Christian H. Bull:
The Tradition
of Hermes Trismegistus

The Egyptian Priestly Figure
as a Teacher
of Hellenized Wisdom

Reihe: 

• Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, Band: 186

Leiden: Brill 2018, xvi + 532 pp.

ISBN: 

978-90-04-37081-4 (print) — 

ISBN: 

978-90-04-37084-5 (E-Book)

Ergänzend:

• Christoph Elsas: Mystik in der Globalisierung.Diskurs und Traditionen der Chaldäischen Orakel im Kontext heutiger Religionsbegegnung. Rückfragen an Zarathustra, Gnosis, Platonismus und Augustin mit Übersetzung der Orakelfragmente und erläuternder Texte des Christen Psellos und des Hellenisten Numenios Berlin: EB Verlag 2017, 432 S., reiches Literaturverzeichnis, Register  — Ausführliche Rezension >

• Wouter Hanegraaff / Peter Forshaw / Marco Pasi (eds.):Hermes Explains Thirty Questions about Western EsotericismAmsterdam University Press 2019, 336 pp., indices — Rezension >>> 

In The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian H. Bull argues that the treatises attributed to Hermes Trismegistus reflect the spiritual exercises and ritual practices of loosely organized brotherhoods in Egypt. These small groups were directed by Egyptian priests educated in the traditional lore of the temples, but also conversant with Greek philosophy. Such priests, who were increasingly dispossessed with the gradual demise of the Egyptian temples, could find eager adherents among a Greek-speaking audience seeking for the wisdom of the Egyptian Hermes, who was widely considered to be an important source for the philosophies of Pythagoras and Plato. The volume contains a comprehensive analysis of the myths of Hermes Trismegistus, a reevaluation of the Way of Hermes, and a contextualization of this ritual tradition.


„Bull’s
work represents an accessible yet profound and thoughtful introduction
and handbook to the Hermetica, providing both a fair and thorough
summary of previous work and a lucid approach to understanding them, and
it is likely to become an invaluable reference work and source of
further ideas in years to come.”
Korshi Dosoo, Würzburg, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2020-02-23e Node