The Hermetica: old writings and their rediscovery

The legend is one side. The other side is the texts that have actually survived. What do we know about them?

The Hermetic writings

A group of old texts is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Together they are called the Hermetica. The best known is the Corpus Hermeticum, a collection of philosophical dialogues in Greek.

It is assumed that these writings were composed in Egypt between the 1st and 3rd centuries of our era. Egypt was then a place where Greek and Egyptian thought met. The dialogues ask questions that also run through the Kybalion: How is the One connected to the many? What is the mind? How can a person come to know the divine?

Hermes, seen by historians

Historians suggest that Hermes Trismegistus was not a single historical person. He is seen as a figure who grew out of two gods: the Greek Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth. Both were linked to writing, language and wisdom. So the legend in the Kybalion and the view of history point in different directions. We let both stand, clearly apart.

Rediscovered in Florence

In the 1460s, the scholar Marsilio Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin in Florence. His patron Cosimo de' Medici asked him to translate these writings first, even before continuing his translation of Plato. For about 150 years, many European thinkers believed these texts were extremely old, older than Moses and Plato. They had a strong influence on the thought of the Renaissance.

In 1614, the scholar Isaac Casaubon examined the language of the writings. He concluded that they were written in the early centuries of our era. Among scholars, the image of an ancient Egyptian revelation faded. The fascination with them did not.

The Emerald Tablet

A short and famous text is also linked to Hermes: the Emerald Tablet. It is assumed that it reached Europe through Arabic versions from the early Middle Ages and later Latin translations. The idea of "as above, so below" is often traced back to it. You will meet this phrase again in the Principle of Correspondence.

A find in the desert

In 1945, farmers near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt found a jar with old books from the 4th century. Most of them contain Gnostic writings. But among them were also Hermetic texts, including one that had been unknown until then. It describes a spiritual ascent that a teacher and a student go through together. The find shows that Hermetic texts were read and passed on in Egypt in late antiquity.