The Texts
Corpus Hermeticum
The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of seventeen Greek treatises written in Egypt around 100-300 CE, compiled into one book in Byzantium, translated in 1463, and misdated for 150 years. There is no lost “Book XV”, the gap is an early-modern editing artifact.
The Corpus Hermeticum is not a book anyone wrote. It’s an anthology: seventeen short treatises by different, anonymous authors, composed in Greek in Roman Egypt and gathered, probably in Byzantine hands, first attested with the philosopher Michael Psellos in the 11th century, into the collection that reached Florence in the 1460s.
What’s inside
All seventeen, one entry each, what each treatise argues and where they contradict one another →
Dialogues, sermons and hymns on the big questions: where the cosmos comes from, what mind (nous) is, how the soul descends and ascends, what it means to be reborn in knowledge. Treatise I (Poimandres) opens with a cosmic vision; treatise XIII stages a mystery of rebirth in which ten divine powers drive out twelve zodiacal torments, liberation from astrology, argued in astrology’s own categories.
The seventeen at a glance
- I Poimandres: a vision of creation and of the soul’s ascent
- II To Asclepius: the incorporeal, motion and place
- III The Sacred Discourse: a short account of creation
- IV The Mixing Bowl, or the Monad: mind offered in a bowl, taken by choice
- V That God is Both Invisible and Utterly Manifest: from the visible order to the unseen maker
- VI That the Good is in God Alone: only God is good
- VII The Greatest Evil Among Men is Ignorance of God: ignorance of God as drunkenness
- VIII That Nothing That Is Perishes: nothing perishes; death is change
- IX On Thought and Sense: how mind and the senses work together
- X The Key: a summary “key” to the rest
- XI Mind to Hermes: Mind tells Hermes to become like God to know God
- XII On the Mind Shared: one mind shared by all; providence and fate
- XIII On Rebirth: an initiation into rebirth
- XIV To Asclepius, Health of Mind: the maker known from what is made
- XVI Definitions of Asclepius to King Ammon: the sun as craftsman; Greek will spoil this text
- XVII (fragment): a few lines on images
- XVIII On the Soul Hindered by the Body: a praise of kings, with no Hermes in it
The missing Book XV
Editions number the treatises I-XIV and XVI-XVIII. The “missing” XV is no suppressed secret: an early editor inserted extra material as XV, later editors removed it, and the numbering stuck. Four centuries of conspiracy theories rest on a pagination decision.
How the text came down to us
Who passed the text on, when, and in which edition:
| Date | Who, where | What happened to the text | Edition, source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11th c.; manuscripts from the 14th c. | Michael Psellos, Byzantium | The collection is first attested with him: a scholion on CH I.18, written by a later hand in the margin of a Paris manuscript (Paris. gr. 1220), carries his name. The collection itself survives only in manuscripts from the 14th century on; the oldest are Laurentianus 71.33, Paris. gr. 1220, Vat. gr. 237 and Vat. gr. 951. Richard Reitzenstein (Poimandres, Leipzig, 1904) supposed that all of them descend from Psellos’ copy; Scott calls this a hypothesis, not a proved fact. | Walter Scott, Hermetica I (Oxford, 1924), pp. 17, 20-21, 25-28 |
| 1463; printed 1471 | Marsilio Ficino, Florence | Latin translation of CH I-XIV only, made for Cosimo de’ Medici from the Greek manuscript Laurentianus 71.33, which stops at XIV. In his preface Ficino puts Hermes at the head of a line of ancient theologians that ends in Plato (prisca theologia). The first printing, which Ficino did not authorize, is Mercurii Trismegisti Liber de potestate et sapientia Dei (Treviso, Gerardus de Lisa, 18 December 1471), its text full of printers’ errors. | Critical edition: Maurizio Campanelli (Turin, 2011). Scott 1924, I, pp. 20, 31; Wouter Hanegraaff, Aries 15 (2015), pp. 184-185; 1471 printing: ISTC ih00077000 |
