There is no doubt however that some of the Arabic Hermetica later translated in Latin once they were importet into 15th century Europe, are in turn translations from Middle Persian.

Moreover some of these Middle Persian Hermetica were translations from Greek, with all likelyhood made as early as the third century. Persian intellectuals in the Sasanian Empire received these works favorably as their own with the understanding that all science was originally Iranian; some of this Iranian science was preserved in ancient Egypt, and other parts had been stolen by Alexander the Great. This historical legend was promoted by Iranians writing in Arabic and it flourished as a part of Arabic historiography of ancient times.

Hermetic philosophy was espoused by the intellectual elite during the early Renaissance. Divination, notably in the form of astrology (an earlier numerology), were once common practiced. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed a gradual weakening of the cultural status of esotericism. Herracticism slowly began to erode, in part due to the philological scholarship of Isaac Casaubon. Political moves also served to deal a near-fatal blow to divination. Thus, the French authorities forbade the printing of ephemerides in 1710, something President Reagan must have forgotten by the 1980’s as it was used to decide his White House and international travel schedule (see our New History of Astrology below).

Hermes Trismegistus the one often accredited with the arts of astrology and alchemy, comes first into view in early Christian sources of the second and third centuries: Athenagoras, Tertullian, and a contemporary of pseudo-Justin refer to it.

Asclepius one of the most famous Hermetika is a latin version of what was originally called in Greek The Perfect Discourse, and mentions an "ancestor' Hermes. The Perfect Discourse was used by early Christians (e.g., it was known in some form by Lactantius ca. AD 310) and was translated into Latin and Coptic. There is also evidence in one of the earliest Hermetica for the recognition of two Hermeses, and also, perhaps, of multiple Asclepii, his disciple in the Arabic sources, written at the latest in the 2 nd century AD.

Around the end of the 3rd century century Zosimus of Panopolis quoted Hermetica in his works, which survive in Greek and in Syriac. It is interesting that the same Zosimus is first quoted as having proposed the idea of alchemy by misunderstanding the so called AE Leiden and Stockholm papyri.

Terms for gold making (poiesis chrysou) and silver making (poiesis argyrou) indeed appeared in the Leiden and Stockholm papyri, where in one case of gold making, the recipe is actually called "Fraud of Gold" (chrysou dolor). The recipe works by "doubling" the gold, that is, by alloying genuine gold with iron, thus increasing its weight 46 Another similar recipe in the Leiden papyrus begins with the phrase "Gold is counterfeited" (Doloutai chrysos), and then gives the recipe for the fraud.

The ambiguous status of the precious stones and metals fabricated by the methods of the Leiden and Stockholm papyri however is what in the course of time transformed to the legend that an alchemist, not true of course, would be able to convert base metals into genuine gold and silver. (See Robert Halleux, Les alchimistes grecs, 1981, pp.88,104,170).

Zoismuss (starting the 'alchemical art' tradition based on the idea imported from AE) interpreted the term "doubling" in the Leiden and Stockholm papyri as meaning Mimezis "mirroring" in the sense of act of creation like 'art'.

Aristoteles however expressed a distrust of the mimetic arts and the same critical attitude by that time existed also with regard to the technai more broadly. Although they might be clever simulacra of nature, they could not themselves be natural.

A clear formulation of this distinction between the products of nature and the products of artifice appears in Aristotle's Physics, where the Stagirite distinguishes natural products from artificial ones on the basis of the fact that the natural have an innate principle of movement or change (echonta en heautois archen kineseos), whereas the artificial have no inherent trend toward change (oudemian hormen echei metaboles emphyton). For this reason, Aristotle says "men propagate men, but bedsteads do not propagate bedsteads." The artificial product is static, having received no intrinsic principle of development.

A few pages later however Aristotle adds (at Physics 118 199a15-17) that art can function in two different ways-"the arts either, on the basis of Nature, carry things further (epitelei ) than Nature can, or they imitate (mimeitai ) Nature.

