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Corpus Hermeticum. Hermetic Writings

10.12.2022

Hermetic writings, also called Hermetica, are works of revelation on occult, theological and philosophical subjects, ascribed to the Egyptian niter Thoth, in Greek. Hermes Trismegistos, who was believed to be the inventor of writing and the patron of all the arts dependent on writing, the creator of languages, the scribe, interpreter, adviser of the niters, and the representative of the sun niter Ra. His responsibility for writing was shared with the goddess Seshat. The cult of Thoth was centered in the town of Khmunu (Hermopolis; modern Al-Ashmūnayn) in Upper Egypt.

The hermetic texts are collections, written in Greek and Latin, probably dated from the middle of the 1st to the end of the 3rd century AD. It was written in the form of Platonic dialogues and falls into two main classes: popular Hermetism, which deals with astrology and the other occult sciences, and learned Hermetism, which is concerned with theology and philosophy. Both seem to have arisen in the complex Greco-Egyptian culture of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.


I. Tʜᴇ Lᴀᴍᴇɴᴛ, part of the Asclepius, is a prophecy, describing the end of Egyptian civilization. It is an insight into a lost world.
𝐴𝑠𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑢𝑠 𝐼𝐼𝐼 𝐿𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 - 𝐴 𝐹𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡
Walter Scott translated ASCLEPIUS from Latin documents by Apuleius.


𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐬:
"Do you not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an image of heaven, or, to speak more exactly, in Egypt all the operations of the powers which rule and work in heaven have been transferred to earth below?
Nay, it should rather be said that the whole Kosmos dwells in this land as in its sanctuary. And yet, since it is fitting that wise men should have knowledge of all events before they come to pass, you must not be left in ignorance of this: there will come a time when it will be seen that in vain have the Egyptians honored the deity with heartfelt piety and assiduous service; and all our holy worship will be found bootless and ineffectual. For the gods will return from earth to heaven. Egypt will be forsaken, and the land which was once the home of religion will be left desolate, bereft of the presence of its deities.


This land and region will be filled with foreigners; not only will men neglect the service of the gods, but ...; and Egypt will be occupied by Scythians or Indians or by some such race from the barbarian countries thereabout. On that day will our most holy land, this land of shrines and temples, be filled with funerals and corpses. To thee, most holy Nile, I cry, to thee I foretell that which shall be; swollen with torrents of blood, thou wilt rise to the level of thy banks, and thy sacred waves will be not only stained but utterly fouled with gore. 


Do you weep at this, Asclepius? There is worse to come; Egypt herself will have yet more to suffer; she will fall into a far more piteous plight, and will be infected with yet more, grievous plagues; and this land, which once was holy, a land which loved the gods, and wherein alone, in reward for her devotion, the gods deigned to sojourn upon the earth, a land which was the teacher of mankind in holiness and piety, this land will go beyond all in cruel deeds. The dead will far outnumber the living, and the survivors will be known for Egyptians by their tongue alone, but in their actions, they will seem to be men of another race.


O Egypt, Egypt, of thy religion nothing, will remain but an empty tale, which our own children in time to come will not believe; nothing will be left but graven words and only the stones will tell of thy piety. And in that day men will be weary of life, and they will cease to think the universe worthy of reverent wonder and of worship. And so religion, the greatest of all blessings, for there is nothing, nor has been, nor ever shall be, that can be deemed a greater boon, will be threatened with destruction; men will think it a burden, and will come to scorn it. They will no longer love this world around us, this incomparable work of God, this glorious structure which he has built, this sum of well made up of things of many diverse forms, this instrument whereby the will of God operates in that which he has made, ungrudgingly favoring man's welfare, this combination, and accumulation of all the manifold things that can call forth the veneration, praise, and love of the beholder.


Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven; the pious will be deemed insane, and the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good. As to the soul, and the belief that it is immortal by nature, or may hope to attain immortality, as I have taught you, all this they will mock at, and will even persuade themselves that it is false. No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven and of the gods of heaven, will be heard or believed.


And so the gods will depart from mankind, a grievous thing! and only evil angels will remain, who will mingle with men, and drive the poor wretches by main force into all manner of reckless crime, into wars, robberies, and frauds, and all things hostile to the nature of the soul. Then will the earth no longer stand unshaken, and the sea will bear no ships; heaven will not support the stars in their orbits, nor will the stars pursue their constant course in heaven; all voices of the gods will of necessity be silenced and dumb; the fruits of the earth will rot; the soil will turn barren, and the very air will sicken in sullen stagnation. After this manner will old age come upon the world. Religion will be no more; all things will be disordered and awry; all good will disappear.


