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Joseph Bidez et Franz Cumont, Les Mages hellénisés. Zoroastre, Ostanès et Hystaspe d'après la Tradition grecque. Tome I, Introduction. Tome II, Les Textes. Paris : Société d'Éditions ‘Les Belles Lettres’, 1938. Pp. xii, 297, 412. 120 francs.
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Joseph Bidez et Franz Cumont, Les Mages hellénisés. Zoroastre, Ostanès et Hystaspe d'après la Tradition grecque. Tome I, Introduction. Tome II, Les Textes. Paris : Société d'Éditions ‘Les Belles Lettres’, 1938. Pp. xii, 297, 412. 120 francs.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
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References
1 Readers of F. C. Burkitt, Church and Gnosis, p. 69, may expect some mention of Zorokothora-Meljisedek from the Pistis Sophia; but I gather from Professor W. H. Worrell that the identification is insecure.
2 Apart from the alchemical Dialogue of Philosophers (i, 206 f.).
3 von Manteuffel, G. in Mélanges Maspero, (Mém. Inst. franç. d'arch. orient. lxvii) ii, 119 ffGoogle Scholar.
4 Cf. W. Bauer, P-W, Supp. iv, 409 ff.
5 ‘The Seleucids … never in fact secured any real hold upon Iran at all ’ (W. W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India, p. 55; cf. p. 67).
6 Euphantus ap. Porph. abst. iv, 10.
7 Papyrus fragment edited by Festa, N., Arch. Pap. iii, (1904), 151 ff.Google Scholar with M. Adler's ό θεών μέ[γιστος Έρ]μῆς. in 1. 5–6; it agrees (as Dr. B. Einarson observed) with Plut. Is. Os. 62, 376A, cf. 61, 375 F : I hope to return to this point elsewhere.
8 Ap. Orig. c. Cels. viii, 58.
9 Th. Hopfner, Fontes historiae religion Aegyptiacae, 683 f.
10 And in a magical papyrus (Campbell Bonner's liturgical fragment, Harv. Theol. Rev. xxv (1932)Google Scholar, is cognate). There is another possible exception : Festugiére, A.-J., Rev. ét. gr. xlix (1936), 586 ffGoogle Scholar. suggests that ὀ ΑΙγύπτιος in Porph. abst. ii, 47 is Hermes, and this may well be so yet the reference would probably be not to any extant treatise but to one of their numerous analogues, for the agreement with the Asclepius is not close enough : note above all Porphyry's phrase that ‘the Egyptian had verified his explanation by experiment’. Did Porphyry say ὀ ΑΙγύπτιος because he knew that this literature was not of prehistoric or divine origin ? (Cf. the apologetic remarks of Iambi, myst. viii, 4.) We must remember his discovery of the true date of Daniel; yet in that matter, to be sure, Porphyry had a strong motive for critical scrutiny.
11 On which cf. i, 158 ff. Dare we hope for the edition at which p. 163 hints ? Proclus has various references to Egyptian lore (Hopfner, op. cit. 678 ff., but apparently his only reference to Hermes is in a quotation from Iamblichus (in Tim. i, 386, 10) : this is a striking fact, particularly when you compare the references to the Chaldaic Oracles listed by Diehl (in Tim. iii, 366 f.). Further, his allusions to Hermes and the Hermaic ‘chain’, so far as I have checked them, relate purely to the Greek Hermes (so does Rhetorius in Cat. codd. astr. gr. vii, 225, 31; cf. W. Kroll, P-W xv, 974).
12 Natural so far as Eudoxus was concerned, since he stayed in Egypt for a year and four months (Diog. Laert. viii, 87). Septimius Severus is credited with having collected all the occult books which he could from the Egyptian shrines—but he buried them in the tomb of Alexander (Cass. Dio lxxv, 13).
13 Note also Corp. Herm. xii, 13, καὶ έν Αίγύπτῳ καὶ περσίδι καὶ έν Έλλάδι.
14 À propos of his supposed relation to Xerxes, note the enthusiasm (genuine or publicist) of Xerxes for suppressing the worship of the daevas; H. S. Nyberg and H. H. Schaeder, Die Religionen des alten Iran, 364 ff.
15 Cf. De regressu animae, p. 29, 9 (in J. Bidez, Vie de Porphyre). Note that Porphyry presents a similar theory when he wrote de philosophia ex oraculis hauriendis (pp. 147 ff. Wolff), and before his conversion to Neoplatonism proper.
