J.R. Ritman Library - Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica

70 W. Chr. Kriegsmann. Hermetis Trismegisti phoenicum aegyptiorum.
s.l. s.n. [after 1657]

An attempt by the Orientalist W. Chr. Kriegsmann to prove that Hermes Trismegistus was of Phoenician origin. With the aid of the Hebrew language he produced a Latin version which was to reflect the Phoenician Ur-text better. He often closely approaches the Arabic text of the Tabula as we know it now from the work of Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan). Ruska believes that the chemical explanation supplied is imperfect. See no 13.

Ref. Ruska, 220-23.

71 Hermes Trismegistus. De Smaragdische Tafel, Gelijk die van Kriegsmannus uit het Phenicisch is overgezet. In: Gemakkelijk en effen voetpad, leidende regt toe naar het gulde slot van Hermes.
Haarlem, Izaäk Enschedé 1721

First printed Dutch translation of the Tabula smaragdina, based on the Latin of Kriegsmann (1657) [no 70], by Samuel Sylvius (1655-1723), a poet from the circles of Jan Luyken, who judging from the allusions in his Hemichilias (1725) was very familiar with alchemical literature.

The Tabula smaragdina is added to Sylvius' translation of an alchemical text, entitled: Gemakkelijk en effen voetpad [Easy and smooth footpath]. See no 62 for Enschedé's interest in mysticism and Hermetica.

72 Hermes Trismegistus. Tracatus aureus. In: Ars chemica.
Strassburg, Samuel Emmel 1556

Alchemical treatise in seven chapters attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. The text is rather condensed, and far from simple. Hermes discusses the alchemical process and uses a number of symbols and expressions which have gained general currency in alchemy.

The art is a gift of God (donum Dei), and one should therefore fear God. This statement is reminiscent of Psalm 111:10, an adage recurring with some regularity in alchemical and Rosicrucian writings: 'Timor Domini est initium sapientiae', fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

The beginning of the process is symbolized by the raven. This could be interpreted as a symbol for the nigredo phase, in which everything is still black and impure. Michael Maier quotes this passage from the Tractatus aureus in the epigram to Emblem XLIII in his Atalanta fugiens (1618):

Scitote ergo rumoris inquisitores, et sapientiae filii, quod vultur super montem existens, clamat voce magna: Ego sum albus nigri et rubeus albi et citrinus rubei et certe veridicus sum. Et scitote, quod caput artis est corvus, qui in nigredine noctis et claritate diei volat sine alis.

[You must know, investigators of rumours and sons of wisdom, that the vulture which lives on top of the mountain, screams with a loud voice: I am the white of black, and the red of white and the yellow of red and truly I speak the truth. And know, that the beginning of the art is the raven, which flies through the darkness of the night and the brightness of the day without wings].

The raven symbolizes the first phase of the process; the vulture all phases: black, white, yellow and red. The philosopher's stone has many colours. Hermes says:

Fili mi hic lapis est celatus, multorum colorum, natusque in uno colore, cognoscite illum, et celate.

[This stone my son is hidden, has many colours, and is born in one colour, learn to know it and keep it hidden].

Gold is the king of all metals. When he is crowned he will father a son:

Ubi autem regem coronatum filiae nostrae rubeae ei coniungemus, et in levi igne nondum nocentibus, concipiet, et filium coniunctum, et super eminentem, quo igniculo permanentem cibat illa, et vivit igne nostro.

[When we have crowned our king, we join him with our red daughter, and in a light fire which cannot harm them, she will grow with child and bear a conjoined and eminent son. She feeds him with that fire, and he lives in our fire].

This son is superb with his tincture. When he rules death shall be conquered.

Ref. De Jong, 268-72.

73 Hermes Trismegistus. Liber de XXIV philosophorum

At a gathering of twenty-four philosophers one issue finally remained to be debated: what is God? At the next meeting each participant offered a concise description. The Liber XXIV philosophorum consists of twenty-four definitions, with an added commentary incorrectly attributed to Chalcidius (ca 400), who translated and annotated the first part of Plato's Timaeus in Latin.

Twenty-four manuscripts have survived of the Liber XXIV philosophorum; the earliest date to the thirteenth century. However, quotations from the text can already be found in the work of Alanus ab Insulis (12th century). The general tone of the definitions is Platonic, in the style of Augustine, Dionysius Areopagita, Boethius and others. The first definition is as follows:

Deus est monas, monadem ex se gignens, in se unum reflectens adorem.

[God is the one, He brings forth oneness out of himself, and He lets the oneness return to himself in the form of love].

This aphorism for instance is quoted by Agrippa von Nettesheim in De occulta philosophia sive de magia libri tres (1533). Agrippa refers to passages in which Hermes talks about the Son of God:

Mercurius quoque Trismegistus in Asclepio, dei filium diversis in locis affirmat. Inquit enim: Deus meus atque pater, mentem sibi aliam opificem peperit. Et alibi: Monas gignit monadem, et in se suum reflectit ardorem. Et in Pimandro [...] ait, regenerationis autor est filius dei homo, unius voluntate dei (III,8).

