The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science (Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity)

291 Pages·2009·2.02 MB·English

by  Kevin van Bladel

The Arabic Hermes
oxford studies in late antiquity
Series Editor
Ralph Mathisen
Late Antiquity has unifi ed what in the past were disparate disciplinary,
chronological, and geographical areas of study. Welcoming a wide array
of methodological approaches, this book series provides a venue for
the fi nest new scholarship on the period, ranging from the later Roman
empire to the Byzantine, Sasanid, early Islamic, and early Carolingian
worlds.
The Arabic Hermes
From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science
Kevin van Bladel
1
2009
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bladel, Kevin Thomas van.
The Arabic Hermes : from pagan sage to prophet of science / by Kevin van Bladel.
p. cm.—(Oxford studies in late antiquity)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN978-0-19-537613-5
1. Hermes, Trismegistus. 2. Hermes, Trismegistus—Appreciation—Arab
countries. 3. Theosophy. 4. Gnosticism. 5. Science, Ancient. I. Title.
BF1598.H5B532009
135'.45—dc22 2008050497
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Preface
This is the fi rst in-depth study devoted to Hermes Trismegistus—the legendary
ancient Egyptian sage to whom numerous works on astrology, alchemy, talismans,
medicine, and wisdom were attributed—as he is represented in early Arabic litera-
ture. By comparison with the now-standard work on the ancient Greek Hermetica
(Fowden a), built on decades and even centuries of modern research, this book
is a foray into relatively uncharted territories. Readers who are already familiar with
the ancient Greek and Latin Hermetica (works attributed to Hermes) will be aware
that they played a signifi cant role in the development of late antique thought, both
pagan and Christian, and later formed part of the very foundation of medieval,
Renaissance, and modern occultism in Europe. The substantial and widespread
Arabic tradition of Hermetica, however, has never received much attention, despite
a general awareness among Arabists that these Arabic Hermetica did exist and were
infl uential. For specialists in Greek and Latin who have little interest in Arabic tradi-
tion as such, the Arabic Hermetica promise to contain important information
related to and bearing on their own subjects. The myth of Hermes Trismegistus also
serves as a prime example of the complicated and wide-ranging adaptation of
ancient Greek learning in early Arabic that commenced in the eighth century.
The project began with simple questions. Who did early Arabic writers think
Hermes Trismegistus was, and how did they arrive at this concept? What is the rela-
tionship of the numerous works attributed to Hermes surviving in Arabic manu-
scripts to the better-known Greek and Latin Hermetica? Are the Arabic Hermetica
in fact translations of Greek works, or are they inventions in Arabic? In the latter
case, what motivated their authors to attribute these texts to Hermes? No deter-
mined and comprehensive attempt had hitherto been made to answer these ques-
tions, despite the scholarly interest and even popularity of the ancient Hermetica
among European and American scholars for several centuries. With a number of
important exceptions, I have found mostly speculation about the Arabic Hermetica
in scholarly literature. As the project developed, it became clear that the edition,
translation, and study of the still mostly unpublished Arabic Hermetica, upon which
vi Preface
basis several of these questions could be answered—if they could ever be answered—
would also require extensive prolegomena. Many preliminary problems required
attention before a direct study of the Arabic Hermetica would be feasible. Some of
these problems were already present in early Arabic literature, but others were the
result of unintentionally misleading modern scholarship. My attempts to obtain a
clear basis of understanding have resulted in this book.
A second book, well into preparation, is to follow this one, including an inven-
tory of the actual texts attributed to Hermes in Arabic, most of which are still in
manuscript, an outline of their chronology, and descriptions of the contents of the
majority of them. In short, the work to follow will be a study of the Arabic Hermetica,
whereas the present book is a study of the Arabic Hermes, the legendary author and
his myth, and the conduits through which Hermes became known in Arabic literary
tradition.
Acknowledgments
It is my sincere pleasure to thank the many individuals and institutions that have
helped me in this project. Thanks fi rst to Ralph Mathisen for accepting the book in
his series, to Stefan Vranka of Oxford University Press for facilitating the entire
process, and to the copy editors at the press for their careful work. For various assis-
tance by supplying bibliographical or primary source references or discussing with
me matters dealt with herein, I am grateful to Mohsen Ashtiany, Persis Berlekamp,
Vahid Brown, John Darnell, Racha El-Omari, Garth Fowden, Beatrice Gruendler,
Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, Stephan Heilen, Tariq Jaffer, Richard Jasnow, Aaron
Johnson, Todd Krulak, Martin Mulsow, Na‘ama Pat-El, David Porreca, Annette
Reed, David Reisman, Gabriel Reynolds, Ramzi Rouighi, Shaul Shaked, Isabel Toral-
Niehoff, Paul E. Walker, Steven Wasserstrom, Edward Watts, Christian Wildberg,
Witold Witakowski, and all who attended the Yale Arabic Colloquium on December
,. I would like to single out for special thanks Emilie Savage-Smith for provid-
ing detailed information about several Hermetic manuscripts that had escaped my
attention; Shawkat Toorawa for his successful search on my behalf, in the middle of
his own research and restrictions of time, in the Asafi yah library in Hyderabad; and
Hossein Kamaly for his invaluable delivery of reproductions of Hermetic manu-
scripts in Iran, also while pressed by his own research and time limits. The anony-
mous readers for the press deserve thanks of their own for helpful suggestions on
drafts of the book. Some of these colleagues will see the full fruit of their assistance
not in this book, but in the one to follow.
The late Franz Rosenthal from the outset gave his encouragement and allowed
me to photocopy the relevant section of his handwritten and unpublished edition
of al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik’s Muhtār al-ḥikam (on this abortive edition see Rosenthal

