Introduction
The notion of the eventual disintegration of Ancient Egypt's religion took a highly literary turn in a famous text that has made the evaluation of the exact relation it may hold to actual historical events the more delicate. We refer to a passage in the Asclepius[1], an apocalyptic text belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum[2]. This lament develops the theme of the fleeing gods leaving their country, abandoning Egypt; it also prophetically alludes to a cultural change – strangers were about to enter Egypt, a population bereft of any observance of the religio upheld by the inhabitants of old – resulting in the abolition of ancient pieties and the forsaking of cult practices. An Egypt “deserted” by the gods, the forgoing of the cults, loss and oblivion: this was tantamount to the death of a culture. The introduction of this text into Western thought, within what will make up the Corpus Hermeticum recreated during the Renaissance, was far-reaching.
