PHI 531 – The Hermetic Tradition
The Corpus Hermeticum consists of fifteen tractates or texts and fragments collected into a coherent teaching during the first through third centuries CE. These rare and insightful dialogues combine spiritual, philosophic and religious themes from ancient Egyptian, early Christian and traditional Hebrew materials into a synchronous whole, with the added importance of expanding in great depth upon those traditions to answer difficult questions and offer new interpretations of familiar accounts. The Corpus came to us through Cosimo du Medici and his friend and scholar Marcilio Ficino, who in fifteenth century Florence translated the materials from the Greek into Latin. The legendary figure Hermes Trismetistus, or Thoth in Egyptian tradition, is the teacher of these great principles of the wisdom traditions. (3 credits)
The Corpus Hermeticum consists of fifteen tractates or texts and fragments collected into a coherent teaching during the first through third centuries CE. These rare and insightful dialogues combine spiritual, philosophic and religious themes from ancient Egyptian, early Christian and traditional Hebrew materials into a synchronous whole, with the added importance of expanding in great depth upon those traditions to answer difficult questions and offer new interpretations of familiar accounts. The Corpus came to us through Cosimo du Medici and his friend and scholar Marcilio Ficino, who in fifteenth century Florence translated the materials from the Greek into Latin. The legendary figure Hermes Trismetistus, or Thoth in Egyptian tradition, is the teacher of these great principles of the wisdom traditions. (3 credits)