subdivided into two main categories:

• The so-called 'technical' Hermetica: this category contains treatises dealing with astrology, medicine and pharmacology, alchemy, and magic, the oldest of which were written in Greek and may go back as far as to the second or third century BCE. Many of the texts belonging to this category were later translated into Arabic and Latin, often being extensively revised and expanded throughout the centuries. Some of them were also originally written in Arabic, though in many cases their status as an original work or translation remains unclear. These Arabic and Latin Hermetic texts were widely copied throughout the Middle Ages (the most famous example being the Emerald Tablet).
• The so-called 'philosophical' Hermetica: this category contains religio-philosophical treatises which were mostly written between c. 100 and c. 300 CE, though the earliest of them may go back as far as to the first century BCE. They are chiefly focused on the relationship between human beings, the cosmos, and God (thus combining philosophical anthropology, cosmology, and theology), and on moral exhortations calling for a way of life (the so-called 'way of Hermes') leading to spiritual rebirth, and eventually to apotheosis in the form of a heavenly ascent. The treatises in this category were probably all originally written in Greek, even though some of them only survive in Coptic, Armenian, or Latin translations. During the Middle Ages, most of them were only accessible to Byzantine scholars (an important exception being the Asclepius, which mainly survives in an early Latin translation), until a compilation of Greek Hermetic treatises known as the Corpus Hermeticum was translated into Latin by the Renaissance scholars Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) and Lodovico Lazzarelli (1447–1500).

Though strongly influenced by Greek and Hellenistic philosophy (especially Platonism and Stoicism), and to a lesser extent also by Jewish ideas, many of the early Greek Hermetic treatises do contain distinctly Egyptian elements, most notably in their affinity with the traditional Egyptian wisdom literature. This used to be the subject of much doubt, but it is now generally admitted that the Hermetica as such did in fact originate in Hellenistic Egypt, even if most of the later Hermetic writings (which continued to be composed at least until the twelfth century CE) clearly did not. It may perhaps even be the case that the great bulk of the early Greek Hermetica were written by Hellenizing members of the Egyptian priestly class, whose intellectual activity was centred in the environment of the Egyptian temples.

The technical Hermetica

Greek

Astrology

The oldest known texts associated with Hermes Trismegistus are a number of astrological works which may go back as far as to the second or third century BCE:

• The Salmeschoiniaka (the "Wandering of the Influences"), perhaps composed in Alexandria in the second or third century BCE, deals with the configurations of the stars.
• The Nechepsos-Petosiris texts are a number of anonymous works dating to the second century BCE which were falsely attributed to the Egyptian king Necho II (610–595 BCE, referred to in the texts as Nechepsos) and his legendary priest Petese (referred to in the texts as Petosiris). These texts, only fragments of which survive, ascribe the astrological knowledge they convey to the authority of Hermes.
• The Art of Eudoxus is a treatise on astronomy which was preserved in a second-century BCE papyrus and which mentions Hermes as an authority.
• The Liber Hermetis ("The Book of Hermes") is an important work on astrology laying out the names of the decans (a distinctly Egyptian system which divided the zodiac into 36 parts). It survives only in an early (fourth- or fifth-century CE) Latin translation, but contains elements that may be traced to the second or third century BCE.

Other early Greek Hermetic works on astrology include:

• The Brontologion: a treatise on the various effects of thunder in different months.
• The Peri seismōn ("On earthquakes"): a treatise on the relation between earthquakes and astrological signs.
• The Book of Asclepius Called Myriogenesis: a treatise on astrological medicine.
• The Holy Book of Hermes to Asclepius: a treatise on astrological botany describing the relationships between various plants and the decans.
• The Fifteen Stars, Stones, Plants and Images: a treatise on astrological mineralogy and botany dealing with the effect of the stars on the pharmaceutical powers of minerals and plants.