But when all this has befallen, Asclepius, then the Master and Father, God, the first before all, the maker of that god who first came into being, will look on that which has come to pass and will stay the disorder by the counterworking of his will, which is good. He will call back to the right path those who have gone astray; he will cleanse the world from evil, now washing it away with water floods, now burning it out with the fiercest fire, or again expelling it by war and pestilence. And thus he will bring back his world to its former aspect so that the Kosmos will once more be deemed worthy of worship and wondering reverence, and God, the maker, and restorer of the mighty fabric will be adored by the men of that day with unceasing hymns of praise and blessing.


Such is the new birth of the Kosmos; it is a making again of all things good, a holy and awe-striking restoration of all nature; and it is wrought in the process of time by the eternal will of God. For God's will has no beginning; it is ever the same, and as it now is, even so, it has ever been, without beginning. For it is the very being of God to purpose good."


𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 is relevant to our times and previous centuries, in which the foundation of the ancient world was abandoned. Ancient man saw its role on Earth as a contemplation of the divine creation, admiring God's work and being part of it, and trying to sustain it. That harmony - balance - has now been abandoned, and it is of course one of the reasons why the niters (gods) left. The Lament gives a description of the philosophy involved in this ancient mindset: "The soul and all the beliefs attached to it, according to which the soul is immortal by nature or foresees that it can obtain immortality as I have taught you - this will be laughed at and thought nonsense." The immortality of the soul was another teaching (treatise) of the Corpus, which had preceded the Asclepius. As it predicted the future, like John's Apocalypse, it was positioned last in the Corpus Hermeticum.


And so it happened. Today, Egypt is indeed nothing but tombs and corpses, with Egyptology a science that is purely interested in the tombs and corpses, with only the most minimal attention paid to the Egyptian religion and spirituality, if at all. Indeed, today, most argue that the ancient Egyptian civilization was impressive, but that their religion was ignorant of modern philosophical frameworks; several academics label the ancient Egyptian mindset as little better than primitive or one step beyond "savages".


We stand in awe of the temples and the statues of Horus in front of the Temple of Edfu, but we see nothing but a statue. In ancient Egyptian times, these statues were seen as being alive, animated - holding the spirit of the deity - being the deity - represented on Earth. But now the statues are indeed silent and "divinity has returned from Earth to Heaven". The bond between Heaven and Earth, so central to the ancient Egyptian mind, has been broken and nothing but a dead landscape remains. Whereas the Lament is at pains to explain that, as unlikely it may seem for the ancient Egyptian that this will happen, for modern man, it is as unlikely to imagine that a stone statue was once believed to be a living entity, an earthly residence for a niter, somehow "alive".

The ancient Egyptians stated that the human magical act resulted in "heka", the cosmic energy, which was meant to flow. The Lament suggests that this energy solidified when the niters were no longer worshipped - it blocked up, and Heaven and Earth separated. The story of visualizing the gods by continued thought is similar to the biblical story of Jacob praying to his angel, who finally, after much-concentrated thought, manifests himself. Jacob too challenges and fights with his angel, before he gets from that angel what he wants. The "guardian angel" in ancient Egypt was often referred to as the ka: it was the conscience or guide of each individual and in Asclepius' dialogue with Hermes, we should perhaps see this as an inner dialogue, of Asclepius talking to his "guardian angel" and guide - an archetype, Hermes.


"Archetypical magic" is still used today: in war, the home nation is identified as the land of "good" and the enemy is identified as the "evil empire", linked with Satan, a Christian adaptation of Seth. The ancient Egyptian templates, and archetypes, still exist today and remain widely used, though seldom pointed out. -  𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐾𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝐼𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑡𝑒



II. Corpus Hermeticum in Modern Days

Though written over a century ago, Mead's Thrice-Greatest Hermes provides an excellent compendium and reference to Hermetic literature. His commentary on the texts is unequaled. However, for a modern reader, there is a problem with Mead's translations: he often translates using antique and formal-sounding English. But then, it must be understood the original Greek texts of the surviving Hermetic literature have an antique and elevated tone. With his choice of language, Mead tries to convey both the ambiguity and the visionary intensity of the material. He correctly understood the Hermetic writings as the distillations of profound spiritual and psychological experiences - experiences the texts themselves call "Gnosis". These are not philosophical tracts. Their core impetus was a communication of a visionary reality. The tradition that produced the Corpus Hermeticum embraced an imaginative, prophetic voice common in Gnostic scriptures; and the insights this "Gnosis" produced are not easily expressed in Greek, Latin, or any pedestrian dialect of English. 



