16 Johannes Stobaeus. Eclogarum libri duo.
[Translated by Guilelmus Canterus]. Antwerp,
Christoph Plantin, 1575

Collection of extracts from largely philosophical works, compiled around 500 CE. The text was originally arranged in two manuscript volumes of two books each. The two volumes were separated by accident and printed as independent works: the Eclogae physicae et ethicae (1575) and the Florilegium (1535-1536). The excerpts derived from the texts of Hermes Trismegistus are almost without exception from the Eclogae.

17 Hermes Trismegistus. Liber de potestate et sapientia dei
[Translated by Marsilio Ficino]. Treviso,
Gerardus de Lisa 1471

After Ficino had translated the Greek manuscript [see no 3] into Latin in 1463, copies of CH I-XIV soon circulated in great number. The first printed edition appeared in 1471, seven years after Cosimo's death. Ficino linked the title of the first discourse, Poimandres, to the entire Corpus Hermeticum, which subsequently came to be known as Pimander (Pymander, Poemander).

In the Argumentum Ficino writes:

There lived at the time of Moses' birth Atlas the astrologer, the brother of Prometheus the Physicist and the maternal grandfather of Mercurius the Elder: now his grandson was Hermes Trismegistus. This at any rate is what Augustine writes about him, although according to Cicero and Lactantius there were five Mercurii in succession, and the fifth was he who the Egyptians call Thoth and the Greeks call Trismegistus. The latter was to have killed Argus, and governed the Egyptians and gave them the laws and script. [...] They called him Trismegistus, i.e. Thrice Greatest, because he was the greatest philosopher, the greatest priest and the greatest king. [...] Amongst the philosophers he was the first to turn from physics and mathematics to the contemplation of all things divine (divinorum contemplationem). He was the first to discuss with profound insight the majesty of God, the hierarchy of the supernatural beings (demonum ordine), and the transitions of the souls (animarum mutationibus). He is therefore called the first theological author. After him came Orpheus, who was awarded the second place in ancient theology. Aglaophemus was initiated into the holy teachings of Orpheus, and was succeeded in theology by Pythagoras. His disciple was Philolaus, who taught the divine Plato. [...] He presaged the decline of the old religion and the rise of the new religion, the coming of Christ, the last judgement, the resurrection of the world and the exaltation of the blessed and the punishment of the sinners. [...]

The work (Pimander) aims to be a treatise on the power and wisdom of God (de potestate et sapientia dei). Now his influence is twofold: the first remains immanent, the second emanates. The first underlies the idea of the first and eternal world, the other brings forth the derived and temporary world. Therefore Mercurius treats questions of the utmost importance relating to the two influences and the two worlds: what is God's power, what is His wisdom? In which sense does it form the intrinsic idea, and how is it realized? Next, all that has been made, how does it relate to each other? to what extent does it all correspond and to what extent does it differ? Finally, how does what is made relate to its maker? [...] Now, with our human intellect we are not capable of comprehending that which surpasses our nature. We therefore need the divine light, in the same way as we need the light of the sun in order to see the sun. But the soul will never be granted the light of the divine mind (mens), unless she turns to God's mind unconditionally, as the moon does to the sun. The soul can only turn to that Mind when she herself becomes mind. And she will only become mind when she has cast off the deceptions of the senses and the clouds of conceit. That is the reason why Mercurius first dispells the clouds of his senses and conceit and then turns to the entrance of his mind. Then Pimander, i.e. the divine mind, soon flows into him. This enables him to see the order of all things, both those which exist in God and those which flow forth from Him.

Ref. Scott I, 31-33, Yates, 12ff; Garin.