Festugiere on Hermes Trismegistus: The Most Puzzling Book I've Yet Attemtpted to Read

 La révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste: Edition Definitive, by AJ Festugière.

I've read Gravity's Rainbow, Finnegans Wake, everything by Gaddis, Eco in Italian+, Adorno in German, Cervantes in Spanish, Ovid and many others in Latin, and none of them gave me any particular problem.

But I can't even tell you yet what Festugiere's book is, what kind of book it is. Oh, I can tell you one thing for sure, one thing some will no doubt find helpful: it is not not the Corpus Hermeticum, the primary Greek and Latin texts of which were edited by Nock and published with facing-page translations into French by Festugiere. In addition to the volumes by Nock and Festugiere, the Coptic and Armenian parts of the corpus were published by JP Mahe, also with French facing-page translations. I Ramelli also published one very convenient, although large, volume of all of the above except for the Armenian text, with facing-page translation in Italian. Also, all of the above volumes contain thorough introductions and commentaries, in French or Italian as the case is.

Those Greek, Latin, Coptic and Armenian texts are the Corpus Hermeticum, the primary texts of the Hermetic religion or philosophy, however you wish to describe it.

Festugiere's Revelation -- is not that. It's often described as a collection of the primary Hermetic texts, but it isn't. Like Festugiere's and Nock's collection of the primary texts, it was first published in 4 volumes beginning in the 1940's -- but 4 different volumes. It contains many, many excerpts of texts written both before and after the Corpus Hermeticum, texts which, whether in agreement or opposition, inspired Hermeticism and in turn were inspired by it, mostly, but not all, translated into French, and with thorough introductions and commentaries. What is it exactly? Festugiere's description of Hermetic religion? That would be my best guess.

I have not spent much time studying theology, in fact I have spent a good portion of my life avoiding theology. That no doubt accounts for much of my difficulty here.

So why am I not avoiding theology as assiduously as I used to, like a good atheist? Because I have loved so many people to whom these things have been so important, that I cannot ignore them any more. My apologies to Johann Wolfgang von ("-- und leider auch Theologie --") Goethe, who I think would understand.

One of the very last parts of this enormous book, one of the very last appendices, contains a translated text by Proclus under a title saying that finding God is difficult and explaining God is impossible. Maybe I should have a long, good laugh at that, and not try to explain what this book is, besides brilliant.

Another good, long laugh for me personally: Hegel puzzles me profoundly, and recently I've come across the assertion the he was an Hermeticist.