1st–3rd century CE · the named author of the Hermetica
Hermes Trismegistus
Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος
"Thrice-greatest Hermes", the Greek name for the Egyptian god Thoth as a teacher of wisdom, under whose name the Hermetic treatises were written in Roman Egypt. The dates are those of the Greek texts. Renaissance readers took him for a sage of the age of Moses; Isaac Casaubon showed in 1614 that the texts are of the Christian era.
Their life and work
The name grew from Egypt's own titles for Thoth, 'great, great, great' in Egyptian inscriptions, which Greek rendered as 'thrice-greatest'. Clement already knew forty-two books of Hermes carried by the priests in procession, and the Greek treatises now called the Corpus Hermeticum were written in Roman Egypt, probably between the first and third centuries CE. The Poimandres, the first of them, is a revelation given to an unnamed seeker.
To Renaissance readers he was a man, an Egyptian sage of the age of Moses, whose books Marsilio Ficino translated for Cosimo de' Medici in 1463 before he finished Plato. The man is a figure of the texts and of their readers. Legend: told story
Our device: Their emblem is a herald's staff. No portrait of any of these people survives. The emblems are our devices.
Moments
- c. 100–300 CE · The Greek Hermetica take shape in Roman Egypt Known: probable
- 1463–1471 CE · Ficino translates the Hermetica into Latin Known: attested
- 1614 CE · Casaubon dates the Hermetica to the Christian era Known: attested
In the show
- Hermes Trismegistus Anachronism Clarified, episode 21, at 36 minutes 47 secondsTranscriptThe Plato–Hermes anachronism corrected.Legend: told story
- Hermes Trismegistus: Historical vs Mythic Figure, episode 21, at 45 minutes 56 secondsTranscriptHistorical versus mythic Hermes (station 1 of Foundations of Hermeticism).Legend: told story
- Thoth, Divine Knowledge & Sacred Authorship, episode 21, at 1 hour 3 minutes 53 secondsTranscriptLegend: told story
+ 12 more
- Hermes Trismegistus as Archetype, Not Deity, episode 21, at 1 hour 11 minutes 10 secondsTranscriptLegend: told story
- Thoth, Nous & the Divine Mind, episode 21, at 1 hour 12 minutes 17 secondsTranscriptThoth, Nous and the divine mind in the modern orders.Legend: told story
- Plato: Philosophy, Truth & Misconceptions, episode 21, at 36 minutes 14 secondsTranscript“it's anacronistic to think that Plato Plato learned from Hermes Trish Migistus” (intended: Trismegistus)The co-host's correction, which the next chapter develops.Legend: told story
- Hermes Trismegistus: Historical vs Mythic Figure, episode 21, at 45 minutes 56 secondsTranscript“up until fairly recently it was believed that um Hermes Tris Meistus was a contemporary of Moses the biblical patriarch.”The redating is Casaubon's (1614).Legend: told story
- Hermes Trismegistus as Archetype, Not Deity, episode 21, at 1 hour 11 minutes 10 secondsTranscript“Hermes Tris Magajistus was not a god.”Legend: told story
- Pythagoras in Egypt: Initiation & Study, episode 20, at 40 minutes 11 secondsTranscript“Plato talks about the Egyptian god thought you know writing see this great scribe god who invented did numbers, letters, and words”Phaedrus 274c–275b: Theuth (Thoth) invents number, calculation, geometry, astronomy, draughts, dice and letters.Legend: told story
- Path: Foundations of Hermeticism, station 1Meet Thrice-Greatest Hermes. Meet Thrice-Greatest Hermes.Legend: told story
- Hermeticism · Chronology: Thoth becomes Hermes TrismegistusThoth becomes Hermes Trismegistus.Legend: told story
- Decan CalculatorThe decans, Egyptian star-clocks absorbed into Hellenistic astrology; the brief lists Hermeticism among its subjects.Legend: told story
- Fixed StarsThe Behenian stars come from the Liber Hermetis de quindecim stellis, a Latin text of the 12th–13th century: Hermes as an authority-name long after Alexandria.Legend: told story
Sources (5)
- 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)
- Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.4.35–37
- C. H. Bull, The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus: The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom (Leiden: Brill, 2018)
- A. Grafton, "Protestant versus Prophet: Isaac Casaubon on Hermes Trismegistus", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 46 (1983) 78–93