Cursor 08 Hermes Christianus, Moreschini: The Intermingling of Hermetic Piety and Christian Thought (Cursor Mundi) - Hardcover

Moreschini, Claudio

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 2503529607 ISBN 13: 9782503529608

Publisher: Brepols N.V., 2013

Synopsis

Hermetic theosophy, originally an offspring of Egyptian religion, spread throughout the ancient world from the Hellenistic age onwards and was welcomed by Christianity in Late Antiquity. Cultivated people in a Christian milieu were convinced that Hermetic piety and religion were the preparation, expressed by heathen imagery, of their own faith: Hermes, a wise and pious philosopher in Egypt in the time of Moses, received (so it was thought) the same revelation which would be manifested 1,000 years later by Christ. At the end of the third century AD, this belief did not perish with the end of the Roman Empire; rather, it was taken up and explored during the French Renaissance of the twelfth century. In the fifteenth century, Italian humanism, supported by the rediscovery of Greek language and literature, promoted a fresh new evaluation of the ancient Hermetic texts which continued to be considered and studied as pre-Christian documents. In the sixteenth century, new interpretations of Christian Hermetism were explored until this connection between pagan and Christian was increasingly criticized by scholars who argued that Hermetism was neither as ancient as was thought nor as close to Christianity. The theory was abandoned in scientific milieux from the seventeenth century onwards, whereas Hermetic theosophy, on the contrary, survived in esoteric circles.

About this title

About the Author

Patrick Baker (FAAR '13) received his PhD in History from Harvard University in 2009 and is currently a Senior Research Associate at Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin. Primarily an intellectual historian of late medieval and early modern Italy, his scholarship has focused on Renaissance humanism, the transformative reception of the classical tradition, and historiography. He has won fellowships from the American Academy in Rome, the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and Villa I Tatti. In 2014 he published an English translation of two monographic essays by the late Salvatore Camporeale (co-edited with Christopher S. Celenza), entitled Christianity, Latinity, and Culture: Two Studies on Lorenzo Valla, which includes an English version of Valla's Encomium of St Thomas Aquinas. He is a member of the Renaissance Society of America, the International Association for Neo-Latin Studies, and the Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands. He has organized several academic conferences, including 'Portraying the Prince in the Renaissance: The Humanist Depiction of Rulers in Historiographical and Biographical Texts' (Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, November 2014) and 'Beyond Reception: Renaissance Humanism and the Transformation of Classical Antiquity' (Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, March 2015).

Edition details

• Publisher: Brepols N.V.
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 2503529607
• ISBN 13: 9782503529608
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 306