–), which helped my work on the wise sayings of Hermes. Paolo Lucentini
introduced me to current European scholarship on Hermetic traditions by gener-
ously facilitating my visit to the Convegno Internazionale sulla Tradizione Ermetica
dal Mondo Tardo-Antico all’Umanesimo in November of . I thank him again
for his hospitality then. Everett Rowson, Charles Burnett, and Alexander Treiger
viii Acknowledgments
deserve special thanks for reading different drafts of the manuscript very closely and
offering numerous critical suggestions for improvement and crucial bibliographic
assistance. Most of all, I am grateful to Dimitri Gutas, whose historical understand-
ing and linguistic expertise made him an ideal mentor for me as I wrote the PhD
dissertation from which this book has grown (Hermes Arabicus, Yale University
). His demand for precision and his eye for detail saved me from countless
mistakes.
Despite the assistance of so many friends and teachers, this book remains my
own, along with all the errors lingering in it.
My gratitude is also due to the Beinecke Rare Book Library for a summer fellow-
ship and to the Yale Graduate School for support with a John F. Enders Fellowship
and a Robert M. Leylan Fellowship in the early stages of the work. A National
Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend awarded in  helped me to
collect quite a few more reproductions of Arabic Hermetic texts in manuscript. Any
views, fi ndings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do
not necessarily refl ect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
A semester as a member in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,
in the fall of , and my term as a Visiting Research Scholar at New York University’s
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World beginning in January of , made for
excellent conditions for thoroughly revising and increasing substantially what I had
written.
Shilarna Stokes, my wife, has helped to make my life a better one than it was
when I began this project. Without her encouragement and patience this would
have taken even longer to publish. Her suggestions to improve the clarity of the text
have touched on many pages. And to my parents, who never dissuaded me from a
career in such arcane matters, I dedicate the work.
Contents
Note on Documentation and Transliteration xi
Part I Background
1. Introduction 3
1.1 The Ancient Greek Hermetica of Roman Egypt
and Their European Reception 4
1.2 The Reception of the Greek Hermetica in Antiquity 10
1.3 The Birth of Arabic Scholarship and the Books
of the Ancients in Baġdād 14
1.4 Understanding the Terms Hermetic and Hermetism
in the Arabic Context 17
2. Hermes in Sasanian Iran 23
2.1 Evidence for Hermes in Sasanian Magical Texts 25
2.2 The Hermes of the Sasanian Astrologers 27
2.3 The Later Testimonies of Sasanian Translation
from Greek into Middle Persian 30
2.4 Some Supposedly Sasanian Horoscopes 39
2.5 Hermetica in the Time of Šāpūr I 41
2.6 Ostanes and the Magi 48
2.7 Ostanes and Hermes in Arabic 54
2.8 The Hymn of the Pearl and the Iranian History of Science 58
2.9 The Role of Alexander in the Iranian History of Science 58
2.10 Conclusions 62
3. Hermes and the Ṣābians of Ḥarrān 64
3.1 Introduction to the Problem of the “Ṣābians” 66
3.2 A Ḥarrānian Platonic School? 70
3.3 The Alleged Infl uence of Ḥarrānian Hermetica 79
3.4 The Evidence for a Ḥarrānian Ṣābian Transmission of the Hermetica 83