Alchemy

Starting in the first century BCE, a number of Greek works on alchemy were attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. These are now all lost, except for a number of fragments (one of the larger of which is called Isis the Prophetess to her Son Horus) preserved in later alchemical works dating to the second and third centuries CE. Especially important is the use made of them by the Egyptian alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis (fl. c. 300 CE), who also seems to have been familiar with the religio-philosophical Hermetica. Hermes' name would become more firmly associated with alchemy in the medieval Arabic sources, of which it is not yet clear to what extent they drew on the earlier Greek literature.

Magic

• The Cyranides is a work on healing magic which treats of the magical powers and healing properties of minerals, plants and animals, for which it regularly cites Hermes as a source. It was independently translated both into Arabic and Latin.
• The Greek Magical Papyri are a modern collection of papyri dating from various periods between the second century BCE and the fifth century CE. They mainly contain practical instructions for spells and incantations, some of which cite Hermes as a source.

Arabic

Many Arabic works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus still exist today, although the great majority of them have not yet been published and studied by modern scholars. For this reason too, it is often not clear to what extent they drew on earlier Greek sources. The following is a very incomplete list of known works:

Astrology

Some of the earliest attested Arabic Hermetic texts deal with astrology:

• The Qaḍīb al-dhahab ("The Rod of Gold"), or the Kitāb Hirmis fī taḥwīl sinī l-mawālīd ("The Book of Hermes on the Revolutions of the Years of the Nativities") is an Arabic astrological work translated from Middle Persian by ʿUmar ibn al-Farrukhān al-Ṭabarī (d. 816 CE), who was the court astrologer of the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur (r. 754-775).
• The Carmen astrologicum is an astrological work originally written by the first century CE astrologer Dorotheus of Sidon. It is lost in Greek, but survives in an Arabic translation, which was in turn based upon a Middle Persian intermediary. It was also translated by ʿUmar ibn al-Farrukhān al-Ṭabarī. The extant Arabic text refers to two Hermeses, and cites a book of Hermes on the positions of the planets.
• The Kitāb Asrār an-nujūm ("The Book of the Secrets of the Stars", later translated into Latin as the Liber de stellis beibeniis) is a treatise describing the influences of the brightest fixed stars on personal characteristics. The Arabic work was translated from a Middle Persian version which can be shown to date from before c. 500 CE, and which shared a source with the Byzantine astrologer Rhetorius (fl. c. 600 CE).
• The Kitāb ʿArḍ Miftāḥ al-Nujūm ("The Book of the Exposition of the Key to the Stars") is an Arabic astrological treatise attributed to Hermes which claims to have been translated in 743 CE, but which in reality was probably translated in the circles of Abu Ma'shar (787–886 CE).

Alchemy

• The Sirr al-khalīqa wa-ṣanʿat al-ṭabīʿa ("The Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature"), also known as the Kitāb al-ʿilal ("The Book of Causes") is an encyclopedic work on natural philosophy falsely attributed to Apollonius of Tyana (c. 15–100, Arabic: Balīnūs or Balīnās). It was compiled in Arabic in the late eighth or early ninth century, but was most likely based on (much) older Greek and/or Syriac sources. It contains the earliest known version of the sulfur-mercury theory of metals, which lay at the foundation of all theories of metallic composition until the eighteenth century. In the frame story of the Sirr al-khalīqa, Balīnūs tells his readers that he discovered the text in a vault below a statue of Hermes in Tyana, and that, inside the vault, an old corpse on a golden throne held the Emerald Tablet. It was translated into Latin by Hugo of Santalla in the twelfth century.
• The Emerald Tablet: a compact and cryptic text first attested in the Sirr al-khalīqa wa-ṣanʿat al-ṭabīʿa (late eighth or early ninth century). There are several other, slightly different Arabic versions (among them one quoted by Jabir ibn Hayyan, and one found in the longer version of the pseudo-Aristotelian Sirr al-asrār or "Secret of Secrets"), but these all date from a later period. It was translated several times into Latin in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and was widely regarded by alchemists as the foundation of their art.
• The Risālat al-Sirr ("The Epistle of the Secret") is an Arabic alchemical treatise probably composed in tenth century Fatimid Egypt.
• The Risālat al-Falakiyya al-kubrā ("The Great Treatise of the Spheres") is an Arabic alchemical treatise composed in the tenth or eleventh century. Perhaps inspired by the Emerald Tablet, it describes the author's (Hermes') attainment of secret knowledge through his ascension of the seven heavenly spheres.
• The Kitāb dhakhīrat al-Iskandar ("The Treasure of Alexander"): a work dealing with alchemy, talismans, and specific properties, which cites Hermes as its ultimate source.
• The Liber Hermetis de alchemia ("The Book of Hermes on Alchemy"), also known as the Liber dabessi or the Liber rebis is a collection of commentaries on the Emerald Tablet. Translated from the Arabic, it is only extant in Latin. It is this Latin translation of the Emerald Tablet on which all later versions are based.

