Hermetica

Hermetica is a category of popular Late Antique literature purporting to contain secret wisdom, and generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth. A collection of several such Greek texts from the second and third centuries, survivors from a more extensive literature, were compiled into a Corpus Hermeticum by Italian scholars during the Renaissance. Other Hermetic works, however, existed in Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, and other languages.

Character of the texts

Most of the texts are presented in the form of a dialogue, a favorite form for didactic material in Antiquity. The subject-matter of Hermetic books is wide-ranging. Some deal with alchemy, magic, and related concepts. Others contain speculation reminiscent of gnosticism or Neoplatonism.

Related Topics:
Antiquity - Alchemy - Magic - Gnosticism - Neoplatonism

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Dating

While they are difficult to date with precision, the texts of the Corpus were likely composed between the first and third centuries AD.

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During the Renaissance, these texts were all believed to be of ancient Egyptian origin, and even today some readers believe them to date from pharaonic Egypt. However, by studying the vocabulary of the texts, the classical scholar Isaac Casaubon showed in 1614 that some of the texts (mainly those dealing with philosophy) betrayed a vocabulary too recent to be so old. Recent research, while affirming the late dating, suggests more continuity with the culture of Pharaonic Egypt than had previously been thought (see Fowden, 1986), though it would be fair to assess the corpus Hermeticum as intellectually eclectic http://www.granta.demon.co.uk/arsm/jg/corpus.html.

Related Topics:
Pharaonic Egypt - Isaac Casaubon - 1614

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Influences and style

The books now known as the Corpus Hermeticum were part of a renaissance of syncretistic and intellectualized pagan thought that took place around the 2nd century AD. Other examples of this cultural moment would include Neoplatonist philosophy, the Chaldaean Oracles, late Orphic and Pythagorean literature, as well as much of Gnosticism.

Related Topics:
Syncretistic - 2nd century AD - Neoplatonist philosophy - Chaldaean Oracles - Orphic - Pythagorean - Gnosticism

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Unlike some Gnostic writings, the Hermetica contain no explicit allusions to Jewish or Christian texts — and this choice seems deliberate. They do, however, contain some unconscious echoes of Biblical themes, underscoring the close if uneasy intermingling of Jewish, Greek and Egyptian currents in Hellenistic Alexandria. Unlike Orphic literature, the works of the Hermetica are unconcerned with the genealogical tedia of Greek mythology. And compared with Chaldaean Oracles and Neoplatonist philosophy, the Hermetic texts dwell far less on the technical minutiae of metaphysical philosophy: their concerns are practical in nature.

Related Topics:
Gnostic - Jewish - Christian - Hellenistic - Alexandria - Orphic - Greek mythology - Chaldaean Oracles - Neoplatonist

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The predominant literary form is the dialogue: Hermes Trismegistus instructs a perplexed disciple on some point of hidden wisdom. The dialogue itself is played out upon a spectral canvas of hoary temples marked with hieratic inscriptions, most of which the authors of these works would have been unable to read.

Related Topics:
Hermes Trismegistus - Hieratic

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Authorship and audience

Although they often claim to be copies of Egyptian priestly texts or reports of conversations in Egyptian, Hellenisms in the language itself point to the Hermetica 's original Greek. Nevertheless, it is likely that the pseudonymous authors considered themselves Egyptians rather than Alexandrian Greeks, since there are many affirmations of the superiority of the Egyptian language, and the Asclepius contains a bloody prophecy about the expulsion of "foreigners" from Egypt.

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Renaissance enthusiasts often pointed to Hermetic documents as the apex of pagan thought. Several factors, however, suggest that the tracts had a more popular character. For example, Neoplatonist philosophers, who happily and prolifically quote apocryphal works of Orpheus, Zoroaster, Pythagoras and other legendary figures, almost never cite Hermes. The anti-Greek and anti-Roman attitudes present in the texts reinforce their subaltern character. The Corpus Hermeticum therefore offers us an almost unparalleled view into the religious thinking of non-elite and politically marginal pagans under the Roman Empire.

Related Topics:
Neoplatonist - Orpheus - Zoroaster - Pythagoras - Hermes

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Another question persists: did the "Hermetists" who produced and read these books constitute a kind of "sect", comparable to Gnostic groups? Certainly, Hermetic writings were of interests to members of alternative religious communities: parts of the Hermetica appeared in the 4th-century Gnostic library found in Nag Hammadi. On the other hand, the diffuseness in style and subject matter, the widespread distribution of the texts, and also the ease with which anonymous tracts can be produced, would suggest that a great many of the texts were produced by lone individuals or small groups without formal organization.

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Hermetica outside the corpus

Although the most famous exemplars of Hermetic literature were products of Greek-speakers under Roman rule, the genre did not suddenly stop with the fall of the Empire, nor was it confined to the Greek language. Rather, Hermetic literature continued to be produced, in Coptic, Syriac, Arabic, Armenian and Byzantine Greek. The most famous example of this later Hermetica is the Emerald Tablet, known from medieval Latin and Arabic manuscripts, with a possible Syriac source. Sadly, little else of this rich literature is easily accessible to non-specialists.

Related Topics:
Greek - Coptic - Syriac - Arabic - Armenian - Emerald Tablet

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