Texts of the Corpus Hermeticum are provided in two formats:
the full text published edition with footnotes, commentary, and page numbering; and a simplified text-only format. Tract



The Hermetic tradition represents a non-Christian lineage of Hellenistic Gnosticism. 

The tradition and the date of its writing to at least the first century B.C.E., and the texts we possess were all written prior to the second century C.E. The surviving writings of the tradition, known as the Corpus Hermeticum (the "Hermetic body of writings") were lost to the Latin West after classical times, but survived in eastern Byzantine libraries. Their rediscovery and translation into Latin during the late fifteenth century by the Italian Renaissance court of Cosimo de Medici, provided a seminal force in the development of Renaissance thought and culture. These eighteen tracts of the Corpus Hermeticum, along with the Perfect Sermon (also called the Asclepius), are the foundational documents of the Hermetic tradition. The texts presented here, below, are taken from the translation of G.R.S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis, Volume 2 (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1906); they are reproduced completely, with Mead's original footnotes. (The entire three-volume text of Mead's Thrice-Greatest Hermes, along with a full-text search function, is available in the online G.R.S. Mead Collection). In supplement to the Corpus Hermeticum, we have appended to this collection the important Hermetic texts discovered in 1945 within the Nag Hammadi Library.

But they can be understood if one has an ear for the core experience. It is the desire to communicate their experience of interior reality that motivated these ancient authors. For a more easily readable (and very reliable) modern print edition, we recommend the respected 1995 translation of the Hermetica by Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation. So what is the Hermetic tradition, and what did it teach? To answer those common questions, we offer the following introductory resources: Begin with the introductory essay On the Trail of the Winged God: Hermes and Hermeticism Throughout the Ages. You might follow this with a reading of the small book by G.R.S. Mead, The Gnosis of the Mind (available complete in the library) -- Mead wrote this meditation shortly after finishing his in-depth three-volume work Thrice-Greatest Hermes.

These are the opening words of the Poemandres, the first text of the Corpus Hermeticum; they provide a first insight into the visionary source of Hermetic Gnosis: Upon a time while my mind was meditating on the things that are, my thought was raised to a great height, while the physical senses of my body were held back-just as are the senses of men who are heavy with sleep after a large meal, or from the fatigue of the body. I thought I heard a Being more than vast-in size beyond all bounds called out my name and say: "What wouldst thou hear and see, and what hast thou in mind to learn and know?" And I said: "Who art thou?" He answered: "I am Shepherd of Men, Mind of all-Masterhood; I know what thou desirest and I am with thee everywhere."And I replied: "I long to learn the things that are, and comprehend their nature, and know God. This (I said) is what I desire to hear." He answered me: "Hold in thy mind all thou wouldst know, and I will teach thee."And with these words, His aspect changed; and straightway, in the twinkling of an eye, all things were opened to me. And I saw a limitless Vision: all things turned into Light-sweet, joyous Light. And I became transported as I gazed...(Poemandres, v.1-4)-- Lance S. Owens Corpus Hermeticum. Translation by G. R. S. Meaden Introduction to G.R.S. Mead's translation of the Corpus Hermeticum





Note:

Listen to an audio lecture by Dr. Stephan Hoeller introducing Hermes: The Thrice Great Hierophant of Gnosis; this lecture provides an excellent introduction to the Hermetic tradition. (The audio is in MP3 format and runs for about 85 minutes). Read the "Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men", the first and key text in the Corpus Hermeticum; follow this with a reading of Mead's Commentary on the Pymander. After that introductory tour, read the introduction and commentaries in Mead's classic work, Thrice-Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis. You might wish to purchase Brian Copenhaver's modern English translation for further reading of the texts themselves: Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation by John Michael Greer




Next page. 


