The Historical Novel I

Gustave Flaubert's 'The Temptation of St. Anthony'
(Contents)


I. St. Anthony and the Vita Antonii by St. Athanasius of Alexandria

1. The “Life of Anthony”

The chief source of information on St. Anthony is a Greek Life attributed to St. Athanasius, to be found in any edition of his works… here it will suffice to say that now it is received with practical unanimity by scholars as a substantially historical record, and as a probably authentic work of St. Athanasius.

(Catholic Encyclopedia - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01553d.htm)


Introduction to “Vita S. Antoni”

(Written between 356 and 362)
The Life of St. Antony is included in the present collection partly on account of the important influence it has exercised upon the development of the ascetic life in the Church, partly and more especially on the ground of its strong claim to rank as a work of Athanasius… As it is, the question being still in dispute, although the balance of qualified opinion is on the side of the Athanasian authorship, it is well that the reader should have the work before him and judge for himself... Monasticism, with all its good and evil, is a great outgrowth of human life and instinct, a great fact in the history of the Christian religion…

(Philip Schaff,
New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xvi.ii.ii.html)

2. Contents of the “Life”

§§5, 6. Early conflicts with the devil. §7. Details of his life at this time (271–285?)
§§8–10. His life in the tombs, and combats with demons there. §11. He goes to the desert and overcomes temptations on the way.
§46. How he sought martyrdom at Alexandria during the Persecution (311).
§§70, 71. How he visited Alexandria, and healed and converted many, and how Athanasius escorted him from the city.
§§72–79. How he reasoned with divers Greeks and philosophers at the ‘outer’ mountain.
§80. How he confuted the philosophers by healing certain vexed with demons. §81. How the Emperors wrote to Antony, and of his answer.
§§89, 90. How, when now 105 years old, he counselled the monks, and gave advice concerning burial.
(by Ph. Shaff, ibidem)



II. Flaubert and his 'Temptation of St Anthony'

1. About Flaubert
Life
The disease of Flaubert
Voyages
In Egypt
(Gustave Flaubert: Plan of the Site - http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jb.guinot/pages/A7401.html)

2. “The Temptation”- general information
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (French La Tentation de Saint Antoine) is a book which Gustave Flaubert spent practically his whole life fitfully working on, in three versions he completed in 1849, 1856 (extracts published at the same time) and 1872 before publishing the final version in 1874. It is written in the form of a play script. It details one night in the life of Anthony the Great where Anthony is faced with great temptations, and it was inspired by the painting, which he saw at the Balbi Palace in Genoa.

Characters
The following is a list of major characters and does not include characters such as the gods or the prophets. A complete list of characters can be found in the glossary of the Random House edition (Olds, 195-233).
· Saint Anthony: The protagonist. He is tempted by many characters and objects to stray from his belief that isolation is the truest form of worship.
· Ammonaria: One of his sister's friends, Anthony is drawn into a battle between his desire for her and his desire to remain holy before God in his isolation. He is distraught that he cannot control his body.
· King Nebuchadnezzar
· The Queen of Sheba: Tempts Anthony with riches, trying to evoke lust.
· Hilarion: Also known as Lucifer. Once Anthony's student, now he tries to tempt him away from his chosen lifestyle by creating doubt and eventually morphs into Science.
· Lust and Death: Lust appears as a young woman; Death, an old woman. They try to convince Anthony to give in to his desires and commit suicide.
References
· Flaubert, Gustave, and Michael Foucault (introduction), Lafcadio Hearn (tr), and Marshall Olds (glossary). The Temptation of Saint Anthony. New York: Random House, 1992.
Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_Saint_Anthony

2. Contents of the play
Contents II
8. A Holy Saint
9. The Temptation of Love and Power
10. The Disciple Hilarion
11. The Fiery Trial
12. All Gods, All Religions
13. The Mystery of Space
14. The Himera and the Sphynx
(Simon P. Magee publ., Chicago, Ill. Copyright 1904 by M. Walter Dunn
http://www.archive.org/details/TheTemptationOfStAntonyOrARevelationOfTheSoul
ftp://ia300207.us.archive.org/2/items/TheTemptationOfStAntonyOrARevelationOfTheSoul/OTIFF/)


III. Flaubert`s interpretation of some places from the “Life”

1. The devil
But the devil, who hates and envies what is good, could not endure to see such a resolution in a youth, but endeavoured to carry out against him what he had been wont to effect against others. First of all he tried to lead him away from the discipline, whispering to him the remembrance of his wealth, care for his sister, claims of kindred, love of money, love of glory, the various pleasures of the table and the other relaxations of life, and at last the difficulty of virtue and the labour of it; he suggested also the infirmity of the body and the length of the time. In a word he raised in his mind a great dust of debate, wishing to debar him from his settled purpose.
(Vita, 5 - English translation by Ph. Shaff, ibidem )


2. The chief temptations

A. Diversity of the world. Curiosity

And the devil, unhappy wight, one night even took upon him the shape of a woman and imitated all her acts simply to beguile Antony.

