The Forbidden Universe Read Free

space, revolves on its own axis and that it and the other planets circle the sun. Copernicus pointed out flaws in the old Ptolemaic system and set out the observations that led him to propose a new model of the universe. On the thirty-first page he reveals his groundbreaking, even shocking, proposition in the form of a diagram that shows the planets, in their correct order, circling the sun. And just four lines beneath the all-important diagram he makes an extraordinary statement:
    Accordingly [considering the sun’s central position], it is not foolish that it has been called the lamp of the universe, or its mind, or its ruler. [It is] Trismegistus’ visible God … 3
     
    Copernicus was linking the sun’s physical place in the solar system to resolutely transcendental concepts: that the sun is the universe’s ‘mind’ or the seat of the power that rules all creation, or ‘Trismegistus’ visible God’. And it is in those three words that the greatest clue to understanding Copernicus’ theory lies, for they reveal a hint of the real heresy that was to rock the Vatican to its foundations.

KEEPER OF ALL KNOWLEDGE
    Hermes Trismegistus was a legendary Egyptian sage and teacher, whose wisdom was embodied in a collection of books known as the Hermetica. Although during the Renaissance Hermes Trismegistus was taken to be his full name – hence Copernicus simply calling him ‘Trismegistus’ – ‘Thrice-Great’ is an honorific, so his proper name is just ‘Hermes’. He was said to be a descendant of the god Hermes, or his Roman equivalent, Mercury.
    During the Middle Ages, Hermes Trismegistus was a truly legendary figure, known only from odd fragments of his own supposed writings and references to him and his work in ancient texts. One such reference came fromClement, Bishop of Alexandria, who around 200 CE witnessed Egyptian priests and priestesses parading their sacred books and noted that there were forty-two works of Hermes. (Which, if nothing else, according to cult comedy science-fiction writer Douglas Adams, is a number that is sacred to galactic hitch-hikers.)
    Although scattered references to the Hermetica survived, all but one of the actual books had disappeared, at least in Europe. However, hand-written copies of many of the books did still circulate in Byzantium and, significantly, in Islamic centres of learning. At some point eighteen treatises were grouped together and became known as the Corpus Hermeticum . When, by whom and why they were selected, is unknown, but the Corpus was finalized by the eleventh century, and Byzantium seems to be the logical location for its compilation.
    Another important source on Hermeticism was an anthology of around forty fragments, some from the Corpus Hermeticum but others otherwise unknown, compiled by the pagan Macedonian scholar Stobaeus around 500 CE, and including a complete treatise, The Virgin of the World ( Korè Kosmou ). Another Hermetic text may only be a mere half page long; the Emerald Tablet , but it is difficult to overstate its importance. Allegedly containing the words of Hermes Trismegistus himself, the thirteen alchemical maxims of the Emerald Tablet were believed to have originally been engraved on a tablet fashioned from the bright green jewel itself. Nobody knows for sure if this work has any connection with the Greek Hermetica, since it comes from an Arabic source that entered Europe via Spain in the twelfth century, but it was immensely influential among alchemists, helping cement Hermes’ status as more than merely a wise man. To those whose admiration bordered on worship, he was at the very least a semi-divine teacher.
    The one complete Hermetic book known in Europe in the Middle Ages was the Asclepius , or The Perfect Word , a fourth-century Latin translation of a lost Greek original, a question-and-answer session between Hermes and his eponymous pupil. Asclepius was the Greek god of healing; the pupil in the treatise is his descendant,