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The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science

Online ISBN:
9780199871636
Print ISBN:
9780195376135
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science

Kevin Van Bladel
Kevin Van Bladel

Assistant Professor of Classics

University of Southern California
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Published online:
1 September 2009
Published in print:
1 October 2009
Online ISBN:
9780199871636
Print ISBN:
9780195376135
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Before the more famous Renaissance European reception of the ancient Greek Hermetica, the Arabic tradition about Hermes and the works under his name had been developing and flourishing for 700 years. The legendary Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus was renowned in Roman antiquity as an ancient sage whose teachings were represented in books of philosophy and occult science. The works in his name, written in Greek by Egyptians living under Roman rule, subsequently circulated in many languages and regions of the Roman and Sasanian Persian empires. After the rise of Arabic as a prestigious language of scholarship in the 8th century, accounts of Hermes’ identity and Hermetic texts were translated into Arabic along with the hundreds of other works translated from Greek, Middle Persian, and other literary languages of antiquity. Hermetica were in fact among the earliest translations into Arabic, appearing already in the 8th century. This book explains the origins of the Arabic myth of Hermes Trismegistus, its sources, the reasons for its peculiar character, and its varied significance for the traditions of Hermetica in Asia and northern Africa as well as Europe. It shows who pre-modern Arabic scholars thought Hermes was and how they came to that view.

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