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Plato’s dialogue Timaeus has bequeathed to us a famous phrase, eik?s muthos or “likely story.” Today we use the idiom “a likely story” to dismiss what we are told as a “tall tale.” But, here in the 4th century BC, the phrase refers to an articulation of possibility or a plausible report like a myth or a fable that offers an explanation for some mystery by way of stories and images. It makes perfect sense this phrase appears prominently in the Timaeus, for that dialogue is a story about the formation of the universe; of course, there are no eyewitnesses to that event to whom we can turn for a description.

Two distinct phases of the hermetic life existed in early Christianity. The first phase was the Egyptian phase, the era of the desert hermits. With its scarcity of resources and its forbidding geography, the desert was a radical contrast to urban areas. These factors shaped the fierce insights of the desert hermits: the extreme individualism, their hostility toward social life, and their separation from conventional ecclesiastical authority.