THE CORPUS HERMETICUM

BY

B. H. STRICKER

When presenting to the Literary Faculty of Leyden University

my paper on The Division of the History of the Egyptian Language,

Friday the 5th of October 1945, I colilld defend, amongst the six

required by the Academic Statute, a thesis on the Hermetic literature,

running: "The Hermetic writings contain, in a presentation com-

prehensible to the Greek reader, expositions of the system of philos-

ophy and science, developed, or at least professed, by the Egyptian

priesthood during the last millennium before the beginning of

our era".

By courtesy of the Editors of this review I am enabled to publish this thesis here in a somewhat more elaborate form.

I The Hermetic literature is of autochthonous Egyptian origin.- The Hermetic doctrine is the esoteric doctrine of the Egyptian

priesthood as it has developed in the course of the Old, the Middle and the New Kingdom. Relationship to Orphism, Pythagorism or

any of the other Greek systems of religion or philosophy, exists only in so far as these latter are dependant on the Egyptian. On the other

hand, the literary methods of Hermetism, its terminology, composi- tion and argumentation by dialogue, have been conscientiously

copied from the Greek.

II The Hermetic treatises form part of an extensive Corpus dedi-

cated to theology.-The treatises are all equal in rank and were

edited simultaneously. There exists no difference between a higher and between a lower Hermetism. To theology in Egypt belonged not

only what we call theology proper, but also philosophy, science and '

magic. Each treatise gives in a concentrated form a survey of the

whole of its subject, and the entire Corpus, in the same manner,

gives a survey of the whole of Egyptian theology. __ III The Corpus Hermeticum has been composed by the Egyptian

priesthood at the command of king Ptolemy I Soter.-After the

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establishment of the dynasty, the Ptolemies, with the purpose of

furthering the unity of their empire, created a new god, Serapis,

Egyptian in nature (O.siris), Greek in form. At the same time a

registration of the religions professed by the non-Hel'lenic residents

was decided upon. The Egyptian priesthood under Manetho was

ordered to have the contents of the treatises prepared by specialists from its midst. Its draughts were translated and rearranged by Greek men of letters, recruited possibly from the newly erected Museum,

thereupon adopted and deposited in copy in the several Serapea. The

Jews, settled in the country and especially at Alexandria, were

enjoined in their turn to transl,ate their scriptures, and they produced what we know nowadays as the Septuaginta.

IV The commission was intended as a measure for checking the

Egyptian nationa!lism.- There were for the Egyptian priesthood certain advantages. The Corpus could be considered as a re-edition

of older codifications, such as that of king Cheops. It formed a

religiously inspired counterpart of the purely humanistic Aristotelian

Corpus, which was only a few decennia older. It demonstrated in a

convincing way the priority of the Egyptian civili,sation with regard to the Greek. But all this served to conceal a bitter reality. By

.abandoning the secret of its dogmas and committing itself to an

infallible and irrevocable interpretation, the Egyptian Church had

to dispose of its sovereignty in matters of creed and, therewith, of

its mastery over the population. After the introduction of the Corpus Hermeticum, Egyptian theology was automatically transposible in

Greek, the Government could replace indigenous cult by Greek at

discretion, and could strike down and treat as unlawful any utter-

ance of nationalism it thought troublesome.

LEIDEN, Museum van Oudheden.