An Introduction to the Corpus Hermeticum

by John Michael Greer

The fifteen tractates of the Corpus Hermeticum, along with the Perfect Sermon or Asclepius, are
the foundation documents of the Hermetic tradition. ritten by un!nown authors in "gypt sometime
before the end of the third century C."., they were part of a once substantial literature attributed
to the mythic figure of Hermes Trismegistus, a Hellenistic fusion of the Gree! god Hermes and the
"gyptian god Thoth.
This literature came out of the same religious and philosophical ferment that produced
#eoplatonism, Christianity, and the di$erse collection of teachings usually lumped together under
the label %Gnosticism%& a ferment which had its roots in the impact of 'latonic thought on the older
traditions of the Helleni(ed "ast. There are ob$ious connections and common themes lin!ing each of
these traditions, although each had its own answer to the ma)or *uestions of the time.
The treatises we now call the Corpus Hermeticum were collected into a single $olume in +y(antine
times, and a copy of this $olume sur$i$ed to come into the hands of ,oren(o de Medici-s agents in
the fifteenth century. Marsilio .icino, the head of the .lorentine Academy, was pulled off the tas! of
translating the dialogues of 'lato in order to put the Corpus Hermeticum into ,atin first. His
translation saw print in /012, and was reprinted at least twenty3two times o$er the ne4t century
and a half.
The treatises di$ide up into se$eral groups. The first 5CH I6, the %'oemandres%, is the account of a
re$elation gi$en to Hermes Trismegistus by the being 'oemandres or %Man37hepherd%, an e4pression
of the uni$ersal Mind. The ne4t eight 5CH II3I86, the %General 7ermons%, are short dialogues or
lectures discussing $arious basic points of Hermetic philosophy. There follows the %9ey% 5CH 86, a
summary of the General 7ermons, and after this a set of four tractates 3 %Mind unto Hermes%, %About
the Common Mind%, %The 7ecret 7ermon on the Mountain%, and the %,etter of Hermes to Asclepius%
5CH 8I38I:6 3 touching on the more mystical aspects of Hermeticism. The collection is rounded off by
the %;efinitions of Asclepius unto 9ing Ammon% 5CH 8:6, which may be composed of three fragments
of longer wor!s.
The Perfect Sermon
The Perfect Sermon or Asclepius, which is also included here, reached the <enaissance by a
different route. It was translated into ,atin in ancient times, reputedly by the same ,ucius Apuleius
of Madaura whose comic3serious masterpiece The Golden Ass pro$ides some of the best sur$i$ing
e$idence on the worship of Isis in the <oman world. Augustine of Hippo *uotes from the old ,atin
translation at length in his City of God, and copies remained in circulation in medie$al "urope all
the way up to the <enaissance. The original Gree! $ersion was lost, although *uotations sur$i$e in
se$eral ancient sources.
The 'erfect 7ermon is substantially longer than any other sur$i$ing wor! of ancient Hermetic
philosophy. It co$ers topics which also occur in the Corpus Hermeticum, but touches on se$eral
other issues as well 3 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 Significance of the Hermetic Writings
The Corpus Hermeticum landed li!e a well3aimed bomb amid the philosophical systems of late
medie$al "urope. =uotations from the Hermetic literature in the Church .athers 5who were ne$er
shy of leaning on pagan sources to pro$e a point6 accepted a traditional chronology which dated
%Hermes Trismegistus,% as a historical figure, to the time of Moses. As a result, the Hermetic
tractates- borrowings from Jewish scripture and 'latonic philosophy were seen, in the <enaissance,
as e$idence that the Corpus Hermeticum had anticipated and influenced both. The Hermetic
philosophy was seen as a primordial wisdom tradition, identified with the %isdom of the "gyptians%
mentioned in Exodus and lauded in 'latonic dialogues such as the Timaeus. It thus ser$ed as a useful
club in the hands of intellectual rebels who sought to brea! the stranglehold of Aristotelian
scholasticism on the uni$ersities at this time.
