8 [Hermes Trismegistus]. Kitab mu'adalat an-nafs
Ms on paper, 1654
(Leiden, University Library Or. 1148(2))

Anthology of ninety more or less autonomous fragments. Each passage contains a philosophical theme, illustrated with a simile. The first Latin translation by J.J. Reiske appeared in 1736 under the title Hermetis Trismegisti, philosophi Aegyptii antiquissimi, epistolam ad animam de fuga rerum mundarum et studio coelestium.

There are seven known manuscripts of the text, on the basis of which O. Bardenhewer produced a Latin translation entitled De castigatione animae (1873): on the admonition of the soul. Three manuscripts, including the Leiden one, contain the complete text. Bardenhewer dates this particular manuscript to 1654.

The name Hermes only appears in the title of four manuscripts; he is not mentioned in the text itself. The Leiden manuscript is attributed to Aflatun in Voorhoeve's catalogue. Bardenhewer, however, is of the opinion that the teacher implied in the text is Hermes Trismegistus.

The anthology was probably compiled by an Arab Platonist in the eleventh or twelfth century. Scott does not consider it unlikely that certain passages are more or less literal translations of Hermetic texts. Unfortunately, he does not identify these passages. The tone of some of the fragments reminds him of CH VII.

Ref. Kroll, 390-405; Scott IV, 277-352; Voorhoeve

9 Hermes Trismegistus. De potestate et sapientia Dei
Ms on vellum, late fifteenth century
(Viterbo, Biblioteca Communale II D I 4)

Copy of Ficino's translation of the Corpus Hermeticum I-XIV, to which is added the Latin Asclepius, together with the first Latin translation of CH XVI-XVIII, the Definitiones Asclepii, which were lacking in the Greek manuscript which Ficino used [no 3]. The translation of the Definitiones was made by Ludovico Lazarelli (1450-1500) after an unknown Greek manuscript. Lazarelli dedicated the work to his teacher Giovanni Mercurio da Corregio, a prophet whom he met in Rome in 1484 and decided to follow. Da Corregio preached like a sort of Hermetic Christ, decked out with a crown of thorns supplied with the text: 'This is my son Pimander whom I have elected'.

The Greek text of the Definitiones Asclepii saw the light in 1554 as book XVI of the Corpus Hermeticum edition of Turnebus [no 43].

Ref. Kristeller 1969, 221-47.


10 Hermes Trismegistus. Pimandre
Ms on paper, after 1574
(Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus Ms M 40)

First Dutch translation of the Corpus Hermeticum I-XVI, after the Greek-French edition of Foix de Candale of 1574 (no 45). This Dutch text was never printed. In his Dutch translations of the Corpus Hermeticum F.A. Janssen proposes Jan Moretus, Plantin's son-in-law, or Cornelis Kiliaan, corrector in the printing-house, as possible translator.

The separate tracts are divided into paragraphs, which follow the French text. The Greek and Latin paragraph division diverges slightly. The Dutch translation is furthermore riddled with gallicisms. In the following passage for instance Hermes explicitly desires to learn from Poimandres (CH I, 16):
O ma pensée, que s'ensuit il, car je desire grandement ce propos.
This is translated as:
O mijn ghedachte, wat volgt daer nae? want ick begheere grootelick dit propoost.
[O my thought, what follows after this? because I desire greatly this proposal].

The expression 'je desire grandement' is Foix de Candale's translation of the Greek eroo (Lat. cupio). The adverb 'grandement' (greatly) does not occur as such in Greek, therefore the Plantin-manuscript must have been initially translated from the French.

The French translation of Foix de Candale from 1579 [no 56] has most certainly not been used as the basis for the Dutch translation, as in 1579 Foix supplemented the Greek text of the incompletely surviving second discourse of the Corpus Hermeticum, together with a fragment from Stobaeus (1.18.2). In the present standard edition this fragment also forms the beginning of the second discourse (CH II, 1-4). Naturally this makes for a longer second discourse in the French translation of 1579, with a new beginning and a modified paragraph division.

