Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2017 6:58 am Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses 6.31: Τούτου μαθηταὶ τρεῖς γεγόνασι, Θωμᾶς καὶ Βαδδᾶς καὶ Ἑρμᾶς. Μηδεὶς ἀναγινωσκέτω τὸ κατὰ Θωμᾶν εὐαγγέλιον· οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἑνὸς τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων, ἀλλ' ἑνὸς τῶν κακῶν τριῶν τοῦ Μάνου μαθητῶν. / This one [Mani] had three disciples: Thomas, Baddas, and Hermas. Let no one read the Gospel according to Thomas, for he is not one of the twelve apostles, but one of the three wicked disciples of Mani.

davidbrainerd wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2017 12:56 pm

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2017 6:58 am Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses 6.31: Τούτου μαθηταὶ τρεῖς γεγόνασι, Θωμᾶς καὶ Βαδδᾶς καὶ Ἑρμᾶς. Μηδεὶς ἀναγινωσκέτω τὸ κατὰ Θωμᾶν εὐαγγέλιον· οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἑνὸς τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων, ἀλλ' ἑνὸς τῶν κακῶν τριῶν τοῦ Μάνου μαθητῶν. / This one [Mani] had three disciples: Thomas, Baddas, and Hermas. Let no one read the Gospel according to Thomas, for he is not one of the twelve apostles, but one of the three wicked disciples of Mani.

Hermas...Shepherd of Hermas?

Origin and identity

The majority of Greeks, and later Romans, did not accept Hermes Trismegistus in the place of Hermes. The two gods were regarded as distinct. Cicero enumerates several deities referred to as "Hermes"... early references in Cicero (most ancient Trismegistus material is from the early centuries AD) corroborate the view that Thrice-Great Hermes originated in Hellenistic Egypt through syncretism between Greek and Egyptian gods (the Hermetica refer most often to Thoth and Amun).

The Hermetic literature among the Egyptians, which was concerned with conjuring spirits and animating statues, inform the oldest Hellenistic writings on Greco-Babylonian astrology and on the newly developed practice of alchemy.[10] In a parallel tradition, Hermetic philosophy rationalized and systematized religious cult practices and offered the adept a means of personal ascension from the constraints of physical being. This latter tradition has led to the confusion of Hermeticism with Gnosticism, which was developing contemporaneously.[11]

As a divine source of wisdom, Hermes Trismegistus was credited with tens of thousands of highly esteemed writings, which were reputed to be of immense antiquity. Plato's Timaeus and Critias state that in the temple of Neith at Sais there were secret halls containing historical records which had been kept for 9,000 years. Clement of Alexandria was under the impression that the Egyptians had forty-two sacred writings by Hermes, writings that detailed the training of Egyptian priests. Siegfried Morenz has suggested, in Egyptian Religion: "The reference to Thoth's authorship... is based on ancient tradition; the figure forty-two probably stems from the number of Egyptian nomes, and thus conveys the notion of completeness." The Neo-Platonic writers took up Clement's "forty-two essential texts".

The Hermetica is a category of papyri containing spells and initiatory induction procedures. The dialogue called the Asclepius (after the Greek god of healing) describes the art of imprisoning the souls of demons or of angels in statues with the help of herbs, gems, and odors, so that the statue could speak and engage in prophecy. In other papyri, there are recipes for constructing such images and animating them, such as when images are to be fashioned hollow so as to enclose a magic name inscribed on gold leaf.


Thrice Great

Many Christian writers, including Lactantius, Augustine, Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, Campanella, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, considered Hermes Trismegistus to be a wise pagan prophet who foresaw the coming of Christianity.[14][15] They believed in a prisca theologia, the doctrine that a single, true theology exists, which threads through all religions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_Trismegistus

andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:21 am A/ The Gospel of Thomas is a 2nd century work and hence pre-Manichaean
B/ There is little doubt from a number of parallels that the Manichaeans knew and used the Gospel of Thomas.
C/ There is an ancient tradition that Mani had three disciples Thomas Addas and Hermas. See https://www.jstor.org/stable/1582858 There is an ancient Manichaean text the Psalms of Thomas which may possibly be by Mani's disciple Thomas but which has some interesting parallels to the Gospel of Thomas.

DCHindley wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2017 6:50 pm... we just do not know how closely the Coptic followed the content and order of the Greek. The samples are few, so the confidence level in our hypotheses has to be pretty low.

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2017 3:26 pmAlso http://gnosis.org/hermes.htm (seemingly by some bad ass active here ...)

Stephan A. Hoeller (November 27, 1931) is an American author and scholar. He was born in Budapest, Hungary into a family of Austro-Hungarian nobility. Exiled from his native country as the result of the communist rule subsequent to World War II, he studied in various academic institutions in Austria, Belgium, and Italy. In January 1952 he emigrated to the United States on the steamship General Muir from the Port of Bremerhaven and has resided in Southern California ever since.

An author and scholar of Gnosticism and Jungian psychology, Hoeller is Regionary Bishop of Ecclesia Gnostica, and the senior holder of the English Gnostic transmission in America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephan_A._Hoeller

davidbrainerd wrote: ↑Sun Aug 27, 2017 10:06 pm

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2017 3:26 pmAlso http://gnosis.org/hermes.htm (seemingly by some bad ass active here ...)

Wait...is Stephan A. Hoeller...Stephan Huller...Secret Alias, did you write that article?