III. Texts of the Corpus Hermeticum are provided in two formats: the full text published edition with footnotes, commentary, and page numbering; and, a simplified text-only format. Tract. Full Text with Notes and Commentary



I. Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men (Text)
II. To Asclepius (Text)
III. The Sacred Sermon (Text)
IV. The Cup or Monad (Text)
V. Though Unmanifest God Is Most Manifest (Text)
VI. In God Alone Is Good And Elsewhere Nowhere (Text)
VII. The Greatest Ill Among Men is Ignorance of God (Text)
VIII. That No One of Existing Things doth Perish (Text)
IX. On Thought and Sense (Text)
X. The Key (Text)
XI. Mind Unto Hermes (Text)
XII. About the Common Mind (Text)
XIII. The Secret Sermon on the Mountain (Text)
XIV. A Letter of Thrice-Greatest Hermes to Asclepius
XVI. The Definitions of Asclepius unto King Ammon
XVII. Of Asclepius to the King
XVIII. The Encomium of KingsAscl. The Perfect Sermon (The Asclepius)


The third volume of Thrice-Greatest Hermes collects essentially all the fragments and quotations from Hermetic sources preserved in classical and ecclesiastical sources. Many of the longer fragments are gleaned from Stobaeus, a fifth-century C.E. anthologizer of Greek literature. The remainder comes from the early Church Fathers, embedded in polemics and doctrinal discussions. This is an invaluable resource, and we provide a full-text search function to help in finding specific texts. Excerpts and Fragments of Hermetic Texts (in Volume Three, G.R.S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes). The Hymns of Hermes - Shortly after finishing his translation of the Corpus Hermeticum and his masterwork Thrice-Greatest Hermes, G.R.S. Mead wrote a brief essay in reflection on the liturgical hymn forms found in the Hermetic writings. The essay centers on the Poemandres. This beautiful meditation provides an important keynote to any reading of the material in the Corpus Hermeticum).


The Hymns of Hermes by G. R. S. Mead Hermetic Texts in the Nag Hammadi Collection, The collection of Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi in 1945 (known as the Nag Hammadi Library), includes a previously unknown and crucially important Hermetic document, The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth. Probably dating to the third century or earlier, this text appears to be an initiation rite into the visionary journey. This document provides singular evidence of the liturgical and experiential elements within the Hermetic tradition. It gives witness to the existence of ritual genera of Hermetic writings previously unknown and now lost. Also included in the Nag Hammadi collection is the Hermetic Prayer of Thanksgiving and an excerpt from the Asclepius. These texts, bound together in Nag Hammadi Codex VI with other classical Christian Gnostic texts (e.g., The Authoritative Teaching, The Thunder, Perfect Mind, The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles) evidence the ancient association of Christian and Hermetic Gnosticism -- at very least in the physical grouping of this literature together in the Nag Hammadi codices. The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth Prayer of Thanksgiving Asclepius (21-29). Source: gnosis.org


CONCLUSION 
The Hermetic tradition represents a non-Christian lineage of Hellenistic Gnosticism. The tradition and the date of its writing to at least the first century B.C.E., and the texts we possess were all written prior to the second century C.E. The surviving writings of the tradition, known as the Corpus Hermeticum (the "Hermetic body of writings") were lost to the Latin West after classical times, but survived in eastern Byzantine libraries. Their rediscovery and translation into Latin during the late fifteenth century by the Italian Renaissance court of Cosimo de Medici, provided a seminal force in the development of Renaissance thought and culture. These eighteen tracts of the Corpus Hermeticum, along with the Perfect Sermon (also called the Asclepius), are the foundational documents of the Hermetic tradition. The texts presented are taken from the translation of G.R.S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis, Volume 2 (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1906); they are reproduced completely, with Mead's original footnotes. This document (The Hymns of Hermes) provides singular evidence of the liturgical and experiential elements within the Hermetic tradition.



NOTE:

Listen to an audio lecture by Dr. Stephan Hoeller introducing Hermes: The Thrice Great Hierophant of Gnosis; this lecture provides an excellent introduction to the Hermetic tradition. (The audio is in MP3 format and runs for about 85 minutes). Read the "Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men", the first and key text in the Corpus Hermeticum; follow this with a reading of Mead's Commentary on the Pymander. After that introductory tour, read the introduction and commentaries in Mead's classic work, Thrice-Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis. You might wish to purchase Brian Copenhaver's modern English translation for further reading of the texts themselves: Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation by John Michael Greer




REFERENCES:

• thehermetica.com
• sacred-texts.com
• kemeticinstitute.org
• kemeticexperience.org
• gnosis.org


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