Many Christians have found Plato valuable and those who have have often promoted the idea of prisca theologia, or, the ancient wisdom. The idea was the Plato got his ideas from somewhere else, like hermetic or orphic texts, and some thinkers constructed larger narratives of where the ancient wisdom (Platonic ideas that predated Plato) came from. “In order to preserve the uniqueness of the Judeo-Christian revelation,” argues D. P. Walker, “it was usual to claim that pagan Ancient Theology derived from Moses; but sometimes it was supposed to go back further, to Noah and his good sons, Shem and Japeth, or to antediluvian Patriarchs, such as Enoch, or even Adam.” 
Phillip Jacob Spener, the father of Pietism, was accused by Lutheran ministers of being fundamentally Platonic in his theology and therefore a heretic. Spener “defended himself in print against these attacks,” says Florian Ebeling, “maintaining that he had built his doctrine exclusively on the basis of the Bible. And since there were incontestable parallels between his concepts and those of Plato, he reckoned that Plato had also read the Holy Scriptures.” 
Spener went farther by arguing that Abraham was the source of the ancient wisdom and that this wisdom passed into Egypt via Joseph “who was sent to Egypt by God … bearing the secret wisdom, or the believing spirit of Abraham.” The Egyptians attempted to copy Joseph’s wisdom but corrupted it and “spread false doctrine in its place.” Egypt thus “fell into the most shameful idolatry and blindness … and built temples to the most loathsome creatures … and founded a special, idolatrous cult for them.” 
Sound familiar? “Pharaoh being of that lineage by which he could not have the right of Priesthood, notwithstanding the Pharaohs would fain claim it from Noah, through Ham, therefore my father was led away by their idolatry.” (1:27).
With this context in mind, let’s now think about the context of the Breathings of Hor and its parallels with Mormon theology and the Endowment ritual. Let me quote Algis Uzdavinys for context. “This transition may be imagined as a ceremonial movement through temple gates and halls which the initiate must cross in order to reach the place of justification, in the innermost part of the temple, where Osiris sits enthroned.” Uzdavinys then quotes Jan Assman (the leading expert on ancient Egyptian religion) “The path of the deceased to Osiris corresponds to the path of the priest on this way to the innermost sanctuary of the god. The path of the priest is furthermore sacramentally explained as an ascent to the heavens.” 
Since the text spoke of Egyptian (i.e. “pagan”) rituals and theology, perhaps there was some utility to having a text that declared Abraham to be the source of Egyptian wisdom, an idea with which some of Smith’s followers might have been familiar. “And the Lord said unto me: Abraham, I show these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt, that ye may declare all these words.” (3:15). Having Abraham sitting on Pharaoh’s throne teaching the Egyptians would have driven the point home further.
The BoA also makes the point that the Egyptians were not all bad, despite their idolatry (worshipping the wrong gods). “Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.” (1:26) The Egyptians, argued Spener, maintained aspects of the ancient wisdom but claimed that Hermes was the author instead of Joseph. It was from this source that Plato drew his wisdom.  They weren’t quite doing it right, but were pretty close.
 D. P. Walker, The Ancient Theology: Studies in Christian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), 1.
 Florian Ebeling, The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus: Hermeticism from Ancient to Modern Times, forward by Jan Assmann, trans. by David Lorton (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2007), 111.
 Ibid, 112.
 Algis Uzdavinys, Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity (San Rafel, Calif.: Sophia Perennis, 2010), 45.
 Ebeling, Secret History of Hermes, 112.