Hermes Trismegistus
legendary (Greco-Egyptian) legendary sage, reputed author of the Hermetic texts
The legendary sage credited as the source of the Hermetic writings.
- Religion
- Hermeticism, the body of teaching later attributed to him, blending Egyptian and Greek ideas about the divine mind, the correspondence of macrocosm and microcosm, and spiritual ascent.
- Affiliations
- None documented. A legendary figure, not a historical person.
Hermes Trismegistus is a legendary figure, not a documented historical person. Ancient and medieval writers treated him as a fusion of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth, and credited him with the Corpus Hermeticum and other texts actually composed in Greek during the first centuries AD. His name became the banner for the whole Hermetic tradition that runs through this collection.
Connections
- influenced Carl Jung — Drew on Hermetic and alchemical texts for his psychology.
- influenced Giordano Bruno — Held up Hermetic Egyptian religion as an ideal.
- influenced Manly P. Hall — His work presents the Hermetic tradition as part of one universal wisdom.
- influenced Marsilio Ficino — Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum attributed to him, reviving Hermeticism in the Renaissance.
- influenced Marsilio Ficino — Translated the Hermetic texts attributed to him.
- influenced Nicolas Flamel — The Flamel legend drew on the Hermetic alchemical tradition.
In the timeline
- 100 Hermes Trismegistus merges the Greek Hermes with Egyptian Thoth central figure
- 200 The Hermetica are written in Greco-Roman Egypt mentioned
- 1463 Cosimo de' Medici orders Ficino to translate Hermes mentioned
- 1614 Casaubon dates the Hermetica after ancient Hermes mentioned