Podcast episode
September 23, 2020
Episode 101: Brian Copenhaver on the Hermetica
[Apologies for a few internettish glitches in the interview: the thing as a whole is quite intelligible, but things go robotic-sounding from time to time]
We are delighted to discuss the ancient texts known as the Corpus Hermeticum, along with the other theoretical Hermetica surviving from antiquity, with Brian Copenhaver, whose work – especially his erudite 1992 translation of the Corpus into English – has done much to advance our understanding of these texts. Copenhaver reads the theoretical Hermetica as works which, while containing elements of philosophic thought and much else, can be characterised as fundamentally ‘devotional’. In a wide-ranging conversation, we discuss a number of matters related to the texts themselves and their transmission, the ideas contained therein, the literary forms through which these ideas are presented, and our role as scholars reading these texts.
Topics discussed include:
- Some thoughts on the history of modern scholarship of the theoretical Hermetica,
- The Corpus Hermeticum and other theoretical Hermetica, read as ‘popular devotional literature’, some of which has a theoretical component, as differentiated from the technical Hermetica of antiquity,
- Copenhaver’s non-unitary reading of the Corpus Hermeticum, as fractured along ideological lines relating to (the old problem of) kosmic pessimism vs kosmic optimism,
- Some of the physical factors which may have affected our manuscript traditions, for example in the fact that some of our Hermetica seem to lack a proper beginning or end, and
- How we should interpret the various ‘titles’ sported by certain texts in the MS traditions (including the mysterious title of C.H. I, ‘Poimandres’),
- The potential for and limitations on future breakthroughs in interpreting the theoretical Hermetica,
- Some musings on the significance of the Hermetic dialogue-form,
- And, as special bonus material, some back-and-forth about the term ‘esotericism’ and its usefulness (or otherwise) in describing what is going on in the Hermetica, and
- A killer discussion of the fate of the word ἄρρητος/η/ον in the later Latin tradition (via Arabic), where it is translated as occultus, with all kinds of interesting repercussions for the history of science in the early-modern period.
Interview Bio:
Brian P. Copenhaver is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and History at The University of California, Los Angeles. He has published on many a subject dear to the hearts of lovers of western esotericism, and, relevantly for this interview, did the first reliable translation of the Corpus Hermeticum into English.
He has recently published Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and his Oration in Modern Memory (HUP 2019), a major study of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s famous Oratio in itself and in its reception.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Primary:
- The so-called ‘Mithrasliturgie’ (which few nowadays think is a liturgy to Mithras) is PGM IV.475-834. Find it in English at Hans Dieter Betz. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, volume 1. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1996.
- St Paul II Cor. 12.2-4: ‘2. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago … such an one caught up to the third heaven …. 4. How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter [ἤκουσεν ἄρρητα ῥήματα, ἅ οὐκ ἐξὸν ἀνθρώπῳ λαλήσαι].’
Secondary:
- Brian P. Copenhaver, editor. Hermetica. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992.
- Idem. Magic in Western Culture: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2015.
- A.-J. Festugière. La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste. Les Belles Lettres, Paris, second edition, 1981. 4 vols.
- Garth Fowden. The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986.
- J.-P. Mahé. Hermès en Haute-Égypte: les textes hermétiques de Nag Hammadi et leurs parallèles grecs et latins. Number 3 in Bibliotèque Copte de Nag Hammadi, Textes. Les Presses de l’Université Laval, Québec, 1978.
- J.-P. Mahé. Hermès en Haute-Égypte: le fragment du discours parfait at les définitions Hermétiques arméniennes (NH VI, 8.8a). Number 7 in Bibliotèque Copte de Nag Hammadi, Textes. Les Presses de l’Université Laval, Québec, 1982.
- G.R.S. Mead. Thrice-Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy and Gnosis. Theosophical Publishing Society, London, 1906.
- Richard Reitzenstein. Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-ägyptischen und fruhchristlichen Literatur. Teubner, Leipzig, 1904.
Themes
Egypt, Esotericism, Hermes, Hermetica, Interview, Occult Properties, Philosophy, Stoicism
Kenneth Selens
September 25, 2020
If you remember, I wrote an email to you about how Paul should’ve been included. Maybe later you can still insert… But, this ‘unspeakable words’ was one of many aspects I wanted to be hashed out. I’ve seen some scholars say this is declarative of the ineffable. If this is true, and I doubt you believe it is, this would be a little earlier than what you have indicated. Others say it is to be kept secret. Now of course I can see both being true, the incapability of words implying divine providential imperative towards secrecy. All things I would love to hear your take on, among other things, to somewhat a more exhaustive level. Sorry, I know this isn’t about the subject matter at hand, but it was brought up.
Earl Fontainelle
September 25, 2020
Kenneth,
All right, already, I promise to do a members’ episode on Paul! And we’ll throw in the messianic secret and other esoterica in the New Testament. You’re quite right that we are remiss in missing out the prima materia of much later Christian esotericism!
I don’t think Paul in II Cor. is talking about what modern philosophy would call the ineffable; no one was speaking in those terms in the first century … except (arguably) Philo, but Philo is steeped in technical Platonism, so he has a handle on some sophisticated vocabulary and conversations about language and truth and that sort of thing.
