История письма и чтения. Асафова Г.К. - 105 стр.

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astrology and the other occult sciences; and “learned” Hermetism, which is

concerned with theology and philosophy.

From the Renaissance until the end of the 19th century, popular Hermetic

literature received little scholarly attention. More recent study, however, has shown

that its development preceded that of learned Hermetism and that it reflects ideas

and beliefs that were widely held in the early Roman Empire and are therefore

significant for the religious and intellectual history of the time.

In the Hellenistic age there was a growing distrust of traditional Greek

rationalism and a breaking down of the distinction between science and religion.

Hermes-Thoth was but one of the gods and prophets (chiefly Oriental) to whom

men turned for a divinely revealed wisdom.

In this period the works ascribed to Hermes Trismegistos were primarily on

astrology; to these were later added treatises on medicine, alchemy (Tabula

Smaragdina [“Emerald Tablet”], a favourite source for medieval alchemists), and

magic. The underlying concept of astrology–that the cosmos constituted a unity

and that all parts of it were interdependent–was basic also to the other occult

sciences. To make this principle effective in practice (and Hermetic “science” was

intensely utilitarian), it was necessary to know the laws of sympathy and antipathy

by which the parts of the universe were related. But because these assumed

affinities did not,in fact, exist and hence could not be discovered by ordinary

scientific methods, recourse had to be made to divine revelation. The aim of

Hermetism, like that of Gnosticism (a contemporary religious-philosophical

movement), was the deification or rebirth of man through the knowledge (gnosis)

of the one transcendent God, the world, and men.

The theological writings are represented chiefly by the 17 treatises of the

Corpus Hermeticum, by extensive fragments in the writings of Stobaeus, and by a

Latin translation of the Asclepius, preserved among the works of Apuleius. Though

the setting of these is Egyptian, the philosophy is Greek. The Hermetic writings, in

fact, present a fusion of Eastern religious elements with Platonic, Stoic, and Neo-