THE NEW BIRTH EXPERIENCE IN HERMETICISM
IN HELLENISTIC and Roman times Egypt was peculiarly productive of a distinctive variety of religious temperament, notably fervid in its emotionalism, markedly ascetic in its tendencies, and supremely desirous of the culminating experience of absorption into deity. During the Alexandrian period Egyptian mystics, acting under the charm of ancient religious tradition, asked for the privilege of initiation into the cult of Isis and sought in her ascetic discipline and in the impressiveness of her liturgies the satisfaction of their aspirations. Much later, when Christian emperors were ruling in the Mediterranean world, Egyptian mystics were more than likely to turn anchorite and to seek in the solitude of the desert the experience of oneness with the divine; or perhaps they would lose themselves as members of a Christian monastic community.
During the interim centuries, while pagan emperors ruled from Rome, Alexandria in Egypt was much under the spell of able and sincere religio-philosophical teachers, such as Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus and their predecessors. There flourished in the Egyptian metropolis at this period in eclectic Platonism that earlier was related to Neo-Pythagoreanism and later was developed as Neo-Platonism. During these centuries Egyptian mystics, particularly those who had intellectual interests, were likely to be found frequenting the lecture hall of some popular teacher or seeking the realization of their desires in the fellowship of a religio-philosophical brotherhood.
