Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I Ancient texts
- 1 HERMES TRISMEGISTUS: The Emerald Table (Tabula Smaragdina)
- 2 PLATO (c. 427-347 BC): From the Timaeus
- 3 ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC): From the Meteorology
- 4 PSEUDO-DEMOCRITUS (first or second century AD): From The Treatise of Democritus On Things Natural and Mystical
- 5 ANONYMOUS (first or second century AD): Dialogue of Cleopatra and the Philosophers
- 6 ANONYMOUS (late third century AD): From Leyden Papyrus X and the Stockholm Papyrus
- 7 ZOSIMOS OF PANOPOLIS (fl. c. 300 AD): Of Virtue, Lessons 1–3
- 8 STEPHANOS OF ALEXANDRIA (first half of seventh century AD): From The Great and Sacred Art of the Making of Gold
- 9 ANONYMOUS (eighth or ninth century AD): The Poem of the Philosopher Theophrastos Upon the Sacred Art
- Part II Islamic and medieval texts
- Part III Renaissance and seventeenth-century texts
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - HERMES TRISMEGISTUS: The Emerald Table (Tabula Smaragdina)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I Ancient texts
- 1 HERMES TRISMEGISTUS: The Emerald Table (Tabula Smaragdina)
- 2 PLATO (c. 427-347 BC): From the Timaeus
- 3 ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC): From the Meteorology
- 4 PSEUDO-DEMOCRITUS (first or second century AD): From The Treatise of Democritus On Things Natural and Mystical
- 5 ANONYMOUS (first or second century AD): Dialogue of Cleopatra and the Philosophers
- 6 ANONYMOUS (late third century AD): From Leyden Papyrus X and the Stockholm Papyrus
- 7 ZOSIMOS OF PANOPOLIS (fl. c. 300 AD): Of Virtue, Lessons 1–3
- 8 STEPHANOS OF ALEXANDRIA (first half of seventh century AD): From The Great and Sacred Art of the Making of Gold
- 9 ANONYMOUS (eighth or ninth century AD): The Poem of the Philosopher Theophrastos Upon the Sacred Art
- Part II Islamic and medieval texts
- Part III Renaissance and seventeenth-century texts
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Hermes Trismegistus, the “thrice great,” demands place at the beginning of this collection, not for reasons of “actual” existence, scientific dating, and absolute chronology, but by virtue of the deeply rooted psychological appeal of myth, legend, and tradition. Long identified as the Greek counterpart of the Egyptian Thoth, the god of wisdom, Hermes was known throughout the ancient world both for his religious and philosophical wisdom and his seer-like understanding of the most obscure areas of human speculation and experience: astrology, magic, the secrets of plants and stones, and alchemy. Because he was also credited with giving laws and letters to the Egyptians, his triple greatness consisted of preeminence as priest, philosopher, and king. These roles, combined with notions of Hermes’ extreme antiquity – his lifetime was variously calculated according to the times of Atlas, Prometheus, Orpheus, Noah and Moses – assured the eponymous founder of hermeticism a high place in the wisdom tradition that extended down to Plato.
As might be expected, an extraordinary number of writings were attributed to Hermes, including the “philosophical” or “theoretical” treatises that comprise the Corpus Hermeticum along with the Latin Asclepius. In addition, a vast number of “technical” hermetica – treatises and fragments on the practical aspects of astrology, alchemy, sympathetic magic, talismans, invocations, and the like – passed under his name, including the famously enigmatic Emerald Table (or Tabula Smaragdina) printed below. In this brief tract the secrets of the preparation of the philosopher's stone were thought to be cryptically set forth on an emerald tablet.
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- The Alchemy ReaderFrom Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton, pp. 27 - 28Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003