ABSTRACT
Hermetic literature claims to have been interpreted from hieroglyphic sources kept in the Houses of life, i.e., the libraries of Egyptian shrines, as writings of Thoth, the scribe of the gods. It is little wonder that Hermetic writings have often been adduced as evidence of pagan, non-Christian, or even pre-Christian Gnosis or Gnosticism, both before and after the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Gnostic library. Contrasting with the absence of the New Testament, the Septuaginta often show through the surface of Hermetic writings. Most of the scholars who regard Hermetism as a form of Gnosticism divide the Hermetic treatises into two groups: Gnostic and non-Gnostic. Philosophical Hermetism as a whole can be regarded as a spiritual way to some kind of optimistic and monistic Gnosis. Since Gnosis consists in a threefold knowledge of God, oneself, and the way, Hermes's self-vision or self-recognition can be regarded as a typically Gnostic experience, also depicted in the Second Apocalypse of James.
