
Their predominant literary form is the dialogue: Hermes Trismegistus instructs a perplexed disciple upon various teachings of the hidden wisdom. These post-Christian Greek texts dwell upon the oneness and goodness of God, urge purification of the soul, and defend religious practices such as the veneration of images. The books now known as the Corpus Hermeticum were part of a renaissance of syncretistic and intellectualized pagan thought that took place from the 3rd to the 7th century AD. These doctrines were “characterized by a resistance to the dominance of either pure rationality or doctrinal faith.” In Late Antiquity, Hermetism emerged in parallel with early Christianity, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, the Chaldaean Oracles, and late Orphic and Pythagorean literature. History Late Antiquityįurther information: Hellenistic religion and Decline of Hellenistic polytheism Hence, the term “completely sealed” is implied in “hermetically sealed” and the term “hermetic” is also equivalent to “occult” or hidden. Hermes Trimegistus supposedly invented the process of making a glass tube airtight (a process in alchemy) using a secret seal. It was the opinion of Plato, and is yet of the Hermeticall Philosophers.” (R. Sir Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici of 1643 wrote: “Now besides these particular and divided Spirits, there may be (for ought I know) a universal and common Spirit to the whole world. The synonymous term Hermetical is also attested in the 17th century. Mary Anne Atwood mentioned the use of the word Hermetic by Dufresnoy in 1386. The word Hermetic was used by John Everard in his English translation of The Pymander of Hermes, published in 1650. In English, it has been attested since the 17th century, as in “Hermetic writers” (e.g., Robert Fludd). The term Hermetic is from the medieval Latin hermeticus, which is derived from the name of the Greek god Hermes. Humility, Modesty, Chastity, and Temperance.