Magic

• The Kitāb al-Isṭamākhīs, Kitāb al-Isṭamāṭīs, Kitāb al-Usṭuwwaṭās, Kitāb al-Madīṭīs, and Kitāb al-Hādīṭūs, dubbed by Kevin van Bladel the "Talismanic Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica", are a number of closely related and partially overlapping texts. Purporting to be written by Aristotle in order to teach his pupil Alexander the great the secrets of Hermes, they deal with the names and powers of the planetary spirits, the making of talismans, and the concept of a personal "perfect nature". Extracts from them appear in pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana's Sirr al-khalīqa wa-ṣanʿat al-ṭabīʿa (see above), in the Epistels of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ ("The Brethren of Purity"), in Maslama al-Qurṭubī's Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (better known under its Latin title as Picatrix), and in the works of the Persian philosopher Suhrawardī (1154–1191). It was translated into Latin in the twelfth or thirteenth century under the title Liber Antimaquis.
• The Cyranides is a Greek work on healing magic which treats of the magical powers and healing properties of minerals, plants and animals, for which it regularly cites Hermes as a source. It was translated into Arabic in the ninth century, but in this translation all references to Hermes seem to have disappeared.
• The Sharḥ Kitāb Hirmis al-Ḥakīm fī Maʿrifat Ṣifat al-Ḥayyāt wa-l-ʿAqārib ("The Commentary on the Book of the Wise Hermes on the Properties of Snakes and Scorpions"): a treatise on the venom of snakes an other poisonous animals.
• The Dāʾirat al-aḥruf al-abjadiyya (The Circle of Letters of the Alphabet"): a practical treatise on letter magic attributed to Hermes.

The religio-philosophical Hermetica

Contrary to the so-called 'technical' Hermetica, which were continuously being written starting from the Hellenistic period and advancing deep into the Middle Ages, the religio-philosophical Hermetica were for the most part produced in a relatively short period of time, i.e., between c. 100 and c. 300 CE. They regularly take the form of dialogues between Hermes Trismegistus and his disciples Tat, Asclepius, and Ammon, and mostly deal with philosophical anthropology, cosmology, and theology. The following is a list of all known works in this category:

Corpus Hermeticum

Undoubtedly the most famous among the religio-philosophical Hermetica is the Corpus Hermeticum, a selection of seventeen Greek treatises that was first compiled by Byzantine editors, and translated into Latin in the fifteenth century by Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) and Lodovico Lazzarelli (1447–1500). Alhough its individual treatises were cited by many other authors from the second and third centuries on, the collection as such is first attested only in the writings of the Byzantine philosopher Michael Psellus (c. 1017–1078). Ficino only translated the first fourteen treatises (I–XIV), while Lazzarelli translated the remaining three (XVI–XVIII). The Chapter no. XV of early modern editions was once filled with an entry from the Suda (a tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia) and three excerpts from Hermetic works preserved by Joannes Stobaeus (fl. fifth century, see below), but this chapter was left out in later editions, which therefore contain no chapter XV. The most well known among the treatises contained in this compilation is its opening treatise, which is called the Poimandres.

