Mead 1906:
Link
Ménard said: "It seems certain that ‘The Shepherd’ {Poimandres} came from that school of Therapeuts of Egypt, who have been often erroneously confounded with the Essenians of Syria and Palestine” (p. lvi)... ‘The Shepherd’ {c.15 AD} should be earlier than (Gnostic Basilides' & Valentinus') schools {c.125 AD}" (p. lviii.). As to “The Sermon on the Mountain,” “it can be placed, in order of ideas and date {c.60 AD} between ‘The Shepherd’ {c.15 AD} and the first Gnostic schools {c.90 AD} it should be a little earlier than the founders of Gnosticism, Basilides, and Valentinus {adulthood, c.80 AD}” (p. lxv.).
Here are two sources identified (after Mead [1906]) claiming the Author of Poimandres as a Jewish Therapeut (of whatever 1st C. AD date).
1) See B.J. Hilgers,
De Hermetis Trismegisti Poimandro commentatio [1855], pp.16-7,
Link.
{p.16} ...Quibus Hermeti h. e. libelli auctori persona imponitur moderatoris asceticae cuiusdam societatis, cuius mos erat, ad vesperam, occidente sole, comuniter precari; et profecto hoc illud est, quod nobis hominum genus significat, cui auctorem nostrum addicendum esse statuamus. Ul statim dicam, quod sentio: Therapeutarum sectae assectatorem se praebet auctor; cuius rei testis est mos ille, quem Therapeutis in usu fuisse constat, testis sententiarnm in libello propositarum cum Philonis iudaei, Therapeutarum patroni, doctrinis necessitudo, testis denique Therapeutarum vivendi rationis cum Poimandri praeceptis convenientia.
Finally, it will be possible to compare in a few words what can be said about Poimander's author. … For we have to ascertain that he was not a follower of the doctrines of Christ, but of the so-called Neo-Platonists, and especially following Philo Judæus, whose entreaties he sought to adapt and conform by Scripture's propositions. But we will approach the truth, from our place with this tractate, if we follow the guide, by which Hermes, instructed by Poimandres, opens to him and others, relates himself to this statement {CH1.29}: “And those who desired to be taught cast themselves at my feet. But having made them arise, I am become a guide of the Race to the Father’s Home, teaching them the words, and how they too may be saved in this way. I sowed the logoi of Wisdom in them, bred by the sword drawn from the Ambrosial Water. When evening came and the sun’s beams began to set, I urged all to thanksgiving, and when they gave thanks, each turned to their own bed.”
The person of Hermes, author of this book, is placed in the role of moderator in a certain ascetical society whose custom was to pray in community each evening, at sunset. And certainly this {society} is what signifies for us ‘the Race of Men’ to which we maintain our author ought to be ascribed. Now I will say what I suppose: the author presents himself as a follower of the Therapeut sect. Witness to this is that custom agreed to have been practiced by the Therapeuts (as evidenced by the sentence proposed in the book by Philo Judæus, patron of the Therapeutae), the relationship to the doctrines, and finally, the fact of the way of life of the Therapeutae which conforms to precepts of Poimandre.
2) Hermès Trismégiste, 1866, trad. Ménard, pp.54-60:
It is very likely that the Poimandres and the Gospel of John were written at dates not far from each other, in circles where the same ideas and the same expressions were current, the one among the Judaeo-Greeks of Alexandria, the other among those of Ephesus. There is, however, a profound difference between them which is summed up in the words of John: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." The incarnation of the Word is the fundamental dogma of Christianity, and as there is no trace of this dogma in the Poimandres, it is not likely that the author was aware of it; otherwise he would have alluded to it, either to adhere to it or to fight it.