This dichotomy allowed the possibility of having two distinct types of art, one that perfects natural processes and brings them to a state of completion not found in nature itself and another that merely imitates nature without fundamentally altering it." Already in Aristotle's time, Hippocratic medicine had come to epitomize the former type of art, since the physician did not generally lead the human body to an unnatural state, but merely brought it to its natural condition of health by eliminating impediments. In the medical works of Galen (second century c.e.), this idea would be epitomized by the maxim that art acts as the servant of nature. Such an art was "perfective," in the sense that it brought nature to an end that would not be realized otherwise.

In the ancient Greek Hermetica in turn, there is a strange notion of multiple Hermeses,a subject we will clarify next.Though it is not possible to demonstrate that this was transmitted directly to Arabic authors, one of the most widely-cited Hermetic books of antiquity, The Perfect Discourse, better known today in its Latin version as Asclepius,in fact already mentions an "ancestor' Hermes.

Originally written in Greek, The Perfect Discourse was used by early Christians (e.g., it was known in some form by Lactantius ca. AD 310, and was translated into Latin and Coptic. The Greek text survives only in citations by other authors, whereas the Coptic survives only in a partial translation not including the section now relevant. In the Latin version we find Hermes Trismegistus addressing his three disciples, Asclepius, Ammon, and Tat.

The discourse is particularly directed towards Asclepius and continues in dialogue with him. Hermes here refers to Asclepius' ancestor (avus) who first discovered medicine (medicinae primus inventor) and furthermore to his own namesake, the ancient Hermes, whose ancestral name he himself has (Hermes cuius avitum mihi nomen est). Here the recognition of two Hermeses, and also, perhaps, of multiple Asclepii.

The origin of the legends of the three Hermeses however become more clear when one incorporates the fact that most European versions of the Hermetica where translations from the Arabic, and taking in the leading Arab writers of Hermetica the following emerges;

Author of Hermetica in Arabic Aba-Wgar included the story of the two earliest Hermeses around the time of the Flood on the basis of a chronographic work relaying the story found in the lost Book of Sothis.

The intermediaries were almost certainly the lost world chronicles of Panodorus and Annianus, which were known to have made much use of pseudepigraphic Enoch literature and to have combined different chronographic traditions.

Aba-Wgar also knew the Iranian astrological tradition represented by the Middle Persian recension of Dorotheus, and stated explicitly by Ibn-Nawbabt, that all science came from Iran, and that Hermes was from Babylon (the capital of Iran) who became king of Egypt.

Another Arab writer plus alchemist, Al-Kindi taught a tradition, most likely to have been of Iranian provenance, of a Hermes of more recent times who was the author of the more mundane Hermetica in circulation that were perhaps unlike the great secret lore of the ancient Hermeses.

Ibn-Nawbab's commentary made use of the reports of Aba- Wgar and al-Kindi, but is unique in that it comes to the provisional conclusion that the biographies of Hermes in Arabic are at their basis composed from just three traditions, the first two of them being pre-Islamic:

The Book of Sothis of Pseudo-Manetho, mediated by the Egyptian chronographers Panodorus and Annianus, the Iranian astrologers' account of the Babylonian Hermes, and possibly the Iranians, and added another Iranian element by equating Hermes with Hoshang, an identification that must have been obvious, since both were considered to be the great inventor who lived among the first generations of humankind.

Even in this case the traditions received were all fabricated in Late Antiquity to support the existence of a Greek literature originally from Egypt claiming to relate primordial wisdom, one can indeed conclude that different kinds of origins, go back to different collections in Greek and also in Middle Persian.

Even the biographies of Hermes in Arabic serve to indicate the complicated and disparate origins of information about Hermes in the medieval Middle East. While the legend of three Hermeses put together by Aba-Mgar is definitely a creation of the ninth century, it is not an invention from nothing. Rather it shows his faithful adherence to his sources.

It is a typical product of Late Antique historiography, the goal of which was to provide a unified chronological framework from which to understand all the events recorded in each tradition in order to prove which tradition had priority. Thus in Aba-Mgar 's account supposedly historical individuals from different national or linguistic traditions, such as Hermes (Greek), Enoch (Hebrew), Abanghan (Persian), and Idris (Arab Muslim), are identified with each other. But while Aba-Mgar did not invent the idea that there was more than one Hermes, he may have been the first to elaborate it with the result of three Hermeses.
 

 

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