V · Roman Alexandria · c. 100–300 CE

The Greek Hermetica take shape in Roman Egypt

Known · ProbableKnown · ProbableTheir datesConjecturedAlexandria as their milieu

The treatises of the Corpus Hermeticum, the Asclepius and related texts, put in the mouth of Hermes Trismegistus, are probably written in Greek in Roman Egypt, where Greek philosophy met Egyptian temple tradition. Alexandria is likely but unproven.

Who and what

Told stories

Legend: told story

Hermes the ancient sage

Lactantius tells that Hermes Trismegistus lived long before Plato and Pythagoras and foresaw the truth of the Christian faith. Renaissance readers set him in the age of Moses.

Told by Lactantius, c. 303–311 CE, two centuries or more after the Hermetica were written

What the evidence supports

The Greek Hermetica were written in Roman Egypt, probably between about 100 and 300 CE. Isaac Casaubon showed in 1614 that they belong to the Christian era.

Sources (4)
  • Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.6
  • A. Grafton, "Protestant versus Prophet: Isaac Casaubon on Hermes Trismegistus", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 46 (1983) 78–93
  • G. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge, 1986)
  • B. P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation (Cambridge, 1992)
The Hall of Told Stories
Legend: told story

Plato learned from Hermes

Marsilio Ficino, prefacing his Latin Hermetica, sets out a chain of ancient theologians from Hermes Trismegistus through Orpheus and Pythagoras to Plato, so that Plato's wisdom descends from Hermes.

Told by Marsilio Ficino, 1471, some eighteen centuries after Plato

What the evidence supports

The Hermetic treatises are later than Plato and draw on Platonism, not the other way about. The show's hosts make this correction on air, in episode 21.

Sources (2)
  • A. Grafton, "Protestant versus Prophet: Isaac Casaubon on Hermes Trismegistus", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 46 (1983) 78–93
  • B. P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation (Cambridge, 1992)
The Hall of Told Stories

In the show

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Sources (6)
  • Corpus Hermeticum I–XVIII
  • Nag Hammadi Codex VI
  • Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.4.35–37
  • Iamblichus, On the Mysteries 8.1
  • G. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge, 1986)
  • B. P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation (Cambridge, 1992)