(Vita, 5)


- travels (monologue)
And this turning back is nought else but to feel regret, and to be once more worldly-minded. But fear not to hear of virtue, nor be astonished at the name. For it is not far from us, nor is it without ourselves, but it is within us, and is easy if only we are willing. That they may get knowledge, the Greeks live abroad and cross the sea, but we have no need to depart from home for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, nor to cross the sea for the sake of virtue. For the Lord aforetime hath said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.”
(Vita, 20)

- reasoning (vision, dialogue)
In a word he (the devil) raised in his mind a great dust of debate, wishing to debar him from his settled purpose.

(Vita, 5)

…But see! you still do not believe and are seeking for arguments. We however make our proof “not in the persuasive words of Greek wisdom as our teacher has it, but we persuade by the faith which manifestly precedes argumentative proof…

(Vita, 80)

B. Vanity (vision, description of Anthony`s meeting with the Emperor)

And the fame of Antony came even unto kings. For Constantine Augustus, and his sons Constantius and Constans the Augusti wrote letters to him… And so he was unwilling to receive the letters, saying that he did not know how to write an answer to such things. But being urged by the monks because the emperors were Christians, and lest they should take offence on the ground that they had been spurned, he consented that they should be read, and wrote an answer approving them because they worshipped Christ…

(Vita, 81)

3. The face of devil (description of the devil, dialogue in vision)
Once some one knocked at the door of my cell, and going forth I saw one who seemed of great size and tall. Then when I enquired, “Who art thou?” he said, “I am Satan.” Then when I said, “Why art thou here?”…
But he having heard the Saviour’s name, and not being able to bear the burning from it, vanished.’

(Vita, 41)

Alors une grande ombre, plus subtile qu'une ombre naturelle, et que d'autres ombres festonnent le long de ses bords, se marque sur la terre.
C'est le Diable, accoudé contre le toit de la cabane et portant sous ses deux ailes, comme une chauve-souris gigantesque qui allaiterait ses petits, - les sept Péchés capitaux, dont les têtes grimaçantes se laissent entrevoir confusément.
Antoine, les yeux toujours fermés, jouit de son inaction ; et il étale ses membres sur la natte.

“The Temptation”, ch. II


(Historical annotations to Flaubert's 'Temptation of St Anthony')
c360: Athanasius writes Life of Antony
335: Athanasius banished ; 332: Athanasius charged with murdering Arsenius ; 326: Athanasius elected bishop
c312-356: Anthony lives in cave on Al-Qalzam/Kolzim/Colzim mountain ;
c310-c395: Didymus
c307: inspired by Anthony, Hilarion retreats to Gaza for 50 years ;
c295-373: Athanasius of Alexandria ; c291-c371: Hilarion
285-337: Constantine
c285-c305: Anthony lives alone on Mount Pispir ; c270: Anthony gives away wealth, lives in tomb for 15 years
c234-347? Paul the Hermit
(Jorn Barger August 2002)
http://www.robotwisdom.com/flaubert/antoine/history.html

* this is a handout for a lecture, held at the Third Contact Session (August 2007) of the three-year "Contextualizing Classics" project of the Sofia University and the HESP Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching (Open Society Institute, Budapest).

Building a Masters Programme: Difficulties and Challenges

(continues from May, 21)


