MAGIC 1107 · The Corpus Hermeticum Simulacrum — The Voice of Hermes Trismegistus

Led by The Corpus Hermeticum Simulacrum

1. Module 7 ○ Open

   The Corpus Hermeticum Simulacrum — The Voice of Hermes Trismegistus

   Led by The Corpus Hermeticum Simulacrum

   The question

   The Corpus Hermeticum — eighteen Greek philosophical-religious treatises composed in Egypt between roughly the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, attributed to the legendary figure Hermes Trismegistus (Hermes the Thrice-Greatest, the Greek-Egyptian fusion of the god Thoth with the Greek Hermes) — would, when Marsilio Ficino translated them from Greek into Latin in 1463 (and published the *Pimander* in 1471), trigger a transformation of European intellectual life. The Renaissance read the *Corpus* as a pre-Mosaic revelation, the original ancient theology (*prisca theologia*) of which Plato and Moses were derivatives; the Renaissance was wrong about the dating but right about the importance. What does the Corpus Hermeticum actually say, and what is its place in the Western magical tradition?

   Outcome

   The student has read CH I (*Poimandres*), the *Asclepius*, and CH XIII in modern translation (Copenhaver's *Hermetica* is recommended), an introduction to the Hermetic tradition (Fowden or Ebeling), and can produce a 700-word analytical essay.

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   Practice scenarios

   Reading the Poimandres

   The Corpus Hermeticum Simulacrum walks you through CH I — the *Poimandres* — the foundational treatise of the corpus. Read it in full (Copenhaver translation; about ten pages). Read also one or two other treatises of your choice (CH X *The Key* and CH XIII *On Rebirth* are recommended). Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what does the *Poimandres* claim — the cosmogonic vision, the descent of the soul, the path of return; how does the treatise work as religious-philosophical literature (the dialogue form, the visionary account, the doctrine of cognition as salvation); how does the *Poimandres* relate to its Greek (Stoic, Platonist), Egyptian (Hermes-Thoth tradition), and Jewish (Genesis-echoes) sources; and what is the theological-philosophical core that the Renaissance recovered when Ficino translated it?

   Your goals

   • Read the *Poimandres* and at least one other treatise before drafting.
   • Identify the cosmogonic structure (the descent), the anthropogonic structure (the human being's place in the cosmos), and the soteriological structure (the path of return).
   • Address the syncretic sources — Greek, Egyptian, Jewish.
   • Address the question of dating and what the modern correct dating gains and loses against the Renaissance attribution.
   • 700 words ± 100, scholarly register.

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