The name of this collection can be somewhat misleading, since it contains only a very small selection of extant Hermetic texts (whereas the word corpus is usually reserved for the entire body of extant writings related to some subject).

Italy during the Renaissance. The impetus for this revival came from the Latin translation by Marsilio Ficino, a member of the de' Medici court. The Hermetica provided a seminal impetus in the development of Renaissance thought and culture, having a profound impact on alchemy and modern magic as well as influencing philosophers such as Giordano Bruno and Pico della Mirandola, Ficino's student. This influence continued as late as the 17th century with authors such as Sir Thomas Browne.

Everard, John 1650. The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus. London

Asclepius

The Asclepius (also known as the Perfect Discourse, from Greek Logos teleios) mainly survives in a Latin translation, though some Greek and Coptic fragments are also extant. It is the only Hermetic treatise belonging to the religio-philosophical category that remained available to Latin readers throughout the Middle Ages.

Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius

z

The Stobaean fragments

• the Korē kosmou ("The Daughter of the Cosmos", the longest among the Hermetic excerpts preserved by the fifth century anthologer Joannes Stobaeus),

Hermetic treatises from the Nag Hammadi findings

Parts of the Hermetica appeared in the 2nd-century Gnostic library found in Nag Hammadi, which consists of Coptic documents translated from the Greek. Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth

The mostly gnostic Nag Hammadi Library, discovered in 1945, also contained one previously unknown hermetic text called The Ogdoad and the Ennead, a description of a hermetic initiation into gnosis that has led to new perspectives on the nature of Hermetism as a whole, particularly due to the research of Jean-Pierre Mahé.

Oxford and Vienna fragments

A number of short excerpts from some otherwise unknown Hermetic works are preserved in a manuscript at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, dealing with the soul, the senses, law, psychology, and embryology. Four short fragments from what once was a collection of ten Hermetic treatites, one of which was called "On Energies", are also preserved in a papyrus now housed in Vienna.

History of modern scholarship

During the Renaissance, all texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus were still generally believed to be of ancient Egyptian origin. In the early seventeenth century, the classical scholar Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) demonstrated that some of the Greek texts betrayed too recent a vocabulary, and must date from the late Hellenistic or early Christian era at the earliest. This conclusion was reaffirmed in the early twentieth century by the work of scholars like C. H. Dodd. More recent research, while reaffirming the dating of the earliest Greek treatises in the period of syncretic cultural ferment in Roman Egypt, suggests more continuity with the culture of Egypt than had previously been believed. There are many parallels with Egyptian prophecies and hymns to the gods, but the closest comparisons can be found in Egyptian wisdom literature, which is characteristically couched in words of advice from a "father" to a "son". Demotic (late Egyptian) papyri contain substantial sections of a dialogue of Hermetic type between Thoth and a disciple.

