by John Everard (Translator), Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus (Author)
Hermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth. A collection of several such Greek texts from the 2nd and 3rd centuries, remnants of a more extensive previous literature, were compiled into a Corpus Hermeticum by Italian scholars during the Renaissance, notably by Marsilio Ficino, whose Latin translation went through eight incunable editions before 1500, and a further twenty-two by 1641. John Everard's historically important 1650 translation into English of the Corpus Hermeticum, entitled The Divine Pymander.