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Just as the title says.

What do you think the purpose was and who wrote it ?

Interesting, since I just watched this last night.

The Hermeticum as we have it today largely comes from an early Renaissance Latin translation and compilation, of an old Greek translation and compilation, of the essence of Egyptian Mystery. So, what we call the Hermeticum today is large a fusion of the Greco-Egyptian Mysteries, a compilation of spiritual knowledge and wisdom. I do not think it really has one single author, unless you consider God its author - and a number of mystics do.

As for its purpose, well. Its purpose is that of any spiritual text: to explain and teach spiritual ideals.



~:Shin:~

Has anybody read the newest translation by Brian Copenhaver?
I've only read the old G.R.S Mead translation and his reputation as a translator is somewhat tarnished.

They're the pseudoepigrapha of Hermes Trismegistus.

My best guess, going out on my own limb, is that the Ptolemy's had a big hand in the Hermetic name brand. They were gathering major gnostic and spiritual texts from all over the region in the 2nd century BC, the Septuagint/Vulgate was just one of many of their projects, and of course there's Claudius Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. There's other clues also but I really think that it was primarily their team of scribes or even they themselves putting their own thoughts down.

I don't have any direct proof of that, just that the circumstantial evidence seems persuasive to me, and apparently it did to many of the artists who've depicted both Hermes Trismegistus with his pointed hat and globe as well as Claudius Ptolemy with the same features.

It is pretty well known that it is not genuine. The question is who did it and why ?

The Corpus Hermeticum are the core documents of the Hermetic tradition.The fifteen tractates of the Corpus Hermeticum, along with the Perfect Sermon or Asclepius, are the foundation documents of the Hermetic tradition. Written by unknown authors in Egypt sometime before the end of the third century C.E., they were part of a once substantial literature attributed to the mythic figure of Hermes Trismegistus.

The story of Hermetic tradition is rather say feeling the betrayal of Judas.....

But then again there are more stars above to count.