Asclepius

La obra se presenta como «A Holy Book of Hermes Trismegistus» escrito por Hermes y dirigido a Asclepio; los interlocutores del diálogo son Asclepio, Tat («hijo querido») y Hammon, deidad invocada a la conversación.

«No jealousy keeps Hammon from us; indeed, we recall having written many things in his name, as we have also written so much on physical and popular topics for Tat, our dearest and most loving son. But this treatise I shall write in your name.» — el pseudoepígrafe declarado en primera persona: dato de atribución de la propia obra.

«Every human soul is immortal, Asclepius, but not all in the same way; some differ in manner and time from others.»

«One matter, one soul and one god.»

«Human are they who remain content with the middle status of their kind...» — la cita llega truncada en la fuente y así se consigna.

«God's will is itself perfect achievement since willing and achievement are complete for him at one and the same moment of time.»

«The master of eternity is the first god, the world is second, mankind is third.» — la tríada jerárquica.

«Goodness is deemed perfect only when fortified by the virtue of disdain, which repels desire for every alien thing.»

«Nature, therefore, can breed alone without conceiving by another.»

«completely full of the fertility of both sexes and ever pregnant with his own will, always begets whatever he wishes to procreate.» — el dios de ambos sexos, siempre grávido de su propia voluntad.

«Do you say that god is of both sexes, Trismegistus?" "Not only god, Asclepius, but all things ensouled and soulless, for it is impossible for any of the things that are to be infertile. Take away fertility from all the things that now exist, and it will be impossible for them to be forever.» — la pregunta de Asclepio, y la respuesta que extiende la fertilidad a todo lo que es.

«Spirit supplies and invigorates all things in the world; like an instrument or a mechanism it is subject to the will of the supreme god.»

«God, father, master of all, whatever name people use to call him something holier or more reverent»

«God, the father and master, made gods first and then humans, taking equal portions from the more corrupt part of matter and from the divine;» — el antecedente directo del god-making: primero los dioses, después el hombre.

«Will comes to be from deliberation, Asclepius, and the very act of willing comes from will.»

«When soul withdraws from the body, it passes to the jurisdiction of the chief demon who weighs and judges its merit.»

«The sun is indeed a second god, Asclepius, believe it, governing all things and shedding light on all» — that are in the world

«There is no such thing as a void, nor can there have been, nor will there ever be.»

El mundo inteligible: «nothing corporeal can be combined with its nature».

«Heimarmene and Necessity are bound to one another by an unbreakable glue» — la tríada Heimarmene → Necesidad → Orden, «vehículo del mundo», como productos del plan eterno.

«god finds mortal gratitude to be the best incense.»

«We thank you, supreme and most high god, by whose grace alone we have attained the light of your knowledge;» — la apertura de la plegaria de acción de gracias.

«With such hopes we turn to a pure meal that includes no living thing.» — el cierre ascético y ritual del diálogo.

«Do you not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an image of heaven or, to be more precise, that everything governed and moved in heaven came down to Egypt and was transferred there? If truth were told, our land is the temple of the whole world.» — Egipto como imagen del cielo.

«a time will come when it will appear that the Egyptians paid respect to divinity with faithful mind and painstaking reverence - to no purpose. All their holy worship will be disappointed and perish without effect, for divinity will return from earth to heaven, and Egypt will be abandoned.» — la profecía del abandono.

«O Egypt, Egypt, of your reverent deeds only stories will survive, and they will be incredible to your children!» — la lamentación.

Las estatuas animadas, en la versión de Copenhaver: "Statues, Asclepius, yes. ... statues ensouled and conscious, rilled with spirit and doing great deeds" (sic «rilled»: OCR por «filled», enmienda consignada).

«I mean statues ensouled and conscious, rilled with spirit and doing great deeds; statues that foreknow the future and predict it by lots, by prophecy, by dreams and by many other means; statues that make people ill and cure them, bringing them pain and pleasure as each deserves.» — las estatuas que profetizan, enferman y curan; el troceo imprime «rilled» donde la edición pone filled.

El «arte de hacer dioses» mezcla poder natural — plantas, piedras, especias — con espíritus que actúan bajo sacrificios.

«And Hermes, whose family name I bear, does he not dwell in his native city that was named for him, where mortals come from all around for his aid and protection? Isis, wife of Osiris: we know how much good she can do when well disposed, when angered how much harm!» — la ciudad de Hermes, e Isis y Osiris según su disposición.

«But then they discovered the art of making gods. To their discovery they added a conformable power arising from the nature of matter. Because they could not make souls, they mixed this power in and called up the souls of demons or angels and implanted them in likenesses through holy and divine mysteries, whence the idols could have the power to do good and evil.» — el arte de fabricar dioses, con almas de demonios o ángeles tomadas en préstamo.

