Hermes and the Sibyls : Continuations and Creations (Inaugural Lecture)

Peter Dronke sketches some of the ways in which the Latin Middle Ages responded to the divine wisdom and prophetic insights, reputedly pagan and of immense antiquity, which lurked in Hermetic and Sibylline texts. He suggests how and why some of the greatest twelfth-century writers valued these texts differently from the early Fathers, and how, in diverse centuries, we can see not merely the survival of Hermetic and Sibylline traditions but their unceasing imaginative renewal, as texts freshly fabricated and attributed once again to Hermes Trismegistus, or to a Sibyl who had flourished before Troy.Peter Dronke sketches some of the ways in which the Latin Middle Ages responded to the divine wisdom and prophetic insights, reputedly pagan and of immense antiquity, which lurked in Hermetic and Sibylline texts. He suggests how and why some of the greatest twelfth-century writers valued these texts differently from the early Fathers, and how, in diverse centuries, we can see not merely the survival of Hermetic and Sibylline traditions but their unceasing imaginative renewal, as texts freshly fabricated and attributed once again to Hermes Trismegistus, or to a Sibyl who had flourished before Troy.Dronke, Peter is the author of 'Hermes and the Sibyls : Continuations and Creations (Inaugural Lecture)', published 1990 under ISBN 9780521397254 and ISBN 0521397251.