| between 1481 and 1500; printed 1507 | Lodovico Lazzarelli | Latin translation of CH XVI-XVIII, the three treatises missing from Ficino’s manuscript, made from a Greek manuscript to which Lazzarelli gained access after 1481. Symphorien Champier published it at Lyon in 1507 as the Diffinitiones of Asclepius, inside his Liber de quadruplici vita: the first time these three treatises appeared in Latin. | Hanegraaff 2015, p. 195; Wouter Hanegraaff, “The Real Hermetic Tradition” (blog, 24 October 2020); BnF catalogue, Champier (Lyon, 1507) |
| 1554 | Adrien Turnèbe, Paris | Editio princeps of the Greek: I-XIV as Poemander, XVI-XVIII as Aesculapii definitiones, set from a single manuscript, with a Greek preface by Angelos Vergikios. After XIV it prints three Hermetic excerpts preserved by Stobaeus (see The Stobaean Fragments). | Scott 1924, I, pp. 21, 33-34 |
| 1574 | François Foix de Candale (Flussas), Bordeaux | A Greek-Latin Mercurii Trismegisti Pimandras, based on Turnèbe’s printed text; Flussas used no manuscript. The treatises become chapters, and the three Stobaean excerpts plus an extract from the Suda become “Caput XV”. Later editions drop that chapter but keep his numbering (see The missing Book XV). | Scott 1924, I, pp. 17-19, 34 |
| 1614 | Isaac Casaubon, London | In De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI (Exercitatio I.10), a critique of Cardinal Baronius’ Annales, he argues from late vocabulary and style that the Corpus was written in Greek, not translated from Egyptian, and dates it to about the end of the 1st century CE. | Scott 1924, I, pp. 41-42 |
| 1924-1936 | Walter Scott, Oxford (vol. IV with introduction and indices by A.S. Ferguson) | Hermetica, 4 vols, Clarendon Press: Greek and Latin text with English translation and notes, together with the Asclepius, the Stobaean excerpts and the testimonia. Scott transposes and supplies words and passages by conjecture, marking them with brackets of his own. | Scott 1924, I, p. 24; BnF catalogue |
| 1945-1954 | A.D. Nock and A.-J. Festugière, Paris | Corpus Hermeticum, 4 vols, Les Belles Lettres (Collection des Universités de France). Vols I-II (1945): CH I-XVIII and the Asclepius, text established by Nock, translated by Festugière. Vols III-IV (1954): the Stobaean excerpts, text established and translated by Festugière, with Nock’s text of the miscellaneous fragments. A critical edition with French translation. | BnF catalogue, 1945; 1954 |
| 1945; copies of the 4th c. | Nag Hammadi, Codex VI | Coptic versions of three Hermetic texts that are not in the Corpus: the Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth (VI,6), the Prayer of Thanksgiving (VI,7) and Asclepius 21-29 (VI,8). The codex was found buried in Upper Egypt. | Douglas M. Parrott (ed.), Nag Hammadi Codices V,2-5 and VI (Leiden: Brill, 1979); Jean-Pierre Mahé, Hermès en Haute-Égypte, 2 vols (Québec, 1978-1982) |
Scholars’ interpretation: Walter Scott (1924) judged traces of native Egyptian thought in the Hermetica to be rare, while Garth Fowden (The Egyptian Hermes, 1986) reads the technical and philosophical Hermetica as one “way of Hermes” shaped by Graeco-Egyptian culture. Frances Yates (Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 1964) made Ficino’s 1471 translation the start of a Renaissance “Hermetic Tradition” rooted in magic; Wouter Hanegraaff (2015) replies that the treatises Ficino translated contain nothing magical.
Do not confuse the Corpus with the Musaeum Hermeticum (Frankfurt, 1625): despite the name, it is an anthology of alchemical treatises with none of the seventeen inside.
Where to read it, free and in print
Free: G.R.S. Mead’s complete 1906 translation, scanned at the Internet Archive, and John Everard’s 1650 Divine Pymander, the first English version, which lacks CH XVI-XVIII (see the table below). Both are public domain and both predate the critical Greek text, so read them as historical translations. In print: Copenhaver’s Hermetica (1992) for study, Salaman and others’ The Way of Hermes (1999) for a readable first pass.
Which translation to use
Translations of the Corpus rest on different bases: the Greek critical edition, older printed texts, Latin, or another translation. The table lists the ones we checked in library catalogues, publishers’ records, reviews and, where we could, the books themselves; status and access as of October 2026. The last column is our judgement, not a fact about the book.
