The Egyptian god Thoth is depicted in the form of a baboon.
The Renaissance is considered the beginning of modern science, science based on the intellectual efforts of man-scientists. Interestingly, and usually not emphasized, it is strongly marked by a published doctrine – hermetism. The doctrine attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary Egyptian sage, which had a strong influence on the entire cultural life of the Renaissance, especially its philosophy.
Hermetism
Hermetism generally refers to any doctrine that advocates ideas attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, and hermetism in the true sense, called Egyptian hermetism, is Hermes’ own doctrine, which, according to tradition, Egyptian priests wrote in Greek. The texts belonging to this hermetism are divided into two groups: the so-called popular hermetism, which includes texts of an alchemical, astrological, magical, and medical nature, and learned hermetism, which includes texts of a philosophical and theological nature. The second group, consisting of the collection of discussions Corpus Hermeticum, discussion Asclepius, and Anthologium (Stobaeus’ fragments), will have a huge influence on the greatest philosophers of the Renaissance – from Marsilio Ficino through Pico della Mirandola to Giordano Bruno.
The Egyptian god Thoth was depicted in the form of an ibis bird.
Hermes Trismegistus
The fact that Hermes Trismegistus was worshiped in the Renaissance is evidenced by the fact that there was a true cult of Hermes Trismegistus. He was worshiped as an Egyptian prophet, a contemporary of Moses himself, and his teachings were considered a precursor to both Christianity and Greek philosophy.
However, there are hardly any reliable historical data about this highly revered Hermes Trismegistus – even in the Renaissance, he was just a legendary figure. The legend of him as an Egyptian king, priest, prophet, and philosopher, the source of all knowledge and wisdom, emerged in ancient times at the transition from the old to the new era.
Marsilio Ficino, a great Renaissance philosopher and translator Co Corpus Hermeticum, for which he wrote: “He was called Trismegistos, thrice great, because he was a philosopher, the greatest priest, and the greatest king. As Plato writes, among the Egyptians it was customary to select priests from philosophers and kings from priests… Being the first among philosophers, he elevated himself from natural philosophy and mathematics to the contemplation of the gods, and he was the first to discuss extensively the glory of God, the orders of demons, and the migration of souls. He was also called the first inventor and proponent of theology. And Orpheus, following him, further developed ancient theology.”
Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), a great Renaissance philosopher and translator of Corpus Hermeticum.
Corpus Hermeticum consists of fourteen, or eighteen treatises, depending on how individual fragments are grouped. These are discussions that Hermes Trismegistus holds with his students Tat, Ammon, and Asclepius. They discuss God, how the world was created, and how humanity came into existence. They also delve into the nature of the soul, its relationship to the divine, and the journey towards spiritual enlightenment. The credit for its discovery goes to Cosimo Medici, who, in the spirit of reviving ancient values as the main characteristic of the Renaissance, ordered the search for ancient texts throughout Europe. As part of this search, monk Leonardo from Pistoia found a collection of old manuscripts written in Greek in a Macedonian monastery. When this collection was brought to Florence in 1460, Marsilio Ficino halted his work on translating Plato’s works and instead began translating the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin. Ficino’s translation, published in 1471 under the title De potestate et sapientia Dei (On the power and wisdom of God), sparked great interest in scholarly circles of the time, as it was believed then that the Corpus Hermeticum was a Greek translation of ancient Egyptian teachings, specifically the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus – “Hermes Thrice Great.”
However, as early as 1614, Isaac Casaubon attempted to refute its great antiquity. He claimed that the Corpus The Corpus Hermeticum is not a translation of an Egyptian text, but was originally written in Greek in Alexandria, somewhere between the 1st and 3rd centuries. The argument for this claim lies in the fact that neither Plato nor any other pre-Christian author mentions Hermes Trismegistus. His opinion on the age of the Corpus Hermeticum is now widely accepted in scientific circles, but there are differences of opinion regarding its connection to the Egyptian tradition. For some, the Corpus Hermeticum is a Hellenized teaching of Egyptian priests, i.e. it belongs to the Egyptian tradition, and only its philosophical vocabulary is Hellenistic. For others, there is nothing foreign to Greek thought in it. They believe that its source is Plato’s Timaeus, and that its religious-philosophical character is only a reflection of the spirit of the transitional centuries.
Thanks to the translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, the cult of the Sun, based on ancient Egyptian mysteries, was revived in the Renaissance. In Robert Fludd’s illustration (Sacred Philosophy, 1626), God placed his atiljajući njihovu dubinu i tajnu, kako bih mogao prosvijetliti svoj um i doseći spoznaju istine.”
