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

The Arabic Hermes

oxford studies in l ate antiquit y Series Editor Ralph Mathisen Late Antiquity has unified 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 finest 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 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

Copyright © 2009 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. 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. ISBN 978-0-19-537613-5 1. Hermes, Trismegistus. 2. Hermes, Trismegistus—Appreciation—Arab countries. 3. Theosophy. 4. Gnosticism. 5. Science, Ancient. I. Title. BF1598.H5B53 2009 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 first 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 literature. 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 significant 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 influential. For specialists in Greek and Latin who have little interest in Arabic tradition 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 relationship of the numerous works attributed to Hermes surviving in Arabic manuscripts 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 determined and comprehensive attempt had hitherto been made to answer these questions, 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 inventory 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 first 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 assistance 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 ToralNiehoff, 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 providing 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 Asafiyah library in Hyderabad; and Hossein Kamaly for his invaluable delivery of reproductions of Hermetic manuscripts in Iran, also while pressed by his own research and time limits. The anonymous 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 generously 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 understanding 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 fellowship 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, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect 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 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

10

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 Ḥ arrān 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

64

Introduction to the Problem of the “Ṣābians” 66 A Ḥ arrānian Platonic School? 70 The Alleged Influence of Ḥ arrānian Hermetica 79 The Evidence for a Ḥ arrānian Ṣābian Transmission of the Hermetica 83

x Contents 3.5 The End of the Ḥ arrānian Ṣābians 104 3.6 Conclusions 113

Appendix to Chapter 3. The Ḥ arrānians and India

115

Part II History of the Arabic Hermes 4. The Three Hermeses 121 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8

The Earliest Form of the Arabic Legend of Three Hermeses Ancient Greek Antecedents to the Arabic Legend 132 A Trail of Chronicles 135 Annianus in Syriac and Arabic 139 Abu- Ma s
 = Greek adámas dla|, “diamond” or “steel.”



Background

Yazdāndukh(t),” both Middle Persian names indicating a Persian, perhaps aristocratic, recipient.14 As for the parchment amulet, although it was written in Syriac, it was made for the protection of a certain ¢warrawehzād, called Yazdānzādag, daughter of De¯nag, whose name is also clearly Middle Persian.15 The magical formulae in this text are hard to understand, full of strange terms, many of which appear to be distorted names of ancient significance derived from various backgrounds, such as Uriel (Hebrew) and Nabu (Akkadian and Aramaic). Although the editor of the text has made a valiant attempt to decipher this document and explain the names, the meaning of all the terms in the text cannot, at present, be explicated precisely. In any case, among the authoritative names invoked on this amulet is unmistakably the name Hermes, Lord of the Universe (hrms mr> kl ).16 The brief appearances here of the name Hermes do not make these Aramaic texts “Hermetic” in the sense used here (Hermes is not the alleged author), but they provide evidence that the magical power associated with the name Hermes was known in Sasanian Iran. Their formulae should be understood in the broader context of late antique magic, including the Greek magical papyri mentioning Hermes.17 It is also noteworthy that the Syriac amulet mentioned above contains one of the earliest known examples of the abjad-script spelling of hrms for Hermes,18 the spelling later most widespread in Arabic.19 In the end, however, these magical amulets and bowls, so poorly understood, do little to further our knowledge of Hermes in the Sasanian Empire. 14. For the attestation of these names in Middle Persian, see Justi 1895: Yazīdād 149b; Yazdāndukht 146b. 15. The suffix -ag, represented in the Syriac with a qop [Q], is characteristic of Middle Persian, not of New Persian. This evidence almost certainly indicates that it can be dated to the Sasanian period. 16. Gignoux 1987: 32.27. 17. For a basic orientation into Greek magical texts referring to Hermes, see Fowden 1993a: 79–87 and 168–172. For the Egyptian background to the Greek magical texts, see Dieleman 2005. 18. Abjad is the grammatological term for the type of script that shows only consonants and some of the vowels, or in other words, a consonantary. This term distinguishes it from scripts like the alphabet, which renders each vowel as well as each consonant with an individual grapheme, and from other types of script. On this scientific typology of scripts see Daniels 1996. 19. The normal spelling of Hermes in Syriac is >rmys or hrmys (see, for the former, Jacob of Edessa, Hexaemeron 149b11–150a17, and for the latter, Bar <Ebrāyā (Ibn al-rmys or hrmys, which is indeed the way that the name would normally be transcribed into Arabic from Greek. Hrms appears interchangeably with hrmys in the third-century work Book of the Laws of the Countries (e.g., Drijvers 1965: 48.12 and 50.8). Hrms is also the spelling of the name in the texts translated from Middle Persian mentioned below as well as in most of the Arabic Hermetica. It became the standard spelling in Arabic, but the fact that it was not regarded as the Greek way of citing the name is indicated by the note sometimes accompanying the biographies of Hermes in Arabic that his name is hrms but the Greeks called him >rmys or hrmys (notably in Mubaššir ibn Fātik, Muxtār al-ḥ̣ikam, 7.9–10; the whole text is given in translation in section 4.2 in this volume). It is highly likely, therefore, that even the spelling of the name hrms was transferred from Middle Persian (and not from Greek or from Syriac, in which the spelling hrms appears only rarely), as was done with the title of the Almagest (Kunitzsch 1975: 281). Paul Kunitzsch illustrated this type of transmission of spellings with reference to several Greek words and argued convincingly that the name Almagest spelled in Arabic >lmgˇsty, without full letters for the Greek short vowels, must be a transliteration from Middle Persian (Kunitzsch 1974: 115–125; 1975: 280–281) and not from Greek or Syriac.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran



2.2 The Hermes of the Sasanian Astrologers The present concern is rather with the book traditions of pre-Islamic Iran. Nallino, Kunitzsch, and Pingree have already proved that a number of scientific books were translated from Greek into Middle Persian in the Sasanian Persian Empire and then were later translated from Middle Persian into Arabic in the early