Month: October 2009

Stephen of Alexandria’s fourth lecture on alchemy before the emperor Heraclius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The philosopher Stephen (or Stephanos) of Alexandria delivered a series of lectures ca. 620 AD in Constantinople at the court of the emperor Heraclius.  These were concerned with alchemy, in the main.

The fourth lecture begins:

Of the same Stephanos on that which is in actuality the fourth lecture with the help of God

Every good gift and every perfect gift from above is came down from the Father of Lights.  Therefore calling upon Jesus the light of the father, which <light> is the true effulgence of light, shining upon every man that cometh into the world.  For he is the light and the truth and the light, the supreme Deity’s word of God, the wisdom and power the wisdom of God, ready for all and ineffable, the living word of the Father, being God and (?) every being directed towards God, he who by whom all things came into being, he who furnishes light to the faithful for them to know the gnosis of beings and to hymn the mighty works of the all ???ing God.  For he is the dispenser and saviour of the cosmos, he illuminates our intellect (nou=j) and hearts and makes to shine for us a light, shining down for us upon the unsearchable (/not to be searched out) depths of his gnosis and wisdom, to the true and apranh~ (not in L+S; pranh~j s??? for prunhj = prene?) gnosis [2] of knowing thee the only (dm?oousik?) and living and true God of us, the holy and consubstantial triad, the all life-giving Father and Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and to all ages of ages, Amen.

It is then needful for us to refute the e0mpiplegmena (? … ? fulfilments e0mpimplhmi) issuing from ancient and virtuous men allegorically and variously and to unveil their sparks in their writings, by our grace from above, both to seek (or ? are these passive) out and to discover and display the same hidden mystery.  We come to the question and problem of their systematisation according to intelligent men listening-as-pupils we learn what indeed the philosopher intends to have spoken before.  Speak, O philosopher, and tell us the better way, by which the whole life of men is hastened (pressed down, overpowered), concerning which the multitude blindly desiring it, labour in vain.  Speak to us of the experienced and fire-hot flame, begin the problem of the word.  Uncover thy gifts.  For we serve the living God.  But O holy flock and lovers of wisdom, who wish to discover this, in (? dative) the consideration directed toward God [3] they are won…

OK, that’s not very clear, is it?  That’s because I was transcribing it from a photocopy of a handwritten translation which I could barely read.  The translation itself was forgotten, and rediscovered by me physically sorting through the papers of F. Sherwood Taylor at the Oxford Museum of the History of Science.  Lectures 1-3 were translated by him and printed in Ambix before WW2.  He made a first draft of the fourth, but never revised or published it, and its existence was forgotten.

In 2012 is the 75th anniversay of Ambix.  Wouldn’t it be nice if a paper by Sherwood Taylor, one of the founders of the journal, appeared there for the first time?  I thought so anyway, so I wrote to the editor, Peter Morris, and told him about the translation.  He’s interested. 

Of course there are problems.  Firstly, we need a transcription.  I’ve passed the PDF over to some people interested in alchemy in the US, who may or may not transcribe it.  My contact is a little vague about what they’re doing with their alchemical transcriptions; I hope they’re not all trying to find the philosopher’s stone for real or something!

Secondly, the translation is not fit for publication as it stands.  Sherwood Taylor would revise his translations several times.  His first draft was handwritten; then he typed it up, and corrected that.  Then he typed up a new version, incorporating the corrections, and corrected that, and so on until he was happy.  At least four revisions of the other lectures 1-3 are among his papers.

So I have placed a post in CLASSICS-L asking for anyone competent in Greek and with knowledge of alchemy.  I’ve already had a potential reply.

If all these people can be linked together, we will get a result!

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Ever heard of the Cyranides?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Did you know that there is an ancient Greek text called the Cyranides?  I certainly didn’t, until I saw a message in CLASSICS-L.  A good article in Wikipedia tells me that it is a 4th century AD compilation in four books of Hermetic magical/medical texts, amulets, etc.  An English translation exists of book 1.

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Ancient references to Montanism

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Daniel R. Jennings writes to say that he has compiled all the ancient references to Montanism in English into a single page.  This must be useful to everyone, I would have thought.  It’s at:

http://danielrjennings.org/AncientReferencesToMontanism.html

He adds:

I have attempted to compile ancient and medieval references to Montanism (the 2nd-6th century heretical group) from patristic literature. I ended up collecting references from the 2nd-12th centuries and then attempted to list them chronologically. There are a few texts that were not included but the majority of the ancient texts relating to Montanism are here (a total of some 100 pages if printed out on 8.5 x 11). For me it was a labor of love, something that I am sure you can sympathize with when it comes to the study of patristics. There are a few things that I would like to add in the future (I know that there is room for improvement to include more bibliographic data and the remaining missing texts) but I think that for the moment this can provide an excellent resource for anyone curious about the Montanists. To my knowledge there is nothing this extensive anywhere else on the web.

