tradition
Hermeticism
A body of late antique and later writings that treat knowledge, cosmos, and craft as things that can be taught under the name of Hermes.
Also known as Hermetica
Meetings with this tradition
Hermeticism is connected to Alchemy.
Later readers bound Hermetic treatises to laboratory alchemy. The bond is historical and partial, not a single origin.
from Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet), medieval Latin tradition (Arabic antecedents); Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
connected to · partially sourced · culturally specific
Hermeticism is connected to Knowledge.
Hermeticism is a tradition of claimed teaching. Its page should walk to knowledge as the treatises frame it.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
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Hermes appears in Hermeticism.
Hermetic treatises take Hermes as teacher. The Hermes of the hymn and the Hermes of the treatises should not be collapsed.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
appears in · sourced · culturally specific
Three appears in Hermeticism.
Hermes Trismegistus is “thrice-great” in later naming. The three is a title’s boast, not a cosmological law of triads.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
appears in · partially sourced · culturally specific
Knowledge appears in Hermeticism.
Hermetic treatises are framed as teaching. The knowledge they promise is a late antique literary knowledge, not Thoth’s scribal office in the Duat.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
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Thoth appears in Hermeticism.
Hermetic literature claims Egyptian Thoth as an ancestor of its Hermes. The appearance is the treatises’ genealogy, not an Old Kingdom fact.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
appears in · sourced · culturally specific
Key appears in Hermeticism.
Hermetic diction of keys and unlocking is the treatises’ own metaphor of teaching.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
appears in · partially sourced · culturally specific
Late antiquity
Late antiquity is associated with Hermeticism.
Hermetic treatises are late antique Greek. A period, not a pharaonic archive.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
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Meetings in this tradition's context
Hermes is a counterpart of Thoth.
The Corpus Hermeticum speaks under the name of Hermes in a voice that claims Egyptian wisdom. That is a late antique identification of two figures, not proof they were always one being.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
counterpart of · sourced · culturally specific
Key is associated with Knowledge.
Hermetic and later occult diction calls a teaching a key. That is a metaphor of access, not a physical lock at Hades’ gate.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
associated with · partially sourced · culturally specific
Writing is associated with Hermes.
The Homeric hymn’s Hermes invents a lyre and bargains in speech. Later Hermetic books make him a teacher of written secrets; those are two Hermeses.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
associated with · partially sourced · culturally specific
sources
- Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet)
Tabula Smaragdina, medieval Latin Emerald Tablet.
- Corpus Hermeticum · Brian P. Copenhaver (translation)
Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica (Corpus Hermeticum).