This page groups esoteric texts by the wider tradition their translation and study belong to. Wikipedia notes that "following their translation into Latin by Ficino and Lazzarelli, the Corpus Hermeticum greatly influenced the Western esoteric tradition." Browsing by text family lets a visitor find every text that shaped the same later tradition.
Facts
Origins
Era of Compositionc. 100-300 CE. The traditional dating to a sage contemporary with Moses is not the scholarly one. 2 Place of Origin Attributed Author / CompilerAscribed to Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary Egyptian sage identified with Thoth. Isaac Casaubon demonstrated in 1614 that the Greek treatises belong to the early Christian centuries, not to pharaonic Egypt. 3 LanguageKoine Greek; the Asclepius survives in Latin 2 Origin of the NameHermes Trismegistus, "thrice-greatest Hermes", the Greek name of the Egyptian Thoth. 2 Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe corpus circulating under the name of Hermes Trismegistus: the Greek philosophical treatises of the Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius, teaching the ascent of the mind to God. 2 Learn More
The Hermetic texts
This group gathers texts of the Hermetic tradition, the body of writing attributed to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus, a figure who fused the Greek Hermes with the Egyptian Thoth. The core is the Greek philosophical treatises of the early centuries CE known as the Corpus Hermeticum, teaching the ascent of the soul and the divine mind, alongside the technical Hermetica on astrology, alchemy and magic.
The browser will find the foundational works of this tradition. The entries describe each text's teaching, authorship and dating, noting the tradition's ascription to a mythical ancient sage and the later, often Renaissance, recovery of these writings.
Text Family
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius
Brian P. Copenhaver, Cambridge University Press, 1992introductionView the Source 3. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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