Marsilio Ficino De Potestate et Sapientia Dei title page

The is a collection of 17

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

writings whose authorship is traditionally attributed to the legendary

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

figure

Hermes Trismegistus Hermes Trismegistus (from , "Hermes the Thrice-Greatest") is a legendary Hellenistic period figure that originated as a syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth.A survey of the literary and archaeological eviden ...

, a

syncretic Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus ...

combination of the Greek god

Hermes Hermes (; ) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quic ...

and the Egyptian god

Thoth Thoth (from , borrowed from , , the reflex of " eis like the ibis") is an ancient Egyptian deity. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an African sacred ibis, ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine count ...

. The treatises were originally written between and , but the collection as known today was first compiled by medieval

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

editors. It was translated into

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

in the 15th century by the Italian humanist scholars

Marsilio Ficino Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of Neo ...

(1433–1499) and

Lodovico Lazzarelli Ludovico Lazzarelli (4 February 1447 – 23 June 1500) was an Italian poet, philosopher, courtier, hermeticist and (likely) magician (paranormal), magician and diviner of the early Renaissance. Born at San Severino Marche, he had contact with ma ...

(1447–1500). Although the Latin word is usually reserved for the entire body of extant writings related to some author or subject, the contains only a very small selection of extant Hermetic texts (texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, commonly known as ). Its individual treatises were quoted by many authors from the second and third centuries on, but the compilation as such is first attested only in the writings of the Byzantine philosopher

Michael Psellus Michael Psellos or Psellus (, ) was a Byzantine Greek monk, savant, writer, philosopher, imperial courtier, historian and music theorist. He was born in 1017 or 1018, and is believed to have died in 1078, although it has also been maintained tha ...

(c. 1017–1078). Following their translation into Latin by Ficino and Lazzarelli, the greatly influenced the Western esoteric tradition. It was especially considered to be important during the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

and the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

, in which

Hermeticism Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical and religious tradition rooted in the teachings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretism, syncretic figure combining elements of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. This system e ...

would often function as a type of intermediate position between Christianity and paganism. Hermes' perceived antiquity ensured that any writing attributed to him would take an important place in Ficino's doctrine of the ('ancient theology'), which affirms that a single, true theology exists that is present in all religions and that was given by God to humankind in the distant, primeval past.

Background

Most of the texts are presented in the form of a dialogue, a favorite form for didactic material in

Classical antiquity Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...

. The most well known treatise in the is its opening treatise, which is called the '' Poimandres''. However, at least until the 19th century, this name (under various forms, such as ''Pimander'' or ''Pymander'') was also commonly used to designate the compilation as a whole. The 15th-century translation of the into Latin provided a seminal impetus in the development of Renaissance thought and culture, having a profound impact on philosophers such as Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494),

Giordano Bruno Giordano Bruno ( , ; ; born Filippo Bruno; January or February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian philosopher, poet, alchemist, astrologer, cosmological theorist, and esotericist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which concep ...

(1548–1600), Francesco Patrizi (1529–1597), Robert Fludd (1574–1637), and many others.

Latin translation

In 1462,

(1433–1499) was working on a Latin translation of the collected works of

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

for his patron Cosimo de' Medici (the first member of the famous de' Medici family who ruled

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

during the

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( ) was a period in History of Italy, Italian history between the 14th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked t ...

). However, when a manuscript of the became available, he immediately interrupted his work on Plato in order to start translating the works of Hermes, which at the time were thought to be much more ancient, and therefore much more authoritative, than those of Plato. While Ficino translated the first fourteen treatises (I–XIV),

(1447–1500) translated the remaining three (XVI–XVIII). The Chapter no. XV of early modern editions was once filled with an entry from the

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...

(a tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia) and three excerpts from Hermetic works preserved by Joannes Stobaeus (fl. fifth century), but this chapter was left out in later editions, which therefore contain no chapter XV.

Names of the treatises

The treatises contained in the are:. *I. Discourse of Poimandres to

*II. Hermes to

Asclepius Asclepius (; ''Asklēpiós'' ; ) is a hero and god of medicine in ancient Religion in ancient Greece, Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology. He is the son of Apollo and Coronis (lover of Apollo), Coronis, or Arsinoe (Greek myth), Ars ...

*III. A sacred discourse of Hermes *IV. A discourse of Hermes to Tat: The mixing bowl or the monad *V. A discourse of Hermes to Tat, his son: That god is invisible and entirely visible *VI. Hermes to Asclepius: That the good is in god alone and nowhere else *VII. That the greatest evil in mankind is ignorance concerning god *VIII. Hermes to Tat: That none of the things that are is destroyed, and they are mistaken who say that changes are deaths and destructions *IX. Hermes to Asclepius: On understanding and sensation: hat the beautiful and good are in god alone and nowhere else*X. Hermes to Tat: The key *XI. Mind (''

Nous ''Nous'' (, ), from , is a concept from classical philosophy, sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, for the cognitive skill, faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is truth, true or reality, real. Alternative Eng ...

'') to Hermes *XII. Hermes to Tat: On the mind shared in common *XIII. Hermes to Tat, a secret dialogue on the mountain: On being born again, and on the promise to be silent *XIV. Hermes to Asclepius: health of mind *XVI. Asclepius to King Ammon: Definitions on god, matter, vice, fate, the sun, intellectual essence, divine essence, mankind, the arrangement of the plenitude, the seven stars, and mankind according to the image *XVII. Asclepius to King Ammon *XVIII. Tat to a king: On the soul hindered by the body's affections

Notes

References

Works cited

* * * * * *

External links

* {{Internet Archive, id=hermetica-_-the-greek-corpus-hermeticum-and-the-latin-asclepius-in-a-new-english , name=Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum And The Latin Asclepius In A New English Translation, author=Copenhaver, Brian P. 15th-century books in Latin 16th-century books in Latin Ancient Greek philosophical literature Ancient Greek pseudepigrapha Greek pseudepigrapha Hermetica Latin pseudepigrapha Renaissance Latin literature Texts in Koine Greek Visionary literature Works of unknown authorship