Hermetic Corpus

The concept of a Cosmic Man, the All, the soul of both the universe and humanity, was a significant factor in the theosophy of Paracelsus (1493-1541). The first visual depiction of this Being in the form of Christ-Anthropos, the Son of Man, appeared in Khunrath s alchemical treatise in 1595 (fig. 3). It was developed into the image of the Macrocosmic Man by Robert Fludd who was a prolihc encyclopaedist of Hermetic, medical and mechanical knowledge. In his Philosophia Sacra (1626), Fludd recalled texts in the Hermetic corpus (ca. second century AD) which recounted how Man ( Anthropos ), the divine Son of God, had created the world by uniting with Nature ( Physis ). ... 

At the time of the Renaissance, Greek sources became more directly available. For example, the Hermetic Corpus of the legendary Greek alchemist, Hermes Trismegistus (already known through translations from the Arabic), was translated from the Greek by the Neoplatonist philosopher Marcilio Ficino (1433-99) at the behest of Cosimo de Medici.61... 

A.-J. Festugiere, La revelation d Hermes Trismegiste (Paris Lecoffre, 1944-1954), 1.1-18. Arthur Darby Nock, Conversion The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1933). Nock would later collaborate with A.-J. Festugiere to produce the learned, four-volume critical edition of the Hermetic Corpus, Corpus Hermeticum (Paris Les Belles Lettres, 1946-1954). 

To begin to answer this question, we can first divide Christian Gnostic texts from the pagan Hermetica, and consider if the Hermetic corpus might reveal a discrete set of theoretical responses to the cosmos. In so doing, we can gain a broader sense of the way that heimarmene, as a concept, was deployed across a range of Hermetic treatises. 

Copenhaver, Hermetica, 175, records that the word heimarmene occurs ten times in CH XII, 5-9, eight times in the Asclepius (19,39 40) and five times elsewhere in the Greek Hermetic corpus (Poim. 9,15,19 CHXVI, n, 16). 

Greer, John Michael. An Introduction to the Corpus Hermeticum. rhttp //www.hermetic.com/texts/hermetica/ h-intro.htmll. 

Hermes Trismegistus. The Corpus Hermetica, attributed to Hermes Trismestigustus. rhttp //www.hermetics,org/pdf/ corpushermetica.pdfl. 2001. 

Hermes Trismegistus. The Corpus Hermeticum translated by G.R.S. Mead. rhttp //www.hermetic.com/ texts/hermetica/hermesl.htmll. 2001. 

The Hermetic Tradition Represents a Non-Christian Lineage of Hellenistic Gnosticism. The Central Texts of the Tradition, the Corpus Hermeticum Were Lost to the West in Classical Times. Their Rediscovery and Translation During the Late-Fifteenth Century by the Renaissance Court of Cosimo De Medici, Provided a Seminal Force in the Development of Renaissance Thought and Culture. This Translation by G.R.S. Mead Shares 13 of the 18 Tracts. (Retranslated to the Modem by Frater Ego Esse, SOT A). 

V. 1. Introduction, Texts, and Translation — V. 2. Notes on the Corpus Hermeticum — V. 3. Notes on the Latin Asclepius and the Hermetic Excerpts of Stobaeus — V. 4. Testimonia / with Introduction, Addenda and Indices by A.S. Ferguson. 

Entry page to Introduction and urls for 13 documents. "The Corpus Hermeticum are the core documents of the Hermetic tradition. Dating from early in the Christian era, they were mistakenly dated to a much earlier period by Church officials (and everyone else) up until the 15th century. Because of this, they were allowed to survive and we seen as an early precursor to what was to be Christianity. We know today that they were, in fact, from the early Christian era, and came out of the turbulent religious seas of Hellenic Egypt. 

Finally, we note one of the most remarkable traits of this presence of Trismegistus— which is to say, of Hermetism, in the precise sense of the term editions, studies, and commentaries of the Corpus Hermeticum—as his irenical aspect. Wherever Hermes passes, religious tolerance prevails. 

Hermes Trismegistus has been an iconographic subject since the dawn of the Renaissance, even before the rediscovery of the texts of the Corpus Heimeticum. He appeared in both Hermetic and alchemical contexts as a figure quite distinct from the alchemical Hermes-Mercury, whose representations fill the numerous treatises on the Great Work illustrated in the seventeenth century. 

Pico della Mirandola contributed to the success of the Corpus Hermeticum by forging an esoteric alliance between Kabbalism and Hermetism. Out of this was born a Hermetic art, e.g., in Botticelli s Primavera (1478) Siena Cathedral pavement (1488) Borgia Apartments in the Vatican, decorated by Pinturicchio, etc. 

Nova de universis philosophia by Francesco Patrizi (Ferrara, 1591 reissued Venice, 1593), which contains the Corpus Hermeticum after the text of Turnebus and Foix de Candale, together with a new Latin translation and a vigorous defence of Hermetism. 

This Genevan Protestant proved in 1614 De rebus sacris ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI published in London) that the texts of the Corpus Hermeticum are no earlier than the first centuries of the Christian Era. Some Hermetists deliberately ignored this discovery, others remained unaware of it but little by little, Alexandrian Hermetism found fewer admirers and commentators, since it was now known to be far less ancient than had been believed. For the situation in Germany, see above, section 2B. 

Manly Palmer Hall, An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Philosophy (Los Angeles Philosophical Research Society, 1928 reissued 1975,1979), which contains developments on Hermes Trismegistus and the Corpus Hermeticum. 

Real academic study of the Corpus Hermeticum begins with Richard Reitzenstein, the first to undertake the study of these texts with full scientific rigor [Poimandres, Leipzig, 1904). But naturally one should not underestimate some of his predecessors, such as Casaubon, Tiedemann, Menard, Pietschmann, nor even Mead (see above for all of these). Esotericism at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century helped to stimulate erudite research into Hermetism. After Reizenstein, text-criticism and erudition are represented above all by Walter Scott and A. J. Festugiere ... 

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