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The Stapleton manuscripts in Oxford

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An email brings news of an interesting collection of papers in the Museum of Science in Oxford.  These are the papers of H.E.Stapleton, who was a contributor to Ambix, the scholarly journal of Alchemy, along with F. Sherwood Taylor who translated Stephen of Alexandria.  I’ve also been sent a catalogue of the manuscripts, which are mainly Arabic or Syriac.  There are copious unpublished translations into English from unpublished Arabic alchemical manuscripts.  There are 40+ Arabic manuscripts, mostly late copies.  My eye falls on correspondance with Louis Cheikho in Beirut about the library there.  There are also translations from the German of published articles.

An sample entry is this (some extra formatting by me for readability):

136   Notebook, containing R. F. Azo’s edited Arabic text of Ibn Sina=s treatise for As-Sahli, and translations of the treatises of Jamas, Asfidus, and Agathodaimon

  • Uniform volume with L 134 and L 135; no signature or date, but instructions to R. F. Azo from HES preceding first item;
  • edited Arabic text, with footnotes (comparing 2 Arabic manuscripts, A and B, and a Latin version, as if for publication), of Ibn Sina’s treatise for As-Sahli, by R. F. Azo, with various notes and slips added by HES (including passages of Arabic in his hand, especially from Ar-Razi) [this part of the notebook is thus c.1903-05; the text in MS STAPLETON 47 seems to be a virtually exact copy; HES intended to publish the Arabic text in his projected work on Ibn Sina’s two alchemical treatises, but it was not included in the version of the article published posthumously in Ambix, 1962];
  • HES’s translations of the three related treatises by
    • Jamas (beginning ‘The Risalah of Jamas the Sage to Ardashir, the King, on the Hidden Secret …‘),
    • Asfidus (‘The Book of Asfidus on the Wisdom to Aflarus’),
    • and [other way, reading from back of notebook] Agathodaimon from the Cairo manuscript (beginning ‘The Treatise of Aghatadimun the Great which he delivered when about to die to his pupils. It is known by the name of Risalatu-l-Hadar …‘), latter dated at beginning July 4, 1926 [cf. Turab ‘Ali’s analysis of the Cairo majmu`a, dated July 5, 1926; all 3 translations here are of about this date; TSS in L 109];
  • [loose inserts] some related loose inserts.

I cannot say that alchemy interests me.  But I really feel that material such as this should be online and accessible.  Much of it is in typescript.  Here we have an edited critical edition of an Arabic text, sitting forgotten in a basement.  Mss. 50-138 are full of interest.

My correspondant probably would like me to go to Oxford and photocopy some of it, and I suppose I could, although there is far too much to do in a day.  But really he should go himself, and work with the papers.  After all, most of the authors are just names to me, and I would probably miss stuff of the highest importance.

But considering the quantity of unpublished English material, these papers really should go online.

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Patrologia Graeca online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Adrian Murdoch writes:

I often find that these links get out of date pretty rapidly, so here is the latest one I have come across. The Ancient World Online links to the complete Patrologia Graeca in a pretty user-friendly downloadable pdf format. From the Library of Ruslan Khazarzar.

The PDF’s are not just images, but text.

NOTE: My collection of PDF’s of page images is here.

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On Martial’s flattery of Domitian

Posted on by Roger Pearse

For the last few days I have been reading the epigrams of Martial, in the two volume Loeb edition with parallel Latin and English.  Many of the epigrams throw a great deal of light on what it was like to live in ancient Rome.  Some are intentionally obscene, and done in order to sell more copies, as Martial makes plain.  The Loeb rightly gives an Italian version instead of an English one.  Others say how copies of the books may be obtained, and so throw light upon the Roman book trade. 

Others again describe events in the arena, and give an idea of how its religious purposes had been corrupted.  Scaevola burned off his hand rather than betray the Republic; to entertain the crowd, a criminal is forced to do the same, by threats of being burned alive.  In the process the value of Scaevola’s heroism is diminished in the eyes of everyone.  Likewise other mythological events are re-enacted, and likewise debased.  Thus did the Romans lose their own sense of identity.

But one element in the epigrams has attracted comment.  Many of the epigrams flatter Domitian.  In some cases, they ask the emperor directly for money or favours.  In many others they refer to him as Lord and God, in fulsome tones.  These grow more numerous and more fulsome as book succeeds book.  Book eight, indeed, is dedicated to Domitian and begins with a letter of flattery so thick that we can only associate it with unfree societies.

Rome was a despotism.  To incur the ire of the emperor was to risk property and exile, or even your life.  In such a society, formal expressions of loyalty become essential.  It is telling how these become more frequent as we read through the work.  Early expressions of flattery are perhaps no worse than some that Pliny the Younger uses about Trajan.  By book five, the servile note is strong.  By book six, Martial is obliged to insert epigrams disclaiming any possibility that “poems dipped in venom” against the emperor are his, and repeat it in book seven.  Each mention of the emperor is more lush than the last, each book contains more poems of flattery than the last.

Doubtless it was dangerous to do otherwise.  But perhaps this too reflects the progress of Domitian’s tyranny.  To praise the emperor for his reforms was one thing.  Martial has fun with the way in which Domitian’s revival of the lex Julia restricting the first fourteen rows of seats in the arena for the knights has affected Romans who perhaps are not as wealthy as they pretend; and we can all enjoy this.  But this note disappears after a while.  It might be disrespectful, after all; and disrespect could only be dangerous.

After the overthrow of Domitian, Martial attempts to flatter Nerva and Trajan, but his heart is not in it.  Doubtless he found that this was met with mockery.  The victors in civil discord are always arrogant, and there was no lack of people with scores to settle.  It is telling that he left Rome, and went to Bilbilis in Spain, his native country.  Perhaps he feared exile.  But he found it a poor substitute for the metropolis, and seems to have been lonely for the City.  No doubt he was.

It was Martial’s misfortune to live and write in despotic times, and to find himself in a current of misplaced loyalty that in the end swept him away.  Yet, had he not done so, who knows if he would have written anything?  Whatever his own misfortunes, he managed to write something that men have not willingly let die. 

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A bunch of manuscripts online from the Syrian Orthodox Monastery of St. Mark in Jerusalem

Posted on by Roger Pearse

All done by Brigham Young University, and are here.  At the moment I think there is a problem with some of the links, but this will be fixed.

Most of the books are liturgical etc, but there is a Syriac New Testament, another containing Paul’s letters, a collection of Isaac of Scete and Cyriacus of Antioch, a couple of works by Barhebraeus including the “Chronicle of the ages”, and a Garshuni version of the world history of Michael the Syrian.  Some unclassified “collections of religious works” might bear investigation.

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Stephen of Alexandria

Posted on by Roger Pearse

At the court of the emperor Heraclius, the philosopher Stephen of Alexandria (or Stephanos of Alexandria) delivered a series of nine lectures on alchemical subjects.  Translations of three of these were published in early issues of Ambix, a scholarly journal dedicated to early chemistry, before WW2.  I found a first draft of a translation of the fourth among the papers of the translator, in the Oxford Museum of Science in Broad Street.  Unfortunately the handwriting was beyond me, being on a technical subject unfamiliar to myself.

I had an email this morning from someone who reckons that he might be able to do better.  I’ve emailed him the PDF of the scans and my opening shot at transcription.

There was a further reason why I did not proceed; the material in Ambix is all in copyright, so cannot go online.  Nor can this translation, without the permission of the family.  I don’t place online material owned by others.  So what could I do with it?  Yet… why all these restrictions?  Is there a single person in the world other than myself who even knows who Stephen is?

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I am continuing to revise the Wikipedia Mithras article.  I’ve added a whole load of material about the earliest archaeological remains, none of which can be securely dated earlier than 80 AD as far as I know.  There is quite a lot to be gleaned from books present in limited preview on Google books, and fortunately “Fullstop” continues to send me pointers and citations, which helps quite a lot.  I hope that this effort will dispose of some of the sillier “Jesus=Mithras” stuff that goes around.

Mind you, my heart sank yesterday at a brand new piece of idiocy; someone is now claiming that loads of pagan deities were betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.  It is, of course, untrue.

I’ve also returned to translating Firmicus Maternus work against the pagans, which isn’t online (but will be when I’m done).  It is a storehouse of minor snippets about paganism.  There are many such sources, which we don’t ever think of. 

Plenty to do!

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