The Way of Hermes: New Translations of the Corpus Hermeticum and the Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius

“The Corpus Hermeticum” is a collection of short philosophical treatises, a powerful fusion of Greek and Egyptian thought, written in Greek in Alexandria between the first and third centuries AD and rediscovered in the West in the fifteenth century when it was first translated into Latin by the great scholar and philosopher Marsilio Ficino. These writing were believed from antiquity up to the early seventeenth century to be the writings of Hermes Trismegistus, ‘thrice-great Hermes’, the name given by Greeks of the classical and Hellenistic periods to the Ibis-headed Egyptian god Thoth. They were central to the spiritual work of Hermetic societies in late antique Alexandria, aiming to awake gnosis, the direct realisation of the truth of the identity of the individual and the Supreme, and are still read as inspirational writings today. Professor Mahe's translation of “The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius” has been made from an old Armenian version and a recently rediscovered Greek manuscript in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. This collection of aphorisms is closely related to parts of the "Corpus Hermeticum".