Poimandres is the first and most famous treatise of the Corpus Hermeticum, an influential collection of religious texts attributed to the mythical Hermes Trismegistos. As a whole, they reflect a unique Alexandrian synthesis of Egyptian, Hellenistic, Jewish and Christian doctrines and practices which for more than two thousand years have fertilised in countless ways the Mediterranean cultural world.

Within myself I recorded the kindness of Poimandres, and I was deeply happy because I was filled with what I wished, for the sleep of my body became sobriety of soul, the closing of my eyes became true vision, my silence became pregnant with good, and the birthing of the word became a progeny of goods.

Click here to read the most authoritative English translation (Copenhaver).

Click here for the original Greek text (Nock-Festugiere text).

Alternatively, click here for a French bilingual online text.

Or follow this link for the online English by G.R.S. Mead (“to be read with caution”).

With warm thanks to Prof. Copenhaver and the Gnostic Society Library.