Great Physician

Meaning

The great Physician is the divine maker in II.3.1. Phisicien has a broad natural-philosophical range, but the local action, making the world, determines this title's referent.

Hermes imitates that maker by fashioning a little world containing the powers of the great one. The architectural analogy separates having materials from knowing how to employ them: art requires operative understanding as well as an appropriate subject. Hermes remains an imitator and skilled practitioner, not the original creator of the universe. This role distinction prevents the title from being assigned to an ordinary medical practitioner or from making the human work independent of its divine and natural model.

The English “great Physician” retains the honorific while note 132 identifies the divine maker. The associated “making of the world” supplies the checked contextual control, rather than a speculative title identification.