The Hermetica appears to be scientifically accurate. It states plainly that the Sun is in the center of the Solar system and the Earth is a sphere. In 1463 the Hermetica was translated and printed and in 1492 Christopher Columbus discovers the American continent and proving that the Earth is round and in 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus published his treatise On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, in which the Heliocentric view of the Solar system was proposed in Europe for the first time. Previous to Copernicus, everyone believed in the Geocentric view of the Solar system, where they thought the Earth was in the center of the Solar system. Did the Hermetica help to shape the opinions of those that read it, on the nature of the Earth and its place in the Solar system? These are the passages in question:
Corpus Hermeticum XVI
[7] Since it is the visual ray itself, the sun shines all around the cosmos with the utmost brilliance, on the part above and on the part below. For the sun is situated in the center of the cosmos, wearing it like a crown. Like a good driver, it steadies the chariot of the cosmos and fastens the reins to itself to prevent the cosmos going out of control. And the reins are these: life and soul and spirit and immortality and becoming. The driver slackens the reins to let the cosmos go, not far away (to tell the truth) but along with him.
[17] Around the sun are the eight spheres that depend from it: the sphere of the fixed stars, the six of the planets, and the one that surrounds the earth.
Asclepius.
[16] "This hollow of the world, round like a sphere, cannot itself, because of its quality or shape, be wholly visible."
The entire Hermetica can be read here:
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