Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1: Prolegomena

REMAINS OF THE TRISMEGISTIC LITERATURE

References to lost writings of the School will meet us abundantly in the course of our studies, and some attempt will be made later on to form a notion of the main types of the literature.

As for the rest of the so-called Hermetic works—medico-mathematical, astrological and medico-astro-logical, and alchemical—and for a list of the many inventions attributed to the Thrice-greatest—inventions as numerous as, and almost identical with, those attributed to Orpheus by fond posterity along the line of "pure" Hellenic tradition—I would refer the student to the Bibliotheca Græca of Joannes Albertus Fabricius.¹

For the Alchemical and Medieval literature, the two magnificent works of Berthelot (M. P. E.) are indispensable—namely, Collection des anciens Alchimistes grecs Collection of Ancient Greek Alchemists (Paris, 1888), and La Chimie au Moyen Âge Chemistry in the Middle Ages (Paris, 1893).

In close connection with the development of this form of "Hermetic" tradition must be taken the Hermes writings and traditions among the Arabs. See Beausobre's Histoire Critique de Manichée et du Manichéisme Critical History of Manichæus and Manichæism (Amsterdam, 1734), i. 326; also Fleischer (H. L.), Hermes Trismegistus an die menschliche Seele, Arabisch und Deutsch Hermes Trismegistus to the Human Soul, Arabic and German (Leipzig, 1870); Bardenhewer (O.), Hermetis Trismegisti qui apud Arabes fertur de Castigatione Animæ Liber The Book of Hermes Trismegistus on the Chastisement of the Soul, which is current among the Arabs (Bonn, 1873); and especially R. Pietschmann, the pupil of Georg Ebers, who devotes the fourth part of his treatise, entitled Hermes Trismegistus nach ägyptischen und orientalischen Überlieferungen Hermes Trismegistus according to Egyptian and Oriental Traditions (Leipzig, 1875), to a consideration of the Hermes tradition, "Bei Syrern und Araben" Among the Syrians and Arabs.

¹ Vol. i., lib. i., cap. vii. See the fourth and last edition (Leipzig, 1790), with up to that time unedited supplements by Fabricius and G. C. Heumann, and very numerous and important additions by G. C. Harles.