Divine Mysticism Influences

DIVINE MYSTICISM INFLUENCES

ON GREEK PHILOSOPHY

CONTINUED BY

ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY & MYSTICISM

By: Ahmad Y. Samantho, S.IP

Master’s Degree Programe of

Islamic College for Advance Studies (ICAS) – Jakarta,

Desember 2003

Islamic College for Advance Studies (ICAS) – Jakarta

DIVINE MYSTICISM INFLUENCES FROM PRE-GREEK ERA TO ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY & MYSTICISM

By: Ahmad Y. Samantho, S.IP

Student of Master’s Degree Programe of

Islamic College for Advance Studies (ICAS) – Jakarta, 2003

Preface

As we believe in Islamic Religion, the truths and wise (Sophia /al-Hikmah) that grasped by human thought and consciousness are came from the same source, the Divine Sources, God (Allah) , The Ultimate Knowledgeable. Hence, from that conviction, we can eksplore the affirmation proofing in a long history of philosophy, since pre-Greek (Bizantium) Civilization era, Ancient Greek era and Islamic Civilization in The Medieval until Now.

Dr. Mulyadi Kartanegara said that Pythagoras (570-497 BC) had learn many things from ‘Shahabah Nabi Sulaeman as.’ (The Best Friends of Prophet & King Solomon), and his follower, Empedocles (495-435 BC ) also learn from Lukman al-Hakim (the ‘Wise Man’ mentioned in al Qur’an), and Socrates (469-399 BC) learn many wise & knowledge from Hermes (Nabiyullah Idris as, the Prophet of God).

However, we can understand why very many Islamic philosophers and scholars can received and absorbed several particular thought (philosophy) from Ancient Greek Philosopher, adopt them, intermingled, syntesized and develop with ‘Islamic Teaching’ (Al Qur’an & Sunnah Rasulullah Muhammad SAAW).

We can see that this chains of philosopher for a long history as follow has a ‘red thread’: Hermes, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, Aristoteles, Plotinus, Al-Kindi, Ibn Sina (Avicena), Ibn Rush (Averous), Ibn Arabi, Sukhrawardi, Mulla Shadra, Thabathabai, Ayatullah Imam Khomeini, Murthada Muthahhari, Muhammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi, Hairi Yazdi.

Here, in my treatise, I want to shows and look overwiew this kind of mystical path or devine-religious path that came from The Ultimate God a long the history of human kind.

Hermes & Hermetism[1]

A primarily religious amalgam of Greek philosophy with Egyptian and other Near Eastern elements, Hermetism takes its name from Hermes Trismegistus, ‘thrice greatest Hermes’, alias the Egyptian god Thoth. Numerous texts on philosophical theology and various occult sciences, ascribed to or associated with this primeval figure, were produced in Greek by Egyptians between roughly AD 100 and 300, and are a major document of late pagan piety. Reintroduced into Western Europe during the Renaissance by Muslim scholars, they provided considerable inspiration to philosophers, scientists and magicians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Hermetic literature can be divided into philosophical treatises, on God, the world and man, and technical writings on astrology, alchemy and other branches of occult science. The philosophical Hermetica comprise principally: (1) the Asclepius or Perfect Discourse, a longish work surviving in a Latin translation; (2) the Corpus Hermeticum proper, a Byzantine collection of fourteen treatises, translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino in 1462-3 and published in 1471 under the title Pimander (after Poemandres, its first and most important treatise), to which three further pieces were later added; and (3) some twenty-nine extracts in the anthology compiled in the fifth century AD by John Stobaeus. The Stobaeus Hermetica vary in length from single sentences (12, 27, 28) to an important extract (23, from the Kor0 Kosmou or Pupil of the Cosmos) as long as anything in the Corpus Hermeticum.

The philosophical treatises take the form of dialogues, or rather, since disputation and argument are notably absent from them, of expositions, usually although not always by Hermes himself, to one or more trusting disciples. Their scenery and dramatis personae - Hermes, his son Tat, Asclepius (alias Imouthes or Imhotep), King Ammon and so forth - are Egyptian and ancient, investing these treatises, like so many other writings of the period, with the authority of primeval 0revelation. Their philosophy - that is, their cosmology and metaphysics - is a contemporary ‘Middle Platonism’ (see Platonism, Early and Middle), the only philosophical idiom available in late antiquity to anyone attempting a non-mythological treatment of these subjects. (There are also gnostic and Jewish elements, notably in Poemandres and Corpus Hermeticum III.) Their purpose, however, is not strictly philosophical. A treatise may start with some standard question of school philosophy - for example, motion (II), death (VIII), or intellection and sensation (IX). But the answer, often garbled, is seldom more than a starting point for meditation and homily. The aim is not to offer some new, coherent and discussible account of God, the world and man so much as to satisfy a religious need, common enough in this period, for a saving ‘gnostic’ illumination. The purpose of the Hermetist teacher - and the treatises tend to be stylized as lessons in a course of ever more esoteric instruction - is to generate a gn>sis, an intuitive knowledge of god and self, vouchsafed to very few, an answer in cosmic terms to the perennial question ‘What am I here for? What am I?’. The instruction finds its fulfilment in intellectual illumination, as the pupil becomes aware of being a particle of divine life and light (Poemandres 21) and the teacher can say ‘You have come to know yourself and our common Father’ (Corpus Hermeticum XIII 22).