| Translation (translator, year) | Language and basis | Publisher | Scope | Status | For whom (our view) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Everard, 1650 | English; according to Mead (1906), from Ficino’s Latin version (see Marsilio Ficino), which covers only I-XIV; the three non-Corpus books therefore come from another source (Mead identifies all three as Stobaean excerpts, Tylak 2021, n. 73, counts two) | London: printed by Robert White for Thomas Brewster and Gregory Moule; The Divine Pymander | 17 books: treatises I-XIV in an order different from Nock’s edition and, in place of XVI-XVIII, three excerpts preserved by Stobaeus | Public domain; Wellcome Library copy at the Internet Archive | The history of reception: how English readers met Hermes. Not for learning the content; Mead found it full of errors |
| G.R.S. Mead, 1906 | English, from Greek; Mead used the editions of Parthey (1854) and Reitzenstein (1904), made before Nock’s critical text (1945) | London and Benares: Theosophical Publishing Society; Thrice-Greatest Hermes, 3 vols | The whole Corpus and the Asclepius (vol. II); Stobaean excerpts and fragments (vol. III) | Public domain; full scan at the Internet Archive | A reader who wants everything free and in one place; read it as a translation made before the critical text |
| Walter Scott, 1924-1936 | English, beside Scott’s own Greek and Latin text, which he reordered and supplemented by conjecture | Oxford: Clarendon Press; Hermetica, 4 vols | The Corpus, the Asclepius, the Stobaean excerpts and the testimonia | Copyright status varies by country; vol. I: free scan at the Internet Archive | The history of scholarship and comparing readings; Burns (2021) finds Scott’s handling of the Greek at times deeply intrusive: still worth consulting, but no longer the starting point for the fragments and testimonia |
| Brian P. Copenhaver, 1992 | English, from Greek and Latin, based on the critical edition of Nock and Festugière | Cambridge University Press; Hermetica (Cambridge Core) | Treatises I-XIV and XVI-XVIII and the Latin Asclepius, with introduction and notes | In copyright | Study and citation: the scholarly standard in English |
| Clement Salaman, Dorine van Oyen, William D. Wharton; Jean-Pierre Mahé, 1999 | English, from Greek: the manuscripts Laurentianus 71.33 and Bodleianus 3037 and Turnèbe’s printed text, with Nock’s text where the manuscripts make no sense; Mahé translated the Definitions from the Armenian and from the Greek excerpts found in Oxford | London: Duckworth, 1999; Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2000; The Way of Hermes | I-XIV and XVI-XVII (the translators left out XVIII), and the Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius | In copyright | A readable first pass; take XVIII from Copenhaver or Mead |
| M. David Litwa, 2018 | English; for the Greek, the text of Nock and Festugière | Cambridge University Press; Hermetica II (Cambridge Core) | Not the Corpus: the Stobaean excerpts (see The Stobaean Fragments), the Vienna and Oxford fragments, quotations in later authors, testimonies; no Nag Hammadi texts. Litwa’s separate Hermetica I (Fount Ultd., 2026, paperback and limited hardcover, according to booksellers’ listings) translates the Corpus, the Asclepius and the Nag Hammadi Hermetica in a new order | In copyright | After Copenhaver, for the Stobaean excerpts, fragments and testimonies (not the Nag Hammadi texts or the Armenian Definitions) |
| Aneta Tylak, 2021 | Polish, from Greek, based on Nock’s edition (Paris, 1960), with the Greek text | Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego; in the book Bóg - świat - człowiek w traktatach Corpus Hermeticum na tle greckiej tradycji filozoficznej | All seventeen Greek treatises (I-XIV, XVI-XVIII) | Open access (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) in the University of Łódź Repository | Study in Polish |
| Wincenty Myszor, 1977-1979 | Polish, from Greek, based on Nock’s edition | Studia Theologica Varsaviensia 15/1 (1977), pp. 205-216; 16/1 (1978), pp. 189-196; 16/2 (1978), pp. 241-247; 17/1 (1979), pp. 245-256 | I (Poimandres), IV, VI and VII, XIII, each with introduction and commentary | Free PDFs in BazHum: 1977, 1978/1, 1978/2, 1979 | Comparing the key treatises in Polish, with commentary |
| Agata Ewa Sowińska, 2021 | Polish, from Greek; the commentary quotes Ficino’s Latin for comparison | Vox Patrum 79 (2021), pp. 541-552 | Treatise VIII, with introduction and commentary | Open access (CC BY-ND 4.0), article | A close reading of VIII |
| Agata Staszewska, 2012 | Polish, from Everard’s English version of 1650, not from Greek | Sandomierz: Armoryka; Boski Pymander | Everard’s seventeen books, with Mead’s commentary on the Poimandres only | In copyright | Studying how Everard reached Polish readers; not a translation of the Greek |
