The Corpus Hermeticum

In brief

A collection of seventeen short Greek dialogues attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, 'thrice-great Hermes', a fusion of the Greek Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth. Written in Roman Egypt, they teach that God is Mind, that the cosmos is alive and full of the divine, and that a human being, who carries a spark of that Mind, can return to the source through knowledge. When Marsilio Ficino translated them into Latin in 1463 (printed 1471), Renaissance readers believed them older than Moses, and they shaped magic, art and philosophy for two centuries.

Key ideas

• ✦God is Mind (Nous), and the cosmos is a living image of God
• ✦The human being is a 'mortal god' with a divine origin
• ✦Salvation is gnosis: knowledge that brings rebirth
• ✦The soul ascends through the planetary spheres (the Poimandres)

Why it matters

The Hermetica are the root of 'Hermetic' philosophy, the source of the idea of correspondence between heaven and earth, and the inspiration for the Renaissance magus. In 1614 Isaac Casaubon showed they were written in the early Christian era, not ancient Egypt, but their influence was already immense.

“If then thou dost not make thyself like unto God, thou canst not know Him; for like is knowable to like alone.”