Hermes Trismegistus and Apollonius of Tyana
in the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh
by Keven Brown
[Published
in Revisioning the Sacred: New Perspectives on a Bahá’í Theology, ed.
Jack McLean. Studies in the Bábí and Bahá’í Religions, vol. 8 (Los Angeles:
Kalimát Press, 1997), pp. 153-187. To make this electronic text readable to all web
browsers the transliteration of Arabic letters requiring subscript dots has
been removed.]
Introduction
The name Hermes Trismegistus is commonly associated with occult
sciences, such as theurgy, alchemy, and astrology, which partly originated in
the technical Hermetic literature circulating in the Roman empire from as early
as the second century B.C.E. Our modern expression “hermetically sealed”
derives from the name Hermes. Apollonius of Tyana, the Pythagorian philosopher
of the first century C.E., is less well known. Greek and Latin sources do not
connect these two figures doctrinally, but in the Arabic Hermetic literature,
some of which was translated from pagan Syrian sources in the time of Caliph
Ma’mún (813 - 833), Apollonius (in Arabic Balínús) is often associated with
Hermes. There he is depicted as the discoverer and representative of Hermes’
teachings on the secrets of creation that had been lost to the generations before
him. It is this later picture of Hermes and Apollonius that is most relevant to
this study, for it is the tradition that is adopted by Bahá'u'lláh in his
writings. In his Lawh-i-Hikmat (Tablet of Wisdom), for example, Bahá'u'lláh
states: “It was this man of wisdom [Balínús] who became informed of the
mysteries of creation and discerned the subtleties which lie enshrined in the
Hermetic writings.”[1]
According
to the Eastern, Islamic tradition of Hermes Trismegistus, Hermes was a divine
philosopher or Prophet who lived before the time of the Greek philosophers, and
he was the first person to whom God instructed the secrets of wisdom and divine
and natural sciences. Muslims equate Hermes to the Prophet Idrís, whom the Jews
know as Enoch. In the Qur’án, it is written: “Commemorate Idrís in the Book;
for he was a man of truth, a Prophet; and we uplifted him to a place on high”
(Q. 19:57-58). Hermes is also called the "father of the philosophers"
in the Muslim Hermetic tradition, because he was believed to be the most
ancient of those who propagated wisdom and sciences. In accord with this
tradition, Bahá'u'lláh writes in his Lawh Basít al-Haqíqat (Tablet on the
Uncompounded Reality):
The first person who devoted himself to philosophy was Idrís. Thus
was he named. Some called him also Hermes. In every tongue he hath a special
name. He it is who hath set forth in every branch of philosophy thorough and
convincing statements. After him Balínús derived his knowledge and sciences
from the Hermetic Tablets and most of the philosophers who followed him made
their philosophical and scientific discoveries from his words and
statements.[2]
In this
quotation, “after him” represents a long period of time, since Balínús lived in
the first century C.E. The “philosophers who followed him” would, accordingly,
refer to philosophers after the first century C.E. who followed the Hermetic
tradition.
Inasmuch as Bahá'u'lláh refers to
Hermes and Apollonius in his writings, (1) what relevance does the Hermetic
legacy in Islam have to Bahá'í thought in general, and (2) what attitude should
Bahá'ís take toward these references in view of the declared infallibility of
Bahá'í scripture? The first question is important as part of an investigation
of the sources of Bahá'u'lláh’s cosmological teachings; the second question is
significant insofar as it concerns the issue of scriptural interpretation for
Bahá'í theology. Before answering these questions, however, it is first
necessary, in order to obtain a more balanced picture, to see how Hermes and
Apollonius were viewed in the Roman empire before the conquest of Islam, and
then to see how they were incorporated into the Islamic worldview. Furthermore,
what of their writings were known, and how did they influence religious and
philosophical thought?
Hermes
Trismegistus
Since,
from the fragmentary textual evidence remaining from the Roman empire, the
names of Hermes and Apollonius are not associated with each other at that time,
they will be examined separately. The legendary name of Hermes Trismegistus in
the Roman empire is, firstly, connected to the Egyptian god Thoth, whom
Herodotus associated with the Greek Hermes in the fifth century B.C.E. In
Egypt, in the most ancient period, Thoth was a powerful national god associated
with the moon. As the moon is illuminated by the sun, likewise Thoth derived
his authority from the sun god Re, to whom he acted as secretary and advisor.
The moon ruled the stars and distinguished the seasons and months of the year,
thus becoming the lord of time and the regulator of individual destinies. Thoth
came to be viewed both as the source of cosmic order and of religious and civic
institutions, and, as such, he presided over temple cults and laws of state.
According to one account, "Tiberius enacted his laws for the World in the
same way as Thoth, the creator of justice."[3]
As
the lord of wisdom, a role in which he was widely recognized, he was regarded
as the origin of sacred texts and formulae, and of arts and sciences. The
tradition that Thoth had revealed the arts of writing, number, geometry, and
astronomy to King Ammon at Thebes was known to Plato and related by him in the Phaedrus.[4]
As the scribe of the gods, he was the inventor of writing.[5] Plutarch explains
that the first letter of the Egyptian alphabet is the ibis, the sacred bird
symbol of Hermes, because Hermes invented writing.[6]
Thoth
was also a physician. In a representation of him from the time of Tiberius, he
appears holding the stick of Asclepius with the snake.[7] When a person died,
he guided the soul to the afterlife, where he recorded the judgments of
Osiris.[8] Because the Greek Hermes, like Thoth, was associated with the moon,
medicine, and the realm of the dead, and both served as a messenger for the
gods and were known for inventiveness, the Greeks assimilated Hermes to
Thoth.[9] It is the Egyptian Thoth, however, who comes down to us as Hermes
Trismegistus. Walter Scott believes that to distinguish this Hermes from the
Greek Hermes, the Greeks added the epithet Trismegistus, meaning
"thrice-great," which they borrowed from the Egyptian epithet for
Thoth, aá aá, meaning "very great."[10]
But
another view of Hermes also prevailed in the Roman empire, probably due to the
appearance of the Hermetic writings between the late first and late third
centuries C.E. In this view, Hermes is not a god but as a divinely-guided man
or Prophet. Long before, Plato had already questioned whether Thoth was a god
or just a divine man.[11] In the writings ascribed to Hermes, he is usually
pictured as the mortal agent of a holy revelation from God which offers
salvation to the soul from the bondage of matter and promises to disclose the
secrets of creation. Ammianus Marcellinus, the fourth-century pagan historian,
refers to Hermes Trismegistus, Apollonius of Tyana, and Plotinus as individuals
with a special guardian spirit.[12] To both Christians and pagans of the Roman
empire, the Egyptian Hermes was a real person of great antiquity. Some
considered him to be a contemporary of Moses, and they regarded him as the
first and greatest teacher of gnosis and sophia, from whose
teachings later philosophers derived the fundamentals of their philosophy. For
example, Iamblichus (d. ca. 330 C.E.), one of the Neoplatonic successors of
Plotinus, wrote that Plato and Pythagoras had visited Egypt and there read the
tablets of Hermes with the assistance of native priests.[13]
Bahá'u'lláh
does not explicitly support a direct philosophical connection between Hermes
and the early Greek philosophers, as Iamblichus does, but only between Hermes
and Balínús and the philosophers who followed after Balínús in the Hermetic
tradition. This is significant because part of the Islamic Hermetic tradition
from which Bahá'u'lláh draws, as will be seen below, places Balínús prior in
time to Aristotle, which is impossible in the light of historical evidence.
Bahá'u'lláh, therefore, may be deliberately recounting those parts of the
tradition he believes to be true while remaining silent about those parts that
he believes to be false.[14] In regard to a possible Egyptian influence on the
early Greek philosophers, Jonathan Barnes writes: “Although some [Egyptian]
fertilization can scarcely be denied, the proven parallels are surprisingly few
and surprisingly imprecise.”[15]
Lactantius, one of the early fathers of the Christian Church,
believed Hermes to be the Gentile Prophet, who not only predicted the coming of
Christ but recognized the Logos as God's son. He writes in his Institutes:
And even though he [Hermes] was a man, he was most ancient and
well instructed in every kind of learning--to such a degree that his knowledge
of the arts and of all other things gave him the cognomen or epithet
Trismegistus. He wrote books--many, indeed, pertaining to the knowledge of
divine things--in which he vouches for the majesty of the supreme and single
God and he calls Him by the same names which we use: Lord and Father. Lest
anyone should seek His name, he says that He is “without a name,” since He does
not need the proper signification of a name because of His very unity.[16]
Augustine,
likewise, allows that "Hermes makes many...statements agreeable to the
truth concerning the one true God Who fashioned this world," but he also
castigates Hermes for what appears to be his sympathy for the gods of
Egypt.[17]
The
Hermetic Writings
The
Hermetica are those writings which in antiquity were ascribed to the figure of
Hermes Trismegistus. Apart from this, there exists a body of Hermetic
literature in Arabic that appears distinct from the Hermetica of the Roman
empire, and which will be considered separately. These writings are presented
as revelations of divine truth, not as the products of human reason, which in
itself distinguishes them from the Greek philosophical tradition. The Hermetica
may be divided, for the sake of convenience, into two general categories: those
which deal with philosophical and theological matters and those which are of a
technical nature, i.e., texts on alchemy, astrology, and theurgy. Walter Scott,
who translated the Hermetica into English and published it together with
commentary and testimonia, put all of his attention on the philosophical
writings.[18] Other scholars of the Hermetica, including André-Jean Festugière
and Garth Fowden, treat the philosophical and technical texts as manifestations
of a single worldview.[19]
The
philosophical texts which have survived to the present consist of collections
of discourses in dialogue form, usually between Hermes and one or more of his
disciples. They include the Corpus Hermeticum (C.H.), a
collection of eighteen discourses including the well-known Poimandres as
C.H. I. The last three discourses in this collection were commonly
dropped out by Christians, probably because they contained material more
noticeably pagan.[20] Another collection, the Anthologium, was made by
Stobaeus in the fifth century. It included extracts from C.H. II, IV,
and X, and from otherwise unattested Hermetica. Neither of these
collections included the well-known Asclepius, or Perfect Discourse,
which contains Hermes’ famous prophecy on Egypt. The Perfect Discourse has
survived only in Latin, save for Greek fragments in Lactantius, likely because
the work contains several passages of a clearly pagan nature, which were
proscribed by Byzantine censorship.[21] Other specimens of philosophical
Hermetica are known to exist in Coptic and Armenian translations.[22]
The
general consensus of modern scholars, beginning with Isaac Casaubon in 1614,
puts the composition of the philosophical texts between the late first to the
late third centuries C.E.[23] The composition of the technical texts may have
begun as much as two centuries earlier. These calculations are based on
external testimonia and analysis of the linguistic style and the doctrinal content
of the texts. Tertullian of Carthage is the earliest known writer to clearly
quote from the philosophical Hermetica in his Adversus Valentinianos and
the De anima, both composed around 206 - 207.[24] There are earlier
references to Hermetic texts. Galen of Pergamon mentions a treatise on medical
botany by Hermes Trimegistus that was supposedly well-known in the first
century.[25]
The
modern dating of the texts refutes the possibility that they themselves are an
ancient fount of divine wisdom pre-dating Plato. Nevertheless, it is possible
that the Hermetica represent an authentic Egyptian religious tradition that
came under the influence of Greek philosophy and was later written down in a
highly Hellenized style. This idea was proposed in antiquity in a book called Abammonis
Ad Porphyrium Responsum, written by Iamblichus, although ostensibly written
by Abammon, an Egyptian priest of high rank, in reply to questions addressed by
Porphyry (c. 232 - 301). Porphyry asked about the theology and religious practices
of the Egyptians, especially about theurgy, implying that he found it difficult
to reconcile them with his own beliefs. “Abammon” says that he will base his
answers on two sources: (1) the "books of Thoth," written in ancient
times by Egyptian priests, and (2) books written by recent writers who have
condensed or summarized the contents of the ancient writings. Under the second
category the author includes the Greek Hermetica, which Porphyry said he had
read. Abammon explains that these texts were based on Egyptian documents which
were translated, paraphrased, or interpreted by priests who were experts in
Greek philosophy.[26] According to this scheme, the works of Balínús known in
the Islamic tradition would also fall under the second category, since he was
regarded as the discoverer and propounder of the Hermetic writings.
Scott
was of the opinion that if the above hypothesis was true, then the Egyptian
priests of the Roman period could only have imagined that they had found in
their ancient writings doctrines that were in accord with Platonic philosophy.
But there have been some modern scholars more sympathetic to the view of
Abammon. For example, in 1904 Richard Reitzenstein published his Poimandres
wherein he challenges Isaac Casaubon’s opinion that the Hermetica were merely
Christian forgeries. William C. Grese sums up Reitzenstein’s position in that
work: "Reitzenstein portrayed the Hermetica as a Hellenistic development
of ancient Egyptian religion."[27] With the publication of the Nag Hammadi
library of Coptic gnostic and Hermetic texts in the 1970s, Garth Fowden states
that Hermetic scholarship has entered a new phase, one which emphasizes a
closer connection of the Hermetica to traditional Egyptian thought.[28]
It
is true that the Roman empire in the first few centuries after Christ was known
for the syncretistic drive of its component cultures. Greeks and Romans were
borrowing from the Egyptians, the Jews, and the Persians, while these cultures
in turn borrowed from the Greeks and the Romans, and from each other. The
intermingling of races as well as religious and philosophical ideas made such
borrowing not only possible but necessary, and contributed to a widespread
feeling of toleration.
In
common with revived Platonism and Pythagoreanism, and with the monotheistic
religions of the time, Hermeticism taught that all beings derive from one
supreme God, who is the object of each soul’s adoration. Although some of the
Hermetic texts may lend themselves to a pantheistic interpretation, God is also
depicted as a personal creator, who is separate and independent from the world
He creates. Fowden concurs: "Some conception of the transcendence of God
(as for example the creator of the All rather than Himself the All) can often
be found even in the most immanentist of treatises."[29] One’s view of God
depends upon the level of understanding obtained while journeying through the
stages of the "way of Hermes."[30] Hermes says: "By stages he
[the seeker] advances and enters the way of immortality."[31]
The first step of the soul seeking reunion with God is to
recognize its own ignorance, for only then can it obtain the knowledge of
God.[32] It is God’s wish to be known by humanity, God’s most glorious
creation.[33] Knowing God requires the second birth of the spirit, the
unveiling of the "essential" human within, which means that the
seeker must acquire wisdom, practice virtue, and learn detachment from worldly
things.[34] Life is the classroom for such spiritual transformation. "The
pious fight," teaches Hermes, "consists in knowing the divine and
doing ill to no man."[35] A human being becomes divine as he or she
reflects the divine virtues that are equivalent to the essential self, which is
the image of God. Such a life includes praying and singing hymns of praise to
God. It does not preclude marriage and a normal family life, according to
Hermes.[36]
Apollonius
of Tyana
Unlike
the figure of Hermes Trismegistus, who is veiled in the mists of legend,
Apollonius of Tyana is a known historical figure. According to his chief
biographer, Flavius Philostratus (c. 175 - 245), Apollonius lived to be over
ninety years old and died near the end of the first Christian century. Recent
scholarship puts Apollonius’ life between approximately 40 - 120 C.E.[37] The
empress Julia Domna, who was born in Syrian Emesa in the eastern confines of
the Roman empire where Apollonius had flourished, commissioned Philostratus to
write the life of Apollonius, which was completed some time after Julia Domna’s
death in 217. Philostratus says of his sources:
I have gathered my materials partly from the many cities that were
devoted to him, partly from the shrines which he set right when their rules had
fallen into neglect, partly from what others have said about him, and partly
from his own letters....But my more detailed information I have gathered from
a...man called Damis who...became a disciple of Apollonius and has left an
account of his master's journeys, on which he claims to have accompanied him,
and also an account of his sayings, speeches and predictions....I have also
read the book by Maximus of Aegae, which contains all that Apollonius did
there....But it is best to ignore the four books which Moeragenes composed
about Apollonius, because of the great ignorance of their subject that they
display.[38]
As
to the reliability of Philostratus’ work and the possibility of reconstructing
an accurate historical picture of Apollonius of Tyana from it, modern
historians generally agree that Philostratus fabricated much of his biography
to please the expectations of his patroness. Such likely fabrications include
the figure of Damis, the accounts of Apollonius’ encounters with several Roman
emperors, and Apollonius’ journeys to India and Rome.[39] He does not seem to
have been known in Rome until the fourth century, when his legend became famous
due to the controversy between Eusebius and Hierocles, which will be explained
below. Philostratus himself was “a man of letters and a sophist full of passion
for Greek Romance and for studies in rhetoric…hardly interested in the
historical Apollonius.”[40]
The works by Maximus and Moeragenes have not survived, although
there is a reference to Moeragenes’ work by Origen in his Contra Celsum,
in which he mentions Moeragenes’ view that Apollonius was both a philosopher
and a magician.[41] The earliest known mention of Apollonius is in Lucian’s Alexander
sive Pseudomantis written in about 180 C.E., in which he ridicules
Alexander as a charlatan whose teacher had been a pupil of Apollonius.[42] In
sum, historical sources contemporary with Apollonius are silent about him,
those remaining from the second century are sparse and fragmentary, and
Philostratus’ biography written in the first half of the third century is
unreliable. Furthermore, there is no body of extant works by Apollonius in
Greek or in Syriac (at least ones considered to be authentic) to give us an
accurate picture of his teachings. All that remains from the Greek is a
collection of about one hundred of his letters, most quite short and some
probably fabricated after his death. A fragment from a work of Balínús entitled
Concerning Sacrifices found in Eusebius was probably translated into
Greek, because Philostratus says that Apollonius wrote this book in his “own
language,” Syriac.[43] Given this state of affairs, revealing the true
Apollonius is a formidable if not impossible task. Nevertheless, Philostratus’ Life
of Apollonius and the letters give us a picture of Apollonius that cannot
be entirely out of line.
Philostratus describes many of Apollonius’ wonderful acts, but he
chooses to stress his wisdom, his ascetic practices, and his mission to restore
the purity of the ancient religions of the empire. That Apollonius could do
things beyond the capability of ordinary men, Philostratus explains, was the
result of the "knowledge which God reveals to wise men."[44] His
wonders consisted primarily of instances of divining the future, seeing or
hearing things in visions, and healing the sick. In a case where he restored a
young girl to life upon meeting her funeral procession, Philostratus comments:
"He may have seen a spark of life in her which her doctors had not
noticed, since apparently it was drizzling and steam was coming from her
face."[45]
As
Christianity grew in size and power, some pagans felt compelled to respond to
the miracles Christians attributed to Christ with their own stories about the
miracles of Apollonius. The first to do so in writing, according to Eusebius of
Caesarea, was Hierocles, a philosopher and the governor of Bithynia at that
time (302 C.E.). He wrote a work called A Friend of the Truth in which
he contrasts the wonderful works of Apollonius with the miracles of Christ as a
proof to Christians that they should not claim divinity for Christ based on his
miracles. Eusebius of Caesarea responded vehemently to Hierocles, not by
disclaiming the virtue of Apollonius, but by discrediting Philostratus’
biography of Apollonius.[46] Lactantius, who heard Hierocles read his book
publicly in Nicomedia, argued that Christ is divine, not because of the
miracles he did, but because it was Jesus who had fulfilled the prophecies
announced by the Jewish Prophets.[47] As a result of this debate between
Christians and pagans, Apollonius’ legend as a wonder-worker began to grow and
Philostratus’ biography became popular. The cult at the temple of Asclepius in
Aegaeae, where Apollonius had served as a healer of both bodies and souls,
began to flourish again (as did many other temples loyal to his memory), until
the emperor Constantine had this temple destroyed in 331 C.E.[48]
Where
did the legends of Apollonius’ talismans come from? They are not mentioned by
Philostratus, so they were either unknown to him, or he did not wish to speak
about them. Maria Dzielska, whose book Apollonius of Tyana in Legend and
History has been very helpful in constructing this account of Apollonius,
has explained this question. Eusebius is the first to refer to them in his Contra
Hieroclem. He says that "certain queer implements attributed to
Apollonius were used in his times."[49] After Eusebius, references to
Apollonius’ talismans begin to appear frequently. Pseudo-Justin mentions the
dissemination of Apollonius’ talismans in Antioch. It appears that these
objects were so popular that Antioch’s Church leaders decided to accept them.
Pseudo-Justin illustrates the problem in a work containing a dialogue between a
theologian and a Christian:
The Christian is concerned about the popularity and spread of
Apollonius’ talismans. He wonders how to explain their magical powers....He
wonders why God...allows them....The theologian dispels his doubts saying that
there is nothing evil about those objects because they were produced by
Apollonius who was an expert in the powers governing nature and in the cosmic
sympathies and antipathies...and that is why they did not contradict God's
wisdom ruling the world.[50]
The
talismans, which were usually made out of stone or metal, were placed in cities
to protect their inhabitants against plagues, wild animals, vermin, natural
disasters, and the like. Two other centers in the Greek east where memories of
Apollonius had been strongest, Agaeae and Tyana, were completely converted to
Christianity by this time, so there is no mention of Apollonius’ talismans there.
However, surprisingly, in Constantinople itself Apollonius’ talismans became
popular. The sixth century Antiochian historian Malalas wrote that, during
Domitian’s rule Apollonius paid a visit Byzantium, where he left many talismans
in order to help the Byzantines in their troubles.[51] In the thirteenth
century, in the hippodrome in Byzantium, there was still a bronze eagle holding
a snake in its claws, which citizens said had been placed there by Apollonius
to protect them against a scourge of venomous snakes. This talisman was
destroyed by the crusaders in 1204.[52]
What
is left of Apollonius’ reputation if we divest him from his time-honored
epithet "the producer of talismans, the performer of wonders"? In
Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius, we are told that Apollonius was a man
vigorously devoted to God and to the spiritual life, and one who accepted all
creeds as diverse expressions of one universal religion. In a letter to his
brother, he writes: "All men, so I believe, belong to the family of God
and are of one nature; everyone experiences the same emotions, regardless of
the place or condition of a person’s birth, whether he is a barbarian or a
Greek, so long as he is a human being."[53] In the fragment from the work
of Apollonius called Concerning Sacrifices, he advises: "It is best
to make no sacrifice to God at all, no lighting a fire, no calling Him by any
name that men employ for things of sense. For God is over all, the first; and
only after Him do come the other gods. For He doth stand in need of naught,
even from the gods, much less from us small men....The only fitting sacrifice
to God is man’s best reason [i.e., man’s "showing to God his own
perfection" according to Dzielska[54], and not the word that comes out of
his mouth."[55]
Wherever he traveled, Apollonius is said to have discouraged the
use of animals for sacrifice, and encouraged the use of incense instead.
Philostratus relates that he refused to eat meat and subsisted on a diet of
fruits and vegetables. As part of his daily regimen, Apollonius prayed three
times a day: at daybreak, mid-day, and at sundown. Damis describes his manner
as gentle and modest, yet if some injustice was being committed he would be the
first to speak out against it. For example, in a letter to some Roman
officials, he states: "Some of you take care of harbors, buildings, walls,
and walkways. But, as for the children in the cities or the young people or the
women, neither you nor the laws give them any thought. If things were
otherwise, it would be good to be governed by you."[56] In a letter to
Valerius, we learn something about his opinion on human immortality:
"There is no death of anything except in appearance only, just as there is
no birth of anything except in appearance only. For the passage of something
from the realm of pure substance into that of nature appears to be birth, and
likewise the passage of something from the realm of nature into that of pure
substance appears to be death."[57]
The
Islamic Hermetic Tradition
It
is not clear when Hermetic works first became known to Muslims. According to
the great catalogist Ibn an-Nadím, some alchemical treatises were known and
used by Khálid (d. c. 720), son of the Umayyad Caliph Yazíd II.[58] Later, the
famous Muslim alchemist, Jábir ibn Hayyán (722 - 815), developed a good part of
his own cosmological system from the Sirr al-Khalíqa (The Secret of
Creation) attributed to Balínús (i.e., Apollonius of Tyana), which Balínús says
he derived from the Kitáb al-‘Ilal (The Book of Causes) of Hermes.[59] In his
works, Jábir also claims to have been an intimate disciple of the sixth Shí‘í
Imam, Ja‘far as-Sádiq (d. 765), who acted as “Jábir’s critic and guide par
excellence.”[60] Although Jábir’s link to Ja‘far as-Sádiq and the traditional
dating and authorship of the Jabirian corpus have been challenged by Paul Kraus
in his monumental study, recent and more critical scholarship by Syed Nomanul
Haq shows that Kraus was unduely skeptical in his judgment.[61] The name Hermes
and perhaps Persian versions of Hermetic texts were also known during the reign
of Hárún ar-Rashíd (786 - 809). Ar-Rashíd’s Persian librarian and court
astrologer, Abú Sahl al-Fadl, mentions a Babylonian Hermes, whose works were
translated into Pahlavi during the reign of the Sasanian monarch Shápúr. Abú
Sahl is said to have translated some of those works for ar-Rashíd.[62]
Whatever
the case may be, the identification of Hermes with the qur’ánic Idrís, who had
already been identified with Enoch by the Jews,[63] was made by the psuedo-Sabians
of Harrán during the reign of al-Ma’mún. In the words of Mas‘údí (d. 959):
"Enoch is identical with the Prophet Idrís; the Sabians say he is the same
person as Hermes."[64] Harrán, in Syria, had remained a stronghold of
pagan religion and learning where Christianity had not been able to penetrate.
Here, it seems that both philosophical and technical Hermetica were well-known
and in use. The story of al-Ma‘mún’s encounter with the Harránians is related
by Ibn an-Nadím, who took his account from that of a Christian named Abú Yúsuf
Aysha’ al-Qatí‘í. According to this account, the caliph was on a military
expedition into the land of the Byzantines, during which time he was received
by people who came to swear allegiance to him. Among them were the Harráians.
When al-Ma‘mún asked them about their religion, they were unable to give a
satisfactory answer. Al-Ma‘mún said: "Then you must be heretics and
worshipers of idols; your blood is lawful....You must choose either Islam or
any of the religions which God has mentioned in His Book, otherwise you shall
be exterminated."[65] To escape from this impasse, the Harránians
identified themselves with the Mandaean Sabians mentioned in the Qur‘án, and
said that their Prophets were Hermes and Agathodaimon (said to be the Biblical
Seth), and their scriptures the writings of Hermes.
Al-Kindí
(c. 850) gives an account of the teachings of the Harránian Hermeticists, which
was recorded in the memoir of Ahmad ibn ath-Thayyib, which bears some
resemblance to teachings found in the Greek philosophical Hermetica:
The Sabians with one accord teach as follows: The world has one
First Author, who has never ceased to be, who is unique and without plurality,
and to whom none of the attributes of caused things are applicable. He (God)
imposed on those of his creatures that are endowed with the faculty of judgment
the duty of acknowledging his supremacy; he revealed to them the right way (of
life and thought), and sent emissaries (Prophets) to guide them aright, and to
establish proofs (of God's existence). He bade these Prophets summon men to
(live according to) God's good pleasure, and warn them of God's
wrath....According to their opinion, the rewards and punishments will affect
the spirit only, and will not be postponed to an appointed time [i.e. there is
no resurrection of the body, and no one Day of Judgment for all mankind
together].[66]
The
Arabic Hermetic writings, a large share of which belong to the technical
category, are numerous, and many of these texts have yet to be
investigated.[67] "The Book of Causes" of Hermes, adopted by Balínús
under the title of The Secret of Creation, has already been mentioned.
It ranges from explaining the metaphysical origin of the universe to
considerations on the ontological categories of the world and the nature of the
human soul. The Arabic version of this book is no doubt based on an original
written in Syriac, Balínús’ native tongue. A Christian monk of Neapolis in
Palestine named Sájiyús states that he translated the work (into Arabic?)
"so that those who remain after me may have the benefit of reading
it."[68] A number of the sayings of Hermes quoted in the Má’ al-Waraqí
(The Silvery Water) by Ibn Umail have been shown to be derived from Greek
alchemy texts.[69] Arabic authors who have included collections of
philosophical and ethical sayings attributed to Hermes in their works include
Ibn al-Qiftí, al-Shahrastání, Hunayn ibn Isháq, Miskawayh, Ibn Durayd,
al-Mubashshir, and Abú Sulaymán al-Mantiqí. A discourse by Hermes to the human
soul in Arabic, Mu‘ádilat an-Nafs, was translated into Latin under the
title Hermes de Castigatione Animae. Scott says of this work: "The
doctrines taught in [it] have been derived from the similar doctrines taught in
Greek writings; and it seems not unlikely that some of them are more or less
exact translations of Greek Hermetica which were written in Egypt before A.D.
300, and were included in the collection of Hermetica which the Harranian
Sabians, in A.D. 830, put forward as their scripture."[70]
From the time of al-Ma‘mún on references to Hermes and the
Hermetic writings are frequent in the writings of Muslim philosophers and
historians. Their view and that held by their Christian contemporaries in the
West continued to be the view held by many people in antiquity: Hermes was a
divine sage or Prophet and the founder of sciences and wisdom. Coming closer to
the time of Bahá'u'lláh, the Safavid philosopher Mullá Sadrá (d. 1640) writes:
"Know that wisdom originally began with Adam and his progeny Seth and
Hermes....And it is the greatest Hermes who propagated it throughout the
regions of the world...and made it emanate upon the true worshipers. He is the
Father of the philosophers and the master of those who are the masters of the
sciences."[71]
As
for Balínús, he carries into Islam the same contradictory reputation that
followed him in the Roman empire. In one view, he is presented as a magician,
who, in various cities of the Middle East, erected talismans (consecrated
objects) to protect their inhabitants from floods, famines, insects, and the
like. The Kitáb at-Talásim al-Akbar (The Great Book of Talismans),
addressed by Balínús to his son, is a book of this category. It partly matches
up with a Greek pseudo-epigraph titled The Book of Wisdom of Apollonius of
Tyana, which Dzielska believes was composed no earlier than the late fifth
century, probably in Antioch by Christian Gnostics.[72] For example, when
Balínús is threatened by one of the Roman emperors with death, he miraculously
escapes to Antioch through a basin that had been prepared for him in the
palace. A demon was frightening the inhabitants of Antioch, when Balínús, in
the middle of being bled, reduces him to obedience with one word, obliges him
to serve his bath, and then chases him through the eastern gate of the city.
Upon the request of the inhabitants, he regulates the flow of the river and
places talismans against the lice and rats.[73] This tradition of Balínús,
therefore, must have found its way into Islam some time after the Muslims
conquered Syria.
Jábir
ibn Hayyán, like Philostratus earlier, defends a different picture of Balínús.
In his Kitáb al-Baht, he criticizes vehemently such stories of magical
exploits and attributes them to the inventions of charlatans and liars. If
Balínús is truly the master of talismans, according to Jábir, it is not due to
magic but to his perfect knowledge of the properties of things. For Jábir and
other Muslim scientists, Balínús was primarily a natural philosopher, and they
attribute to him several cosmological, astrological, and alchemical
treatises.[74] Among these are the Sirr al-Khalíqa, mentioned above, and
the Dhakhírat al-Iskandar (The Treasury of Alexander). In the
introduction to the latter, Aristotle is made to present the book to Alexander,
which he says was given to him by Balínús, who retrieved it from a watery tomb,
where Hermes had deposited it for safekeeping. The book discusses, among other
things, the principles of alchemy and the manufacture of elixirs, the
composition of poisons and their antidotes, and the use of talismans for
healing.[75] Jábir ibn Hayyán also wrote ten books according to the opinion of
Balínús (‘alá ra’y Balínús). A collection of sayings from Balínús in
Arabic have come into Latin under the title Dicta Belini. There is also
a work in Arabic by a disciple of Apollonius named Artefius, called Miftáh
al-Hikmat (The Key to Wisdom).[76]
Hermes
Trismegistus and Apollonius of Tyana in the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh
With
this information as background, it is now possible to answer the first question
posed in the introduction: what is the relevance of the Islamic Hermetic
tradition to Bahá'í thought? Bahá'u'lláh’s reference to Hermes/Idrís as the
first person to devote himself to philosophy and how Balínús derived his
knowledge from the Hermetic writings has already been cited in the
introduction. Another passage, along these lines, can be found in Bahá'u'lláh’s
Lawh-i-Hikmat (Tablet of Wisdom), here cited in full:
I will also mention for thee the invocation voiced by Balínús, who
was familiar with the theories put forward by the Father of Philosophy [Hermes]
regarding the mysteries of creation as given in his chrysolite tablets....This
man hath said: “I am Balínús, the wise one, the performer of wonders, the
producer of talismans.” He surpassed everyone else in the diffusion of arts and
sciences and soared unto the loftiest heights of humility and supplication.
Give ear unto that which he hath said, entreating the All-Possessing, the Most
Exalted: “I stand in the presence of my Lord, extolling His gifts and bounties
and praising Him with that wherewith He praiseth His Own Self, that I may
become a source of blessing and guidance unto such men as acknowledge my
words.” And further he saith: “O Lord! Thou art God and no God is there but
Thee. Thou art the Creator and no creator is there except Thee. Assist me by
Thy grace and strengthen me. My heart is seized with alarm, my limbs tremble, I
have lost my reason and my mind hath failed me. Bestow upon me strength and
enable my tongue to speak forth with wisdom.” And still further he saith: “Thou
art in truth the Knowing, the Wise, the Powerful, the Compassionate.” It was
this man of wisdom who became informed of the mysteries of creation and
discerned the subtleties which lie enshrined in the Hermetic writings.[77]
Balínús’
exclamation: “I am Balínús, the wise one, the performer of wonders, the
producer of talismans,” quoted by Bahá'u'lláh, can be found in the introduction
to the Sirr al-Khalíqa. This statement may be a literary stock piece
derived from the tradition that primarily regards Apollonius as a miracle
worker. As for the supplications of Balínús to God cited by Bahá'u'lláh, they
can also be found verbatim in the Sirr al-Khalíqa.[78] They do reflect
faithfully the picture of Apollonius given by Philostratus as one devoted to
serving the one God behind the many. On the question of Bahá'u'lláh citing from
ancient accounts, Juan Cole has established that several passages in the Tablet
of Wisdom about the Greek philosophers are actually quotations from the works
of Muslim historians such as Abu’l-Fath ash-Shahristání (1076 – 1153) and
‘Imámu’d-Dín Abu’l-Fidá’ (1273 – 1331).[79]
According
to Balínús in the Sirr al-Khalíqa, God brought the universe into existence
in the following manner:
The first thing to be created was God’s Word: “Let there be so and
so.” That Word was the cause of all creation, all other created things being
the effects thereof….Now, there is no doubt that a caused thing has a cause;
otherwise, it would be self-subsistent (fard), and this is manifestly
not the case. Next it must be asked whether its cause is connected to it or
not, for if it is connected [i.e., ontologically similar], then the cause is
created, and if it is not connected to it [i.e., ontologically different], then
it is not created and not, therefore, a cause. As we have explained, it is not
possible for the Creator to be the cause of what He has created, because the
cause must resemble in certain respects that of which it is the cause and
differ in other respects, while the Creator has no resemblance to His creation
whatsoever. Verily, the cause [of creation] must needs be other than God. It
is, as we have described, the likeness of all created things in one respect and
their contrary in another. Indeed, the Word of God—exalted be His glory—is
higher and far superior to that which the senses can perceive. For it is
neither a property nor a substance, neither hot nor cold, neither dry nor
moist. But it was through it that all these things came to be. It is the
Permission of God and His Command. Man cannot grasp the Word of God, for he is
powerless to comprehend anything that transcends his own station. The human
intellect is only capable of grasping what is associated with it in the realm
of creation, because it is of the world and the world is of it, and man
apprehends it according to his own capacity.
The first thing
to arise after God’s Word was action (fi‘l). By action motion is
implied, and by motion heat. This was the beginning of natural causation. Then,
when motion diminished and ceased the opposite state of rest occurred, and by
rest coldness is implied. That motion, which is the heat, is the spirit of our
Father, Adam.[80]
Balínús goes on to explain how the four elements were formed and
the heavenly bodies, and plants and animals, the crowning goal of the process
of creation being human beings. This picture of creation is strikingly close to
the theory for creation given by Bahá'u'lláh in the Lawh-i-Hikmat. There, Bahá'u'lláh
similarly states that the Word of God is "the cause of the entire
creation, while all else besides His Word are but the creatures and the effects
thereof." He goes on to say that this transcendent reality, the Word of
God, "is higher and far superior to that which the senses can perceive,
for it is sanctified from any property or substance....[It] is none but the
Command of God which pervadeth all created things."[81]
Bahá'í texts likewise take the position that God is not the cause
of contingent beings in a necessary sense, wherein cause and effect share the
same substratum of existence. The idea of creation as a necessary emanation
from the Creator was accepted by most of the Islamic philosophers. Bahá'u'lláh,
however, follows the position of the Islamic theologians in teaching that God
is the creator of the world by choice. As a voluntary agent, God’s relation to
contingent existence is one of beneficence only. As it is expressed in
Bahá'u'lláh’s Hidden Words: "I loved thy creation, hence I created
thee."[82] God has willed creation into being freely, out of love. It is
the Will, or Word, of God, which is God’s first “emanation” (first in the sense
of priority, not time), that has a necessary connection to created things, such
that Bahá'u'lláh calls nature both "God's will and...its
expression."[83] In other words, the Will of God, once issued from the
Supreme Godhead, necessarily manifests nature and all the beings in the
universe, and it is itself, according to ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, identical to the inner
realities of all created things.[84]
Bahá'u'lláh
continues to follow the cosmology of the Sirr al-Khalíqa very closely:
the first thing to be generated from the Word of God is heat, and this heat is
the cause of all motion in the universe.[85] Although Balínús seems to equate
heat and motion in the passage cited above, a little later when discussing the
origin of the elements, he clarifies that “the cause of motion is heat, and the
cause of rest is coldness.”[86] In Bahá'u'lláh’s scheme, the Word of God
possesses two complementary poles, one active and the other receptive, for
Bahá'u'lláh states in the Lawh-i-Hikmat that "the world of existence came
into being through the heat generated from the interaction between the active
force and that which is its recipient."[87] It is my opinion that the
active force and the recipient mentioned by Bahá'u'lláh in the Lawh-i-Hikmat
correspond to the incorporeal, eternal Forms of Plato and primary matter, the
passive, formless medium for their reflection.[88] This notion is further
confirmed by Bahá'u'lláh in one of his tablets wherein he says: “The meaning of
the active force is the lord of the species (rabb-i naw‘), and it has
other meanings.”[89] In the terminology of the Illuminationist philosophers,
the lords of species are the same as Platonic Forms, which are the formal
causes of the individual members of species over which they have influence.[90]
In
Bahá'í texts, as in the Sirr al-Khalíqa, the formative, purposeful
motion, which is the effect of the heat generated by the Word of God, becomes,
first of all, the four elements (also called by Bahá'u'lláh the two agents and
the two patients, and which should not be confused with the active force and
its recipient). For example, Bahá'u'lláh states in the Lawh-i-Ayiy-i-Núr:
"Know that the first tokens brought into existence by the pre-existent
Cause in the worlds of creation are the four elements: fire, air, water, and
earth."[91] These four elements are equivalent to the four basic states of
matter in the modern sense: solid, gaseous, liquid, and radiant, and they were
understood in a similar way by the ancient philosophers.[92]
The theory of creation presented in the Lawh-i-Hikmat and other
Bahá'í texts focuses chiefly on the metaphysical origin of existence.
Bahá'u'lláh, in most cases, leaves the explanation of physical processes in
nature to science, advising researcher to observe nature carefully, rather than
to impose pre-conceived models on reality: "Look at the world and ponder a
while upon it. It unveileth the book of its own self before thine eyes and...it
will acquaint thee with that which is within it and upon it and will give thee
such clear explanations as to make thee independent of every eloquent
expounder."[93]
Another
Bahá'í text wherein Bahá'u'lláh mentions Hermes and Apollonius together is one
of the Tablets of the Elixir (alwáh-i iksír). In this text, Bahá'u'lláh
quotes part of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, which alchemists claim conceals
the secret of their craft. Bahá'u'lláh relates:
Balínús, the sage, upheld the same view and mentioned the
inscription on the Tablet held in the hand of Hermes. He said: "In truth
and of a certainty, there is no doubt that the higher is from the lower and the
lower is from the higher. The working of wonders is from one as all things came
from one. Its father is the sun and its mother is the moon." Furthermore, He said: "The subtle is
nobler than the gross. The light of lights with the power of the All-Powerful
causeth the earth to ascend to heaven
and then causeth it to descend. It holdeth sway over both earth and heaven,
higher and lower."[94] [translation revised since publication]
This passage
can be found in its entirety on two pages of Jábir ibn Hayyán’s Kitáb
Ustuqus al-Uss.[95] According to the account recorded in the introduction
to the Sirr al-Khalíqa, Balínús discovered both the Emerald Tablet of
Hermes and the "Book of Causes" while exploring a crypt beneath a
statue of Hermes:
Thus, I found myself across from an old man seated upon a golden throne
who was holding in his hand an emerald Tablet on which was written: “Here is
the craft of nature.” And in front of him was a book on which was written:
“Here is the secret of creation and the science of the causes of all things.”
With complete trust I took the book [and the Tablet] and went out from the
crypt. Thereafter, with the help of the book, I was able to learn the secrets
of creation, and through the Tablet, I succeeded in understanding the craft of
nature.[96]
The full text of the Emerald Tablet can be found at the end of the
Sirr al-Khalíqa. The first part that Bahá'u'lláh quotes is very close to
the version given in the Sirr al-Khalíqa (reading variant L), but the
second part does not quite correspond with any of the variants given by the editor.
According to the Aleppo edition prepared by Ursula Weisser, the full text of
the Emerald Tablet reads:
In truth and of a certainty, there is no doubt that the higher is
from the lower and the lower is from the higher. The working of wonders is from
one as all things came from one by the treatment of the one. Its father is the
sun and its mother is the moon. The wind has borne it in its belly, and the
earth has nourished it. It is the father of talismans, the bearer of wonders,
and the perfecter of powers--a fire which became earth. Separate the earth from
the fire, [for] the subtle is nobler than the gross, with care and prudence. It
ascends from earth to heaven and then descends back to the earth. Within it is
the power of the higher and the lower, for it has acquired the light of lights,
and darkness thus flees from it. This is the power of all powers which conquers
everything subtle and penetrates everything solid. In accord with the creation
of the universe is the creative operation of the work. This is my glory, and
for this reason I am called Hermes Trismegistus [“thrice great”].[97]
[translation revised since publication]
Kraus is of
the opinion that the cosmology and metaphysics presented in the Sirr
al-Khalíqa ultimately have the "craft of nature" in mind, what
Bahá'u'lláh usually refers to as the "hidden craft." In other words,
the Sirr al-Khalíqa introduces the theoretical framework necessary for
understanding and practicing the craft of nature. The Emerald Tablet itself
teaches in veiled language how to produce the alchemical elixir, that which is
born from a single thing, yet whose father is the sun and whose mother is the
moon, which "conquers everything subtle and penetrates everything
solid."
Bahá'u'lláh
mentions or alludes to the hidden craft in about forty different tablets, and
more may yet come to light.[98] In ten of these he gives detailed explanations
of its practice, explanations which depend for their proper interpretation upon
correctly decoding the names used to describe different stages of the process.
Bahá'u'lláh’s descriptions of the hidden craft typically abound in metaphors,
and he uses such terms as "sun" and "moon," “father” and
“mother,” and the members of the four elements mentioned above. Regarding the
use of this metaphorical terminology, Bahá'u'lláh explains: "These various
names are the protectors of this treasure of the One True Lord, that the truth
of it might remain hidden from the ignorant and preserved from the deceptive in
heart."[99]
Bahá'u'lláh
believed in the truth of the hidden craft. For example, he wrote to one of his
followers: "This is that which hath been called the hidden craft and the
concealed secret by the tongues of the philosophers. By My life, assuredly it
is a noble science. Whosoever God aideth unto it and its knowledge shall become
apprised of the secrets of creation and independent from all save God. He shall
be confident in the power of his Lord and shall be of those who are
well-assured."[100] In regard to the basic objective of the hidden craft,
Bahá'u'lláh says: "In short, the object of the hidden craft is this: From
one thing the four elements should be separated, and, after the purification of
each of these elements from their non-essential drosses, these elements should
be made one thing by dissolution and congelation."
Furthermore, Bahá'u'lláh explains: "If thou art able to
separate anything in heaven or on earth and marry all of it together again,
after purification, so that it becomes one thing, the secret of this great mystery
will become clear to thee...for this principle hath encompassed the contingent
world and all created things both inwardly and outwardly."[101] Although
these words may refer to a physical process that Bahá'u'lláh has in mind, they
have a clear parallel in the process of spiritual transformation, both
individually and collectively. Alchemy as a mirror for psychological or
spiritual transformation has a long tradition, going back at least to the time
of Zosimus (c. 300). For example, on the individual level, through suffering
and life experience (separation), a human being can learn and grow, become
purified from harmful habits and characteristics, and finally become a more
integrated and whole person.
It
is worth noting that in the same tablet in which Bahá'u'lláh praises the hidden
craft, he dismisses other secret sciences (‘ulúm al-gharíba): "Know
that most of what thou hast heard about these sciences is such as doth not
'fatten nor appease the hunger', even were one to look attentively into them."[102]
Despite
his endorsement of the hidden craft, Bahá'u'lláh prohibited his followers from
engaging in it, except for one or two individuals who were probably also the
recipients of most of the practical elixir tablets. To others who asked,
Bahá'u'lláh’s typical response was, as placed into the mouth of his secretary
Mírzá Aqá Ján: "Every soul desirous to work with this craft was
forbidden by Him. He said: 'The time for it has not come. Be patient until God
brings it forth in His time'."[103] Bahá'u'lláh’s purpose in prohibiting
the practice of the hidden craft among his followers also appears to have been
for their own protection, for he says: "Many who occupied themselves with
the elixir and the science of divination lost their minds on account of their
imaginings and the concentration of their thoughts, and evidences of insanity
were observed in them."[104]
I know of only one other
Tablet of Bahá'u'lláh that mentions a statement made by Hermes, though more
such texts may come to light. In response to a Bahá'í, who was asking about the
uncertainty of events and the inconstancy of the world, Bahá'u'lláh responded:
The world has never had nor does it now possess stability (thabát),
notwithstanding the complaints of some unfaithful and wavering souls. But, in
truth, whatever takes place is well-pleasing, for the divine wisdom has
ordained it. Without His command and will, not a leaf can stir, and whatever
occurs is conformable to wisdom. All must be contented with it, nay eagerly
desire it. However, in some cases, such as when the sweetness of reunion [with
God] gives way to the bitterness of separation and, likewise, when, by the
decree of remoteness, nearness and meeting are banished--this causes sighs of
sorrow and grief to be upraised and the tears to flow. Otherwise, the matter is
as some of the philosophers have cited from the words of Idrís [Hermes]: “It is
impossible for the realm of creation to be better than it already is.”[105]
In addition to its mention of Hermes/Idrís, this passage is important
in itself in regard to the question of God's determinism versus human free
will. This theme is discussed in many other Bahá'í texts, which indicate that
it is not a question of one or the other, but of both.[106] In other words,
God’s predestination of things and human free will work together to effect the
outcome of history. What God has predestined is the laws of nature, such that
necessary cause and effect relationships exist between all created things.
‘Abdu'l-Bahá explains: "For example, God hath created a relation between
the sun and the terrestrial globe that the rays of the sun should shine and the
soil should yield. These relationships constitute predestination, and the
manifestation thereof in the plane of existence is fate. Will is that active
force which controlleth these relationships and these incidents."[107]
This is why Bahá'u'lláh states that "without His command and will not a
leaf can stir." The natural relationships existing between things are
according to God’s perfect wisdom, such that the universe cannot be better than
it is, as given by Hermes. In other words, the determinism evident in the laws
of nature is due to their perfection, and God does not change what is already
perfect, although possessing the power to do so.[108]
Since
human beings are part of the web of life, they too cause events and receive the
effects of events. But unlike other creatures who live perforce in harmony with
nature’s laws, human beings have a choice in observing these laws, insofar as
they include ethical and spiritual principles meant to guide human actions. In
other words, the circumstances that affect human beings during the course of
life are part of the web of predestination, but how we choose to react to
circumstances is not determined.
Human free will is also created in accord with the wisdom and love
of God and, like everything else, it receives the power to act from the Primal
Will of God. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá compares the condition of the human will to the
captain of a ship who is able to turn the ship in whatever direction he wishes,
but is dependent on the power of wind or steam to move the ship. This wind or
steam is analogous to the Will of God, and without it a human being cannot
carry out either good or evil actions.[109] In sum, human beings and natural
phenomena are secondary agents that directly effect the course of history,
whereas God’s Will is the necessary cause sustaining the existence of these
secondary agents, and giving them the power to act.
The Hermetic writings describe a similar picture of determinism
and free will. Human beings must choose to act, but may act either morally or
like brutes. It is in this context only (the spirit) that Hermes indicated that
human beings can achieve freedom from destiny.[110] The body, however, was
always regarded as held by the chains of multiple causes. The Alexandrian
alchemist Zosimus refers Hermes’ book On Natural Dispositions in which
Hermes condemns those who seek to evade fate for self-aggrandizing reasons:
Hermes calls such people mindless, only marchers swept along in
the procession of fate, with no conception of anything incorporeal, and with no
understanding of fate itself, which conducts them justly. Instead they insult
the instruction it gives through corporeal experience, and imagine nothing
beyond the good fortune it grants.[111]
Conclusion
From
the foregoing it is evident that the Hermetic tradition is relevant to Bahá'í
studies in several ways. For example, Bahá'u'lláh refers to Balínús as one who
discerned the mysteries of creation "which lie enshrined in the Hermetic
writings."[112] Bahá'u'lláh’s teachings on creation in his Lawh-i-Hikmat
are seen to correspond very closely to the theory of creation contained in the Sirr
al-Khalíqa.
A comparison of Bahá'í alchemy texts with the Emerald Tablet of
Hermes and other alchemy texts is beyond the scope of this essay. However, the
principles alluded to in the Emerald Tablet resemble statements made by
Bahá'u'lláh on the same subject. Likewise, a comparison of Jábir’s alchemy
writings, which rely heavily on Hermetic sources, with Bahá'í alchemy texts
will no doubt reveal many specific parallels.
The
philosophical-theological texts of the Hermetica will likely prove a fruitful
ground for comparison, due to their strong Platonic tendency and their close
connection to religious doctrines found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Religious scholars from each of these religions, especially during the Middle
Ages, held Hermes in high regard for this very reason. The Hermetic position on
human will and fate, however briefly touched upon, is seen to have an affinity
to the corresponding Bahá'í teachings.
Lastly, as a corollary issue, what
attitude should Bahá'ís take toward Bahá'u'lláh’s references to Hermes and
Balínús in view of the declared infallibility of Bahá'í scripture? In my
opinion, there are two possible perspectives for Bahá'ís to take. The first is
to accept a non-metaphorical statement given in revelation as factually true,
by virtue of the authority invested in the Manifestation of God, even though by
the standard of current academic scholarship it is considered improbable.
(This, of course, does not include passages that are obviously meant to be
interpreted symbolically according to the standard given by Bahá'u'lláh in the
Kitáb-i Íqán.)
For example, ‘Abdu'l-Bahá teaches
categorically that Socrates journeyed to Palestine and Syria and there learned
the doctrines of the unity of God and the immortality of the human soul from
the Jewish divines. He continues that “this is authentic” even though it
“cannot be found in the Jewish histories.”[113] When Shoghi Effendi was asked
about the discrepancy between this position and current views in Greek
historiography, he answered: “We have no historical proof of the truth of the
Master’s statement regarding the Greek philosophers visiting the Holy Land,
etc. but such proof may come to light through research in the future.”[114]
Shoghi Effendi does not compromise the Bahá'í principle of the essential
harmony existing between science, as a method of acquiring truth about reality,
and religion, as a vehicle of inspired knowledge, but he does deny the
correctness of a particular modern historical perspective. The difference in
conclusions depends on the initial premises. Because of lack of historical
evidence, those who do not recognize the possibility of a divine source for
historical knowledge logically deduce that Socrates did not acquire any of his
theories from Jewish divines.
If this first perspective is applied
to Bahá'u'lláh’s statements about Hermes and Balínús, then the believer will
accept as factual that Hermes was a real individual of great antiquity whose
historicity has been lost in the mists of legend, and view the Hermetica not as
mere syncretistic creations of the early Roman empire, but as authentic, albeit
Hellenized, descendants of Egyptian religious doctrines originating with Thoth,
doctrines which were later discovered and propagated by Balínús and accepted by
the philosophers who followed Balínús in the Hermetic tradition.
How
does this position hold up against the findings of modern scholarship in the
field of Hermetic studies? First, let us look at Bahá'u'lláh’s assertion that
Hermes was the “first person who devoted himself to philosophy.” There is no
historical evidence by which this statement can be proved or disproved. Rather,
it is an assertion that can only be accepted on the authority of Bahá'u'lláh
and the Hermetic textual tradition preceding Bahá'u'lláh. The modern dating of
the earliest philosophical Hermetic texts from the late first to the late third
centuries is not contrary to anything Bahá'u'lláh has stated, since Bahá'u'lláh
only affirms the great antiquity of Hermes, not the texts associated with his
name. As for Bahá'u'lláh’s statement
that Balínús “derived his knowledge and sciences from the Hermetic Tablets,”
this is seemingly more problematic because Hermes is not mentioned in
Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius, where he should be mentioned if
Apollonius/Balínús gained his knowledge from the Hermetic texts. However, in
view of the fact that Philostratus’ biography is considered to be unreliable as
a historical source by most modern scholars of the subject, we should not be
surprised if Philostratus has left out many crucial details about Apollonius’
life and sources of inspiration. Since nothing in Bahá'u'lláh’s account of
Hermes and Balínús can be shown to be in opposition to historical facts, there
is no reason why Bahá'ís should not accept Bahá'u'lláh’s statements, in this
case, as factually intended.[115] The statements, however, are also not
verified by known historical facts.
The second perspective, which it is
possible for Bahá'ís to take in the absence of an authoritative statement in
Bahá'í scriptures stating that a certain revealed passage is to be understood
literally as stated, is for the believer to adopt a more broadly contextual
view of particular statements embedded in revelation. Juan Cole has taken the
position that some statements embedded in revelation, such as Bahá'u'lláh’s
quotation from Shahrastání that “Empedocles…was a contemporary of David, while
Pythagoras lived in the days of Soloman,” are “factually inaccurate by any
standards of reasoning and historical documentation available to contemporary
historians,” while at the same time these statements do not invalidate “the
central propositions contained in the Tablet of Wisdom.”[116] In other words,
Bahá'u'lláh’s intention in revealing these statements is what is essential, not
the historical accounts themselves. The Universal House of Justice, in a letter
written on its behalf, states: “The fact that Bahá'u'lláh makes such statements
[the historical accounts in the Lawh-i Hikmat], for the sake of illustrating
the spiritual principles that He wishes to convey, does not necessarily mean
that He is endorsing their historical accuracy.”[117]
This view focuses on the Bahá'í
principle of the relativity of religious truth, according to which religious
teachings, as given by the Prophets, are suited particularly to the age in
which they appear and are colored by the traditions and thoughts of the people
living in the time of the Prophet. For example, ‘Abdu'l-Bahá says that
earlier Prophets referred to the seven celestial spheres of the Ptolemaic
cosmos without trying to correct peoples perceptions by explaining to them the
true structure of the universe. "Such references," he explains,
"were dictated by the conventional wisdom prevailing in those times, for
every cycle has its own characteristics which are determined by the capacities
of the people."[118] Bahá'u'lláh likewise refers to the “fourth heaven” of
the early astronomers without explanation in the Kitáb-i Íqán because this
book, according to Shoghi Effendi, “was revealed for the guidance of that sect
[the Shí‘ah],” where “this term was used in conformity with the concepts of its
followers.”[119]
In the same way, the Tablets of
Bahá'u'lláh mentioning Hermes and Balínús were addressed to individuals who
were familiar with the Islamic Hermetic tradition, which was particularly
strong in Iran. Within such a milieu, it would be reasonable for Bahá'u'lláh to
use this tradition, without regard for its historical accuracy, to support the
teaching he wished to convey. In the Lawh-i Hikmat, for example, Bahá'u'lláh is
intent on affirming, through his accounts of certain Greek philosophers, their
ultimate dependence upon the inspiration of the Prophets (particularly the
doctrine of monotheism) as the only basis for developing an accurate system of
metaphysics. The theories of these philosophers, in turn, had a significant
impact on the development of Western civilization. He says:
Consider Greece. We made it a Seat of Wisdom for a prolonged
period…
Although it is
recognized that the contemporary men of learning are highly qualified in
philosophy, arts and crafts, yet were anyone to observe with a discriminating
eye he would readily comprehend that most of this knowledge hath been acquired
from the sages of the past, for it is they who have laid the foundations of
philosophy, reared its structure and reinforced its pillars. Thus doth thy
Lord, the Ancient of Days, inform thee. The sages aforetime acquired their
knowledge from the Prophets, inasmuch as the latter were the Exponents of
divine philosophy and the Revealers of heavenly mysteries. Men quaffed the
crystal, living waters of Their utterance, while others satisfied themselves
with the dregs.[120]
Since, from the second perspective,
the accuracy of the historical details about Hermes and Balínús set forth by
Bahá'u'lláh is not essential to the intention of the text, those details may be
dispensed with, or regarded as insignificant. In regard to Bahá'u'lláh’s words
in the Lawh-i Hikmat that Empedocles and Pythagoras were contemporaries of
David and Soloman, Shoghi Effendi advises: “We must not take this statement too
literally.”[121] The comparison made earlier in this paper, however, between
the cosmology of Balínús in the Sirr al-Khalíqa and the cosmology of
Bahá'u'lláh in the Lawh-i Hikmat, demonstrates that (historical views aside)
Bahá'u'lláh considers Hermes and Balínús to be true sources of knowledge about
the secrets of creation. He agrees with certain ideas that tradition says they
supported, and he used them as examples within a culture that recognized them
in order to support his own teachings.
Notes
1.
Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas
(Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre, 1978) p. 148.
2. Tablets
of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 148n. In the final sentence of this passage in the
Persian, it is not clear whether the antecedent of the pronoun is Hermes or
Balínús. The sentence literally reads: “Most of the philosophers made their
philosophical and scientific discoveries from the words and statements of that
blessed being (hadrat).” It is clear, though, that Bahá'u'lláh intends
Hermes as the ancient source from which many philosophers derived their
inspiration, and Balínús was the first to discover the Hermetic wisdom after it
had been concealed for a long period of time.
3. Quoted in
L. Kákosy, "Problems of the Thoth-Cult in Roman Egypt," Acta
Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 15 (1963) p. 124; see also
Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan
Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) pp. 22-31 for the
evolution of Hermes Trismegistus from Thoth.
4. Plato, Phaedrus
274d.
5. Ibid.,
274c.
6. Kákosy,
“Problems of the Thoth-Cult.”
7. Ibid., p.
125.
8. Fowden, Egyptian
Hermes, p. 23.
9. Ibid.
10. Walter
Scott, Hermetica: The Ancient Greek and Latin Writings which Contain
Religious or Philosophical Teachings Ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, vol.
1 (Boston: Shambhala, 1985) pp. 4-5.
11. Plato, Philebus
18b.
12. Ammianus
Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378) sel. and trans.
Walter Hamilton (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), p. 228.
13. Quoted
in Jack Lindsay, The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt (New York:
Barnes & Noble, 1970) p. 107.
14. For this
view that Bahá'u'lláh may be consciously and deliberately selecting from the
Hermetic tradition only those parts that he regards to be true, I owe a great
debt of thanks to Wendy Heller. She has pointed out the dangers of trying to
interpret Bahá'u'lláh’s words by reference to historical context alone:
“Bahá'u'lláh often infuses new meanings into traditional concepts and terms
through his usage of them. The Prophet, above all, is not bound by the
conventional thought that characterizes any historical era, but often radically
challenges and corrects it” (personal communication to the author).
15. Jonathan
Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (New York: Penguin Books, 1987) p. 15.
16.
Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, trans. Sister Mary F. McDonald
(Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964) I, vi.
17.
Augustine, The City of God in Great Books of the Western World,
vol. 18, trans. Marcus Dods (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952) viii, 23.
Book viii, chapters 23 through 26
contain Augustine’s ideas about Hermes.
18. See
Walter Scott, Hermetica. Scott’s commentary on the Hermetica is contained
in vols. 2-3, while the testimonia, addenda, and indices are in vol. 4.
19.
André-Jean Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, 4 vols.
(Paris 1944-1954); and Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical
Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge 1987).
20. Fowden, Egyptian
Hermes, pp. 8-9.
21. Ibid.,
p. 10.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid. p.
11; see also Scott, Hermetica, vol. 1, pp. 9-10.
24. Fowden, Egyptian
Hermes, p. 198.
25. John
Scarborough, "Hermetic and Related Texts in Classical Antiquity," Hermeticism
and the Renaissance, ed. I. Merkel and A. G. Debus (London and Toronto:
Associated University Presses, 1988) p. 22.
26. Abammonis
Ad Porphyrium Responsum and Scott’s notes on this text in Hermetica,
vol. 4, pp. 40-102.
27. William
C. Grese, "Magic in Hellenistic Hermeticism" in Hermeticism and
the Renaissance, ed. I. Merkel and A. G. Debus, p. 45.
28. Fowden, Egyptian
Hermes, p. xv. For example, J. P. Mahé, a professor of Armenian, is one who
sees a connection between the philosophical Hermetica and the earlier Egyptian
Wisdom literature in Hermès en Haute-Egypte (Quebec 1978-1982); also
Eric Iverson, Egyptian and Hermetic Doctrine (Copenhagen: Museum
Tusculanum Press, 1984).
29. Fowden, Egyptian
Hermes, p. 102.
30.
Iamblichus refers to the "way of Hermes" in his response to Porphyry,
Mysteriis viii, 4-5, cited in Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, p. 96.
31. “The
Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth,” The Nag Hammadí Library in English,
gen. Ed. James M. Robinson (New York: Harper Collins, 1990) p. 326.
32. Corpus
Hermeticum vii; i.27; x.8; and xiii.7,8. This and the following references
to the C.H. are from Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, chapter four, pp.
105-112.
33. Ibid. C.H.
i.31; x.4,15; and Asclepius 41.
34. Ibid. C.H.
xiii.
35. Ibid. C.H.
x.19.
36. Ibid. C.H.
ii.17 and iii.3.
37. See
Maria Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana in Legend and History, trans. Piotr
Pienkowski (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 1986) pp. 32-38, 185.
38.
Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 2 vols., trans. F. C.
Conybeare (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1912) i.2,3.
39. See
Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, chapter 1, on problems with Philostratus’
reliability as a historian, and arguments that "Damis" is a
fictitious figure.
40. Ibid.,
p. 14.
41. See D.
H. Raynor, "Moerangenes and Philostratus: Two Views of Apollonius of
Tyana," Classical Quarterly 34 (1984) p. 223.
42.
Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, p. 86.
43. Ibid.,
pp. 149-150.
44.
Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, iv.44.
45. Ibid.
iv.45.
46. Ibid.,
vol. 2, "The Treatise of Eusebius."
47.
Lactantius, Divine Institutes, V, iii-iv.
48.
Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, pp. 157-158.
49. Cited in
Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, p. 101.
50. Ibid.,
pp. 101-102.
51. Ibid.,
p. 108.
52. Ibid.,
p. 110.
53. The
Letters of Apollonius of Tyana, trans. Robert J. Penella (Leiden 1979)
letter no. 44.
54.
Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, p. 140.
55. Cited in
G. R. S. Mead, Apollonius of Tyana: The Philosophical Explorer and Social
Reformer of the First Century A.D. (London 1901) pp. 153-154.
56. Letters
of Apollonius, no. 54.
57. Ibid.,
no. 58.
58. J. W.
Fück, "The Arabic Literature on Alchemy According to an-Nadím," Ambix
(Feb. 1951) p. 93.
59. Paul
Kraus, Jábir ibn Hayyán: Contribution à l’Histoire des Idées Scientifiques
dans l’Islam, vol. 2 (Paris: Société d’Édition les Belles Lettres, 1986) p.
282.
60. Syed
Nomanul Haq, Names, Natures and Things: The Alchemist Jábir ibn Hayyán and
his Kitáb al-Ahjár (Book of Stones) Boston Studies in the Philosophy of
Science, vol. 158 (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994) p. 15.
61. Ibid.,
chapter 1.
62. See F.
E. Peters, Allah's Commonwealth: A History of Islam in the Near East,
600-1100 A.D. (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1973) pp. 273-274. In Islam,
there is also a tradition of three different Hermeses. Ibn Abí Usaybi‘a records
this tradition as he borrows it from the astronomer Abú Ma‘shar al-Balkhí:
"There were three Hermeses. As for the first Hermes...the Persians call
him Hóshang, which means the Just....The Persians say that his grandfather was
Kayómarth, that is Adam. The Hebrews say that he is Akhnúkh (Enoch), Idrís in
Arabic. Abú Ma‘shar said: He was the first man to talk about such things as the
motions of the stars....He was the first man to build temples and praise God in
them; the first person to study the science of medicine and talk about it....He
was the first man to give warning of the Flood, and he foresaw the advent on
earth of a great catastrophe coming from the skies by fire and water. He resided
in Upper Egypt....As for the second Hermes, he was one of the Babylonians. He
lived in the city of the Chaldeans, in Babel. He lived after the Flood....He
excelled in medicine and in philosophy and he knew the nature of numbers.
Pythagoras, the arithmetician was his pupil. This Hermes revived what was lost
of medicine, philosophy and the art of numbers in the Flood, in Babel....As for
the third Hermes, he lived in the city of Misr, and he came after the Flood. He
is the author of the book about venomous animals. He was a physician and a
philosopher, and he knew the nature of deadly medicines and harmful
animals....He wrote a beautiful and valuable book about alchemy which is
related to many crafts, such as the making of glass, glass objects, clay and
the like. He had a disciple, by the name of Asklepios, who lived in Syria"
(cited in A. Fodor "The Origins of the Arabic Legends of the
Pyramids," Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 23
(1970) pp. 336-337).
63. An
interesting study by Birger A. Pearson shows that the Poimandres of Hermes and
a Jewish document, 2 Enoch, probably originating from first-century
Egypt, have numerous, specific parallels, such that either one is borrowing
from the other, or both must derive from a common, earlier source.
("Jewish Elements in Corpus Hermeticum I [Poimandres]" in Studies
in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions, eds. R. van den Broek and M. J.
Vermaseren [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981])
64. Quoted
in Scott, Hermetica, vol. 4, (Testimonia) p. 255.
65. Quoted
in A. E. Affifi, "The Influence of Hermetic Literature on Moslem
Thought," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies,
vol. 13 (1951) pp. 842-843.
66. Quoted
in Scott, Hermetica, vol. 4 (Testimonia) p. 248.
67.
Regarding Hermetic writings in Arabic, an-Nadím in his Fihrist (Catalog) lists
twenty-two treatises of Hermes, thirteen on alchemy, four on theurgy, and five
on astrology. Only a few of these remain intact, such as the Kitáb Qarátís
al-hakím, Kitáb al-Habíb, Kitáb at-Tankalúsh, and Kitáb
al-Masmúmát Shánáq. For a fuller treatment of Hermetic texts, see Seyyed
Hossein Nasr’s chapter "Hermes and Hermetic Writings in the Islamic
World" in his Islamic Studies (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1967)
pp. 63-89.
68. Balínús,
Sirr al-Khalíqa wa San‘at at-Tabí‘at (Kitáb al-‘Ilal), ed. Ursula
Weisser (Aleppo, Syria: University of Aleppo, 1979) p. 100.
69. H. E.
Stapleton, G. L. Lewis, and F. Sherwood Taylor, "The Sayings of Hermes
Quoted in the Má’ al-Waraqí of Ibn Umail," Ambix (April 1949) pp. 69-90.
70. Scott, Hermetica,
vol. 4, pp. 280-281.
71. Quoted
in Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Studies (Beirut: Librairie du Liban,
1967) p. 69.
72.
Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, pp. 104-105.
73. Kraus, Jábir
ibn Hayyán, pp. 293-294.
74. Ibid.,
p. 295.
75. Julius
Ruska, Tabula Smaragdina: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Hermetischen
Literatur (Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universitätisbuchhandlung, 1926) pp.
72, 79.
76. Kraus, Jábir
ibn Hayyán, p. 298, and Encyclopedia of Islam, new edition, vol. 1,
p. 995.
77.
Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets, pp. 147-148.
78. Balínús,
Sirr al-Khalíqa, pp. 2, 51. Bah 'u'll h explains in the
Lawh-i-Hikmat that he has not discovered these sayings by perusing books as
other men do: "Thou knowest full well that We perused not the books which
men possess and We acquired not the learning current amongst them, and yet
whenever We desire to quote the sayings of the learned and the wise, presently
there will appear before the face of thy Lord in the form of a tablet all that
which hath appeared in the world and is revealed in the Holy Books and
Scriptures. Thus do We set down in writing that which the eye perceiveth.
Verily His knowledge encompasseth the earth and the heavens." (Tablets,
p. 149)
79. See Juan
Cole, “Problems of Chronology in Bahá'u'lláh’s Tablet of Wisdom,” World
Order (Spring 1979) pp. 24-39. Also see note 78 above on the manner in
which Bahá'u'lláh says he acquired this information.
80. Balínús,
Sirr al-Khalíqa, pp. 101-103.
81. Tablets,
pp. 140-141.
82.
Bahá'u'lláh, The Hidden Words (London: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1975) p.
6.
83. Tablets,
p. 142.
84. See
Keven Brown, "A Bahá'í Perspective on the Origin of Matter," Journal
of Bahá'í Studies, vol. 2, no. 3 (1990) p. 24.
85.
Bahá'u'lláh states: "The cause of motion has ever been heat, and the cause
of heat is the Word of God," from Persian text in Vahíd Ra’fatí,
"Lawh-i-Hikmat: Fá‘ilayn va Munfa‘ilayn," ‘Andalíb, vol. 5,
no. 19 (1986) p.36.
86. Balínús,
Sirr al-Khalíqa, p. 104.
87. Tablets,
p. 140.
88. See
Keven Brown, “A Bahá'í Perspective,”
pp. 15-44, where this thesis is more fully treated.
89.
Bahá'u'lláh, Áthár-i Qalam A‘lá, vol. 7, p. 113.
90. Qutb
al-Dín Shírází, the thirteenth-century commentator of Suhrawardí, explains:
“Therefore, it is established that the intent of the sages is that the lords of
species (arbáb al-naw‘) are not the individualized forms of the images (asnám).
Nay, rather the species lord is the model (mithál) of the image (sanam)
in the world of intellect, just as the image with all of its accidents is its
likeness in the world of sense.” Quoted by Ahmad ibn Harawí, Anwáriyya,
ed. Hossein Ziai [Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1358] p. 40)
91.
Bahá'u'lláh, Má’idiy-i Ásmání, vol. 4 (Tihran: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
129 B.E.) p. 82.
92. That the
four elements were thought of as primary states of matter by the ancient
philosophers is evident from Plato’s frequent use of the term “kind” or “genus”
as a synonym for “element” in the Timaeus 53a – 57d, so that earth
includes all solids, water all liquids, and so forth. Baghdadí, one of the
Muslim Mutakallimún, also uses the term “genus” (jins) for element. He
says: “For example, earth loses density and changes into water, as with salt
when it is dissolved, and water in some places freezes and becomes a stone,
although it is from the genus of earth.” (Usúlu’l-Dín [Istanbul, 1928]
p. 54)
93. Tablets,
pp. 141-142.
94. Má’idiy-i-Ásmání,
vol. 1, pp. 54-55.
95. See The
Arabic Works of Jábir ibn Hayyán, ed. E. J. Holmyard, vol. 1 (Paris:
Librairie Orientaliste, 1928) pp. 90, 104.
96. Balínús,
Sirr al-Khalíqa, p.7. There is another story in Philostratus (viii,
19-20), where Apollonius enters a cave at the temple of Trophonius in Greece to
visit its oracle, declaring that his purpose is "in the interests of
philosophy." After seven days, he returns to his companions, carrying a
book of philosophy supposedly conformable to the teachings of Pythagoras.
Philostratus says that this book, along with the letters of Apollonius, was
later entrusted to the care of the emperor Hadrian and kept in his palace at
Antium.
97. Ibid.,
pp. 524-525.
98. The
published Bahá'í alchemy texts, or texts which mention alchemy, may be found in
the following sources: (1) Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh,
pp. 197-198, 200; (2) Kitáb-i Íqán, pp. 157, 186-190; (3) Má’idiy-i-Ásmání,
vol. 1, pp. 19-20, 24-57; vol. 3, p. 15; vol. 4, pp. 77-85; (4) Amr va Khalq,
vol. 3, pp. 350-358; and (5) Asráru’l-Áthár (letter alif) pp.
207-208. In addition to these published sources, several of which contain
textual errors and omissions, a number of unpublished Bahá'í alchemy texts are
held at the International Bahá'í Archives.
99. Má’idiy-i-Ásmání,
vol. 1, p. 30.
100. From an
unpublished Tablet of Bahá'u'lláh in the Bahá'í International Archives.
101. From
two unpublished Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh in the Bahá'í International Archives.
102. Ibid.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr explains what these secret sciences are in Chapter 9 of his
Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study (World of Islam Festival
Publishing Co., 1976): "Besides the 'open' and 'accessible' sciences...the
Islamic sciences include a category called the hidden (khafiyyah) or
occult (gharíbah) sciences, which have always remained 'hidden', both in
the content of their teachings and in the manner of gaining accessibility to
them, because of their very nature....Although dozens in number, the occult
sciences were classified in the famous compendium of Husayn ‘Alí Wá’iz
al-Káshifí into the five sciences of kímiyá’ (alchemy), límiyá’
(magic), hímiyá’ (the subjugating of souls), símiyá’ (producing
visions) and rímiyá’ (jugglery and tricks). The first letter of the five
words together form the words kulluhu sirr, which means, 'they are all
secret'....The texts on the occult sciences contain numerous other branches.
Probably the most popular of the occult sciences was jafr, dealing with
the numerical value of the letters of the Arabic alphabet and said to have been
first cultivated by ‘Alí ibn Abí Tálib. It is used to this day for purposes
ranging from interpreting the opening letters of the verses of the Holy Qur’án
to casting evil spells. Almost as widespread is raml, or geomancy, which
is said to have come down from the Prophet Daniel. Although it originally made
use of pebbles of sand, special instruments were later devised with various
squares and dots from which future events are prognosticated."
103.
Bahá'u'lláh in Amr va Khalq, vol. 3 (Tihran: Bahá’í Publishing Trust,
122 B.E.) p. 355.
104. Ibid.,
p. 353.
105. From an
unpublished Tablet of Bahá'u'lláh in the Bahá'í International Archives.
106. An
example of a Bahá'í text that emphasizes the importance of free will is the
following: “All that which ye potentially possess can, however, be manifested
only as a result of your own volition. Your own acts testify to this
truth….Men, however, have wittingly broken His law. Is such a behavior to be
attributed to God, or to their proper selves? Be fair in your judgment. Every
good thing is of God, and every evil thing is from yourselves.” (Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings
from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh [Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1980]
p. 149)
107.
‘Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu'l-Bahá (Haifa:
Bahá’í World Centre, 1978), p. 198.
108. On the
question of theodicy in Islam, see E. L. Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
109.
‘Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, p. 249.
110. Corpus
Hermeticum XII(i)7 in Scott, Hermetica.
111. Zosimos
quoted in Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, p. 123.
112.
Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets, p. 148.
113.
‘Abdu'l-Bahá, Selection from the Writings, p. 55. See also ‘Abdu'l-Bahá,
The Secret of Divine Civilization (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
1970) p. 77.
114. From a
letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, 15 February 1947, published in Unfolding
Destiny (London: British Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1981) p. 445. The Bahá'í
Faith also accepts some events as factually true, such as the virgin birth of
Jesus by means of the Spirit of God, even though they go against the laws of
nature. The principle of the harmony between science and religion is, once
again, not compromised, according to Bahá'ís, because God is a higher principle
than the laws of nature. As “the Father of the Universe, [God] can, in His
wisdom and omnipotence, bring about any change, no matter how temporary, in the
operation of the laws which He himself created.” (Letter written on behalf of
Shoghi Effendi, 27 February 1938, published in Bahá'í References to Judaism,
Christianity and Islam, comp. James Heggie [Oxford: George Ronald, 1986] p.
143)
115. In a
tablet written to Mrs. Ethel Rosenberg in 1906, ‘Abdu'l-Bahá indicates that
Bahá'u'lláh’s accounts of the philosophers in the Lawh-i Hikmat are to be taken
as factually correct, for he states: “How many historical questions were deemed
settled in the eighteenth century, and in the nineteenth century the opposite
was proved true. Hence, the sayings of the historians and the accounts prior to
Alexander the Great, even the dates of the lives of important persons, cannot be
relied upon. Be not surprised, therefore, at the difference between the
contents of the Tablet of Wisdom and the texts of the historians. It is
necessary to examine carefully the great disparities existing among the various
historians and historical accounts, because the historians of the East and the
historians of the West differ greatly. The Tablet of Wisdom was written in
accordance with some of the histories of the East….The firm basis of reality is
the Divine Universal Manifestation of God. After He has established the truth,
whatever He says is correct.” (Má’idiy-i-Ásmání, vol. 2, pp. 65, 67)
The second perspective given in the
conclusion to this paper, namely that the historical accuracy of the accounts
revealed by Bahá'u'lláh is tangential to his primary purpose, should not be
considered contradictory to the view given here by ‘Abdu'l-Bahá. The second
perspective holds that whether the historical accounts are accurate or not is
insignificant compared to Bahá'u'lláh’s purpose in revealing them.
116. Juan
Cole, “Problems of Chronology in Bahá'u'lláh’s Tablet of Wisdom,” World
Order, vol. 13, no. 3 (Spring 1979) pp. 38, 39.
117. Letter
of 3 November 1987 written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an
individual.
118.
‘Abdu'l-Bahá, Min Makátíb-i-‘Abdu'l-Bahá, vol. 1 (Rio de Janeiro:
Editora Bahá'í Brasil, 1982) p. 53.
119. Quoted
in a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice dated 3
November 1987.
120.
Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets, pp. 144-145, 149-150.
121. From a
letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, quoted by Juan Cole in “Problems of
Chronology,” p. 37n.