«The one who dispenses (life,) whom we call Jupiter, occupies the place between heaven and earth. But Jupiter Plutonius rules over earth and sea, and it is he who nourishes mortal things that have soul and bear fruit.» — Júpiter entre cielo y tierra, Júpiter Plutonio sobre tierra y mar.

«Light is the ousiarches of the sun, for the blessing of light pours down on us through the orb of the sun. The thirty-six (the term is 'horoscopes'), the stars that are always fixed in the same place, have as their head or ousiarches the one called Pantomorphos or Omniform, who makes various forms within various classes. The so-called seven spheres have the ousiarchai or heads called Fortune and Heimarmene', whereby all things change according to nature's law and a steadfast stability that stirs in everlasting variation. Air is the instrument or mechanism of all the gods, that through which all things are made» — los ousiarchai, y el aire como instrumento de todos los dioses.

Haides es la parte inferior invisible de la esfera del mundo; el nombre se deriva del griego «ver», y su equivalente latino es infernal.

«And in humans consciousness is added to understanding: only this fifth part, granted to humanity, comes from the aether. Of all living things, consciousness equips only the human, exalts it, raises it up to understand the divine plan.» — la quinta parte, el aether, exclusiva del ser humano.

«After he (had made) mankind ousiodes and noticed that he could not take care of everything unless he was covered over with a material wrapping, god covered him with a bodily dwelling and commanded that all humans be like this, mingling and combining the two natures into one in their just proportions.» — el hombre ousiodes, revestido de materia.

«Rightly the supreme divinity sent the chorus of Muses down to meet mankind lest the earthly world lack sweet melody and seem thereby less civilized» — las Musas como coro enviado por el dios supremo.

«but about what humans make of those elements or in them - agriculture, pasturage, building, harbors, navigation, social intercourse, reciprocal exchange - the strongest bond among humans or between humanity and the parts of the world that are water and earth.» — el dominio de los elementos por las artes.

Describe procesos rituales para la «fabricación de dioses» (animación de estatuas), y contiene la profecía del declinar de la sabiduría hermética en Egipto.

«But whatever descends from on high is a breeder; what diffuses upward is a feeder.» — Hermes ordena el flujo cósmico en dos direcciones: lo que baja de lo alto engendra y lo que se difunde hacia arriba alimenta.

«writes that Logos teleios, the title of the original Greek version of this treatise, meant "a discourse in which the teaching is brought to completion"; cf. C.H. IX. 1. Lactantius, who composed the Divine Institutes between 304 and 311 CE, refers in that work (4.6.4; 6.25.11; 7.18.3) to a Greek Logos teleios and to a corresponding Sermo perfectus in Latin.» — el título griego y su equivalente latino, según Scott y el testimonio de Lactancio.

Logos teleios se glosa como discurso en que la enseñanza se lleva a cabo plenamente; Joannes Lydus lo menciona en De Mensibus y lo cita para las siete esferas y los «flujos mundanos».

Estobeo preserva una versión griega del pasaje sobre la conciencia; Lactancio cita en griego el pasaje de la nueva generación y atribuye a «Asclepius, disciple of Hermes» la expresión "angelous ponerous" («baleful angels»).

La versión copta: el Perfect Discourse en copto se preserva en NHC VI.8; la colección de Nag Hammadi incluye «Asclepius 21–29», y su escriba admite no haber copiado todo el material hermético disponible.

«Lactantius also cites the Sermo perfectus in Latin, but not in a version corresponding to the surviving text of the Asclepius, which occurs first in Augustine's City of God (8.23, 24, 26; Asclep. 23-4, 37), composed between 413 and 426.» — la versión latina superviviente aparece primero en la Ciudad de Dios.

La versión latina aparece citada por primera vez en la Ciudad de Dios de Agustín.

«it has been suggested (Carcopino, Rome, pp. 286-301) that the translator was a North African. Nock (NF II, 277; cf. Scott I, 79-81) disputes Scott's speculation that another North African, Marius Victorinus (died c. 363), may have done the Latin version, whose traditional attribution to Apuleius is groundless.» — el traductor norteafricano de Carcopino, la conjetura de Mario Victorino que Nock discute, y la atribución a Apuleyo declarada infundada.

El Asclepius se escribió en la parte tardía del período 100–300 d.C.; y Mahé: "Mahe accepts a second-century limit only for the individual texts as they stand".

La filología del traductor delata el griego perdido: mundus se vierte dos veces como «mundo» y dos como «materia»; sensus traduce nous; ratio hace de logos; y el juicio de Copenhaver sobre un pasaje: "the whole passage is quite muddled, and I doubt that the author himself understood what he said."

El traductor desconocía la ingeniería egipcia (ripas como «banks» donde correspondía «dikes»), y el cambio de tiempos verbales — futuro latino donde el griego traía aoristo — proyecta la profecía hacia un desastre futuro: clave de la lectura cristiana del Apocalipsis egipcio.

