Corpus Hermeticum
Greek wisdom dialogues from Roman Egypt, pseudepigraphically attributed to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus. Their actual authors are unknown.
- Original byline
- Anonymous
- Published
- Date not recorded
- Form
- Other works
- Authorship
- Still unknown
- Reason for anonymity
- Unrecorded
- Copyright
- Public domain
- Reference
- Wikipedia · Wikidata
The authorship story
The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of Greek theological and philosophical dialogues composed in Egypt in roughly the second and third centuries CE, in which the sage Hermes Trismegistus instructs disciples on the divine mind and the soul's ascent. Hermes Trismegistus is a legendary figure, a Greco-Egyptian fusion of Hermes and Thoth, and the attribution is pseudepigraphic by design: the texts claimed the authority of primordial revelation. Renaissance readers took the attribution seriously and dated the corpus before Moses, an error corrected by Isaac Casaubon in 1614. The real authors, Greek-speaking Egyptians of the Roman era, were never named.
Questions readers ask
Who wrote Corpus Hermeticum?
Nobody knows. No author for Corpus Hermeticum has been identified in the documented record.
Can I read Corpus Hermeticum for free?
Yes. Corpus Hermeticum is in the public domain and the full text is free to read at the Internet Archive.
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