Biography
Hermes Trismegistus is the purported author of the Hermetic Corpus, a series of sacred texts that are the basis of Hermeticism. The Asclepius and the Corpus Hermeticum are the most important of the Hermetica. These texts were very popular during the Middle Ages. Hermes Trismegistus was credited with tens of thousands of highly esteemed writings, which were once thought to be of immense antiquity. This has since been disproved and they are now believed to be of multiple authorship. Frances Yates describes them in "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition" as:
"...they were certainly not written in remotest antiquity by an all wise Egyptian priest, as the Renaissance believed, but by various unknown authors, all probably Greeks, and they contain popular Greek philosophy of the period, a mixture of Platonism and Stoicism, combined with some Jewish and probably some Persian influences".pp. 2–3
Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:
part
Identifier: MS 121/ff. 1r-2v
Contents
The text appears to be the beginning of a commentary on the Liber Rebis (also known as Liber Dabessi and Liber Hermetis de alchimia), a dialogue between two characters called Mercher and Fledium attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, legendary man of wisdom and alleged author of the Corpus Hermeticum (the name 'Mercher' could be a corrupition of 'Hermes'). The ...
Dates:
15th century
Part
Identifier: MS 16/ff. 192r-198r
Scope and Contents
This section of the manuscript contains the Asclepius, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, but probably by Apuleius. (Virtually all literature ascribed to the name Hermes Trismegistus is incorrectly attributed. Individual works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus are authorised under the title in Library of Congress authority files.) The text is in fact a dialogue between Hermes Trismegistus and Asclepius on cosmological and theological ideas. It is thought to...
Dates:
12th century
