HERMETICA

 HERMETICA

THE ANCIENT GREEK AND LATIN WRITINGS WHICH CONTAIN RELIGIOUS OR PHILOSOPHICAL TEACHINGS ASCRIBED TO HERMES TRISMEGISTUS.

Edited with English translation.

by

Walter Scott

INTRODUCTION

THE Hermetica may be described as those Greek and Latin writings which contain religious or philosophical teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus' It does not much matter whether we say religious or philosophic'; the writers in question taught philosophical doctrines, but valued those doctrines only as means or aids to religion.

There is, besides these, another class of documents, the contents of which are also ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus; namely, writings concerning astrology, magic, alchemy, and kindred forms of pseudoscience. But in the character of their contents these latter differ fundamentally from the former. The two classes of writers agreed in ascribing what they wrote to Hermes, but in nothing else. They had little or nothing to do with one another; they were of very different mental caliber ; and it is in most cases easy to decide at a glance whether a given document is to be assigned to the one class or to the other. We are therefore justified in treating the religious or 'philosophic Hermetica as a class apart, and, for our present purpose, ignoring the masses of rubbish which fall under the other head.

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