The department could include a new member in the staff once in three years at the maximum (and it is the same at the moment). Then, what were meant to do for example the 15 students, who have meanwhile graduated? The number of the enrolled students fluctuated between 30 and 50. In short, could anyone see much sense in the study of classical philology, provided that the education, offered in it, is essentially addressed to one student out of 40?
These problems looked precisely like that in the year, when the first project for a master’s programme was elaborated. It was called “Classical languages”. Obviously, the intention was to continue the perfection of the young people, who have started to learn these languages 9 years ago. Let’s say that meanwhile they haven’t noticed any significant change neither in the methods, nor in the proposed material. They knew, that in the master’s programme they are going to meet the same professors, whom they have already met in the bachelor’s. Then why continue this activity for three more semesters? It is pointless to mention the professional and the financial difficulties, which would inevitably impede even the one out of the forty, who finally might become a member of the regular teaching academics.
It’s no wonder, that during the 90-ies the students were reluctant to enter even in the bachelor’s; and if by chance they entered it, subsequently they were not very eager to remain. Thus the specialty survived several years of crisis, and in order to find at least some students, additional exams have been provided for the candidates, who have failed on the regular exam. As if they have become more suitable within the week between the regular and additional exam! Of course, the crisis was explained predominantly with the societal transition in general: the time will pass and, let’s hope, the things will be settled, and then we are going to have students again.
At the same time in the specialty a new understanding began to shape out. This was a new vision of the classical and humanitarian education in general. Although on the cost of the insufficient familiarity with the interpretations, it should be propagated for a majority of learners, instead of the previous limitation to the minority of specialists. Here it should be pointed out, that since lot’s of time the University and the Department were unable to provide for the academic staff the access to these interpretations: it was considered that it is their own business how to find it – comparable to, say, whence they should buy a washing machine.
The classical philologists should seek candidates for the master’s and even for the bachelor’s in other places, and not only in the specialty or in the Gymnasium for ancient languages and cultures. This opinion led to a result in 2000, when, for the first time since 1982, students were enrolled in the Department, who had passed exams in languages different from Greek and Latin. Surprisingly for the colleagues, some of the beginners quickly left behind the rest of the students, who had whole 5 years of study in the classical Gymnasium. It turned out, that the desire to be well educated could lead to greater achievements, than simply the passive presence at school and in the university, regardless of their duration. This could serve as an argument for the fulfillment of another idea for the master’s studies.

C. Some words about the humanitarian education in Bulgaria

It is worth seeing how it happens so, that a small quantity of inexplicit, but firm convictions may shape an educational programme, including its details. Here are two such convictions, which had great force for the period I’m talking about.
1. The professor is an unquestionable authority, because (s)he knows thoroughly all the things that the student is supposed to know.
2. In order to be well educated the student has to reproduce simply what the professor had said and to acquire his/her level of technical skills (if the character of the specialty presupposes them). In order to achieve these aims what matters is not the interest in the studied matter, but rather the discipline.

These explain why the curricula (I have in mind here mainly the philological ones, but what I am going to say pertains to a great degree to others, as well) were composed in a way, that:

(to be continued)

POIЕSIS

POIЕSIS.
Classical and contemporary attempts at
the theory of ancient Greek literature

Vol. І.
Aristotle and Hegel


Preface .......................7
Preface to volume І............8


Aristotle’s literary theory...15

І. Aristotle’s idea of literature
1. The question of terms
2. Distinctions between literature and other activities
3. The aim of the literary work

ІІ. The tasks of literary theory
1. The idea of literary science
2. The structure of Aristotle’s “Poetics"
3. The tasks of the literary theory

ІІІ. Classification of literary types
1. Means of imitation
2. Quality of the imitated
3. Way of imitation

ІV. Aesthetic categories
1. The tragic and its discrimination from other aesthetic categories
2. The comic and the ugly
3. The beautiful

V. Rules for composing a literary work
1. Plot
2. Characters
3. Thought and speech
4. Musical and visible part
5. Drawing up the rules for composing a tragedy out of its definition

VІ. Aristotle’s view of the history of literature
1. Literature and human nature
2. The history of literature as a process of distinguishing between types
3. The documented history of literature: the role of poetic talent
4. The aim of the history of literature

VІІ. “Poetics” and the principles of Aristotle’s philosophy
1. The question of definition
2. The literary work as an outcome of the four causae
3. Literature as an instrument of cognition
4. Literature and the development of virtues


The view of literature in Hegel’s “Aesthetics”... 63

І. The structure of “Aesthetics”
1. Artistically beautiful or the ideal
2. Specific forms of the artistically beautiful
A. Symbolic artistic form
B. Classical artistic form
C. Romantic artistic form
3. The arts
A. Architecture
B. Sculpture
C. Romantic arts

ІІ. Greek art and the concept of the classical
1. Greek art and the classic ideal
A. Correspondence between content and form
B. Self-contained form and repose
C. Degree of individualization
2. The classical temple
3. Sculpture
A. Sculpture between architecture and romantic arts
B. Universality and individuality in sculpture
4. The classic in Greek poetry
A. Epic narrative
B. Lyric poetry
C. Drama

ІІІ. Hegel’s understanding of literature
1. The meaning of the term “poetry”
A. Poetry and the other arts
B. Devices in poetry
2. Poetry and prose
A. Poetic and prosaic world view
B. Poetry and the prosaic types
3. Concept, notion, literary work
A. Concept
B. Notion
C. Literary work
4. The poet’s involvement
A. Imagination, objectiveness, originality
B. The classical artist
C. The poet in lyric poetry

