![]() ![]() ![]() While the phrase “Way of Hermes” does not, in fact, appear in the Hermetica, but we do find comparable discussions of a “Way of Immortality”, and the mention of an order ( suntaxis) in CH XVI and of various different categories of discourses ( genikoi, diexodikoi) in the Coptic Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth(Disc.8–9) demonstrate that the authors of these texts did imagine them as following a sequence.īull’s principal innovation in this section is in his reconciliation of the ‘monistic’ and ‘dualistic’ tendencies of the different tractates. The second part, What is the Way of Hermes? reconstructs the cursus followed by an initiate of Hermetism using the evidence of the philosophical Hermetica. Again, the intricacy of the argument prevents a full summary, but the cosmology implied by this doctrine-centred on kings, and valorising various categories of ritual experts-implies for Bull an origin in priestly milieux whose goal was the legitimation of pharaonic kingship and their own authority. Traces of this doctrine can be found in Hellenistic and Roman astrological material more broadly, suggesting that the “proto-Hermetic” layer may be taken to include the fragmentarily-attested but highly influential Hellenistic authors Nechepsos and Petosiris, legendary Egyptian king and priest respectively. This leads into a discussion of the theory of kingship, already present in Manetho, but more fully expressed in the Hermetic tractates proper (principally SH XXIII, the Korē Kosmou), which makes the case for the divine origin of royal souls. Bull’s argument here goes well beyond the sphere of religion, linking the writing and circulation of these ‘Proto-Hermetica’ to the production of Ptolemaic, and later Roman, political propaganda. Indeed, the letter seems to attest to the existence of Greek-language texts attributed to Hermes-Thoth as early as the reign of Ptolemy III. The importance of this work for the Hermetica lies in the fact that it refers to a succession of figures named Hermes, the latest of whom, Hermes Trismegistos, is associated with familiar later Hermetic topoi such as the recovery and transmission of primeval wisdom. This work’s ultimate goal, he argues, was to demonstrate that the beginning of Ptolemy III’s reign marked a new Sothic cycle, and hence a new golden age. Bull’s argument, too rich to resume in full here, makes the case for the authenticity of the letter of Manetho to Ptolemy II Philadelphus preserved by George Syncellus, suggesting it to be the introduction to Manetho’s work on Egyptian history usually known as the Aigyptiaka. This search for a prehistory of the Hermetica is followed by one of the monograph’s boldest sections, an exploration of the writings of the Egyptian priest and Greek author Manetho. This section begins with an investigation into the origin of his title “Thrice Greatest” in Egyptian and Greek-language sources, and it continues with a survey of early discussions of Hermes-Thoth in Greek literary texts. The remainder of the book is divided into three main parts, the first of which, Who is Hermes Trismegistus? introduces more fully the central protagonist of the Hermetica. The monograph begins with a helpful presentation of the status quaestionis of hermetic studies, summarising past research and major problems before ending with a helpful theoretical discussion of the role of Hermes within the texts, understood through the theoretical lens of cultural memory. But while these authors may have left us with a commonly-held consensus on these questions, they did not, as Bull notes, provide a fully argued form of the hypothesis, a task that he sets out to perform. In these goals the author draws considerably upon other recent scholars, notably Garth Fowden, David Frankfurter, and Jacco Dieleman, whose extensive use of the Greek and Demotic magical papyri allowed them to argue that the Hermetica should be seen as originating from the same linguistically and culturally diverse priestly milieux as these texts. ![]() Ambitious in its scope, it aims not only to understand the ritual ‘Way of Hermes’, but also the lived reality behind the texts. Christian Bull’s monograph, a revised version of his 2014 doctoral thesis, represents one of the most successful attempts to come to grips with these problems. ![]() The Corpus Hermeticum (CH) must represent one of the most complex textual phenomena of the Roman period, and as a collection of pseudonymous works, the reconstruction of its context of production, circulation and use poses considerable problems for historians of religion. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |