The Corpus Hermeticum

Archive Notes

The Hermetic tradition represents a non-Christian lineage of Hellenistic Gnosticism. The central texts of the tradition, the Corpus Hermeticum were lost to the West in classical times. Their rediscovery and translation during the late-fifteenth century by the Renaissance court of Cosimo de Medici, provided a seminal force in the development of Renaissance thought and culture. The complete Corpus Hermeticum is comprised of 18 tracts. Only the first and primary thirteen of these are presently contained in our library. The texts presented here are taken from the very fine translation of G.R.S. Mead, Thrice Great Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis, Volume II (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1906).

The Corpus Hermeticum

 

I.	Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men
II.	To Asclepius
III.	The Sacred Sermon
IV.	The Cup or Monad
V.	Though Unmanifest God Is Most Manifest
VI.	In God Alone Is Good And Elsewhere Nowhere
VII.	The Greatest Ill Among Men is Ignorance of God
VIII.	That No One of Existing Things doth Perish, but Men in Error Speak of Their Changes as Destructions and as Deaths
IX.	On Thought and Sense
X.	The Key
XI.	Mind Unto Hermes
XII.	About the Common Mind
XIII.	The Secret Sermon on the Mountain