ІV. Literary types
1. Epic narrative
A. Epic types and the genuine epopee
B. Characteristics of the genuine epopee
C. The Greek epic narrative juxtaposed with that of other nationalities
2. Lyric poetry
A. Lyric content and form
B. Degree of spiritual development presupposing the development of lyric poetry
C. Types of lyric poetry
D. Historical development of poetry
3. Drama
A. The principle of dramatic poetry
B. The principle of tragedy and comedy
C. The relation of a dramatic work to its audience
D. Ancient and modern dramatic poetry

V. Literature in the history of the spirit
1. Hegel’s philosophy of history
A. The principle of development
B. The geographical factor
C. Subdivision of world history. The East and Europe
2. Literature and history
A. Art in the history of the spirit
B. Literature in the history of art
3. The history of literature
A. Epic narrative
B. Lyric poetry
C. Drama

VІ. Hegel’s contribution to Aristotle’s literary theory
1. The idea of history
A. Terminology
B. Literature and other activities
C. Aim in the literary work
2. Tasks of literary theory
A. The idea of literary science
B. The structure of the literary treatise
C. Tasks of literary theory
3. Classification of literary types
A. Hegel’s criterion for identifying the basic types
B. Classification of subtypes
4. Aesthetic categories
A. The beautiful
B. Specific forms of the beautiful
C. The tragic and the comic
5. Rules for composing a literary work
A. Foundations of a work of art
B. Action
C. Characters
D. Linguistic expression
E. Staging
6. The question of the history of literature
A. Literature and human nature
B. Discriminating the types and the aim of literature
C. Poetic gift


After Hegel. The potential of Marxist cultural studies. A. F. Lossev...219

І. From the history of the concept of culture
1. The necessity for clarifying the concept of culture
A. The point of view of the present research
B. The concept of culture
2. A few words on the ancient and Christian counterparts of the contemporary view of culture
A. “The contemporary view”
B. Antiquity
C. Culture from the Christian point of view
3. Culture as a stage of man’s perfection
A. Attempts at overcoming the dualism between the “spiritual” and the “secular” concept of man
B. The progressist and the essentialist view of culture in Hegel
4. Culture as a specific feature of human existence
A. The anthropological view of culture
B. Hegel and the anthropological view
5. Culture and literature
A. Literature as a product, sign or element of culture
B. Literature – an exponent of Weltanschauung and a performer of functions

ІІ. “The History of Ancient Aesthetics” as Marxist research……236
1. A. F. Lossev and the Marxist philosophy of history
A. A. F. Lossev’s influence in Bulgaria
B. Lossev as a Marxist
2. Culture from the point of view of the general principles of Marxism
A. The Marxist principle
B. The Marxist view of culture
3. Primitive and slave-owning formations. The question of ancient slavery
A. Primitive formation
B. Slave-owning formation
4. Lossev’s theses on ancient culture
A. Lossev’s understanding of “culture”
B. Antiquity as cosmologism
C. Antiquity as fatalism
5. Literature within the framework of ancient culture
A. Ancient literature as an outcome of the meeting of tribal heritage and the slave-owning principle
B. Ancient literature and Lossev’s “Theses”
C. Homer’s theses
6. Lossev and Hegel
A. The historical concept and the idea of culture
B. Culture as Weltsanschauung
C. Culture and literature



Excursus

How to polemize with the classics. “The open society” of Karl Popper...263

I.Criticism of Platonism
1. Historicism and the fight against change. Plato’s predecessors
2. Socratism and Platonism
3. Thucydides` typology

II. Aristotle as Hegel’s predecessor
1. Anti-equalitarianism and racialism
2. The mean as an “extreme in virtue”
3. Essentialism

II. Criticism of Hegelianism
1. The biological metaphor and the philosophy of identity
2. The nationalistic ideology and the principle of leadership
3. The historical factor in the formation of culture

III. Criticism of Marxism
1. Hegel’s heredity
2. Economic determinism
3. “The better, the worse”, or on the activities of the Communist party
4. The advantages of democratic interventionism
5. Marxism and culture

IV. The open society as a project for social activity
1. The idea of an open society
2. The fight against the open society
3. Rationalism as a moral choice


Al. Nichev on Aristotle’s literary theory...317

І. The mystery of the tragic catharsis
1. Plato and Aristotle
2. The burden of compassion

ІІ. The classical philologist as a literary scholar
1. The function of literature
2. Interpreting the ancient literary text
3. Interpreting the ancient philosophical text

ІІІ. “The mystery” as a moral allegory and an esoteric treatise
1. The problem of religion
2. Science and esoterics