[Hermes says in the Asclepius: 'My God and Father has brought forth another creative spirit'. In the Liber XXIV philosophorum he says that the Oneness brings forth the Oneness and in Pimander [Corpus Hermeticum XIII,4] Hermes declares to Tat that the Son of God brings about the rebirth, if it is God's wish].

The second definition is the most important one from the Liber XXIV philosophorum:

Deus est sphaera infinita cuius centrum est ubique, circumferentia vero nusquam.

[God is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere and the circumference nowhere].

Cusa refers to this aphorism in De docta ignorantia II,12, in which he speaks of the movement of the earth and the illusion of the observer who considers himself a fixed point around which everything moves:

Unde erit machina mundi quasi habens undique centrum et nullibi circumferentiam, quoniam eius circumferentia et centrum est deus, qui est undique et nullibi.

[The structure of the world is such, as if she had her centre everywhere and her circumference nowhere, as her circumference and her centre is God, who is everywhere and nowhere].

The hermetic philosopher Robert Fludd quotes this aphorism in his Anatomiae amphitheatrum (1623).

Ref. Baeumker; d'Alverny; Mahnke; Hudry

74 Hermes Trismegistus. Centiloquium. In: Albubather. Liber nativitatem.
Venice, Giovanni Batista Sessa 1501

A hundred astrological aphorisms attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. In some medieval manuscripts the selection is presented as an anthology from the astrological treatises of Hermes, compiled by a certain Stephan of Messina. The Centiloquium was sometimes attributed to the Greek astronomer Ptolemy (2nd century) and added to an edition of his Quadripartitum as early as 1493.

Ref. Thorndike II, 221

75 Hermes Trismegistus. Iatromathematica (hoc est medicinae cum mathematica coniunctio) ad Amonem Aegyptium conscripta. In: Johannes Stadius. Ephemeris Anno Christi 1554.
Cologne, heirs of Arnold Birckmann 1560

Astrological-medical work attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, added to the second edition of the ephemerides for the years 1554-1570, by Johannes Stadius (1527-1579), a Flemish-born mathematician and astronomer. In the Iatromathematica it is stated that the seven planets already bring their influence to bear at the moment of conception:

Radii ex septem planetis emisi multiplicantur et commiscentur in singula hominis membra, dum in utero matris conceptus coalescere incipit.

The planets rule over certain organs: the sun rules the right eye, the moon the left; Saturn influences hearing, Jupiter the brain, Mars the blood and Venus the sense of smell and taste. Mercury, as God of the word, rules over the tongue and lungs.

Illness is caused by the evil influence of a planet not belonging to the organ in question. The cure consists of compensation of the insufficiently strong influence of the ruling planet. Sympathetic agents are used in the cure: plants, essences, symbols and spells belonging to that particular planet. In a sense Hermetic treatment is homeopathic.

This type of astrological-Hermetic texts was used by Agrippa von Nettesheim in the second book of his De occulta philosophia sive de magia libri tres (1533).

76 Hermes Trismegistus. Poemander.
Ed. G. Parthey. Berlin 1854

Greek text of CH I-XIV, with a new translation in Latin. Parthey used the editions of Turnebus (1554) [no 43], Foix de Candale (1574) [no 44], Patrizi (1591, 1593) [nos 47 and 48] and Tiedemann's notes (1781) [no 67]. He claims, however, mainly to have based himself on two Greek manuscripts, Laurentianus Pluteus 71, 33 [no 3] (the manuscript which Ficino used to translate from) and Parisinus Graecus 1220 [no 4]. Both manuscripts, however, were examined by others, and then only partially, for textual variants and compared with the above-mentioned printed editions. This makes his philological exercises, to use the words of Walter Scott 'useless, if not misleading'. Furthermore, Parthey attached too much importance to Patrizi's unreliable 'corrections'.

At the end of his Praefatio he announces an edition of the 'reliqua Hermetis scripta' to be found in Lactantius, Cyrillus and Stobaeus. This project, however, appears never to have materialized.

Parthey's edition is preceded by Vergicius' preface to the edition of Turnebus (1554), together with that of Foix (1574) and part of Patrizi's introduction of 1591.

Ref. Scott I, 44; Mahé II, 10

77 Hermes Trismegistus. Einleitung in's höchste Wissen: von Erkenntnis der Natur und sich darin offenbarenden grossen Gottes. Begriffen in siebenzehn Büchern, nach griechischen und lateinischen Exemplaren in's Deutsche übersetzt [...] Verfertigt von Alethophilo, 1786.
Stuttgart, J. Scheible 1855

Another edition of no 68. The publisher may not have been aware of the first edition of 1706.