The Arabic Hermetic corpus and the Book of the Three Hundred Chapters

Record summary

Arabic Hermetic writings transmitted materials attributed to Hermes Trismegistus on astrology, cosmology, alchemy, medicine, and occult correspondences. Some works survive only in Arabic or through later quotations, while others preserve or transform earlier Greek and Syriac material. This corpus is valuable for comparing how an ancient authoritative persona was reinterpreted in an Islamic scholarly environment and connected to practical sciences. The textual record is fragmented, and titles, attributions, and translation histories vary substantially. “Hermetic” here describes a historical textual lineage, not proof of a unified ancient secret doctrine.