Die Kritik am Corpus Hermeticum im 17. Jh. und die Folgen*

Abstract

According to the narrative of previous research, the scepticism about the anciennity of the Corpus Hermeticum that arose in the 16th century, culminated in Isaac Casaubon’s (1559–1614) groundbreaking dating down of this corpus of writings. However, as the present study shows, the Protestant Casaubon is only one-sided perceived as the accomplisher of the critics of Hermes Trismegistus in the 17th century. Casaubon had, namely, a Catholic ally in his younger contemporary Dionysius Petavius (1583–1652), whose contribution was on a par with Casaubon’s and helped to shape the history of its impact up to the 19th century. Research has also ignored the fact that Casaubon’s critics did not do proper justice to the idea of anciennity. What does it mean and who in fact introduced it? These problems and their implications will also be discussed in this paper.