«the Ba of the god. In particular, Mahe notes the relevance of PGM V.370-445 (Betz, pp. 107-9); this spell seeks revelation by using a figure of Hermes fabricated as follows: "Take 28 leaves from a pithy laurel tree and some virgin earth and seed of wormwood and the herb calf's snout . . . pounded together with . . . the liquid of an ibis egg and made into a uniform dough and into a figure of Hermes wearing a mantle, while the moon is ascending in Aries or Leo. . . . Let Hermes be holding a herald's staff. And write the spell on hieratic papyrus or on a goose's windpipe . . . and insert it into the figure for inspiration.» — el Ba egipcio y la receta de PGM V.370-445 como paralelo del god-making, en las notas de Copenhaver.

«refer to the influence of Egyptian cultic practice on such late Greek authors as Iamblichus. Braun, Jean, pp. 283—6, compares this section of the Asclepius to Porphyry's defense of idols in On Statues» — el paralelo teúrgico, en las notas de Copenhaver.

El aparato sitúa el Apocalipsis del Asclepio en la literatura apocalíptica egipcia (J.Z. Smith, Dunand, Fraser); el paralelo mayor es el Potter's Oracle (c. 130 a.C.); la correspondencia templo-cielo — «la estructura ritual del templo refleja los movimientos celestiales» — es la clave del «Egipto imagen del cielo».

El edicto de Constancio (353) sirve para fechar interpolaciones del pasaje legal; Krause analiza las leyes represivas y Schwartz argumenta CONTRA la interpolación tardía — disputa abierta, consignada como tal.

Los ousiarchai son «heads-of-essence»; los Oráculos caldeos figuran como fuente influyente común de esa jerarquía; y la versión griega de Lydus da Heimarmene ↔ Láquesis, Orden ↔ Cloto, Necesidad ↔ Átropos.

La doctrina de las dos almas — una superior del Primer Inteligible, otra inferior nacida del giro de los astros — rastreada por Ferwerda, Boyancé, Dillon y Wallis.

«Papyrus Mimaut gives a Greek version of the prayer in Asclep. 41, also represented in a Coptic text» — los testigos de la plegaria final.

«Magic comes closest to philosophy, perhaps, in the famous "god-making" passages of the Asclepius (23—4, 37-8) which show that material objects can be manipulated to draw a god down into a statue and thus ensoul it.» — el aparato liga la magia del Asclepio a los pasajes del god-making; la frase philosophia men kai mageia que la ficha traía citada es de la Kore Kosmou, en esta misma plana, no del Asclepio.

«In the twelfth century, Thierry of Chartres, Bernardus Silvestris, John of Salisbury and Alain de Lille took words or ideas from the Asclepius that do not appear in the City of God, as did Vincent of Beauvais and William of Auvergne in the thirteenth century.» — los lectores medievales que toman del Asclepio lo que no está en Agustín.

«An avid medieval student of the Asclepius was Thomas Bradwardine, who died in 1349; in his De causa dei he left readings from the Asclepius of value to its modern editors. Petrarch was another fourteenth-century reader; he wrote a few words at the end of a Vatican manuscript» — Bradwardine y Petrarca.

«In Cracow, Hannibal Rossel filled six volumes with commentary on C.H. I-VII and the Asclepius in the 1580s» — los seis volúmenes de comentario.

«the great image of Hermes carved in the pavement of the cathedral of Siena in 1488 by Giovanni di Stefano» — el relieve del pavimento de Siena.

Fue la única parte del Corpus Hermeticum conocida en la Edad Media, y se imprimió en 1471–1472.

«Hermes met his ablest enemy in a classical scholar, Isaac Casaubon. In 1614, in the course of a long polemic against the church history of Cesare Baronio, the Protestant Casaubon took issue with the notion that pagan seers had predicted Christ's coming.» — el año y el marco de la impugnación.

«This misbegotten genealogy, certified by Lactantius, Augustine, and other Church Fathers, was to have a profound effect on the historiography of philosophical and other fields of learning even after Isaac Casaubon proved it mistaken in the early seventeenth century.» — la certificación patrística y su impugnación, en palabras de Copenhaver y Schmitt.

«attributed in some mediaeval sources to Apuleius. O f the Greek text we have only a few fragments, mainly citations by Lactantius, while N.H.C. vi, as we have seen, preserves one large and one small fragment in a Coptic version.» — Fowden separa los estratos: el griego perdido salvo fragmentos, la latina del siglo IV y los dos coptos de Nag Hammadi.

La plegaria de acción de gracias circuló también en griego (P. Louvre 2391 — el mismo Papyrus Mimaut de Copenhaver) con transmisión incierta: «It is impossible, then, to be certain that the Greek text… was extracted directly from the Perfect discourse».