I reckon Paul is talking about mystic secrecy, invoking the normal Greek term ἄρρητον to indicate that what the person in Christ heard in the third heaven was initiatory material (note that these are ἄρρητα ῥήματα, ‘unsayable words‘, which surely cannot be an evocation of the philosophic ineffable unless we want to read Paul as embracing the kind of conscious use of paradox typical of, say, medieval Kabbalah. I doubt this, I think this is a kind of secret doctrine or mystic password type scenario.
Thanks for prodding.
Kenneth Selens
September 25, 2020
Cool beans, man… This must be where I disagree with Pythagoras.
James Lomas
October 11, 2020
Kenneth, to your aside:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollos
It seems to me that the only practical way for the Alexandrian Apollos to “speak accurately” about the christian Logos is for him to have been familiar with Philo and his scene of Therapeauts. This would then clearly imply that Paul had access (via Apollos) to the thought, practices and probably even texts of Philo.
Here are some highlighted Philonic passages about the Therapeuts, which show some surface similarity to early Christian churches.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JATMRSh4b6wlFlYWw8t1FdrGfg7bfTFjFKcnMktW_I4/edit?usp=drivesdk
Mitchell Mignano
October 3, 2020
Earl,
Wonderful perspective revealed through your talk with Brian. I feel you with regards to the use of the term esoteric, as discussed towards the end, as I have a similar situation with my own research and the term ‘shamanism.’ I actually like the awkwardness of it because it forces the issue and brings discourse into a number of areas that need to be thought of in a more sophisticated manner than they generally are.
But I also wanted to mention that this back and forth between yourself and Brian, where he gets into the ‘haptic’ and ‘occult’ discussion reminds me that there are many points throughout the podcast where I feel some mention of McLuhan’s theories on alphabetic literacy and the oral/visual would be a helpful digression. It could explain a great deal of the polemicizing in antiquity, as well as the haptic-occult wiggling with terms. I’ll avoid getting into it here in support of my claims, but are you familiar with McLuhan’s obsession with the visual shift through Plato and with Havelock’s ‘Preface to Plato?’
Earl Fontainelle
October 8, 2020
Mitchell,
I have only the vaguest awareness of McLuhan’s work. I don’t suppose you could recommend something which leads us into the discussions you are referring to? It sound pretty intriguing.
Mitchell Mignano
October 8, 2020
‘The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man” and “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” 1962 and 64’ respectively are the seminal texts. I wouldn’t want to distract you from your course as McLuhan is a world unto himself, but his insights into media theory truly are an invaluable key for reading history.
He writes and speaks with a great deal of irony and paradox in an almost autistic fashion, as if his sole point is to trick one into thinking actively enough about texts and artifacts to reveal a gestalt between figure and ground in human consciousness that previously biased only figure at the expense of the ‘effect’ of the ground; i.e. “the medium is the message.”
He is ‘of his time’ in the sense that he focuses so heavily on describing the effects of electronic technologies on human consciousness, but you can’t underestimate the erudite literary and philosophical scholarship that underpins his approach.
Following Harold Innis and Eric Havelock, McLuhan see a great significance in the distinction between ‘phonetic’ literacy and the writing systems that preceded it, drawing out the consequential effects of this new and abstract medium of ‘meaningless sounds’ coded together in sequence to explain the emergence of a visually and logically biased world that becomes formally articulated through Parmenides and Plato, and is carried throughout western intellectual history until it explodes with the rise of print culture. There is no grand narrative that explains everything, of course, but this is an important angle.
His sense of neurology is 1960’s basic and oversimplifies Julian Jaynes’s bicameral mind to suit his bigger theory, BUT… if you can get past that and take his provocative, almost Confucian, riddles with a grain of salt, the rewards are worth the price of admission. Plus, he’s HILARIOUS and starts almost every lecture with a joke. No to mention, he was very clearly onto something… by applying an Aristotelian approach to the senses and reading literary and art history with his hermeneutic, it was easy, for example, for McLuhan to casually anticipate the internet and seem like a kind of oracle!
And like other profound thinkers of the 20th century that can be difficult to fully grasp, such as Jung, Mcluhan is making efforts to cloak his deeper spiritual/religious feeling to preserve academic integrity. One might read his Catholicism for an esoteric key and see the incarnation in his figure/ground interplay and monomaniacal obsession with the notion that the ‘medium is the message.’
But I digress… the youtube link below to a McLuhan dialogue at Colomubia U. might be a nice stop-gap teaser to his very dense “Gutenberg Galaxy,” but I would recommend listening to at least a half hour at once carefully so as not to misunderstand him, which is a profession unto itself. He doesn’t starting getting into the nuts and bolts until 14 min and then Plato and Parmenides a bit after…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x-YPtMuKkc&t=4s&ab_channel=Stirner%27sRetrowave
Earl Fontainelle
October 12, 2020
Thanks, Mitchell! I tried reading McLuhan’s doctoral thesis, on a obscure Elizabethan writer, at one stage, but didn’t get very far. Interesting guy.