See also

• Hermeticism

References

1. A survey of the literary and archaeological evidence for the background of Hermes Trismegistus in the Greek Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth is found in Bull, Christian H. 2018. The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus: The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom. Leiden: Brill, pp. 33-96.
2. Copenhaver, Brian P. 1992. Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation, with Notes and Introduction. Cambridge University Press, p. xxxiii; Bull 2018, pp. 2-3. Fowden, Garth 1986. The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 3, note 11 is somewhat more cautious, noting that our first testimony dates to the first century BCE.
3. Van Bladel, Kevin 2009. The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 17.
4. Copenhaver 1992, p. xliv; Bull 2018, p. 32. The sole exception to the general dating of ca. 100–300 CE is The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius, which may date to the first century CE, or perhaps even to the first century BCE (see Bull 2018, p. 9, referring to Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1978-1982. Hermès en Haute-Egypte. Vol. I-II. Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, vol. 2, p. 278). Earlier dates have been suggested, most notably by Flinders Petrie (500–200 BCE) and Bruno H. Stricker (c. 300 BCE), but these suggestions have been rejected by most other scholars (see Bull 2018, p. 6, note 23).
5. Bull 2018, p. 3.
6. E.g., The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth (Coptic; preserved in the Nag Hammadi library, which consists entirely of works translated from Greek into Coptic; see Robinson, James M. 1990. The Nag Hammadi Library in English. 3th, revised edition. New York: HarperCollins, pp. 12-13), the Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius (Armenian; see Bull 2018, p. 9), and the Asclepius (also known as the Perfect Discourse, Latin; see Copenhaver 1992, pp. xliii-xliv).
7. Copenhaver 1992, pp. xl-xliii; Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 2006. "Lazzarelli, Lodovico" in: Hanegraaff, Wouter J. et al. (eds.). Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 679-683, p. 680.
8. Bull 2018, p. 2.
9. See, e.g., Pearson, Birger 1981. “Jewish Elements in Corpus Hermeticum I (Poimandres)” in: Van den Broek, Roelof and Vermaseren, Maarten J. (eds.). Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Leiden: Brill, pp. 336-348, and the copious references in Bull 2018, p. 29, note 118.
10. Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1978-1982. Hermès en Haute-Egypte. Vol. I-II. Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval. Mahé also demonstrated numerous other Egyptian influences on the Hermetica (cf. Bull 2018, pp. 9-10).
11. Following the weighty authority of Festugière, André-Jean 1944-1954. La Révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste. Vol. I-IV. Paris: Gabalda; Festugière, André-Jean 1967. Hermétisme et mystique païenne. Paris: Aubier Montaigne.
12. See Mahé 1978-1982; Fowden 1986; cf. Copenhaver 1992, pp. xlv, lviii.
13. For example, the Kitāb fi zajr al-nafs ("The Book of the Rebuke of the Soul"), the only Arabic Hermetic text that rather belongs to the 'religio-philosophical' than to the 'technical' Hermetica, is commonly thought to date from the twelfth century; see Van Bladel 2009, p. 226.
14. This is the central thesis of Bull 2018; see 12ff.
15. Copenhaver 1992, p. xxxiii; Bull 2018, pp. 387-388.
16. Bull 2018, pp. 163-174; cf. Copenhaver 1992, p. xxxiii. On the identification of Nechepsos with Necho II and of Petosiris with Petese, see the references in Bull 2018, p. 163, note 295.
17. Bull 2018, pp. 167-168.
18. Copenhaver 1992, p. xlv.
19. Copenhaver 1992, p. xxxiii; Bull 2018, pp. 385-386.
20. Copenhaver 1992, p. xxxiii; Bull 2018, p. 168.
21. Copenhaver 1992, p. xxxiii.
22. Copenhaver 1992, p. xxxiii.
23. Copenhaver 1992, p. xxxiv.
24. Copenhaver 1992, p. xxxiv.
25. Copenhaver 1992, p. xxxiv.
26. Van Bladel 2009, p. 17.
27. Copenhaver 1992, pp. xxxiv-xxxv. The Greek text was edited by Kaimakis, Dimitris 1976. Die Kyraniden. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain. English translation of the first book in Waegeman, Maryse 1986. Amulet and Alphabet: Magical Amulets in the First Book of Cyranides. Amsterdam.
28. The Arabic translation of the first book was edited by Toral-Niehoff, Isabel 2004. Kitab Giranis. Die arabische Übersetzung der ersten Kyranis des Hermes Trismegistos und die griechischen Parallelen. München: Herbert Utz. The Arabic fragments of the other books were edited by Ullmann, Manfred 2020. “Die arabischen Fragmente der Bücher II bis IV der Kyraniden” in: Studia graeco-arabica, 10, pp. 49-58. The Latin translation was edited by Delatte, Louis 1942. Textes latins et vieux français relatifs aux Cyranides. Paris: Droz.