La lectura cristiana de la profecía (Lactancio y Agustín, que la tomaron como fin del paganismo) es para Fowden un error interpretativo; Walter Raleigh llegó a negar la autenticidad de esos pasajes.

«It was translated into Latin in ancient times, reputedly by the same Lucius Apuleius of Madaura whose comic-serious masterpiece The Golden Ass provides some of the best surviving evidence on the worship of Isis» — Mead consigna la atribución como reputación de la tradición, no como dato del texto; Copenhaver la llama infundada (PDF p. 300) y la contradicción queda visible, no arbitrada.

«But when one looks in the Corpus Hermeticurn, the Asclepius, the Stobaeus excerpts or the Nag Hammadi Hermetica for a theory of magic, something like what Proclus wrote On the Hieratic Art according to the Greeks, this seems not to be the case, although there are passages that assume such a theoretical framework for remarks on astrology, demonology or related topics.» — Copenhaver registra una negativa: al buscar en el Corpus Hermeticum, el Asclepio, los extractos de Estobeo o los herméticos de Nag Hammadi una teoría de la magia comparable a la de Proclo, no la encuentra, y solo halla pasajes que dan por supuesto ese marco al hablar de astrología y demonología.

«NHC VI.6, for example, seeks nothing less than "the great divine vision," but it also contains two ritual passages that would not be out of place in the Magical Papyri (one of which includes the same prayer that concludes the Asclepius).» — Copenhaver señala que NHC VI.6 persigue la gran visión divina y a la vez incluye pasajes rituales del tenor de los Papiros Mágicos, uno de ellos con la misma plegaria que cierra el Asclepio.

«Although Iamblichus seems to exclude any "material attachment" from Hermetic theurgy, the same cannot be said of the Asclepius, which in its "art of making gods" permitted "a conformable power arising from the nature of matter" and even mentioned "a mixture of plants, stones and spices" in describing the nature of the gods called down to animate their statues.» — Copenhaver contrasta a Iamblico, que parece excluir todo apego material de la teurgia hermética, con el Asclepio, cuyo arte de hacer dioses admite un poder conforme surgido de la naturaleza de la materia y una mezcla de plantas, piedras y especias.

«Just as Iamblichus said, this famous document exhorts the initiate to rise up through theurgy to a divine rebirth; its devices are concrete and technical, but it sets those procedures in a matrix of theory explored more thoroughly in the Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius.» — Copenhaver sitúa la liturgia de Mitras como exhortación técnica al renacimiento divino cuya teoría se explora más a fondo en el Corpus Hermeticum y en el Asclepio.

«Although other logoi were added to Latin translations and Greek editions in the sixteenth century, the widely read Basel edition of Ficino's works printed in 1576 still stopped with C.H. XIV, followed by the Asclepius.» — Copenhaver anota que la edición de Basilea de las obras de Ficino, de 1576, seguía deteniéndose en C.H. XIV seguido del Asclepio.

«the Asclepius recognized groups of treatises by name, although the meanings of the labels to their original users remain unclear.» — Copenhaver observa que el Asclepio reconocía grupos de tratados por su nombre, y acota que el sentido de esas etiquetas para sus usuarios originales sigue sin aclararse.

«Most important of all, he read and cited a Greek text of the Asclepius; he also quoted it in Latin, but his Latin text was not ours.» — Copenhaver distingue los testimonios de Lactancio: leyó y citó un texto griego del Asclepio y lo citó también en latín, pero su latín no era el nuestro.

«Our Latin Asclepius first emerges in Augustine's City of God, written between 410 and 426 by a Christian much less friendly to Hermes.» — Copenhaver fecha la emergencia del Asclepio latino que conocemos en la Ciudad de Dios de Agustín, escrita entre 410 y 426 por un cristiano mucho menos amistoso con Hermes.

«Thus, the Asclepius that we know in Latin existed before the early fifth but after the early fourth century, which is also the latest date for the Greek version used by Lactantius.» — Copenhaver acota la horquilla del Asclepio latino entre el siglo IV temprano y el V temprano, que es también la fecha más tardía de la versión griega usada por Lactancio.

«The Coptic section of the Asclepius in NHC VI.8 must have existed by the middle of the fourth century.» — Copenhaver fija en mediados del siglo IV el terminus de la sección copta del Asclepio conservada en NHC VI.8.

«The Book of Hermes on the Six Principles of Nature is a Latin compilation made in England in the twelfth century but based ultimately on Arabic originals known to their compiler only in Latin versions; it deals with cosmogony, astronomy and meteorology and shows some resemblance to the Asclepius.» — Copenhaver describe el Libro de Hermes sobre los seis principios de la naturaleza como compilación latina inglesa del siglo XII basada en originales árabes conocidos solo en versión latina, con parecido con el Asclepio.