The Texts · Corpus Hermeticum XIV

To Asclepius, Health of Mind
(Corpus Hermeticum XIV)

On this page: what it is · the sections · section map · translations compared · evil and the rust · where the ideas come from · where to read it

What Corpus Hermeticum XIV is

It is the fourteenth of the seventeen Greek treatises of the Corpus Hermeticum and, unlike those before it, a letter (Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, II, 1906, pp. 263-264). Hermes writes to his pupil Asclepius, who was away while Hermes taught his son Tat. Tat was young and new to the teaching, so he got everything at length; Asclepius, older and “well versed in Nature” (Mead, II, p. 258), gets the main points in brief. Its ten sections argue one thing: there is a maker and there are things made, and nothing else.

The heading is a greeting. In place of chairein, the usual “I wish you joy” of Greek letters, Hermes wishes Asclepius eu phronein, which Scott glossed as “health of mind, or wisdom” (Walter Scott, Hermetica, II, 1925, p. 420). The phrase has no settled English. Everard (1650) wrote “To Asclepius, to be truly wise” (p. 207), Chambers (1882) “To be Rightly Wise” (p. 96), Parthey’s Latin (1854) recte sapere, Mead “Unto Asclepius good health of soul!”, adding “I do not know the exact meaning of this expression” (II, p. 257 and n. 1), and Scott “wishing him health of mind” (Hermetica, I, 1924, p. 257).

The numbering varies too. Mead prints it as XIV with XV in brackets (II, p. 257). Everard calls it “The Seventeenth Book” and ends his volume with it, because he translated Francesco Patrizi’s text in Patrizi’s order, where CH XIV comes right after VIII (Scott, I, pp. 40, 43 n. 3). Marsilio Ficino’s Latin of 1471 “contains only Corp. I-XIV” (Scott, I, p. 31), so there too it is the last treatise. Nothing names the author or the date; Scott judged it written not before the second century AD, and more likely in the third than the second (II, pp. 419-420).

The ten sections, in plain words

The summaries paraphrase Mead’s ten sections, grouped where they run together; the quotations are further down. Scott starts §4 at the marvelling and §5 at the idle talk, one sentence earlier than Mead (Scott, I, pp. 257, 259).

§1 · Why a letter. Tat asked to learn the nature of things and would not wait; being young and a beginner, he was taught at length. For Asclepius he picks out the chief points and writes them briefly.

§§2-3 · From things made to a maker. Everything we see has come to be and is still coming to be, and what comes to be is made by another. So there is one who makes, who was never made and is older than all made things. He is one, above all, and alone truly wise. Whether this maker can be seen is where the copies disagree (row 1 below). Knowing him, the reader should marvel and count himself blessed.

§4 · Three names. He may be called God for his power, Maker for his activity, Father for his goodness. Hermes tells Asclepius to drop wordy, empty talk and hold on to two things, the made and the maker; there is nothing between them and no third.

§§5-6 · Two that cannot be parted. Everything, above or below, divine or changing, is one of these two. Neither exists without the other, any more than a thing can be parted from itself. The maker leads and the made follows, and together they are one.

§7 · Rust on bronze. The variety of things, good and bad, does not lower God. His one glory is to make all things. Evil is not his work: it comes with lasting, as rust comes on bronze or dirt on a body. That is why God made change, as a cleansing of what comes to be.

§§8-9 · The painter. One painter can paint heaven, gods, earth, sea, men, animals and trees; can God not make all things? People who praise God but deny him the making of everything make him either arrogant or powerless, and that is impious. God’s one “passion” is the Good, and the Good is neither.

§10 · The farmer. Look at a farmer sowing wheat here and barley there, planting a vine and an apple tree: the same man sows them all. So God sows immortality in heaven, change on earth, and life and motion in the whole.

Section map: three editions side by side

Section numbers are Mead’s. Everard has 39 verses; cells give verses / pages for him, pages for Mead (vol. II) / Scott (vol. I, English on odd pages). Checked in the scans.

Where the translations part company

At three points the free English versions say different things (quotations checked against the scans).

1. Can the maker be seen? (§3) The Greek as transmitted says God makes things so that he may be invisible (Scott, I, p. 256, apparatus). Patrizi printed “visible” in the purpose clause (Chambers, 1882, p. 97 n. b), and Scott changed every instance: “The Hermetist cannot have said that God makes the universe in order to render himself invisible” (II, p. 423).