What is ancient Greek literature..........339

І. The idea of literature
1. On definition
2. Criteria for distinguishing between the types of literature
3. Theoretical literature
4. “Historical” literature
5. Rhetorical literature
6. Fiction…

ІІ. Ancient Greek literature
1. The language
2. The culture
3. Two views on ancient Greek literature


Bibliography and abbreviations............357

Herodotus and the Parts of the World

I. The Reign of Darius*

The paper focuses on the supposed cultural differences between the Greeks and the barbarians (represented mostly by the Persian empire), as seen by Herodotus. The observations are limited on the material of books III-VI, where the reader is told about the unsuccessful Ionian revolt and the first Persian war against the European Greeks, which had ended with the battle at Marathon. The main point of the essay is the specific Greek way of political expansion, and its possible parallels with the contemporary European model.
The paper is divided into the following chapters.
1. Persia and the Greeks. The clash.
2. The Parts of the World.
3. The Unity of the Greeks. The Greeks as a Maritime People. The Role of the Oracle at Delphi.
4. The Greek Fear in front of Persia.
5. Monarchy and Democracy. The Greek Understanding of the Freedom.


*the paper is published in:
ORIENTALIA. A Journal for the East. 2005, 1. New Bulgarian University

Building a Masters Programme: Difficulties and Challenges

1. The prerequisites *

A. Changes in the legislature

The academic system, which educates the students in three degrees – bachelor’s, master’s and doctor’s – is relatively new in Bulgaria. Until the change of the political system in 1989, and even several years after that, the students (I have in mind the students from the humanitarian specialties) underwent an incessant five-years-long education and graduated with a diploma for completed higher education and with the allowance to work as teachers (or exercise other profession). Receiving the diploma they acquired a professional qualification – say, philologist (or historian, or lawyer and so on). After that the diploma-bearer-specialist could apply in a competition for a governmental scholarship, then called aspirantska, and to become an aspirant, which means doctoral student. Several years later, if (s)he has managed to write and defend the Doctoral thesis, (s)he received a degree, called “candidate of science”. Later this degree was equalized to the present day “doctor”. Subsequently (s)he could write a second dissertation, this time without supervision and to acquire a higher scientific degree, called “doctor of sciences”, which was a necessary but not sufficient condition for becoming a “professor”. So, the then system had three degrees as well, but the difference was that the researcher needed much more years for work and had to pass two difficult procedures, in order to be named “doctor”.
This system, which was the result of the harmonization of the Bulgarian educational legislature with the Soviet one, is almost untouched today. In 1999 the changes in the Higher education act introduced the degrees bachelor and master, which haven’t existed before; the degree “candidate” has been converted into doctoral one, and “doctor of sciences” still exists today. Probably this degree will survive another 10 or 15 years – until the colleagues, who had troubled themselves with this procedure, remain influential in the academic, and in the political spheres as well. However, now it seems like a mechanical repetition of the first doctoral degree, it does not change the salary considerably, and it will be evaded more and more by the candidates for this title, because the changes in the Act allow them to become professors without it. Eventually it might disappear.
So, in 1999 the initially monolith five-years-long education has been divided into two degrees (bachelor’s and master’s) with special amendments in the Act. These engendered the requirement the specialties to provide new curricula, and they did so. Thus, the specialty classical philology, in which we are interested in, began to offer masters’ programmes, addressed mainly to students enrolled in the University after 1996. The programmes became accessible in 1999, which means one year before the graduation of these students. But in this year the programmes did not start, because there weren’t candidates. This was not strange, because at this time all the graduates in Bulgaria hold a degree, equal to the master’s. This was the more important reason for the lack of candidates; but it seems to me, that other reasons were there as well. I am going to discuss them further.

