The Study of the Corpus Hermeticum in the History of the Religions 

Abstract Corpus Hermeticum (C.H) presupposes a set of treaties that remount from the first to the third centuries of the Common Era.  Its authors must have used varied sources from several origins, such as the dialogs of Timaeus and of Phaedon; the Septuagint; as well several other sources, such egyptism, zoroastrism, and other oriental religions, and stoicist sources. The C.H. was re-discovered in the period of the Renaissance. Leonardo Di Pistoia brought a Greek manuscript of the C.H. from  Macedonia to Florence and gave it to Cósimo de’ Médici, who, in turn, handed it over to Marsílio Ficino for him to translate from Greek into Latin. Richard A. Reitzenstein (1861-1931), German philologist, was a scholar from the   religionsgeschichtliche Schule (School of the History of the Religions) of the University of Göttingen. His work Poimandres (1904) has been a compulsory reference for all subsequent investigators of the C.H. In the Poimandres, he establishes the antiquity of the C.H. by comparing it to series of texts of liturgies and sermons originating from the religious world. Walter Scott produced an inquiry of phenomenal breadth in his work Hermetica, published in 1924. Arthur Darby Nock, an English philologist who became a teacher of the History of  Religions in Havard (USA) in 1930, edited, together with André-Jean Festugière, a critical publication entitled Corpus Hermeticum between 1945-1954. From that time to the present, investigators, such as Angus, Dodd, Quispel, Van den Broek, Mircea Eliade, Mahé, Copenhaver, Barnstone etc., have dedicated themselves to studying hermetic writings. For this reason, this article aims to understand the way in which the study of Corpus Hermeticum in the History of the Religions has been undertaken recently, taking into account its relevance in order to understand the philosophies and religions that served as sources as well as its influence in subsequent periods.

Keywords: Corpus Hermeticum, Hermetica, Hermetism, Poimandres and History of the Religions.

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LIRA, D. P. O Estudo do Corpus Hermeticum na História das Religiões. In: III Simpósio Internacional de Teologia e Ciências da Religião, 2010, Recife. Religiosidades populares e multiculturalismo intolerâncias, diálogos, interpretações. Recife: Universidade Católica de Pernambuco, 2010. p. 1337-1350. Additional references: Brazil / Portuguese. Means of spread: Digital way, ISSN: 2178-0862.