16 Ap. Origen c. Cels. viii, 28, 60; Tert. Apolog. 22; J. Geffcken, Ausgang des griechisch-römischen Heidentums, 270). 1 Cor. 10, 20 should not be used as evidence for the dissemination of such ideas in the first century A.D.; cf. Nock in Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation (ed. A. E. J.Rawlinson), 134 f.
17 Porphyry, abst. ii, 36Google Scholar τἀ μέν ἂλλα εὒστομα κείσθω , not, as Cumont suggested (Rel. or. 280, n. 53) to mysteries but to Pythagoras and his silence : Porphyry had no scruple against relating rites and interpretations from Mithraism (e.g. iv, 16). As for the parallel in Plut. de defectu oraculorum 14, p. 417 c (cited ii, 275, n. 1), Plutarch has been speaking of the role of daimones as intermediaries in rites and mysteries, and passes to the part of the subject which can with reverence be developed.
18 Omitted in the parallel text xiv; but cf. also xix, 40, xxii, and J. Darmsteter, The Zend-Avesta, i, lxii, not to mention the legendary sacrifices by Zervan. The Persian governor, with whom the Jews of Elephantine corresponded, was unwilling to allow animal sacrifice in their temple which was to be rebuilt : cf. Ed. Meyer, Der Papyrusfund von Elephantine, 88 ff.; A. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century, 124; Br. Meissner, Sitzungsber. Berlin, 1938, 14. He may have made a pretext that sacred fire would thus be defiled : even this scruple was hardly universal, since Catull. 90, Strabo xv, p. 732, and Vendidad xviii, 70 (with J. Darmsteter's note, The Zend-Avesta i, 207, n. 2), point to the putting of a small portion of the omentum on the fire in Persian sacrifice (P. Gurob 22, edited by Smyly, J. G.. R. Irish Academy, Cunningham Memoirs xii (1921), 36 ff.Google Scholar, records that a Mithraion in the third century B.C. owned sheep and lambs). A. Vincent, La religion des judéo-araméen d'Éléphantine 258, is probably right in interpreting the governor's action as due to a desire to avoid conflicts arising out of Egyptian susceptibilities.
19 viii, 31–2; xvii, 1–3. Cf. infra p. 195 and Bundahish xxviii, 20 (West, E. W., Pahlavi Texts, i, 109Google Scholar) for other acts assigned to this sphere.
20 There is no reference to the Magi. I may remark in passing that what Plutarch here says is of great importance for the notions of knowledge, gnosis, and of illumination.
21 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, , Glaube der Hellenen i, 367 fGoogle Scholar.
22 Cf. Diels, Doxogr.gr. 302 (the parallel version in Stobaeus omits the identification with daimon, as does Numenius ap. Chalcid. in Tim. 293 ff. Xenocrates likened the dyad to the mother of the gods : Diels 304). In Diog. Laert. viii, 32 daimones and heroes are intermediaries concerned with worship and ib. 23 daimones are simply inferior to deities : cf. A. Delatte, Vie de Pythagore 227 f. for the conception of daimones as discarnate spirits. (As such Pluto would be their chief.) τί βλαβερώτατον; δαίμων in Plut. sept. sap. conv. 8, 153A, is the answer of the Ethiopian king and is rejected (153B).
23 Cf. again Alex., Clem.Strom. vi, 3, 446Google Scholar St. κατά τινα δαιμόνων ἢ καΙ άγγέλων ούκ άγαθῶν ὀργήν… διαφέρειν δʹ ούδέν νομίӡουσιν, εἲτʹ οὖν θεους εἲτε καὶ άγγέλους τἀς ψυχάς ταύτας λέγοιμεν. ψυχαί, δαίμονες, ἂγγελοι as synonyms in Philo, Gig. 16 (cf. Cumont, , Rev. hist. rel. lxxii (1915) 167Google Scholar, n. 4). We must not press terminological variations too far : cf. Nock, Sallustius lxxviii–lxxix.
In Plut. Js. Is. O.s. 46, p. 369D, οὶ μἑν means ‘some of the great majority and of the wisest’, not (as i, 58) ‘some of the Magi’.
24 E.g. ILS 8220. Cf. ibid. 8231 somno aeterno, (followed by sibi et suis libertis libertabusque eorum).
25 The curious explanation of Mercurius maleuolus in Festus p. 152, 24 (Lindsay), does not concern us—nor again the crimen of Naiads in carrying someone off (Or. AA ii, 110).
26 P. 119 Bursian. For further material cf. Lier, B., Philologus lxii (1903), 460 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. also B. Olsson in ΔΡΑГМА(Nilsson), 374 ff.
