HERMETIC BOOKS. — These writings, which are probably either summaries of lectures or discussions held in restricted philosophical circles, take their name from the Greek Hermes Trismegistus (thrice-greatest), regarded as the source of all thought and knowledge. They are writings belonging to late Hellenism and, according to Scott, can almost all be placed in the 3rd century AD.
The hermetic books are divided into four groups. The first group consists of the Corpus Hermeticum or *Poimandres* (from the title of its first fragment, which means “the shepherd of men”), containing 17 treatises. The manuscripts derive from a mutilated copy, preserved thanks to Michele Psellus, who commented on the book in Constantinople in the 11th century. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, a manuscript was saved by Cosimo de’ Medici; the collection was translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino in 1463 (the translation was published in 1471). The Greek text was published by Adrianus Turnebus in 1554; 20 years later, the edition by Franciscus Foix followed. The edition by Patricius (1591) substantially provided the text for that of Parthey (1854). The most recent edition is that of W. Scott (*Hermetica*, Oxford 1924–26).
The second group contains the Latin *Asclepius* (formerly counted among the works of Apuleius), a translation from a Greek original composed around AD 200, known to Lactantius and others, dealing with the divine destiny of man, matter, and the devil. The third group is formed by the hermetic excerpts in the *Anthology* of Stobaeus (42 short chapters, about a quarter of which are drawn from the Greek *Asclepius* and the *Corpus Hermeticum*). The fourth group reports the extensive hermetic quotations found among the works of the Greek alchemists and includes the testimonies about the hermetic books given by Lactantius and Cyril of Alexandria.
Also to be remembered is the *Liber Hermetis*, a Latin translation of a Greek original from the Alexandrian period, dating back to the 3rd century BC but revised several times subsequently. It was discovered by W. Gundel in 1934 in manuscript *Herleianus* 3731, which dates to 1431. The *Liber Hermetis* is particularly concerned with astrology.