This is the extended and annotated edition including

* an extensive annotation of almost 10.000 words about the history and basics of Gnosticism, written by Wilhelm Bousset

The so-called Hermetic writings have been known to Christian writers for many centuries. The early church Fathers (Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria) quote them in defense of Christianity. Stobaeus collected fragments of them. The Humanists knew and valued them. They were studied in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in modern times have again been diligently examined by many scholars.

Contents:

I. Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men

II. To Asclepius

III. The Sacred Sermon

IV. The Cup or Monad

V. Though Unmanifest God Is Most Manifest

VI. In God Alone Is Good And Elsewhere Nowhere

VII. The Greatest Ill Among Men is Ignorance of God

VIII. That No One of Existing Things doth Perish, but Men in Error Speak of Their Changes as Destructions and as Deaths

IX. On Thought and Sense

X. The Key

XI. Mind Unto Hermes

XII. About The Common Mind

XIII. The Secret Sermon on the Mountain