29. Copenhaver 1992, pp. xxxv-xxxvi.
30. According to Van Bladel 2009, p. 17, note 42, there are least twenty Arabic Hermetica extant.
31. Van Bladel 2009, p. 28.
32. Van Bladel 2009, pp. 28-29.
33. Van Bladel 2009, pp. 27-28. The Arabic text and its Latin translation were edited by Kunitzsch, Paul 2001 (ed.). "Liber de stellis beibeniis" in: Bos, Gerrit and Burnett, Charles and Lucentini, Paolo et al. (eds.). Hermetis Trismegisti Astrologica et Divinatoria. Corpus Christianorum, CXLIV. Hermes Latinus, IV.IV. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 7-81. See also Kunitzsch, Paul 2003. "Origin and History of Liber de stellis beibeniis" in: Lucentini, Paolo et al. (eds.). Hermetism from late antiquity to humanism. La tradizione ermetica dal mondo tardo-antico all'umanesimo. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Napoli, 20-24 novembre 2001. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 449-460.
34. Bausani, Alessandro 1983. “Il Kitāb ʿArḍ Miftāḥ al-Nujūm attribuito a Hermes: Prima traduzione araba di un testo astrologico ?” in: Atti della Academia Nazionale dei Lincei, Anno 380, Memorie, Classe di Science morali, storiche e filologiche, Serie VIII, Volume XXVII, Fasciolo 2; Bausani, Alessandro 1986. “Il Kitāb ʿArḍ Miftāḥ al-Nujūm attribuito a Hermes” in: Actas do XI Congresso da UEAI (Evora 1982). Evora, 371 ff. On the dating, see Ullmann, Manfred 1994. Das Schlangenbuch des Hermes Trismegistos. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 7-8.
35. Kraus, Paul 1942-1943. Jâbir ibn Hayyân: Contribution à l'histoire des idées scientifiques dans l'Islam. I. Le corpus des écrits jâbiriens. II. Jâbir et la science grecque. Cairo: Institut français d'archéologie orientale, vol. II, pp. 274-275 (c. 813–833); Weisser, Ursula 1980. Das Buch über das Geheimnis der Schöpfung von Pseudo-Apollonios von Tyana. Berlin: De Gruyter, p. 54 (c. 750–800).
36. Kraus 1942-1943, vol. II, pp. 270–303; Weisser 1980, pp. 52–53.
37. Kraus 1942−1943, vol. II, p. 1, note 1; Weisser 1980, p. 199.
38. Norris, John 2006. "The Mineral Exhalation Theory of Metallogenesis in Pre-Modern Mineral Science" in: Ambix, 53, pp. 43–65.
39. Ebeling, Florian 2007. The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus: Hermeticism from Ancient to Modern Times. Ithaca: Cornell university press, pp. 46-47.
40. See Hudry, Françoise 1997-1999. "Le De secretis nature du Ps. Apollonius de Tyane, traduction latine par Hugues de Santalla du Kitæb sirr al-halîqa" in: Chrysopoeia, 6, pp. 1-154.
41. Weisser 1980, p. 46.
42. See Hudry 1997-1999, p. 152 (as part of the Latin translation of the Sirr al-khalīqa; English translation in Litwa, M. David 2018. Hermetica II: The Excerpts of Stobaeus, Papyrus Fragments, and Ancient Testimonies in an English Translation with Notes and Introductions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 316); Steele, Robert 1920. Secretum secretorum cum glossis et notulis. Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, vol. V. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 115-117 (as part of the Latin translation of the Sirr al-asrār); Steele, Robert and Singer, Dorothea Waley 1928. “The Emerald Table” in: Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 21, pp. 41–57/485–501 (as part of the Latin translation of the Liber dabessi, a collection of commentaries on the Tablet).
43. Edited by Vereno, Ingolf 1992. Studien zum ältesten alchemistischen Schrifttum. Auf der Grundlage zweier erstmals edierter arabischer Hermetica. Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, band 155. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, pp. 136-159.
44. Van Bladel 2009, pp. 181-183 (cf. p. 171, note 25). Also edited by Vereno 1992, pp. 160-181.
45. Ruska, Julius 1926. Tabula Smaragdina. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der hermetischen Literatur. Heidelberg: Winter, pp. 68-107.
46. Edited by Steele, Robert and Singer, Dorothea Waley 1928. “The Emerald Table” in: Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 21, pp. 41–57/485–501.
47. Van Bladel 2009, pp. 101-102, 114, 224. A small fragment from the Kitāb al-Isṭamākhīs was published by Badawī, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān 1982. al-Insāniyya wa-l-wujūdiyya fī l-fikr al-‘Arabī. Beirut: Dār al-Qalam, pp. 179-183.
48. Weisser 1980, pp. 68-69.
49. Plessner, Martin 1954. “Hermes Trismegistus and Arab Science” in: Studia Islamica, 2, pp. 45-59, p. 58.
50. Van Bladel 2009, pp. 101-102.
51. Van Bladel 2009, p. 224.
52. Published by Burnett, Charles 2001. “Aristoteles/Hermes: Liber Antimaquis” in: Bos, Gerrit and Burnett, Charles and Lucentini, Paolo et al. (eds.). Hermetis Trismegisti Astrologica et Divinatoria. Corpus Christianorum, CXLIV. Hermes Latinus, IV.IV. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 177-221.
53. Van Bladel 2009, p. 17, note 45, p. 21, note 60. The Arabic version of the first book was edited by Toral-Niehoff, Isabel 2004. Kitab Giranis. Die arabische Übersetzung der ersten Kyranis des Hermes Trismegistos und die griechischen Parallelen. München: Herbert Utz. The Arabic fragments of the other books were edited by Ullmann, Manfred 2020. “Die arabischen Fragmente der Bücher II bis IV der Kyraniden” in: Studia graeco-arabica, 10, pp. 49-58.
54. Ullmann, Manfred 1994. Das Schlangenbuch des Hermes Trismegistos. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz; cf. Van Bladel 2009, p. 17.
55. Bonmariage, Cécile and Moureau, Sébastien 2016. Le Cercle des lettres de l’alphabet (Dā’irat al-aḥruf al-abjadiyya). Un traité de magie pratique des lettres attribué à Hermès. Édition critique, traduction annotée et étude. Leiden: Brill.
56. Copenhaver 1992, p. xliv; Bull 2018, p. 32. The sole exception is The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius, which may date to the first century CE, or perhaps even to the first century BCE (see Bull 2018, p. 9, referring to Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1978-1982. Hermès en Haute-Egypte. Vol. I-II. Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, vol. 2, p. 278). Earlier dates have been suggested, most notably by Flinders Petrie (500–200 BCE) and Bruno H. Stricker (c. 300 BCE), but these suggestions have been rejected by most other scholars (see Bull 2018, p. 6, note 23). Some Hermetic treatises of a generally 'religio-philosophical' nature were written in later periods (e.g., the Kitāb fi zajr al-nafs or "The Book of the Rebuke of the Soul", dating from the twelfth century), but these appear to be rather rare, and it is not clear whether they bear any relation to the early Greek treatises; see Van Bladel 2009, p. 226.
57. Bull 2018, p. 3.
58. Copenhaver 1992, pp. xl-xliii.
59. Copenhaver 1992, p. xlii.
60. See Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 2006. "Lazzarelli, Lodovico" in: Hanegraaff, Wouter J. et al. (eds.). Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 679-683, p. 680.
61. See Copenhaver 1992, p. xlix.
62. Copenhaver 1992, pp. xliii-xliv.
63. Copenhaver 1992, pp. xlvii.
64. Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1999. "The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius" in: Salaman, Clement et al. (eds.). The Way of Hermes. London: Duckworth, pp. 99–122.
65. Copenhaver 1992, p. xxxviii; cf. Bull 2018, pp. 101-111.
66. Robinson, James M. 1990. The Nag Hammadi Library in English. 3th, revised edition. New York: HarperCollins, pp. 12-13.
67. Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1978-1982. Hermès en Haute-Egypte. Vol. I-II. Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval.
68. Paramelle, Joseph and Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1991. "Extraits hermétiques inédits dans un manuscrit d’Oxford" in: Revue des Études Grecques, 104, pp. 109-139. Translated by Litwa, M. David 2018. Hermetica II: The Excerpts of Stobaeus, Papyrus Fragments, and Ancient Testimonies in an English Translation with Notes and Introductions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 161-169.
69. Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1984. "Fragments hermétiques dans les papyri Vindobonenses graecae 29456r et 29828r" in: Lucchesi, E. and Saffrey, H. D. (eds.). Mémorial André-Jean Festugière: Antiquité païenne et chrétienne. Geneva: Cramer, pp. 51-64, 60. Translated by Litwa 2018, pp. 171-174.
70. Copenhaver, Brian P. 1992. Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation, with Notes and Introduction. Cambridge University Press, p. l.
71. In his Dodd, Charles H. 1935. The Bible and the Greeks. London: Hodder & Stoughton; see Copenhaver 1992, pp. l, lvii.
72. Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1978-1982. Hermès en Haute-Egypte. Vol. I-II. Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval; Fowden, Garth 1986. The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Bull, Christian H. 2018. The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus: The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom. Leiden: Brill.
73. Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1996. "Preliminary Remarks on the Demotic 'Book of Thoth' and the Greek Hermetica" in: Vigiliae Christianae, 50(4), pp. 353-363, 358f.
74. See Jasnow, Richard and Zausich, Karl-Th. 1995. "A Book of Thoth?", paper given at the 7th International Congress of Egyptologists, Cambridge, 3–9 September 1995; Jasnow, Richard 2016. "Between Two Waters: The Book of Thoth and the Problem of Greco-Egyptian Interaction" in: Rutherford, Ian (ed.). Greco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature, Translation, and Culture, 500 BCE - 300 CE. Oxford University Press.