• Everard 1650: “he is invisible; and for this cause, he maketh them, that he may be visible” (v. 10, p. 209)
• Mead 1906: “For for this cause He maketh, - that He may not be able to be seen” (p. 259)
• Scott 1924: “the Maker also can be seen; for to this end he makes them, that he may be seen” (p. 257)

2. Making as God’s body (§7). The Greek, Cyril’s quotation included, calls the act of making, as it were, God’s body (Scott, I, p. 260, apparatus). Scott found that hard to accept, since the world might be called God’s body but hardly the act of making it, and read “being” instead (II, p. 426).

• Everard 1650: the making “is as it were the Body of God” (v. 25, p. 212)
• Mead 1906: “this is as it were God’s Body, - the making [of them]” (p. 261)
• Scott 1924: “the making of things is, so to speak, God’s very being” (p. 261)

3. Two or four? (§10) After the farmer, the Greek text adds that these things are few, “four in all”. Scott bracketed the sentence as a reader’s note and left it out of his English (II, p. 428); Cyril of Alexandria’s quotation of the passage stops before it (Parthey, 1854, p. 134, apparatus).

• Everard 1650: “they are all but four, God and Generation, in which are all things” (v. 39, p. 215)
• Mead 1906: “four in all are they, - and God Himself and Genesis, in whom are all that are” (p. 263)
• Scott 1924: “For in these two, - God, and the world of things made, - is comprised all that exists” (p. 263)

The first row matters most. With the manuscripts, God hides himself by making; with Patrizi and Scott, making is how he shows himself. Chambers, who kept “invisible”, glossed the “four” of row 3 as earth, air, fire and water (p. 99 n. 1); Scott took the four to be immortality, change, life and motion, adding that they are not four distinct things (II, p. 428).

Evil and the rust

The treatise is firm that God does not make evil: evil grows on things the longer they last, and change, that is, death on earth, clears it away. Scott spelled the idea out: each new living thing starts “free from the rust of evil” that corrupted the one before (II, p. 427).

It does not settle where the rust comes from. Scott pointed out the strain: if God is always making things, “Who, if not God, makes the ‘rust’?” A Platonist would blame the disorder of matter, but, as Scott noted, the letter never mentions matter (II, pp. 426-427). The site’s guide to the seventeen treatises adds a wider limit: the step from making to a maker shows nothing about the maker beyond the fact of having made.

Where the ideas come from

Scott saw the letter as a summary and a protest at once: against the “idle chattering” of teachers with a more complicated theology. Its writer “recognizes only God and the Kosmos, and refuses to admit the existence of any intermediate entity” (II, pp. 419, 425). That would rule out the Aion of CH XI, the Word of the Poimandres and Numenius’ “second God”, though Scott added that nothing shows which teaching he had in mind (II, p. 425).

Scott held that the writer must have known the maker of Plato’s Timaeus; the painter who makes “heaven, gods, earth” echoes Republic X, 596 (Scott, II, pp. 419, 427). Mead found its teaching remarkably close to CH XI, “Mind unto Hermes” (II, p. 265), and Scott that it closely follows parts of that treatise (II, p. 425). Two parallels are less expected. The chain “to marvel; and marvelling, to count oneself as blessed” (Mead, II, p. 259) resembles a saying preserved by Clement and in an Oxyrhynchus papyrus. Scott found the likeness too close to be accidental, at least if a conjectured word in the papyrus is accepted, though without assuming that one copied the other (II, pp. 423-424). The sowing of different seeds, heavenly and earthly, recalls Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:37, perhaps through a common source (Scott, II, pp. 427-428). Mead set the “Good Husbandman” beside a magical invocation, “Come unto me, Good Husbandman, Good Daimon”, and alchemical writings, including Zosimus (II, p. 265); Scott cites the invocation from a Berlin magical papyrus (II, p. 428).

Cyril of Alexandria quoted the text from the end of §6 to §10, with a few omissions, in his work against Julian (Scott, I, pp. 258, 260, apparatus; Mead, II, p. 261 n. 1), so for these sections Cyril’s readings stand beside those of the manuscripts.

Where to read Corpus Hermeticum XIV free

Free scans at the Internet Archive; the last two are in copyright. Quote from the scans, not the transcription. Links checked 4 November 2026; pages under Sources.