B. The situation in the specialty Classical philology

Actually, the shift from the one-degree to the two-degrees-system of the graduate education was not so sharp, as I have sketched it so far. Since this change was anticipated even in the beginning of the 90-ties, at least some of the universities reacted earlier, and some specialties, among which our specialty as well, started offering a basic division of the education in the beginning of the five-years period. So, the students studied three years according to the former curriculum and after that they entered a two-years specialization, chosen in conformity with their interest. In Classical philology the specializations were three: Greek studies (Grecistika), Latin studies (Latinistika) and History and Archeology, for which most probably some of the departments in the faculty of history has contributed. It was assumed, that every student has greater interest for one of the two antiquities – the Greek and the Latin, including their medieval corollaries. At the other hand, some of them are maybe exhausted by the preoccupation with language and literature, and are eager to learn more about the political history and the material culture. Hence, let’s give them an opportunity to specialize within the five-years course itself.
The educational conviction, founding this strategy was the following. The university is a place for the pursuit of elitist knowledge and for the creation of elitist professional scholars. “Elitist”, however means “highly specialized”, which in the realm of the ancient researches means: handling perfectly the classical languages (or better, language), but reading much more interpretations and commentaries, than original ancient sources, because a specialist is a person, who is familiar with everything, written by his/her colleagues all over the world on a certain topic. Consequently, the students, graduating from a secondary school, in which they have already followed five-years systematic learning of Greek and Latin, but in which they have studied other matters as well, were meant to undergo a basic three-years long university course in classical philology, and then to begin their specialization. The best were expected to continue as doctoral students, and some of them could hope to become regular academic staff in the specialty. There was an opportunity for them to find jobs as teachers in the classical lyceum, from which they have graduated, but it was not esteemed as so good, for the same reason. Because a teacher in a gymnasium is preoccupied with teaching and moreover (s)he has to stick to the manuals, in which the content of his discipline is treated in a general and simplified manner. That’s why (s)he could hardly become an elitist scholar.
All this strategy, however, had little to do with the reality, at least in Bulgaria, because it could not answer to the frequently posed question: what happens with the majority of the students, who graduate the specialty?

(follows in Monday, June 11)

* this is the full version of a lecture, held at the First Contact Session of the three-year "Contextualizing Classics" project of the Sofia University and the HESP Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching (Open Society Institute, Budapest).
For further information see: http://www.proclassics.org/

Writing and Erudition in XXI century

1. From the history of the written word

The culture to which we belong shows a considerable interest in the preservation of the memories of the past. This interest had been stated directly for the first time by Herodotus. It should be noted that his “History” is the most voluminous unified text, created by the Greeks in the classical epoch. The beginning of it says explicitly:

“These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feuds.” (Herodotus, I, 1. Translated by G. Rawlinson)

Since then the Greeks and the inheritors of their culture had made considerable efforts in order to continue the deed of Herodotus. It could be said, that they had developed a whole technology of the reminiscence. In the beginning they had written down what had happened, but also what might happen, creating thus the forms of the word, which we nowadays call history and literature.

“It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen - what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity. The poet and the historian differ not by writing in verse or in prose. The work of Herodotus might be put into verse, and it would still be a species of history, with meter no less than without it. The true difference is that one relates what has happened, the other what may happen. Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular. By the universal I mean how a person of a certain type on occasion speak or act, according to the law of probability or necessity; and it is this universality at which poetry aims in the names she attaches to the personages. The particular is - for example - what Alcibiades did or suffered” (Aristotle, Poetics, 9. Translated by S.H. Butcher).

