Hermetis Trismegisti Asclepius, seu de Natura Deorum Dialogus

Ascle'pius

(Ἀσκλήπιος).

1. A fabulous personage, said to have been a disciple of Hermes, the Egyptian Thot, who was regarded as the father of all wisdom and knowledge.

Works

A Greek dialogue (λόγος τέλειος) between Asclepius and Hermes (Hermetis Trismegisti Asclepius, seu de Natura Deorum Dialogus)

There existed in antiquity a Greek dialogue (λόγος τέλειος) between Asclepius and Hermes on God, man, and the universe; we now possess only a Latin translation of it, which in former times used to be attributed to Appuleius. It is entitled Hermetis Trismegisti Asclepius, seu de Natura Deorum Dialogus, and is evidently the production of a very late time, that is, of the age in which a reconciliation was attempted between the polytheism of antiquity and Christianity through the medium of the views of the New Platonists. (Bosscha in Oudendorp's edition of Appuleius, iii. p. 517; Hildebrand, de Vita et Scriptis Appuleii, p. 28, &c.)

ὅρος Ἀσκληπίου πρὸς Ἄμμωνα βασιλέα

To the same Asclepius is also ascribed a work still extant, entitled ὅρος Ἀσκληπίου πρὸς Ἄμμωνα βασιλέα.

Editions

This is printed together with a Latin translation by A. Turnebus in his edition of the Poemander ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus (Paris, 1554, 4to.), and in F. Patricius's Nova de Universis Philosophia, Ferrara, 1591, fol.The Latin translation of the work is contained in vol. ii. of the works (Opera) of Marsilius Ficinus, Basel, 1561.