| Henryk Pietruszczak, 2015 | Polish; according to Aneta Tylak (2021), the edition does not say what text it was translated from | Zgorzelec: published by the translator; Corpus hermeticum | Not established; Tylak notes that the edition does not discuss the content of the treatises | In copyright | With caution: Tylak finds many errors of substance and form in it |
| Xavier Renau Nebot, 1999 | Spanish, translated directly from the original | Madrid: Gredos (Biblioteca Clásica Gredos 268), reissued in 2025; Textos herméticos | The Corpus, the Asclepius and the Stobaean excerpts, among other texts, with introduction and notes | In copyright | Study in Spanish |
| Jaume Pòrtulas and Cristina Serna, 2000 | Spanish, from English: Copenhaver’s Hermetica, with his introduction and notes | Madrid: Siruela (El Árbol del Paraíso 20); Corpus Hermeticum y Asclepio, ed. Brian P. Copenhaver (Dialnet) | The Corpus and the Asclepius | In copyright | Spanish-speaking readers who want Copenhaver’s apparatus; it is a translation of a translation |
| Jorge Cano Cuenca, 2024 | Spanish, from Greek, based on the edition of Nock and Festugière; the Asclepius from Latin; the Coptic Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth via the English and French versions | Madrid: Alianza (Clásicos de Grecia y Roma 103); Textos herméticos | The Corpus, the Asclepius, the Stobaean excerpts, the Vienna papyri, the Oxford manuscript and Nag Hammadi VI,6; not the Armenian Definitions | In copyright | Readers who also want the Vienna and Oxford fragments; according to the reviewer, this is their only Spanish translation; review: Álvaro Basols Berges (2026) |
One more direct Spanish translation from the Greek, by M. Á. Muñoz Moya (Muñoz Moya y Montraveta, 1987-1990), is named in Basols Berges’s 2026 review; we have not seen it, so it is not in the table.
Editors’ advice: for study in Polish, Tylak (2021); in Spanish, Renau Nebot (1999); for a first reading in English, The Way of Hermes (1999), with treatise XVIII taken from Copenhaver.
How to read it
The scholarly standard in English is Copenhaver’s Hermetica (1992), completed by Litwa’s Hermetica II (2018). The free translations that dominate the internet, Everard (1650) and Mead (1906), are historical documents in their own right, made before the modern critical text; read them knowingly, not naively.
| Contents | 17 Greek treatises (I-XIV, XVI-XVIII) |
|---|---|
| Composed | c. 100-300 CE, Roman Egypt |
| First attested as a collection | Michael Psellos, 11th c. Byzantium |
| Latin translation | Marsilio Ficino, 1463 (printed 1471) |
| Redated | Isaac Casaubon, 1614 |
| Standard English | Copenhaver 1992 · Litwa 2018 |
Fair questions
How many treatises are in the Corpus Hermeticum?
Seventeen, numbered I-XIV and XVI-XVIII. There is no Book XV: an early editor inserted extra material under that number, later editors removed it, and the numbering stayed.
Who wrote the Corpus Hermeticum?
Several anonymous authors writing in Greek in Roman Egypt, roughly 100-300 CE, all in the voice of Hermes Trismegistus. The collection was assembled later, in Byzantium; it is first attested with Michael Psellos in the 11th century.
Where can I read the Corpus Hermeticum for free?
G.R.S. Mead’s 1906 translation is scanned in full at the Internet Archive, and John Everard’s 1650 Divine Pymander is also public domain. Both predate the critical Greek text; for study use Copenhaver (1992).
Is the Corpus Hermeticum 'the Hermetic bible'?
No, it was never a canon. It's one surviving anthology among several bodies of Hermetic writing (Asclepius, Definitions, fragments, technical treatises).
Is the Emerald Tablet in it?
No. The Emerald Tablet is a separate, much later text, first attested in Arabic in the 8th-9th century.
Which treatise should I read first?
Poimandres (I), then IV (the mixing-bowl of mind), X, XI and XIII. Our guided reading starts with Poimandres.
Listen & watch
- SHWEP podcast: the Hermetica series (episodes 102+)Earl Fontainelle · heavily footnoted
A caution: the most-viewed Corpus audiobooks on YouTube read modern copyrighted translations without authorization, we don’t link them. The readings above use public-domain texts.
Sources & further reading
- Copenhaver, Hermetica (Cambridge, 1992).
- M. David Litwa, Hermetica II (Cambridge, 2018).
- Walter Scott, Hermetica, vol. I: Introduction, Texts and Translation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), introduction pp. 17-42; scan at the Internet Archive. Vols II-IV: 1925, 1926, 1936 (vol. IV with introduction, addenda and indices by A.S. Ferguson).
- Richard Reitzenstein, Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-ägyptischen und frühchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig: Teubner, 1904); scan at the Internet Archive.
- Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “How Hermetic was Renaissance Hermetism?”, Aries 15.2 (2015), pp. 179-209; open-access PDF.
- Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “The Real Hermetic Tradition (Lodovico Lazzarelli and Giovanni da Correggio)”, blog post, 24 October 2020; online.
- Marsilio Ficino, Mercurii Trismegisti Pimander sive De potestate et sapientia Dei, ed. Maurizio Campanelli (Turin: Nino Aragno, 2011).
- Symphorien Champier, Liber de quadruplici vita, with Lazzarelli’s Latin Diffinitiones of Asclepius (Lyon, 1507): BnF record.
- A.D. Nock and A.-J. Festugière, Corpus Hermeticum, 4 vols (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1945-1954).
- Douglas M. Parrott (ed.), Nag Hammadi Codices V,2-5 and VI with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, 1 and 4, Nag Hammadi Studies 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1979).
- Jean-Pierre Mahé, Hermès en Haute-Égypte, 2 vols (Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 1978-1982).
- Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge, 1986).
- Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London and Chicago, 1964).
- John Everard, The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, in XVII Books (London: printed by Robert White for Thomas Brewster and Gregory Moule, 1650); Wellcome Library copy at the Internet Archive.
- G.R.S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, 3 vols (London and Benares: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1906): vol. I, p. 12 n. 1 (Everard and Ficino’s Latin) and p. 16 (Mead’s verdict on Everard); vol. II, p. 3 n. 1 and p. 64 n. 1 (Parthey and Reitzenstein); vol. III, pp. 3, 17 and 34 (Excerpts I, III and VIII from Stobaeus, which Everard prints as his books 1, 15 and 14).
- Clement Salaman, Dorine van Oyen, William D. Wharton and Jean-Pierre Mahé, The Way of Hermes (London: Duckworth, 1999; Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2000), translators’ foreword pp. 13-14, afterword pp. 84-85, introduction to the Definitions pp. 101-108.
- Dylan M. Burns, “A New Volume of Perfect Words: M. David Litwa’s Hermetica II”, Aries 21 (2021), pp. 271-278; open-access PDF.
- Aneta Tylak, Bóg - świat - człowiek w traktatach Corpus Hermeticum na tle greckiej tradycji filozoficznej (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2021), pp. 28-31 (Polish translations; basis of her own) and pp. 189 onwards (translation); open access.
- Wincenty Myszor, “Poimandres: wstęp, przekład, komentarz”, Studia Theologica Varsaviensia 15/1 (1977), pp. 205-216; “Corpus Hermeticum IV: wstęp, przekład z greckiego, komentarz”, 16/1 (1978), pp. 189-196; “Corpus Hermeticum VI i VII: wstęp, przekład z greckiego, komentarz”, 16/2 (1978), pp. 241-247; “Corpus Hermeticum XIII: wstęp, przekład z greckiego, komentarz”, 17/1 (1979), pp. 245-256.
- Agata Ewa Sowińska, “[Hermes Trismegistos], O tym, że żaden z bytów nie ginie, lecz w błędzie są ci, którzy mówią, że przemiany są ‘zniszczeniem’ i ‘śmiercią’ (Corpus Hermeticum VIII)”, Vox Patrum 79 (2021), pp. 541-552, published 15 September 2021; DOI.
- Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, Boski Pymander, trans. Agata Staszewska, series Święte Księgi, Święte Teksty 23 (Sandomierz: Armoryka, 2012).
- Hermes Trismegistos, Corpus hermeticum, trans. Henryk Pietruszczak (Zgorzelec: the translator, 2015).
- Hermes Trismegisto, Textos herméticos, introduction, translation and notes by Xavier Renau Nebot, Biblioteca Clásica Gredos 268 (Madrid: Gredos, 1999; reissued November 2025, ISBN 978-84-249-9820-2).
- Brian P. Copenhaver (ed.), Corpus Hermeticum y Asclepio, trans. Jaume Pòrtulas and Cristina Serna, El Árbol del Paraíso 20 (Madrid: Siruela, 2000); the publisher’s record gives English as the source language.
- Jorge Cano Cuenca, Textos herméticos, Clásicos de Grecia y Roma 103 (Madrid: Alianza, 2024); reviewed by Álvaro Basols Berges, Cuadernos de Filología Clásica. Estudios griegos e indoeuropeos 36 (2026), pp. 367-372; DOI.
- G.R.S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes (1906), full scan at the Internet Archive: public domain, pre-critical; see our Method note.
- John Everard, The Divine Pymander in XVII Books (1650), scan at the Internet Archive: the classic early-modern English rendering.
- Walter Scott, Hermetica vol. I, at the Internet Archive (lending).