They had added to that the records of the circumstances and the conditions in which things could happen and even of “what are” these things, which had created the scientific and the philosophical genres of the word.
Later on simultaneously with the production of new and new records antiquity had guided its concerns to the preservation of the available texts (and thus appeared the libraries and the philology) and – what is even more respectable – antiquity had guided its cares to make the access to them easier. Thanks to that, in the first centuries CE the traditional scroll had been replaced by the codex, because the codex had a very important advantage – it had been most suitable to unfold. In the Middle Ages the large square letters /majusculus/ by and by had been replaced by the small rounded letters /minusculus/; so the lines in each page could be much more in number and the writing down – much faster. In the Renaissance the paper became thinner and the separate volumes gathered much more text. The publishing of books became mundane; the market dealing with books and the total prints had increased. However, all that had been no more than an approach to the ancient way of propagation of the written word. The main problem, connected with the prolonged handwork on each separate copy of the book remained unsolved. It is evident, that the discovery of the print press led really to a great change: suddenly it had appeared, that the books could be many in number and cheap. Nobody had to copy with months one and the same book; nobody had to dictate to copyists, but the books could be propagated in a few hours in an unseen total print. In the next 500 years nothing considerable had happened again: the development relied – as before – on a paper of greater quality and on smaller letters.
The invention of Gutenberg has led to an unknown and incredible by that time propagation of the documents of the past. The memories of the deeds and the thoughts of the ancestors begot much more and much richer libraries. In the private houses appeared special places for the books: that was something, which had been of a great rarity in the times before. The need of the inconvenient and expensive travelling of the individual to the educational center had vanished: not only because the centers increased in number, but also because man already had enough means for his association to the word inheritance. Then appeared another problem that had been familiar to the antiquity, but that became serious only in the 15-th century, when the book wealth suddenly increased. At once appeared enormous quantities of new texts of a very low value. These were books of less importance: books-ephemera, deprived of the spring of their own culture; books-weeds, that had grown up thanks to the deed of Gutenberg, but they had strived to replace the old valuable texts, because of which the printing press itself had been invented. Their existence became a hindrance to the good education, and it did not disappear. On the contrary, by and by it became much more difficult to overcome it. How to help the one, who wishes to get really acquainted with one’s own culture – that means, to be “reminded” of what is essential of it – and that’s why he relies on the accessibility of the written word, but precisely because of this accessibility he gets quite another thing? The market and the libraries had been full of very quickly made similarities of literature; of very superficial retellings and compilations of the good historical texts (very often these were retellings of other retellings and compilations); also, very prolonged references of strictly made but aimless collections of facts; also, writings, containing senseless statements and untested or simply fancied evidences; and at last, clumsy, short-witted or incomprehensible sequences of words which claimed to be philosophy. The memory of what really had happened never reached these people, lost in the book jungle: instead of that their brains had been overloaded by words without clear content, and from them remained only several phrases, used with an ease. The education got by these texts resembled to the furniture of a house, the owners of which can afford themselves only cheap furniture from the common shops. When these houses are new, they suppress with the lack of taste of their keepers and with their overburdeness; but the bad furniture is very soon worn out and a feeling of blunt, negligence and poverty appears at once.
Let see what happened after that. Now, 500 years after Gutenberg we possess another device of preservation of the word – it is the computer record. The first and the most obvious result of that is the sharp increase of the volume of the information which is in the physical space around us. The whole ancient Greek literature from Homer to Proclus could be gathered in one CD – this object with its package is smaller, compared with the smallest edition of Herodotus, that could be produced with the means of the traditional editing. Thanks to the CD records all of the well-known literary monuments, belonging to all earth civilizations, could be placed in a modest library shelf. But there is something more. The virtual library of Internet gives freedom to the reader and deprives him from the duty even to bye books, recorded on CD. Today everyone could read Herodotus in the original language, in which he had written or translations of it on the screen of one’s personal computer without possessing no record whatsoever of the text. All the reader needs is an Internet connection that could be acquired by everyone. The free access to the whole word inheritance of the world is already secured.


2. The problem of the erudition

All this happened very quickly and as if astonishing easily – from the point of view of the one who remembers how many efforts and means it has taken to get one or another book. It seems, that everyone, who today wishes to use the written monuments of the past is no longer in isolation. One even does not need the knowledge of different languages, which has been inevitable until late and took a lot of time, because today almost all important texts are translated into English. That’s the way in which the modern man is released from the fragmentary and ideological selection of the texts, forced by the milieu where one got one’s education before. At the same time, the problem of every free and mundane society, where the monopoly on the creation of the word does not exist, remains the same. Who will explain what is useful to be read or whether it is useful to read anything at all? Does it make no difference in what way exactly the people in the XXI century will get their education?
From the point of view of the philologist (I use this word in the broadest sense; something like “specialist in word education’) the advantage of the present-day situation is in the fact, that it secures good conditions for a conscious choice.

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The Ancient Hermetism

1. Intentions of the research

This study has several concerns.
First, it gives a detailed description of the texts of the ancient hermetism (chapter I).
Secondly, it tries to comment on the testimonies, given by the ancient authors about the legend of Hermes Trismegistus and about the literature, ascribed to this mythical figure (chapter II);
Then it presents - as clearly and systematically as possible in the case of such difficult texts - the basic characteristics of the hermetic doctrine (chapter III);
Fourthly, it makes a brief survey of the academic studies on hermetism, with special emphasis on the discussion of the first half of this century, commenced with the famous ”Poimandres” by Reitzenstein, and its evolution after the discovery of the new writings at Nag Hammadi (chapter IV);
Fifthly, it informs the reader about the phenomenon of the so-called ”technical hermetism”, and about the history of the hermetic tradition among the Arabs and in the Renaissance (chapter V).
Special attention is paid to the attempt to construct a ”theory of the hermetic gnosticism.” The hypothesis of the chapter VI is as follows. There exist some basic models of the mythical thought, which underlie the majority of the mythological ”sacred histories”. It is important, that the most original and influential among the hermetic texts, the CH I, does present to its readers such a sacred history. Not only Hellenistic hermetism, but also many of the Gnostic systems of the same period (2nd-3rd CE), as well as Plato and the Orphics, needless to mention for the Judeo-Christian mythological tradition, are deeply occupied with the construction of a sacred history.
On the basis of hermetic and gnostic mythological material I try to demonstrate, that in the kernel of the sacred history myths there is a small number of pre-narrative notions. In most cases these notions are connected with the well-known (and very typical of the ancient mode of grasping the reality) dichotomy between the unchanging, unmovable, eternal on the one hand and the changeable, movable, ephemeral on the other hand. According to our hypothesis, every sacred history of gnostic type is a single realisation of the mentioned basic models, which exist as results of some simple relations between the two ”principles”.

