Hermetic Christian Influence

The past few weeks I've been reading the Corpus Hermeticum. It teaches that God is Father. That this Father had a Son who is the Word or Logos. This Word is thought to be a demiurgic figure who was responsible for the creation of the world. It also states that God alone is truly good and that man is evil . Reminded me a lot of Christianity. The Hermetic teaching regarding the relation of Father to Son seems more subordinationist than later Christian trinitarian teaching but even this subordinationism is matched in the then contemporary Egyptian Christian Origen to a degree. In fact Origen seems pretty close to Hermetic teaching on many fronts.

In the Corpus Heremeticum it is said that not all men possess nous or mind but that it was a prize set up and was won through struggle by those who were holy. The way it was stated seemed to be almost perfectly mirroring a letter of St Anthony of Egypt I was reading a few weeks before that. In fact St Anthonys letter could almost pass as a Heremtic writing or vice versa they had so much in common. I'll post some quotes from St Anthony and CH to show what I'm talking about.

I'm wondering if there was a strong mutual influence here or maybe if these ideas were simply "in the air" so to speak and the more advanced minds were tuning in. If "pagans" could also be tuned into these ideas what does this mean in terms of the common Christian exclusivism that is so prevalent. Does this imply that Holy Spirit is no respector of religions as well as persons?

No, it just means that each religion likes to steal a good story as their own. Although each religion tends to have certain "common thruths" used to legitimize whatever else they wish to say.

Vultar said:

No, it just means that each religion likes to steal a good story as their own.

Click to expand...

Is this assertion of yours a 'universal basic belief'?

Although each religion tends to have certain "common thruths" used to legitimize whatever else they wish to say.

Click to expand...

Is this a universal basic belief too?

o, it just means that each religion likes to steal a good story as their own.

Click to expand...

That's what I meant by saying "influenced". I guess it's a more neutral way of saying that. I don't consider influence to be a bad thing because truth doesn't belong to one sect or group of people alone. It belongs to all mankind. There is no stealing in that regard. Just as saying 1+1= 2 isn't theft. I was wondering if people thought it was direct horizontal influence or if maybe they both happened to come across the same spiritual realities through actual spiritual practice. Maybe they both witnessed the same things.