The exact dependence of the Plantin-manuscript has thus been established.

Ref. Janssen, 231-32


11 [Michiel Vinke]. Silveren Arcke. bestaande: In stichtelijke Rijmen, geestelijke gezangen, en Histori liedekens, met Annotatien op dezelve gepast; Uit verscheyden Auteuren, tot stichtinge by-een gebracht.Lier in Oost-vrisland. 1691
Ms on paper, 1691/2
(Emden, Bibliothek der grossen Kirche Hs. Theol. 8°, 37)

The library of the Grosse Kirche in Emden holds two manuscripts entitled Silveren Arcke, one from 1689, the other one the manuscript here exhibited, which according to a note on the last page was completed on 26 September 1692 in Leer in East Frisia. This latter manuscript has been somewhat augmented. According to the printed version of 1723 [no 62] the compiler is one Michiel Vinke, who is otherwise unknown.

The title of the manuscript is an allusion to a compilation by Sebastian Franck (1499-1542) entitled Die Guldin Arch (1538) [no 65]. Vinke frequently refers to his predecessor. Apparently, spiritualist views had not lost any of their currency for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Pietists, for Vinke also reserves ample room for Hiël, Servetus, David Joris and others. He furthermore pays attention to seventeenth-century mystics like Böhme, Bourignon and Engelbrecht. The classical philosophers in the Silveren Arcke are for the most part Stoics, the pagan exponents of such notions as tranquility, resignation and passivity.

The collection opens with passages from the Bible. Next follows a chapter devoted to Hermes Trismegistusm, which opens with a song, entitled 'Laaste [sic?] woorden van Hermes Tris-megistus' [Last words of Hermes Trismegistus], to the melody of: 'Ik roep u o hemelsche Vader aan' [I call on thee oh heavenly Father]. This is the locus in Altividius, which was already incorporated in the copies of Ficino's translation of the Corpus Hermeticum [see no 5]. Hermes says when he dies:

Tot hier toe mijn kinderen heb ik my
Als Vreemdeling gehouwen,
Die buyten zijn Land als Pelgrim zy;
Nu keert mijn Ziele vry,
Gezond, vroolyk en bly,
'T recht Vaderland 't aanschouwen.
So haast als ik nu zal ontbonden zijn
Al van des Lichaams smerten,
En scheyde van u door korte pijn;
So wacht u dat gy mijn,
Met een bedroeft aanschijn,
Niet en beweent van herten;
Gelijk als een Doode die niet meer is:
Want als ik dan weder-keere
Na d'alder-geluckigste Stadt gewis;
Daar Niemant schoon en fris
Als door doots droeffenis,
Het lief getal vermeere.

Until now my children I have comported
myself as a Stranger,
Like a pilgrim outside his country;
Now my soul turns freely,
Healthily, merrily and happily,
To the privilege to behold the Fatherland.
As soon I shall now be released
From all bodily afflictions,
And be separated from you by a short pain;
So beware that you do not
With a sad countenance,
weep for me with all your hearts;
Like a Dead man who is no longer there:
For when I return
To the most happy City to be sure;
Where Nobody pure and bright
As through death's sadness,
Multiplies the sweet number.

The rest of the chapter consists of extracts from Van Beyerland's Corpus Hermeticum translation (1643, 1652) [nos 60 and 61].

The last pages of the manuscript contain verses to be added to portraits of Böhme, David Joris and others, from which may be inferred that the manuscript was intended to be put into print.

