← The source library
Greco-Egyptian esotericism · from Sacred Texts

The Corpus Hermeticum — trans. G. R. S. Mead (from Thrice-Greatest Hermes, 1906)

Preserved in the archive of the housea source of Hermeticism (Corpus Hermeticum, Emerald Tablet)

The passage held in the archive
I am Man-Shepherd (Poimandres), the Mind of all-masterhood.Corpus Hermeticum I.2 (Poimandres), trans. G. R. S. Mead

Sacred Texts Christian Texts index

The Corpus Hermeticum

The Corpus Hermeticum are the core documents of the Hermetic tradition. Dating from early in the Christian era, they were mistakenly dated to a much earlier period by Church officials (and everyone else) up until the 15th century. Because of this, they were allowed to survive and we seen as an early precursor to what was to be Christianity. We know today that they were, in fact, from the early Christian era, and came out of the turbulent religious seas of Hellenic Egypt.

These are all taken from Mead's translations, which are in the public domain at this point.

An Introduction to the Corpus Hermeticum

I. Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men

II. To Asclepius

III. The Sacred Sermon

IV. The Cup or Monad

V. Though Unmanifest God Is Most Manifest

VI. In God Alone Is Good And Elsewhere Nowhere

VII. The Greatest Ill Among Men is Ignorance of God

VIII. That No One of Existing Things doth Perish, but Men in Error Speak of Their Changes as Destructions and as Deaths

IX. On Thought and Sense

X. The Key

XI. Mind Unto Hermes

XII. About the Common Mind

XIII. The Secret Sermon on the Mountain