2. Detailed summary

In the introduction there is a short explanation of the terms ”hermetism” and ”hermeticism”, in accordance with the definition of A. Faivre (Hermetism. Encyclopaedia of Religion. ed. M. Eliade, Chicago, 1986). Then it follows a presentation of the legend of Hermes and its writings in the way it was probably known after the 1st C.E. (I,1-2). The greater part of the first chapter is dedicated to a detailed description of the arguments of all religious and philosophical hermetic writings, preserved in Greek, Latin, Coptic and Armenian. These texts are known to the specialists as Corpus Hermeticum, Asclepius, Stobaei Hermetica, Fragmenta Hermetica, Nag Hammadi Hermetica, Definitiones Hermetis ad Asclepium and Fragmenta Vindobonensia (I, 3).
The second chapter is devoted to the testimonies of the ancient authors about hermetism. Firstly, the knowledge of the classical authors (up to the 1st B.C.) of the Egyptian god Thot-Hermes is discussed. The references of Herodotus, Plato and Cicero are cited (II, 1). After that there are comments on the testimonies of some Christian apologists like Athenagoras, Tertullian and Lactantius, and also on the information we find in pagan writers like Zosimus and Iamblichus. This part ends with a presentation of the testimonies in the works of St. Augustine and St. Cyril of Alexandria. We may conclude, that the opinion of the Christian authors in respect of Hermes is at least twofold. Some of them (Lactantius, Cyril) admire Hermes as the ”first philosopher”, and perceive him as a real Egyptian prophet of Christ.
Others, especially Augustine, critisize him for his interest in magic and astrology, and ascribe his prophetic abilities to his contact with impure demonic powers. As to the pagan authorities, they see in him the greatest personification of the old and glorious Egyptian wisdom and, naturally, the inventor of philosophy and of all worldly and occult sciences and arts (II, 2). The last paragraph is a brief survey of the Byzantine testimonies. Most interesting are the references of Psellus, who, as far as we know, is the first European reader of Hermes after the disappearance of the writings by the middle of the 6th CE.
The third chapter tries to make a systematic presentation of the hermetic doctrine. The observation (made by Bousset some 80 years ago), that in hermetism can be found two almost antithetical world-views, is accepted without objection. On this ground a comparison is made between the conceptions of the creator, the world and the soul in the ”optimistic” treatises and in the ”pessimistic” ones (III, 1-3).
The theme of the fourth chapter is the history of the studies on hermetism from the beginning of this century. The interest of philologists and historians of philosophy and religion is directed to the following problems. Was there in the late antiquity something like a hermetic church, or hermetic school of philosophy, or hermetism was only a kind of sophisticated religious literature, addressed to educated people? Where are to be sought the origins of religious and philosophical dogma of the hermetists? How to deal with the firmly established (since Bousset and Scott) distinctions between the different trends in hermetism, such as the ”technical” and the ”learned” one, and the ”optimistic” and ”pessimistic” one? The work of every scholar in this field is oriented to some of these problems and suggests one of the possible solutions. So, for example, R. Reitzenstein seeks to demonstrate the connection between hermetism and the Egyptian, or, in a later study, the Iranian mythological traditions. In his learned “Die Hellenistische Mysterienreligionen” he posits the hermetic ideas in the context of the very complicated religious life of that period. He is also the first 20th-century editor of hermetic texts. The evolution of hermetic studies after him can be seen as a series of attempts to develop his work and to examine his hypotheses (IV, 1).
So some scholars like Scott and more recently Mahe, are concerned chiefly with the editing and commenting on the extant texts. Others, like Heinrici, Dodd and Grese, are interested in the detailed study of the textual parallels between the hermetic treatises and the Bible. In the third place there are historians of the religious literature (Striker, Derchain) who are interested in the possibility to prove the ”Egyptian hypothesis” of the origin of the hermetism. A special attention is paid to the work of A.-J. Festugiere, a highly learned and undoubtedly the most productive author in the field of the academic studies on hermetism. He was interested, just like Reitzenstein, in all the aspects of this phenomenon. It can be said, that while the German scholar simply poses the questions, Festugiere gives a full and abundantly supported answer to them. The results of his life-long studies on the subject can be summarized as follows. Firstly, Festugiere says, there was no such thing as hermetic church, although it may be supposed, that some kind of schools of hermetic philosophy existed in the big cities of the Roman Empire.

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