Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation, with Notes and Introduction.

These volumes well exemplify the two general types of literature associated with the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, whom ancient, medieval, and Renaissance scholars identified as a great Egyptian sage, the founder of Egyptian civilization, and the inventor of theology. One body of Hermetic literature (that is, texts that claim to be the work of Hermes) consists of theoretical (philosophical and theological) treatises, of which the Corpus Hermeticum, here freshly translated by Brian Copenhaver from the definitive critical edition, is the most important surviving portion. The other part of the Hermetic literature, the "popular" or "technical," or (as we might say) the "applied" part, consists of an even larger and more diverse body of texts that deal with astrological, medical, magical, and alchemical topics. In his useful introduction to the translated Corpus Hermeticum, Copenhaver observes that in a sense, this distinction between the philosophical texts and the occultist or magical texts rests on modern ideas that the original authors of these texts would not have understood. Yet, during the course of transmission from their origin in the Hellenized Egypt of Roman times to the Renaissance and onward to modern times, compilers of Hermetic collections do seem to have segregated the philosophical from the magical texts. The treatises presently known as the Corpus Hermeticum, which appear to have diverse authorship and to represent differing and even incompatible philosophical viewpoints, seem to have been brought together as a single body of writings by the time of the great Byzantine scholar Psellus in the eleventh century. Though Copenhaver acknowledges that there was no impermeable division between the philosophical and the astrological-magical Hermetica, he finds the distinction between philosophical and "technical" Hermetic texts to be valid.

Copenhaver's English translation is the first to be based on the monumental edition of the philosophical Hermetica published by A.D. Nock and A.J. Festugiere between 1945 and 1954, though he also draws on the valuable but idiosyncratic edition by Walter Scott and on several earlier translations. This volume does not include those Hermetic texts published by Nock and Festugiere and Scott that were not included in Renaissance editions. It does include the fourteen Greek tracts first translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino in 1462-63 (and first published in 1471) and the Latin Asclepius, which was known throughout the Middle Ages but for which no Greek text survives except for fragmentary passages quoted by late classical and patristic authors. Copenhaver's translation also includes three treatises which were not known to Ficino and to most early Renaissance Hermeticists but which were added to the collection by Adrien Turnebe in his Greek edition of 1554.

Copenhaver's introduction also summarizes debates among modern scholars (especially Festugiere and Mahe) about the degree to which genuinely Egyptian religious and philosophical ideas as well as Hellenistic Greek ones are reflected in the Corpus Hermeticum. His account of the enthusiastic response of those Renaissance intellectuals, from Ficino onward, who accepted the Hermetic treatises as a pure embodiment of the most ancient wisdom of the Egyptians is surprisingly brief, in view of his own special interest in that aspect of Renaissance thought. He refers readers to numerous modern studies of Renaissance Hermetism, including his own and those of Frances Yates and D.P. Walker; but one may hope that his future work will lead to a comprehensive synthesis of his views on the place of the Hermetica in the Renaissance. He also discusses only in passing (and largely by summarizing the views of Festugiere and some others) the philosophical content of these treatises, and only in passing does he demonstrate their multiple authorship and their incompatible blend of monist and dualist, optimistic and pessimistic, Platonist and Stoic views of the world. His translation itself is as readable and clear as the often muddled content of the original texts permits; and his extensive commentary carefully explains his textual choices and his indebtedness to the classic works of Reizenstein, Scott, Nock, and Festugiere and to the more recent publications of Mahe, Fowden, and several others. His textual departures from the Nock/Festugiere edition are fully explained, with reference to subsequent scholarship that has necessitated some emendation of the normative text. Both in his introduction and in his textual notes, Copenhaver makes extensive and effective use of the work of Mahe, Fowden, and others on recently discovered Coptic and Armenian fragments which undermine Festugiere's insistence that the treatises are purely Hellenistic and have no significant Egyptian content. To have a readable English translation carefully derived from the best critical edition and carefully annotated in the light of recent research will be helpful both to specialists studying the Hermetic tradition and to general readers interested in Renaissance topics.

Very different in nature is the medieval astrological text edited by Simonetta Feraboli for the Belgian series Corpus Christianorum. The Latin work De triginta sex decanis is also attributed to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, but it represents the "technical" part of the Hermetic tradition and presents not a vaguely philosophical wisdom but a flood of practical and specific details on stellar and planetary names and positions that would be useful to practicing astrologers rather than to people meditating on the nature and destiny of humanity. Based on a fifteenth-century manuscript of the Harleian collection in the British Library, the present text derives from a lost Greek original. It was compiled by some unknown "Hermes" from various sources, some of which can be identified with existing ancient texts. The title and the Hermetic attribution actually pertain to only the first of the thirty-seven chapters. The editor's extensive apparatus identifies and quotes the Greek (or Latin) sources of many passages. An appendix reproduces the French text of chapters 24 and 25 from a fourteenth-century manuscript of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Also appended are tables summarizing the constellations and positions of stars discussed in certain portions of the Latin text, an extensive index of ancient sources, an index of mathematical terms, and a brief index of persons and places mentioned in the text. This volume will have little or no interest to most students of the Renaissance in general but will be valuable to scholars working on the astrological tradition in medieval and Renaissance culture.

CHARLES G. NAUERT, JR. University of Missouri, Columbia