A Note On The Term Noesis In Tractate XIII
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In many ways the last line of section 22 of tractate XIII of the Corpus Hermeticum – νοερῶς ἔγνως σεαυτὸν καὶ τὸν πατέρα τὸν ἡμέτερον – expresses an important aspect of the Hellenistic hermetic tradition: that “through noesis you have obtained knowledge about yourself and our father” which relates to section 2 of the tractate where the expression σοφία νοερὰ occurs.
However, this aspect has been somewhat neglected since νοερός has usually been and still is translated by English words which now imply and have implied for well over a century philosophical and latterly psychological denotata, abstractions, categories, which I consider are not relevant to the Hellenistic milieu.
A Note On The Term Noesis In Tractate XIII
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Image credit: The beginning of tractate XIII from the book Mercvrii Trismegisti Pœmandres, published in Paris in 1554.
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David Myatt 