27 Can nefandi have the sense assigned to it by A. S. Pease on Aen. iv, 497 ‘the name of whom she cannot bear to mention’ ?
28 E.g. Iambi, myst. i, 18, p. 52 f. (Parthey). Note also that [Plut.] plac.phil. i, 6, p. 880 B (Diels, Doxogr. gr. 296) gives a division of the gods into (a) those who help, Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Demeter, (b) those who harm, the Poinai, the Erinyes, Ares : and cf. F. J. Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit, pp. 45 ff., for powers of evil and darkness in general.
29 E. W. West, Pahlavi Texts i, 106.
30 Cf. ii, 81 f.; Nock, Conversion 239 f.; Cameron, A., Harv. Theol. Rev. xxxiii (1940), 113Google Scholar.
31 On the strands interwoven with Hystaspes in Lactantius, see now H. Fuchs, Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom in der antiken Welt, 31 ff.: also ib. 37 f. for eschatological elements in Horace Ep. 16.
32 The ‘Potter's Oracle’, which Benveniste, E., Rev. hist., rel., cvi (1932), 372 fGoogle Scholar. agrees with Reitzenstein and the authors of this work in regarding as influenced by an Iranian model, also falls after Hermippus. But I doubt the influence: the description of Egypt's foes as girdlewearers, ӡωνοϕόροι, admits of another explanation (W. Struve, Raccolta Lumbroso, 276 f.), and Egypt had its own tradition of apocalyptic (Nock, , JHS xlix, 1929, 114Google Scholar : Manteuffel, G., Eos, xxxiii (1930–1931), 391 ffGoogle Scholar. Further, the coming of the king άπὁ ήλίον, from the sun—unles s H. Fuchs, op. cit., 31, is right in translating ‘from the East’—admits of an adequate explanation on an Egyptian basis : cf. Roeder in Roscher, Lex. iv, 1189 f.) Given a consciousness of present evil, a hope of dramatic improvement, and the supreme position of kingship, many similarities are possible. [Cf. the Egyptian dialogue between the Man Weary of Life and his soul, last translated by Scharff, A., Sitzungsber. München, 1937, ix, 55 f.Google Scholar with Zamasp-Namak § 16, Benveniste, 359 : ‘la mort leur semblera aussi douce qu'au pere la vue de son enfant, qu'à la mére une fille bien dotée.’]
33 A. von Gall ВАΣІΛΕΙΑ ΤΟΥ θΕΟΥ, 219 ff.
34 E.g. Moore, G. F., Judaism, ii, 389Google Scholar, etc.
35 Juvenal vi, 550; cf. Cic., de diu. i, 92Google Scholar, and A. S. Pease ad loc. for races thought to have special gifts for divination and magic.
36 Very possibly made at Alexandria (C. Schmidt, Plotins Stellung zum Gnosticismus, 21).
37 For this in Asia Minor, cf. Cumont in Anatolian Studies presented to W. H. Buckler (1939); (ibid. 72, n. 6, an addendum to ii, 333, n. 4).
38 Boll, F., Sitzungsber. Heidelberg, 1912, xviii, 5Google Scholar; Cumont, , Cat. codd. astr.gr., ii, 123Google Scholar.
39 Cf. Latte, K., Gnomon, ii (1926), 418 fGoogle Scholar.
40 E.g. Diog. Laert. viii, 89.
41 Harder, R., Philol., lxxxv (1930), 243 ffGoogle Scholar.
42 Cf. i, 234 ff., a brilliant analysis.
43 R. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 164 f.
44 W. L. Knox, St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles, 208 ff. Christians wrote apocrypha under famous Jewish names, but they claimed to be the legitimate heirs of the Jewish tradition.
45 Cf. Cic. de Diu. i, 90, on Magi as meeting in a consecrated place for discussion (in fano can be so translated, as A. S. Pease remarks ad loc., but it may suggest that this is an imaginary picture based on the tradition about Egyptian and Chaldaean priests). For Wisdom in Iranian literature cf. Nyberg, H. S., J. asiat. 219 (1931), 97 f.Google Scholar; he quotes a late text comparable with Proverbs 8, 22 ff.
46 Cf. ii, 298, n. 4. Note also the absence of any use of bull's urine, as contrasted with its frequent prescription in the Vendidad (and in West, E. W., Pahlavi Texts i, 273Google Scholar), and in modern Parsee practice.