Ref. Kochs; Hollweg, 181ff

12 Grondige oplossinge van De natuur en eijgenschappen Der elementen en De eeuwige werkelijkheijt Gods, in het Geschep. Geschreven en nagelaten, voor De ondersoekers Der waarheijt. Door S.D.I. nagesien en Gecorrigeert Door H.P.
Ms on paper, 1712

The first part of the title is already reminiscent of a text by Cornelis Drebbel (1572-1633), Van de natuyre der elementen [Of the nature of the elements] from 1604. In the preface to this work, also included in slightly adapted form in the manuscript, Drebbel writes that it is his objective to learn to know God through his creatures, a resolution which corresponds with the second part of the title printed above. However, the cosmological speculations in the manuscript here exhibited are much more modern than Drebbel's largely Aristotelian observations concerning the elements. They are cast in a Cartesian style of argumentation, which is applied to Boehmistically-tinged mystical insights.

The writer of this manuscript remains anonymous to this day. The combination of Cartesianism and Boehmist mysticism, however, suggests that this text originates from the circle of Willem Deurhoff (1650-1716), an Amsterdam mystic who ran a haberdasher's shop in the Warmoesstraat.

The Cartesian 'cogito', the 'I think', which guarantees clarity via the method of philosophical doubt, apparently obtained in an mystical reinterpretation the status of an intuitive faculty, providing for inner certainty, comparable with the Nous from the Corpus Hermeticum in its individual aspect.

The manuscript contains a 'Verklaring op Hermis 16. sermoen, Van 't wesen van De ziele tot Ammon' [Explanation of the sixteenth sermon of Hermes, On the essence of The soul to Ammon], a paraphrase and commentary of Book XVI from the Corpus Hermeticum translation of Van Beyerland (1643, 1652) [nos 60 and 61]. The latter translated from the Latin of Patrizi's Nova de universis philosophia (1591, 1593) [nos 47 and 48]. Book XIV of this work, De anima. Ad eundem Ammonem, consists of seven fragments taken from Johannes Stobaeus' anthology [no 16]. Cf Van Beyerland XVI, 1:

De Siele dan, is een on-lichamelijk Wesen; en, in 't lichaam
zijnde, en gaat sy niet, uyt haar eyghen Wesentlijckheyt.

The Soul, then, is an un-corporeal Being; and, being
inside the body, it does not leave its own Essence.

The Verklaring [Explanation] of S.D.I. to XVI, 1 is as follows:

De ziele is een onlighamelijk wesen, en Daar toe eeuwig,
en in 't lighaam sijnde, Gaat sij niet uijt haar
wesenthijt: en waarom niet; want als sij Daar uijt Ging,
so Ging sij uijt haar Leven, ook mede en kan het
lighaam niet beletten Dat het leven van De siele soude
ophoude, Dewijl Dat het selfs Geen leven is, maar alleen
een hebbelijkhijt van 't leven, of iets Dat in 't leven tot
een bloeijen komt, en van 't bloeijen tot een vrugt. De
vrugt nu is nooijt het leven van Den boom, maar een
Geboorte: en het leven is nog het leven Dat het te voren
was.

The soul is an uncorporeal being, and being eternal, and
present in the body, it does not Leave her essence: and
why not; because when it would leave, she would Leave
her Life, also the body cannot prevent That the life of
The soul should end, As It is of itself Not life, but a
<mere aspect> of life, or something That blossoms in
life, and bears fruit out of the blossom. Now the fruit
is never the life of The tree, but a Birth: and life is
still the same life it was before.

In this fashion the author of this manuscript comments on the first 25 parapgraphs of Van Beyerland's Book XVI, which in all contains 57 sections.

13 Hermes Trismegistus. De tafel van hermes. In: Valentin Weigel. Van de betrachting des leuens Christi. En hoe Christus tot onsen nut, moet gekent worden. Vervat in vijf cappitelen. Nog is hier bij gevoegt, De korte Inleydinge, tot de Duytsche theologie [...] uijt het hoogduijts vertaalt. Door A.W.V.B. tot Amsterdam, voor Pieter la Burg, boekverkoper, In de Niezel, In 't wapen van straalzont, 1647.
Ms on paper, first quarter of the 18th century

Dutch translation of the Tabula smaragdina. This translation did not rely on the first printed Dutch version which Samuel Sylvius published in 1721 [no 71] after the Latin translation of W. Chr. Kriegsmann (1657) [no 70].