• Everard, 1650: Early English Books copy, Wellcome copy, transcription (modernised spelling, Alchemy Web Site).
• Mead, 1906, vol. II: scan, opened at p. 257.
• Scott, 1924-1925, Greek and English: vol. I, vol. II, notes. An emended text; the notes say what was changed.
• Chambers, 1882: scan. Parthey, 1854, Greek and Latin: scan.
• Nock and Festugière, 1945, critical Greek and French: BnF record. Copenhaver, 1992: Cambridge Core.

Key facts

Position	Fourteenth of the 17 Greek treatises of the Corpus Hermeticum, after XIII (On Rebirth); there is no XV; Everard 1650 numbers it XVII
Form	A letter, Hermes to Asclepius; 10 sections (Mead 1906, vol. II, pp. 257-263); Everard 1650: verses 1-39, pp. 207-215
Key terms	maker and made (to poioun, to ginomenon); change (metabolê) as cleansing
Date	Unknown; Scott: not before the 2nd century AD, more likely the 3rd than the 2nd (1925, II, pp. 419-420)
Checked	4 November 2026, against the scans listed under sources

Fair questions

What is Corpus Hermeticum XIV about?

A short letter from Hermes to Asclepius summarising what he taught Tat. Everything visible was made, so there is a maker who was never made; maker and made are the only two things and cannot exist apart. God is called God, Maker and Father, and evil is not his work.

Who are Asclepius and Tat in Corpus Hermeticum XIV?

Two pupils of Hermes. Tat, his son, is young and a beginner, so he was taught at length; Asclepius is older and already knows the nature of things, so he receives a summary (§1). Mead (1906) noted that the letter belongs with treatises that pair the two, such as CH X (II, p. 264).

Does Corpus Hermeticum XIV say God is invisible?

The Greek as transmitted says God makes things so that he may be invisible, and Mead (1906) translated it so. Patrizi’s text (as reported by Chambers, 1882) changes the purpose clause to the opposite, that God makes things so that he may be seen in them, and Scott’s edition (1924) makes the change throughout. Scott argued that the Hermetist cannot have meant invisible (II, p. 423).

What does Corpus Hermeticum XIV say about evil?

That God does not make it. Evil grows on things as they last, like rust on bronze or dirt on a body, and God made change, earthly death included, as a cleansing (§7). The letter does not explain where the rust comes from; Scott (1925) noted that it says nothing about matter (II, p. 427).

Where can I read Corpus Hermeticum XIV for free?

Mead’s Thrice-Greatest Hermes, vol. II (1906), pp. 257-263; Everard’s Divine Pymander (1650), Seventeenth Book, pp. 207-215; Chambers (1882), pp. 96-99; and Scott’s Hermetica, vol. I (1924), pp. 256-263, Greek and English. All are scanned at the Internet Archive. Copenhaver’s Hermetica (1992), pp. 55-57, is in copyright.

Sources & further reading

• John Everard (tr.), The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, in XVII. Books (London, 1650), “The Seventeenth Book”, verses 1-39, pp. 207-215; Early English Books copy and Wellcome copy at the Internet Archive.
• Gustav Parthey (ed.), Hermetis Trismegisti Poemander (Berlin, 1854), cap. 14, Greek and Latin, pp. 128-134 (apparatus p. 134: end of Cyril’s quotation); scan.
• John David Chambers (tr.), The Theological and Philosophical Works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian Neoplatonist (Edinburgh, 1882), chapter XIV, pp. 96-99 (notes p. 97 n. b, p. 99 n. 1); scan.
• G.R.S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, vol. II (London, 1906), “Corpus Hermeticum XIV. (XV.)”, pp. 257-263 (notes p. 257 n. 1, p. 261 n. 1), commentary pp. 263-265; scan.
• Walter Scott (ed. and tr.), Hermetica, vol. I (Oxford, 1924), pp. 31 (Ficino), 40 and 43 n. 3 (Patrizi’s order, Everard), Libellus XIV, Greek with apparatus pp. 256, 258, 260, 262, English pp. 257, 259, 261, 263; scan.
• Walter Scott, Hermetica, vol. II: Notes on the Corpus Hermeticum (Oxford, 1925), Libellus XIV, pp. 418-428; pages for each point are given in the text above; scan.
• Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica (Cambridge, 1992), “Corpus Hermeticum XIV”, pp. 55-57; Cambridge Core, pp. 55-57 checked on the chapter page, 4 November 2026.
• A.D. Nock (ed.) and A.-J. Festugière (tr.), Corpus Hermeticum, vol. II: Traités XIII-XVIII. Asclepius (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1945); BnF record.