Asclepius (The Perfect Discourse)

The Asclepius, also called the Perfect Discourse, is a Hermetic dialogue in which Hermes Trismegistus instructs his disciples Asclepius, Tat and Ammon. The Greek original survives only in fragments; the complete text is known from a Latin translation of late antiquity, long transmitted under the name of Apuleius, which Renaissance printers issued together with Marsilio Ficino’s Latin version of the Corpus Hermeticum. This record links a 1532 printing of that combined edition digitized by the Wellcome Collection, and a modern open-access German edition.

Hermes Trismegistus is a legendary syncretic figure combining Greek Hermes and Egyptian Thoth, traditionally credited with the Hermetic writings. As an authorial persona, he became one of the central authorities for Western esoteric, alchemical, and philosophical traditions, especially in Renaissance Hermetism.