Thrice Greatest Hermes, Volume 1 by George Robert Stowe Mead

Description

Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Volume 1 is a book by George Robert Stowe Mead, first published in 1906. In this volume Mead presents prolegomena and a careful survey of the extant sermons and fragments attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, setting those texts within the wider currents of Hellenistic theosophy and early Gnostic thought. The tone is scholarly and encyclopaedic: Mead stitches together translations, historical commentary and philological notes aimed at readers who seek an authoritative introduction to Hermetic literature. Mead’s work shaped early-20th-century interest in the Hermetica by treating the corpus not as mere occult curiosities but as a legitimate strand of late antique religious philosophy. Volume I functions both as a critical apparatus — cataloguing sources, tracing influences from Egyptian and Greek traditions, and assessing chronological questions — and as an interpretive guide that foregrounds themes of gnosis, the nature of mind, and the salvific role of divine knowledge. This edition remains valued by students of Hermeticism, classical esoterica, and comparative religion for its breadth, conservative scholarship, and enduring influence on subsequent translations and studies.

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