The Tabula smaragdina was added to a copy of Von Betrachtung dess Leben Christi (1578) by Valentin Weigel (1533-1588) together with a poem solely made up of passages from the Corpus Hermeticum, in the translation which A.W. Van Beyerland made in 1638 and which he subsequently published in 1647. The passages from the hermetic poem are derived from Van Beyerland's translation of the Corpus Hermeticum (1643, 1652) [nos 60 and 61].

The Tabula is a short enigmatic text dealing with alchemist 'axiomas': the network of universal sympathy by means of which macrocosmos and microcosmos reflect each other, the alchemical process (and the liberation of the soul from the body), the union and unity of opposites, destillation (and: ascent of the soul in mystical union).

The text has come down amongst others in the work of the Arab alchemist Gabir Ibn Hajjan (eighth century), better known in Latin texts as Geber. In the manuscripts the text is linked with the work of Apollonius of Tyana. Ruska, however, thinks it is too far-fetched to postulate a Greek origin for the Tabula. The text was translated into Latin with an added commentary by one Hortulanus or Garlandius, who was to have lived in the eleventh century. The first printed edition of his translation appeared in the collection De alchemia (1541) [no 69]. Another translation, by Hugo Sanctelliensis (twelfth century) has survived in manuscript form, under the title Liber de secretis naturae et occultis rerum causis quem transtulit Apollonius de libris Hermes Trismegisti (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Ms. lat. 13951). According to tradition, the Tabula smaragdina was found in a burial chamber. Another tradition has it that Hermes Trismegistus lived before the Flood, and that the Tabula was found by Sarah in the valley of Hebron, where Adam was to have been buried. The text was written in Syrian, the original language in which God spoke with Adam. These ideas were still being discussed in the eighteenth century in J.F. Reiman's Versuch einer Einleitung in die Historiam Antedeluvianam (1709).

This tradition led the English translator and editor of the Corpus Hermeticum (1650) to the conclusion that Hermes' text was originally to have been written in Arabic. See no 63.

Ref. Ruska


14 Hermes Trismegistus. Sesthien boecken
Ms on paper. Dated: Vlissingen, 11 March 1740
(Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam Library XVI B 13)

Copy of the Dutch translation of the Corpus Hermeticum (1643, 1652) [nos 60 and 61], which the Amsterdam merchant A.W. van Beyerland (1586/87-1648) made after the Greek-Latin edition included in Francesco Patrizi's Nova de universis philosophia (1591, 1593) [nos 47 and 48]. The latter's preface, which Van Beyerland also translated, has been omitted in this copy. Van Beyerland's marginal notes, however, were retained. The order of Book XI and XII has been switched.

Added to this copy is a commentary on the first work of the German mystic Jacob Böhme (1575-1624), Aurora (1612, first printed edition 1634), Over het boeck De dageraat in het opgaan Getrocke uijt Een hoog Verlighte Vriendt Godts Jacob boohme [On the book The breaking dawn, taken from a highly illuminated friend of God Jacob boohme], dated 26 March 1741.

Van Beyerland translated almost the complete work of Böhme in the period 1634-1643, with the exception of the Aurora. The first Dutch translation of this latter work appeared in Amsterdam in 1686 as Aurora, of de dageraad in 't opgaan [Aurora, or the breaking dawn]. It is attributed to Jan Luyken (1649-1712).

15 Apuleius. Opera.
[Ed. Johannes Andreae]. Hermes Trismegistus. Asclepius. Albinus. Epitoma disciplinarum Platonis. [Translated by Petrus Balbus]. Rome, [Conradus Sweynheym and
Arnoldus Pannartz], 1469

First printed edition of the collected work of Apuleius, to which is added the Latin Asclepius, the translation of which was wrongly attributed to Apuleius. See no 1.