Abraham, Thrice-Great Hermes, and Plato

Last updated on: June 9, 2010 at 9:55 am by gwesley

Abraham, Thrice-Great Hermes, and Plato 2010-06-09T09:55:26-05:00 gwesley

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In my last post I wondered aloud whether Nephi Sails the Ship of State. Since the Republic itself has a sequel, I hope it won’t be too much if I offer another Platonic reading of some of our Judeo-Christian scripture.

References to ‘intelligence’ and ‘intelligences’ in the D&C, Book of Abraham, and King Follett discourse have attracted and continue to attract a fair amount of attention. In the 19th and 20th centuries, not a few Mormons got themselves into trouble for attempting to explain what these esoteric terms mean. With its general paucity of information about pre-mortal existence, the Bible is not much help in answering the question.

Platonic tradition, on the other hand, whether of the Greco-Roman, Hermetic, Jewish, Gnostic, Christian, or Islamic variety, is quite rich in this area. For instance, in the writings of Plato himself, the soul is divided into different parts, the highest being the rational part (logistikon, logos) or mind/intellect (nous), and the soul is associated with the stars.

Souls are loosely associated with stars in the Myth of Er that concludes the Republic. After having chosen their next life and awaiting reincarnation from a take-off point in space (the Moon?), they are said to be transported in different directions into generation, like shooting stars. But what about the first incarnation? And where did the soul come from?

A stronger soul-star association is found in Plato’s Timaeus, sequel to the Republic, which begins with the tale of Atlantis and the claim that the city of Athens and the city of Sais in Egypt were both founded by the goddess Athena/Neith. An Egyptian priest tells this to Solon. Careful to specify that Athens was founded a full millennium before Sais, he compares the organization and learning of his city to that of Solon’s, noting that everything Athena taught the Greeks she also taught the Egyptians.

It’s not exactly clear how the beginning of the Timaeus relates to the rest of it which deals with creation. At any rate, following his formation of the world soul and the universe on the model of a divine pattern, the demiurge addresses his offspring, the young gods. He charges them with the formation of humans, animals, and plants, while he explains that he himself will provide the highest part of the human soul, to be located in the brain, with soul substance or seed also running down along the spinal column. The demiurge proceeds to stir up a batch of human mind in the same mixing bowl he used for the world soul, though the recipe isn’t quite the same. Once ready, he apportions the mixture so as for there to be one human soul to each star. Next he instructs the souls that if they prove just during their first, common incarnation he assigns them, they will return to their star; otherwise they will be reincarnated. The demiurge then sows them among the stars.

Writing sometime later, Philo takes the Timaeus and the Jewish creation account together. So the demiurge’s contribution to the human being occurs at Genesis 2:7, with the breath or spirit (pneuma) of life given by God to Adam functioning as the rational part of the soul, the mind/intellect.

Outside the context of Judaism and Christianity, it makes little sense for a Platonist to refer to the highest part of the soul as breath or spirit. Especially in Hermetic literature, the preferred term is mind/intellect. Though this term is found in the works of Plato and those of his more traditional Middle- and Neo-Platonic successors, it is not nearly as common as in the Hermetica.

Some of the Hermetic writings purport to have been originally composed in Egyptian and translated into Greek, badly. Even such Neo-Platonists as Iamblichus claimed that Egypt was the fount of Greek philosophy. In Christian hands, the Hermetica were read as Egyptian prophesies of divine truth. Throughout late antiquity and the Middle Ages, Hermes Trismegistus was believed to be a near contemporary of Moses and predecessor of Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato. Famously, when a Greek manuscript of the Corpus Hermeticum was rediscovered in 1460, Ficino was told to stop working on his Latin translation of Plato and devote his time to the writings of this much older Egyptian sage.

Together with the question of their native Egyptian heritage, the compositional date of the Hermetic literature has become a volatile issue in (post)modernity. In the early seventeenth century, Causabon argued that the Corpus Hermeticum was no older than Christianity let alone Plato. More recently, scholars like Walter Scott, Arthur Darby Nock, and A.-J. Festugière have also considered Hermes’ dialogues to be dependent on Plato’s. This was and probably still is the general academic consensus, at least among classicists.

From another perspective, however, that of Martin Bernal, for instance, who wrote Black Athena, and of afrocentric groups, the Corpus Hermeticum represents the philosophy that the Greeks appropriated from (black) Egyptians. Thus, to argue that these texts and the concepts contained in them are less Egyptian than Greek and were written/developed after Plato is to make a potentially racist statement, however unwitting.

Classicists and afrocentrists alike are foiled in the Book of Abraham, where it turns out that Platonic and Hermetic concepts of pre-mortal intelligences associated with the stars actually originated with the patriarchs. Abraham tells us that the Egyptians tried to “imitate” the patriarchal order (1:26). Not only does he have antediluvian records dealing with “the beginning of creation, and also of the planets, and of the stars” (1:31), Abraham learns about stars and intelligences first hand. God teaches him about them before he goes to Egypt so that he “may declare all these words” (3:15). Unfortunately, the text of the Book of Abraham breaks off before he arrives there, but in facsimile 3 we see him in Egypt “reasoning upon the principles of Astronomy.”

Uncategorized

Previous Post

June 9, 2010

Review: Mormon Scholars Testify

Next Post

June 13, 2010 Are Mormons Ready for an LDS Study Bible?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 2013 Scriptures Administrative Apologetics Atonement Bible Book of Mormon Book Review BYU Doctrine Extra-Biblical Literature Family Feminism Guests History LDS Church History Leadership Marginalia Metaphysics Mormon Culture Mormon Studies Personal Issues Political Philosophy Politics Scripture Sexuality Speculation Spotlights Studying Religion Ten Tidbits The Tenure Track Theology Tips on Applying Series Tips on Being an Independent Scholar Uncategorized

Select a Month June 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 July 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz