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Notes on the Corpus Hermeticum
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
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VI.4 (p. 74.18 ff.). The discussion of ‘the Good’ completed, theconcept of ‘the Beautiful’ was introduced, of which (so one may, byconjecture, fill in the lacuna) certain reflections, however faint, appearin this bad world, giving a hint of the perfect Beautiful which is withGod. ‘For’ — so the preserved text continues — ‘the summits of thingsbeautiful reach up into the neighbourhood of the essence of God; maybethat they appear purer and more definite (scil. than other, inferiorreflections) (because) they, too, αἱ οὖσαι ἐκείνου. Which sense is hiddenin the corrupt last words? How could anything like to, or at leastreminding of, ideal perfection appear in this evil world? The authorhas given his answer in his previous discussion of the same questionwith reference to the Good: μετουσία πάντων ἐστὶν τῇ ὕλῃ δεδομένη.‘Participation’ is the concept which bridges the gap between the Intelligibleand the Material. We may therefore restore 〈μετ〉ουσ〈ί〉ᾳ ἐκείνου.
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References
1 Professor A. D. Nock has been good enough to read a draft of these notes. They owe more to him than meets the eye, because those suggestions do not here appear which his criticism has induced me to abandon.
2 References to Corpus Hermeticum ed. Nock-Festugière.
3 The writer could not possibly speak (as Festugière's translation suggests) thus tentatively of the superiority of the transcendental over the material world.
4 ‘These’ manifestations join themselves to those of ‘the Good’: this interpretation justifies the accentuation καὶ αὖται of the MSS.
5 VI.2, p. 73.12; cf. X.2, p. 4.2.
6 Thus Didymus. The MSS. of C.H. insert the praeposition ἐν, by which Byzantine schoolmasters liked to stress the dative case, here as in VI.1, p. 72.10.
7 This traditional concept is actually incompatible with the strict dualism which the writer professes; yet it was indispensable, if the very notions of ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’ were to be accounted for. Hence the metaphysical contorsions in ch. 2–3, P. 73.10 ff., strangely culminating in the professio fidei p. 74.10 ff. The passage under discussion corresponds with p. 73.13: as the kosmos is, malgré lui, ‘good’ in a certain respect, thus the fact that beautiful phenomena, ‘relatively pure,’ appear in it is ascribed to their ‘nearness’ to (and hence participation in) the transcendental beauty.
8 Deleting αὶ which I take to be a faulty repetition of the ending of the preceding word αὖται. The proposed conjecture derives very slight support from MS. Pal. Graec. 53 reading οὖσίαι. Palaeographically, 〈μετέχ〉ουσαι would be still easier, nor would this conjecture (with Kroll's καὶ αύταί) be unsuitable, but μετουσίᾳ seems preferable for reasons of style and because of the parallel VI.2, p. 73.11.
9 〈Ούαία〉 was suggested by Tiedemann, who, however, put the lacuna after άγαθοῦ 1. 5. At this place, Scott would insert 〈ίδέα〉; but does the C.H. ever use this word with the specific sense of the Platonic ‘doctrine of ideas’? Finally I would not, with Einarson, commend the supplement 〈οὐσία τοῦ θεοῦ〉, since the writer (p. 75.1) identifies the being of God specifically with ‘the Beautiful,’ while the reference in the present passage is to transcendent realities generally.
10 Ὄντως is fairly frequent in the C.H.; see e.g. p. 10.17, 126.1, 202.18 and especially fragm. xxi.1 vol. III, p. 90 (two instances). Professor Nock informs me that 〈ἀληθῶς ὄντα〉 has been proposed. This amounts to almost the same but is palaeographically less easy.
11 The assumption of this second lacuna does indeed admit of a more elegant reconstruction but is in itself questionable.
12 καί before ἐνέργειαν is redundant: del. Further instances of spurious καί: C.H. xiii.1 (p. 200.12), ib. 9 (p. 204.15), ib. 17 and 20 (p. 208.1 and 20).
13 Scott came near to this suggestion, for which cf. p. 88.14 a nd 202.13.
14 Scott's supplement.
15 The corruption was caused by τούτου immediately preceding. Festugiere translates ‘de Dieu,’ and Scott similarly. It is not difficult to see that the Greek ought to be as explicit as the translations.
16 P. 114.1.
17 I would bracket καὶ ὸ ἥλιος in line 1. The tiny fragment of the Berlin papyrus 17027, which K. Aland has rightly referred to this passage (Theol. Lit. Zeitung, 1943, 169, after Aegyptus 1942) may have contained these words; nonetheless they seem to be a gloss anticipating 1. 7. The praedicate πατήρ, in the singular, cannot well refer to two different subjects; nor does 1. 7 ascribe to the sun a ‘fatherhood’ like that of the kosmos.
18 P. 113.11.
19 ‘Rien’ Festugière.
20 For the spurious ἔσται in one group of MSS. see Scott's apparatus ad loc. and Nock, Pref. p. XXIX. It is a gloss (as p. 201.4), which has expelled the original γενέσθαι.
21 The conjecture πρῶτον (Flussas) easily suggests itself in view of the following (τὸ) δεύτερον ζῷον, but it clashes with μετὰ τὸν κόσμον; besides, the MSS.-reading is borne out by p. 118.7, which is here resumed. The difference between the genders underlines that need for a stronger punctuation after πρῶτος which Festugière's translation implies.
22 Τό hab. Stobaeus, om. C. H. Festugière's translation implies the retention of the article. Without it, δεύτερον ζῷον becomes the praedicate — and the structure of the sentence goes to pieces.
23 Cf. ch. 7, p. 116.8.
24 Cf. ch. 19.
25 Contrast ch. 8 with 19.
26 See esp. chs. 7 f., 19, 22, 24. The doctrine is traced (p. 116.7) to the Genikoi Logoi; that is, it is a basic tenet of the sect and accordingly recurs frequently; e.g. VIII.5 (p. 89.5 παρὰ τὰ ἄλα ἐπίγεια ζῷα) and fragm. iii. 7 (vol. III, p. 18). The latter, referring likewise to the Gen. Logoi, supplies the supplement suggested above (see p. 18,1. 5 and 8).
27 The accusative in M and B2 is an, evidently wrong, scribe's conjecture. The pupil could not possibly ask the master to ‘hand on rebirth’; least of all by ‘propounding it openly (ἐκΦανῶς cj. Einarson) or in secret.’
28 Cf. p. 201.13 and 204.21.
29 It will not, I suppose, be held that this καί could correspond with the one before είμί.
30 This is Scott's text. He ascribes the conjecture to Flussas.
31 Cf. p. 202.5, 205.10. In defense of the transmitted reading, the Budé edition refers to Plotinus II.9.18. There, however (vol. I, p. 253.37 Henry-Schwyzer), I find ἐξελθεῖν with the normal (Stoic, etc.) meaning of ‘parting life,’ as e.g. in Epictetus I.2.21 and 9.20, M. Aurelius V.29 and X.8.3 and — this is here decisive — without the accusative object which so strangely, in the C.H., makes διεξέρχομαι a transitive verb with the connotation ‘to leave’ (and not, as is normal, ‘to go through’). This usage could arise, as it did, only in the perfect: ‘I have gone through the body’ and, consequently, ‘I am out of it.’ Hence also, in the present passage, the further combination with εἰς.
32 Θέαν MSS: ἰδέαν Scott; cf. XI.16, p. 154.1.
33 Reitzenstein may still be right in bracketing the whole phrase τὸ πρᾶγμα … ἰδεῖν as an interpolation — it may be a standing form of admonition current in the school and variously added to the texts; see 201.7, 207.9. The question is complicated by the corruption of the words immediately following, which can hardly, as yet, be said to have been healed.
34 Ch. 13, p. 206.3.
35 P. 202.4.
36 Grammatically too the expression of a wish by means of εἴθε followed by the perfect (or, according to Scott, the pluperfect) may be called inadmissible. The grammatical literature quoted ad loc. in the Budé edition does show that in later Greek perfect and aorist became all but synonymous; in fact, the perfect was practically dead in popular Greek at the time when our tract was written (see Chantraine's excellent Histoire du parfait Grec). This is anything but a proof that its author, who writes a fairly competent, literary Greek, could have written what the MSS. give.
37 P. 202.9.
38 Lacunam post Φρενῶν indicavit Reitzenstein. By way of illustration, one might supply 〈τὸν δὲ τοῦ νοῦ ὀΦθαλμὸν ούκ ἔλαβον〉.
39 P. 202 1. 11–13.
40 Γενεσιονργὸς τῆς παλιγγενεσίας compares with γενάρχα τῆς γενεσιονργίας in 21 (p. 209.6).
41 P. 201.4 delete ἔσται (with Scott); cf. above note 20.
42 In posing the normal use of nomina sacra the restoration of the wording becomes trivial. The article before θῦ seems to have been interpolated, as also p. 203.18 (om. A) and 204.3 (add. A).
43 The anakolouthon effected by the nomin. c. partic. is legitimate; so is the infin. aor. (pro fut.) after a verb of saying implying a promise or undertaking.
44 A discussion of the hymn of Hermes may be found in Hermes 83, 1955, 68 ff.