Bibliography

English translations of Hermetic texts

Some pieces of Hermetica have been translated into English multiple times by modern Hermeticists. However, the following list is strictly limited to scholarly translations:

• Copenhaver, Brian P. 1992. Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation, with Notes and Introduction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-42543-3
• Litwa, M. David 2018. Hermetica II: The Excerpts of Stobaeus, Papyrus Fragments, and Ancient Testimonies in an English Translation with Notes and Introductions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1999. "The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius" in: Salaman, Clement et al. (eds.). The Way of Hermes. London: Duckworth, pp. 99–122.
• Robinson, James M. 1990. The Nag Hammadi Library in English. 3th, revised edition. New York: HarperCollins. (contains translations of)

Secondary literature

• Bull, Christian H. 2018. The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus: The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom. Leiden: Brill.
• Festugière, André-Jean 1944-1954. La Révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste. Vol. I-IV. Paris: Gabalda.
• Festugière, André-Jean 1967. Hermétisme et mystique païenne. Paris: Aubier Montaigne.
• Fowden, Garth 1986. The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Mahé, Jean-Pierre 1978-1982. Hermès en Haute-Egypte. Vol. I-II. Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval.
• Nock, Arthur Darby and Festugière, André-Jean 1945-1954 (eds.). Corpus Hermeticum. 4 vols. Paris: Belles Lettres. (critical edition of the Greek text of the Corpus Hermeticum and the Stobaean fragments; critical edition of the Latin text of the Asclepius)
• Pearson, Birger 1981. “Jewish Elements in Corpus Hermeticum I (Poimandres)” in: Van den Broek, Roelof and Vermaseren, Maarten J. (eds.). Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Leiden: Brill, pp. 336-348.
• Van Bladel, Kevin 2009. The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

External links

• The Corpus Hermeticum. G. R. S. Mead's translations taken from his work, Thrice Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis, Volume II. (The Gnostic Society Library)
• Everard's translation The Divine Pymander in XVII books at Adam McLean's Alchemy Web Site
• Jeremiah Genest, Corpus Hermeticum
• Ἑρμου του Τρισμεγιστου ΠΟΙΜΑΝΔΡΗΣ – Greek text of the Poimandres
• The Hermetic Order History and introduction to hermeticism including excerpts from the Corpus Hermeticum