4. On me pogleda s osmijehom i reče: “Misliš pravo, mladiću. Zaista, ti si sjeme mudrosti i istine. Slušaj i primi ovo znanje koje ću ti otkriti.”
5. Tako je počelo moje putovanje kroz svjetlost i tamu, kroz spoznaju i nerazumijevanje, kroz prosvjetljenje i tjeskobu. Bio sam blagoslovljen da otkrijem tajne Univerzuma i da spoznam svoju vlastitu bit, jer sam se ostavio voditi duhom Božjim, koji je prebivao u meni kao iskra života.
Moja duša je postala čista i prosvijetljena, jer sam prihvatio istinu i mudrost koju mi je Čovjek-Pastir otkrio. Sada sam spreman dijeliti ovo znanje sa svijetom, kako bi svi mogli doseći svoj istinski potencijal i pronaći unutarnji mir i spokoj.” to da se svi elementi sjedinjuju u harmoniji. Oh, that he is hanging from it. And the earth and water remained in their proper place, united together so that no one could distinguish the earth from the water. Yet they moved to hear because of the Spirit-Word (Logos) that permeated them.
6. The Man-Shepherd (Poimandres) then said to me: “Have you understood what this vision means?”
“No, but I will understand,” I said.
“That light,” he said, “is I, Nous, your God, who existed before the Moist Nature that emerged from darkness; and the Light-Word (Logos), which appeared from the Mind (Nous), is the Son of God.”
“How can that be?” I asked.
“Know that what you see and hear within you is the Word of God (Logos); but the Mind (Nous) is God the Father. They are not separate from each other, for in their unity there is life.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Therefore, understand the light (he replied) and become friends with it.”
7. And as he said this, he looked into my eyes for a long time; when I looked at him, I began to tremble. But when he raised his head, I saw in the Mind (Nous) itself the Light, but now in its original form. powers that no man can enumerate, and the Universe (Cosmos) that surpasses all boundaries. I saw fire surrounded by the most powerful force, now restrained, standing in its place.
And when I saw these things, I understood them through the Word (Logos) of the Man-Shepherd.
Jean Francois Champollion (1831 – 1790), decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs, believed that the Corpus Hermeticum contains a great part of the Egyptian tradition.
II. (untitled)
14. Asclepius – What are you saying again, that God exists?
Hermes – God, therefore, is not Mind (Nous), but the cause of His existence. God is not Spirit, but the cause of what Spirit is. God is not Light, but the cause of the existence of Light. Therefore, God can be revered by these two names (Good and Father) – names that belong only to Him and no one else.
For none of the other so-called gods, humans or daemons can ever be Good to any degree. Only God can be Good, and nothing else. Other things are separate from the nature of Good; for everything else is a body. And the souls, they have no place to contain the Good (Sublime).
15. The greatest of this Good is such that it makes the reality of all beings; bodily and incorporeal, sensory and intellectual. This is the Sublime Good, this is God. Therefore, do not call anything else good, for you blaspheme, and never invoke God as anything other than good, because, otherwise, you blaspheme again.
III. Holy Sermon
1. The glory of all things is God, the Divinity and the Divine nature. The source of all things that exist is God, who is both Mind (Nous) and Nature – matter. He is the wisdom that reveals all things. He is also the source of the Divine – nature, energy, necessity, the end and the re-creation of the new.
For in the abyss there was infinite darkness, water, and refined intelligent spirit. These were the powers of God within chaos.
Then the Holy Light rose; and there it gathered under the Dry Space from the Moist Essential Elements. And all the gods divided all the things from the fertile Nature.
2. All beings were indeterminate and not yet formed. written; light things were then separated and raised high, while heavy things laid their foundations under the dampest part of Dry Space. Universal things were limited by Fire and suspended in Breath to be preserved.
The sky appeared in seven circles. Its gods appeared in the form of stars with all their constellations. Nature joined its parts together with the gods inside it. The edge of the sky revolved in circular motion, supported by the Breath of God.
Representation of Hermes Trismegistus in the Cathedral of Siena (Italy).
The gods sent generations of people to learn about the works of God and to be active witnesses of nature; to multiply, to rule over everything under the sky, and to know what is good, so that they may continue to increase and multiply. Through their astonishingly active course, the gods sent every soul dressed in flesh, so that people may observe the paths of the celestial gods, the works of God, and the activity of nature to recognize the signs of what is good, the power of God, and the changes. to expect miracles from things good and bad, and to discover the astonishing skills of fine arts.
4. And so people began to live, and their wisdom grew, in accordance with the fate determined by the accompanying journey of the revolving gods and their disappearance in the end.
On earth, powerful memories of their handiwork will remain; when the cycles begin to renew, behind them will be an unclear and misty trace.