What seems certain is that Poimandres came from this school of Egyptian Therapeuts, who have often been mistakenly confused with the Essenes of Syria and Palestine. The Essenes," he says, "regard the reasoning part of philosophy as not necessary for acquiring virtue, and they leave it to the lovers of words. Physics seems to them to be above human nature; they leave it to those who are lost in the clouds, except for questions concerning the existence of God and the creation of the world. They are concerned above all with morality. Philo goes on to describe the morals of the Essenes, and this description could be applied to the early Christian communities, so striking is the similarity. We can therefore believe that it was among them that the Apostles recruited their first disciples. It seems probable to me that the Shepherd of Hermas came out of this group, and that the title of the work and the name of the author inspired, in a spirit of rivalry, some Judaeo-Egyptian Therapeut to compose in his turn a kind of apocalypse that was less moralistic and more metaphysical, and to attribute it, not to a contemporary Hermas or Hermes, but to the famous Hermes Trismegistus, so famous in all Egypt.
In the Poimandres, in fact, we find several features which agree perfectly with what Philo says about the Therapeuts, whom he takes as a type of The Contemplative Life: "In the study of the holy books, they treat the ethnic philosophy by allegories, and guess the secrets of nature by the interpretation of symbols." This sentence, which applies so well to the allegorical system of Philo himself, makes one think at the same time of the cosmogony of Poimandres, although the Biblical texts are not invoked there as authority. One can already sense the Gnostic systems that will emerge from a more intimate combination of Judaism and Hellenism. Philo also says that the Therapeuts, constantly occupied with the thought of God, find, even in their dreams, visions of the beauty of the Divine Powers. "There are some," he says, "who discover through dreams during their sleep the venerable dogmas of sacred philosophy. Now, the author of the Poimandres begins his work with these words: "I was reflecting one day on the beings; my thought was hovering in the heights, and all my bodily sensations were numbed as in the heavy sleep which follows satiety, excess or fatigue." He then recounts his vision, and after writing it down, he falls asleep full of joy: "The sleep of the body produced the lucidity of the intelligence, my closed eyes saw the truth." According to Philo, the Therapeuts used to pray twice a day, in the morning and in the evening; the author of Poimandres, after having instructed the men, invites them to prayer at the last light of the setting sun.
After having spread among the Jews of Asia, the Christian missionaries went to bring their doctrines to the Jews of Egypt. Instead of the industrious customs of the Essenes, who, according to Philo, practiced manual trades, pooled the products of their labor, and reduced philosophy to morality and morality to charity, the monasteries of the Therapeuts offered to Christian propaganda a much more Hellenized population, accustomed to abstract speculations and mystical allegories. From these tendencies, combined with the dogma of the incarnation, came the Gnostic sects. The Poimandres must be earlier than these sects; one does not yet find in it the mythological luxury which characterizes them: the divine powers, life, light, etc., are not yet distinguished or personified, and above all there is not yet any question of the incarnation of the Word. But one finds there already the idea of Gnosis, that is to say of the mystical science which unites man to God; this authorizes, not to suppose, with Jablonski, that the author is a Gnostic, but to regard him as a precursor of Gnosticism, as well as Philo. In the one, the Jewish element dominates, in the other, the Greek element; to be Gnostics, the only thing missing in both was the admission of the incarnation of the Word.
This is a William Blake painting on Enoch's 'translation' ; to me, it suggests a Therapeut community where everyone is reading/composing esoterica all day long. No shroud-weaving, here!:
A less successful etching on Enoch, I think:
Yonge's Trans:
DVC (29) They have also writings of ancient men, who having been the founders of one sect or another have left behind them many memorials of the allegorical system of writing and explanation, whom they take as a kind of model, and imitate the general fashion of their sect; so that they do not occupy themselves solely in contemplation, but they likewise compose psalms and hymns to God in every kind of metre and melody imaginable, which they of necessity arrange in more dignified rhythm. (30) Therefore, during six days, each of these individuals, retiring into solitude by himself, philosophises by himself in one of the places called monasteries, never going outside the threshold of the outer court, and indeed never even looking out.