Thanatology of the Corpus Hermeticum (c. 100-300): the philosophical concept of Death in the Hermetic Tractates
David Pessoa de LIRA
Original title: A Tanatologia do Corpus Hermeticum (c. 100-300): o conceito filosófico da Morte nos Tratados Herméticos
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Corpus Hermeticum, Death, Hermetic Literature, Hermeticism, Marcus Aurelius’ Antoninus, Philosophy, Stoicism, Thanatology.
This article attempts to examine the idea of death, its problem, in the scope of hermeticism in Antiquity, having mainly as object of analysis the Corpus Hermeticum. In particular, the problem of death, in the Corpus Hermeticum, is treated from the ontological point of view. A history of ideas about death in the Corpus Hermeticum supposes an analysis of the underlying conception of the world by the Hermetic authors, and not just of their philosophy. Although this study is linked to an examination of ideas about the meaning of life and the conception of immortality, which are problems related to the theme of death, here it does not imply an analysis of these problems, but a conclusive indication that some Hermetic Tractates show the dilemma of death between dissolution and change from the reflection of the Stoic Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
The Annunciation as the locus of return of the figured logos
Alexandre Emerick NEVES
Original title: A Anunciação como o locus de retorno do logos figurado
Published in
Keywords: Annunciation, Medieval aesthetics, Modes of figuring the body, Movement, Place, Stoicism, Time.
The approximation of philosophical thought with theological precepts has brought about the conciliation of the presuppositions of Greco-Roman culture with Christian mysticism, of the concepts erected by rationalism with what is supposed divinely revealed, which seems to intuit the dimension of this event so represented in medieval aesthetics and Renaissance, namely, the annunciation of the logos taken as the divine virtue in the way of being fully revealed and manifested in the pictorial locus. More than a religious motif, it is the proclamation of a thought based on Aristotelian metaphysics, modeled on Stoicism and refined by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, manifested in medieval aesthetics, especially in the retable of Simone Martini. The mystery of the incarnation intuits the convergence of the suprasensible with the world of appearances. Anticipated by the figuration of the Word announced, it presupposes the ontological status of origin and the speculative treatment of time, movement and place, from a comparative exercise between the descriptive aspects of the biblical narrative and its return figured in artistic beauty.
