Adam Stokes: Hermes and the Hermetica
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Adam Stokes: Hermes and the Hermetica
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Hermetic writings, works of revelation on occult, theological, and https://www.britannica.com/topic/Greek-philosophy subjects ascribed to the Egyptian god https://www.britannica.com/topic/Thoth (Greek https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hermes-Trismegistos-Egyptian-god [Hermes the Thrice-Greatest]), who was believed to be the inventor of...
show moreIn the Hellenistic age there was a growing distrust of traditional Greek rationalism and a breaking down of the distinction between science and religion. Hermes-Thoth was but one of the gods and prophets (chiefly Oriental) to whom people turned for a divinely revealed wisdom.In this period the works ascribed to Hermes Trismegistos were primarily on astrology; to these were later added treatises on medicine, alchemy (Tabula Smaragdina [“Emerald Tablet”], a favourite source for medieval alchemists), and magic. The underlying concept of astrology—that the cosmos constituted a unity and that all parts of it were interdependent—was basic also to the other occult sciences. To make this principle effective in practice (and Hermetic “science” was intensely utilitarian), it was necessary to know the laws of sympathy and antipathy by which the parts of the universe were related. But because these assumed affinities did not, in fact, exist and hence could not be discovered by ordinary scientific methods, recourse had to be made to divine revelation. The aim of Hermetism, like that of Gnosticism (a contemporary religious-philosophical movement), was the deification or rebirth of mortals through the knowledge (gnosis) of the one transcendent God, the world, and humankind.
The theological writings are represented chiefly by the 17 treatises of the Corpus Hermeticum, by extensive fragments in the Anthologion (Anthology) of Stobaeus, and by a Latin translation of the Asclepius, preserved among the works of Apuleius. Though the setting of these is Egyptian, the philosophy is Greek. The Hermetic writings, in fact, present a fusion of Eastern religious elements with Platonic, Stoic, and Neo-Pythagorean philosophies. It is unlikely, however, that there was any well-defined Hermetic community, or “church.”Hermetism was extensively cultivated by the Arabs, and through them it reached and influenced the West. There are frequent allusions to Hermes Trismegistos in late medieval and in Renaissance literature.
Adam Oliver Stokes, M.Div. holds degrees in religion from Duke University and Yale Divinity School. He has published on a variety of topics, including biblical studies, Mormon studies, Classical studies, and ancient American history. He is the author of From Egypt to Ohio: A Semitic Origin for the Giants of North America and Perspectives on the Old Testament: Diverse Perspectives from Ancient to Modern Times. Stokes teaches high school Latin in New Jersey and a course on the Old Testament at Saint Joseph's University.
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