For every born body with a soul, the seed of fruits and every work of hands will vanish, but out of necessity, they will be renewed again, just as the gods renew them, as well as the cyclic rotation of the rhythmic wheel of Nature.
For where the Divine is, there is also Nature, always creating a cosmic mixture, for Nature is also found in the divine.
VI. (untitled)
1. Goodness, O Asclepius, is found in nothing but God alone; no, Goodness is always God Himself. … No being is mightier than God, and no being can subjugate Him. He does not tolerate any injustice from anyone. Because of this, He loves everyone. No being shows disobedience to Him, thus not causing His anger; no being is wiser than Him, thus not causing His jealousy.
3. Goodness is limited within a person by the measure of evil. Because in a person, a small amount of goodness is counted as good. Goodness is the smallest quantity of evil for him. Therefore, goodness cannot be free from evil for him. Goodness is misused within a person, and when it is used improperly, goodness no longer remains, and when it is absent, evil is born. Therefore, Goodness is only in God, or rather, God Himself is that Goodness.
Therefore, O Asclepius, the expression of Good exists only for man, and never in reality, because that is impossible. The material body does not provide him with a place, as it is quickly bound everywhere by evil, pain, desires, passions, deceptions, foolish thoughts.
And, Asclepius, the worst thing of all is that each of these aforementioned things found within a person is considered the greatest good, while in fact, each one is undeniably evil. Greed, the root of all evil, human love It is an error; it is the absence of Good.
Illustration accompanying the text of the Emerald Tablet, a work attributed to Hermes Trismegistus (Prodromus Rhodostauroticus, 1620).
VII. (untitled)
1. Where are you stumbling, you drunkards, intoxicated with the wine of ignorance, which you can no longer bear and are vomiting?
Stop, be sensible! Look up with the eyes of your heart! And if not all of you can, then at least those who can. The evil of ignorance is engulfing the whole earth and completely destroying the soul confined to the body, not allowing it to reach the port of Salvation.
2. Do not let the great flood carry you away; use the current. Let those among you who can find the port of Salvation bring their ship into it and seek the one who will take them by the hand and lead them through the gates of knowledge.
There shines a clear light that clears away the darkness, where no soul is intoxicated, but all are sensible and seek with their hearts the One who desires to be seen.
No ear can hear Him, no eye can see Him, no tongue can speak of Him, but only the heart can understand Him.
To him speak, only the mind and heart.
But first you must remove the clothing you wear – the hatred of ignorance, the manufacture of evil, the belt of darkness, living death, the emotional corpse, the carrying grave, the thief in your own home, the one who hates through what he loves and brings evil through what he hates.
3. Such is the hateful clothing you wear, which ties you down when you look up and see the beauty of truth and the Sublime Goodness that lies within you. You will hate the evil of that clothing and recognize its deceit. It deceived you, created a semblance of emotions that are not confirmed, that are imperceptible; for it has hindered the path upwards with much coarser material and filled them with a hateful desire so that they do not hear what they should hear and do not see what they should see.
XI. The mind of Hermes
1…. Hermes – considering that many people have said a lot, and it was different, about Everything and God, I have not learned the truth. Clarify all this to me, my Lord. Because I can only believe in the interpretation that comes from You.
20…. Not If you do not resemble God, you will not know Him. Because similarity can only be understood through the help of the similar.
Grow to the same size as the Greatness that surpasses all measurable; free yourself from every body, transcend your time. Become Eternity and you will know God. Assume that nothing is impossible for you. Perceive yourself as immortal and capable of understanding everything: all art, science, and the nature of every living being.
Become higher than all heights and deeper than all depths. Feel the whole creation as one within yourself: fire, water, dryness, and humidity. Perceive yourself as if you are in all those places at the same time: on the earth, in the water, in the sky; that you are not yet born, that you are in the womb, that you are young, old, dead; that you are beyond death. Perceive all things at once: time, place, action, quality, and quantity; then you can know God.
21. If you lock your soul in your body, humble it, and say: “I understand nothing; I can do nothing; I am afraid of the sea; I cannot reach the sky; I do not know who I was and who I will be” – What is there between your God and you at that time?
Because you cannot comprehend anything beautiful or good while you are bound to the body and while you are evil. Because the greatest evil is not knowing God’s goodness; but being able to know God and desire and hope, is the most direct Path and God’s only (Path) that leads to the Sublime Good.
When you step on that path, that Good will meet you everywhere and you will experience it everywhere, even when you don’t expect it – when you sleep, when you are awake, on a boat, on the road, at night, during the day, when you speak and when you are silent. Because there is nothing that is not the image of Good.