The eighth and final text in NHC VI,8 (Nag Hammadi Writings) is a Coptic translation of an excerpt from The Perfect Discourse, a dialogue between Hermes Trismegistus and his disciples, Asclepius, Tat, and Ammon; this dialogue is said to occur in the inner sanctuary of an Egyptian temple. The full treatise was originally written in Greek around the 3rd century CE, but is only preserved in a Latin translation, commonly known as the Asclepius, which was transmitted alongside the philosophical…