It also pro$ided one of the most important weapons to another ma)or rebellion of the age 3 the
attempt to reestablish magic as a socially acceptable spiritual path in the Christian est. Another
body of literature attributed to Hermes Trismegistus was made up of astrological, alchemical and
magical te4ts. If, as the scholars of the <enaissance belie$ed, Hermes was a historical person who
had written all these things, and if Church .athers had *uoted his philosophical wor!s with
appro$al, and if those same wor!s could be shown to be wholly in !eeping with some definitions of
Christianity, then the whole structure of magical Hermeticism could be gi$en a second3hand
legitimacy in a Christian conte4t.
This didn-t wor!, of course> the radical redefinition of estern Christianity that too! place in the
<eformation and Counter3<eformation hardened doctrinal barriers to the point that people were
being burned in the si4teenth century for practices that were considered e$idences of de$outness in
the fourteenth. The attempt, though, made the language and concepts of the Hermetic tractates
central to much of post3medie$al magic in the est.
The Translation
The translation of the Corpus Hermeticum and Perfect Sermon gi$en here is that of G.<.7. Mead
5/?123/@226, originally published as :ol. A of his Thrice Greatest Hermes 5,ondon, /@B16. Mead was
a close associate of Helena 'etro$na +la$ats!y, the founder and mo$ing spirit of the Theosophical
7ociety, and most of his considerable scholarly output was brought out under Theosophical auspices.
The result, predictably, was that most of that output has effecti$ely been blac!listed in academic
circles e$er since.
This is unfortunate, for Mead-s translations of the Hermetic literature were until *uite recently the
best a$ailable in "nglish. 5They are still the best in the public domain> thus their use here.6 The
"$erard translation of /1CB, which is still in print, reflects the state of scholarship at the time it was
made 3 which is only a criticism because a few things ha$e been learned since thenD The alter
7cott translation 3 despite the co$er blurb on the recent 7hambhala reprint, this is not the 7ir
alter 7cott of Ivanhoe fame 3 while more recent than Mead-s, is a product of the %#ew Criticism% of
the first half of this century, and garbles the te4t se$erely> scholars of Hermeticism of the caliber of
;ame .rances Eates ha$e labeled the 7cott translation worthless. +y contrast, a comparison of
Mead-s $ersion to the e4cellent modern translation by +rian Copenha$er, or to the translations of CH
I 5'oemandres6 and :II 5The Greatest Ill Among Men is Ignorance of God6 gi$en in +entley ,ayton-s
The Gnostic Scriptures, shows Mead as a capable translator, with a usually solid grasp of the
meaning of these sometimes obscure te4ts.
There is admittedly one problem with Mead-s translation& the aesthetics of the "nglish te4t. Mead
hoped, as he mentioned at the beginning of Thrice Greatest Hermes, to %render...these beautiful
theosophic treatises into an "nglish that might, perhaps, be thought in some small way worthy of
the Gree! originals.% Fnfortunately for this ambition, he was writing at a time when the last
remnants of the florid and pompous :ictorian style were fighting it out with the more
straightforward collo*uial prose that became the style of the new century. Caught in this tangle li!e
so many writers of the time, Mead wanted to write in the grand style but apparently didn-t !now
how. The result is a sometimes bi(arre mishmash in which turn3of3the3century slang stands chee! by
)owl with o$erblown phrases in 9ing James +ible diction, and in which mishandled archaicisms,
in$erted word order, and poetic contractions render the te4t less than graceful 3 and occasionally
less than readable. 7een from a late twentieth century sensibility, the result $erges on unintentional
self3parody in places& for e4ample, where Mead uses the 7cots contraction %ta-en% 5for %ta!en%6,
apparently for sheer poetic color, calling up an image of Hermes Trismegistus in !ilt and sporran.
The %poetic% word order is probably the most serious barrier to readability> it-s a good rule,
whene$er the translation seems to descend into gibberish, to try shuffling the words of the sentence
in *uestion. It may also be worth noting that Mead consistently uses %for that% in place of %because%
and %aught% in place of %any%, and lea$es out the word %the% more or less at random.
.inally, comments in 5parentheses6 and in Gs*uare brac!etsH are in Mead-s original> those in Iangle
brac!etsJ are my own additions.