Chapter Five

chapter five

MIDDLE PLATONISM, HEIMARMENE, AND THE CORPUS HERMETICUM

One of the rare instances of the term heimarmene in the Nag Hammadi corpus occurs in one of its Hermetic tractates, an untitled treatise scholars now call Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth (NHC VI, 52, 1–63). There, the refer- ence to heimarmene occurs in the colophon, where Hermes Trismegistus warns, “And write an oath in the book, lest those who read the book bring the language into abuse, and not (use it) to oppose the acts of fate” (ⲙⲏⲡⲱⲥ ⲧⲟⲛⲟⲙⲁⲥⲓⲁ ƉⲛⲟⲩƉⲧƓ ⲉϩⲟⲩⲛ ϩƉ ⲟⲩⲕⲁⲕⲟⲩⲣⲅⲓⲁ Ɖⳓⲓ ⲛⲉⲧ⳿ ⲛⲁⲱϣ Ƈⲡϫⲱⲱⲙⲉ· ⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲉⲧƇϯ ⲟⲩⲃⲉ Ɖϩⲃⲏⲟⲩⲉ Ɖϫⲓⲙⲁⲣⲙⲉⲛⲏ·)(Disc. 8–9 62, 22–30).1 Significantly, the explicit instruction here is to use the book to oppose the acts of fate. Have we found, in this relatively brief and otherwise unattested tractate, evidence for ‘Gnostic’ pessimism and fatalism? To begin to answer this question, we can first divide Christian ‘Gnostic’ texts from the pagan Hermetica, and consider if the Hermetic corpus might reveal a discrete set of theoretical responses to the cosmos. In so doing, we can gain a broader sense of the way that heimarmene, as a concept, was deployed across a range of Hermetic treatises.

1. The Hermetica

The philosophical dimensions of heimarmene and its mixing with theoretical and practical astrology during the Roman Empire had a profound impact on the Hermetica, a group of pagan religious texts that grew out of the fer- tile soil of Graeco-Egyptian religious tradition and philosophical specula- tion. The richly diverse corpus of Hermetic literature drew heavily upon the

1 For an interesting brief article on this text but one which does not explicitly discuss the problem of fate, see Jean-Pierre Mahé, “Mental Faculties and Cosmic Levels in The Eighth and Ninth (NH VI, 6) and Related Hermetic Writings,” in Søren Giversen, Tage Petersen, and Jørgen Podemann Sørensen, eds., The Nag Hammadi Texts in the History of Religions (Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, 2002), 73–83. 104 chapter five philosophical koine of the Roman Empire.2 We find in it elements of Middle Platonism, indigenous Egyptian motifs, Jewish apocalypticism, Sethianism, astrology, alchemy, Stoicism—in short, virtually all the strands of spiritual teachings and traditions available in late Roman Egypt. The Hermetica, as a corpus of ancient writings, has been woefully ignored in modern scholarship. The problem is not accessibility; unlike the Nag Hammadi texts, the Hermetica were never lost and enjoyed a fruitful Nach- leben in the Renaissance3 and then again in the early twentieth century, where the texts were favored by transcendentalists and mystics such as Helena Blavatsky and Aleister Crowley.4 As a consequence of their tenacity, we have, unusually, three critical editions of the corpus: an early and imper- fect one from Sir Walter Scott, followed by A.D. Nock’s and A.-J. Festugière’s multi-volume compilation, and, most recently, a new English translation and commentary by Brian Copenhaver.5 All three critical editions main- tain the late Byzantine compilation’s division of the corpus into seventeen separate Greek tractates. Included in the broader category of Hermetica is the Latin Asclepius, the forty Hermetic excerpts (some very fragmentary)

2 The classic study of the religious milieu of the Hermetica has been A.-J. Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, 4 vols. (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1944–1954). Of particular use for this study has been vol. 1, L’astrologie et les sciences occultes, and vol. 4, Le dieu cosmique. Also worthy of note as an older study is Richard Reitzenstein, Poimandres: ein paganisiertes Evangelium: Studien zur griechisch-ägyptischen und frühchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig: Teub- ner, 1904). I am also indebted to Garth Fowden’s study of the socio-historical context of the Hermetica: Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes. A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). Also essential reading are the editions and observations of Jean-Pierre Mahé, Hermès en Haute-Égypte, 2 vols., (Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 1978). For editions of the Corpus Hermeticum, I have consulted the recent English translation of Brian Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Aesclepius in a New Translation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Abso- lutely indispensible as a critical edition is the four-volume edition of A.D. Nock and A.-J. Fes- tugière, Corpus Hermeticum, 4 vols., (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1972), abbreviated in this study as NF, from which I have drawn all the Greek citations of the Hermetica used here. 3 The classic study remains Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964). 4 One of the first translations in the modern era is that of G.R.S. Mead, Thrice Great Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis, vol. 2 (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1906). The Hermetica still hold considerable allure for some; witness the Dutch private library founded by Joost Ritman, Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam, which contains over 20,000 books on esotericism, including a 1471 edition of the Corpus Hermeticum. 5 Two of the three I have already cited in full; the remainder is Sir Walter Scott, Hermetica. The ancient Greek and Latin writings which contain religious or philosophic teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924–1936).