47 There are difficulties in the supposition (i, 93 ff.; ii, 151, n. 4) of a second ‘song’ (§ 56) about the marriage of Zeus and Hera. Inferences as to specific documents are precarious; τοῦτον ύμνούσι παῑδες σοφῶν έν άρρήτοις τελεταῑς is a vague phrase and τελεταί is a sonorous word : it need not mean more than a cosmogonic tradition e.g. an Orphic poem as interpreted by Stoics. However, in view of the way in which the Naassenes, as quoted by Hippol. Ref. v, interpreted the mythologies of various people, it is possible that a composition by ‘Magi’ in Asia Minor ncorporated this Greek myth also in a osmic scheme.
In this connection we may recall Confessio S. Cypriani (Baluzius, Cypriani opera, ed 2, 1107A = AASS Sept. vii, 222F) where the writer says or the τελετή of Hera at Argos (attested by Pausan. 2, 38, 3) ‘I was initiated into the councils of unity, of air with aether and of aether with air, and at the same time of earth with water nd of water with air’. Some literary tradition underlies both Dio and this—and Carm. lat. epigr. 254. [For the posibility of a ‘sacred marriage’ in earlier Persian ritual, cf. H. S. Nyberg-H. H. Schaeder, Die Religionen des alten Iran, 155 ff.]
48 Dio's reference to an Indian translaion of Homer (liii, 6) cannot be literally true, but it may be a reference to the Mahabharata (W. W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India, 379 f.) or to the other great Indian epic : in any case it is introuced as ‘they say that …’ : in xxxvi, 39, he makes a downright assertion. While accept a ‘Magian’ basis, desirable to refer to the section of Menander Rhetor, ed. Bursian (Abh. München, 1882), p. 40 περὶ πεπλασμένων.
49 Wells, J., JHS xxvii (1907), 37 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted with revisions in his Studies in Herodotus, pp. 95 ff. (Cf. F. Jacoby, P-W Supp. ii, 414, 419). The temple ciceroni whom Herodotus encountered in Egypt were capable of attaching Greek myths to their temples.
50 How and Wells ad Hdt. iii, 80.
51 Cumont in Anatolian Studies presented to W. H. Buckler, 68.
52 S. Mekler, Acad. philos. ind. Hercul. 13; Nock, , JHS xlix, 112Google Scholar, n. 3, on Magi at Athens. Is it just possible that Heraclitus's emphasis on the merit of the dry soul has some remote links with the view stated in Vendidad viii, 33 f. (Darmsteter, The Zend-Avesta, i, 105, with nn. i, 2) that there is no contamination without moisture ? He encountered Magi (i, 146, n. 8).
53 i, 35, n. 1 : Q. Curt, v, 1, 22,is not very dependable testimony for Magi having precedence over Chaldaei : yet in the banquet at Opis Alexander seems certainly to have given them a position of privilege (Arrian vii, 11, 8). i, 35: ‘Ahoura - Mazda fut identifié avec Bèl’, actually ‘the Mazdyasnic religion was wedded to Bèl’ (cf. A. Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassanides 152 f.). i, 57 (n. 3): I can find no evidence for Eudoxus having been said to have visited Iran, i, 124 : Manilius i, 401–6, speaks of watchers from the Taurus, not ‘les prêtres du Taurus’, and the explanation which Housman quotes from Scaliger, that Tauri is simply a compliment to Aratus, is very likely : for complimentary allusions cf. W. Kroll, Stud. z. Verständnis d. röm. Lit., 174 ff. i, 229 : the scholiast on Stat., Theb. iv, 516Google Scholar (in a note on which much light is here thrown) does not emphasize or discuss the triplicis mundi of the text. What is hinted in Plato, Rep. 615 C about the fate of those who die untimely, etc., certainly comes from a source, as its brief allusiveness shows; but in spite of i, 185, its coherence with the doctrine in Phaedo about the sinfulness of suicide points to an origin in Pythagoreanism or its ambit; Vendidad vii, 4 (5)–5 (6) (Darmsteter, , The Zend-Avesta, i, 77Google Scholar) makes a distinction between those who die a violent and those who die a natural death, but it is only a trivial delay in the coming of the Drug Nasu. ii, 362, n. 3 : it is hard to believe that the edict of Augustus for the burning of unauthorised prophecies was accompanied by the death penalty for those who read Hystaspes, etc. Are we to suppose some enactment locally applied at a given time, like the ‘Nazareth’ edict (AJP. lx, 1939, 118 ff.Google Scholar) ? Or is it conceivable that Domitian made some such order in connection with his action about those of the family of David (Euseb., HE iii, 18 f.Google Scholar) ?