Saturday, September 17, 2005

Corpus Hermeticum






Emblem from A. Bocchi
Symbolicarum quaestionum
.
Bologna, 1574







The JR Ritman Biblioteca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam have an exhibition (with some scans) entitled Hermes Trismegistus - Pater Philosophorum. Modern evalutation divides the Hermetic texts into practical - alchemy, magic and astrology - and philosophical works.

In relation to the philosophical Hermetic texts......"The most important works amongst these are: the Latin Asclepius, the translation of which was for a long time wrongly attributed to Apuleius of Madaura (ca 123), the Corpus Hermeticum, fragments of Hermetic texts from the anthology of philosophical works, compiled by Johannes Stobaeus (ca 500), fragments from Lactantius, Cyrillus and others and Hermetic texts from the gnostic library of Nag Hammadi, including Coptic fragments of the Asclepius and the Hermetic definitions (cf Mahé)."

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