Volti di Asclepio. Origini ermetiche e giudizio dell’anima

Abstract

Asclepius’ faces. Hermetic origins and soul judgement.

The Coptic fragment of the Asclepius, found in the Nag Hammadi library,
has preserved a better report of the fate of souls in the afterlife according to Hermes Trismegistus than the Latin text. The souls encounter on their space travel a judge in the air, the Ruler over the Daimons:
some are saved, others need purification and metempsychosis, still others are damned eternally. This Hermetic tripartite scheme has

deeply influenced the Iranian Gnostic religion, the Manichaeism, in thefates of the Elects, Auditors, and Sinners. Moreover, the threefold sort of the soul after death, can be found in the Roman Catholic Church in the idea of inferno, purgatorio, paradiso.

Key-words: Hermetism – Metempsychosis – Manichaeism – Zoroastrianism – Romanesque Art.

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