In this context, doctrinal consistency and lucid theory are minor considerations. There are numerous contradictions between the treatises - one text admits as much (Corpus Hermeticum XVI 1). Some of these go back to Plato’s own works, to the contrast there between the Timaeus, with its picture of mankind placed in a good world by a good god - an optimism strongly endorsed by the Asclepius and by Corpus Hermeticum II, V-VI, VIII-XII, XIV, XVI - and the gloomier account of our human condition in the Phaedo and the Phaedrus, reflected in the severe pessimism of Poemandres, Corpus Hermeticum IV, VII, XIII and Kor0 Kosmou, when they dismiss the material world as a ‘totality of evil’ (Corpus Hermeticum IV 6), into which the soul has fallen as a punishment for original sin (Kor0 Kosmou 24), or in consequence of some primeval blunder (Poemandres 14). But the inconsistencies hardly matter. The Hermetic treatises are documents of spirituality, not philosophy. Scholarship has come increasingly to see them as translations, as products of a native Egyptian religious tradition (the very fact that they are attributed to Hermes-Thoth is confirmation of their author’s religious loyalties) rewritten in the language of Middle Platonism.

Thoth was, among other things, the god of wisdom, knowledge and science. In Roman Egypt numerous works were ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus on technical subjects such as astrology, alchemy and the hidden properties of plants. His name is constantly invoked in magical papyri. These disciplines all rested on a principle, widely held in late antiquity and briefly sketched in the Asclepius (2-7, 19), of cosmic ‘sympathy’. Linking things on earth to each other and to things in heaven is a nexus of largely hidden sympathies and antipathies which can be used to explain, predict and manipulate the course of events. The philosophical Hermetica, where mentioning these occult sciences, give them a high religious colouring. Magic and philosophy alike, says the Kor0 Kosmou (68), nourish the soul. Both are ways to salvation.

Hermes was remembered as a magician, and also as a primeval sage, a younger contemporary of Moses, who foretold the coming of Christianity. During the Middle Ages, numerous works in Arabic and Latin were produced under his name. The arrival of Corpus Hermeticum in the West created something of a sensation: Ficino interrupted his life’s work on Plato and Plotinus to translate it. A vastly older figure than Plato and a vastly purer exponent of the ‘original theology’ (prisca theologia), Hermes lent authority and respectability to the active interest which Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and others took in magic. The broad Hermetic vision of the world as a network of hidden forces waiting to by discovered and exploited by the magus was to be an inspiration to such luminaries of sixteenth-century science as Paracelsus, whose experiments in alchemy led to the discovery of laudanum, and Giordano Bruno, whose Hermetic interests ended

with him burnt at the stake. The antiquity, and hence the authority, of Hermes Trismegistus received a fatal blow in 1614 when Isaac Casaubon demonstrated, on linguistic and other grounds, that the Hermetic writings could only be a late forgery. Hermes still had admirers and readers in the seventeenth century, including the Cambridge Platonists and even Isaac Newton. But Casaubon remained unrefuted; and the Hermetic writings lost their appeal to all save lovers of the occult and, in the twentieth century, historians of religion.

Gnosticism[2]

Gnosticism comprises a loosely associated group of teachers, teachings and sects which professed to offer ‘gnosis’, saving knowledge or enlightenment, conveyed in various myths which sought to explain the origin of the world and of the human soul and the destiny of the latter. Everything originated from a transcendent spiritual power; but corruption set in and inferior powers emerged, resulting in the creation of the material world in which the human spirit is now imprisoned. Salvation is sought by cultivating the inner life while neglecting the body and social duties unconnected with the cult. The Gnostic movement emerged in the first and second centuries AD and was seen as a rival to orthodox Christianity, though in fact some Gnostic sects were more closely linked with Judaism or with Iranian religion. By the fourth century its influence was waning, but it persisted with sporadic revivals into the Middle Ages.

1 Basic doctrines

Gnosticism can best be understood in terms of family likeness. One can identify characteristic features, most of which are found in most Gnostic sects; but the attempts often made to define

Gnosticism in terms of universally present common features can only approximate to the truth.

Characteristic tenets include:

1 A radical dualism, contrasting a transcendent realm of pure spirit with the world of gross matter. The human makeup likewise presents a sharp contrast of spirit and sensuality, with a corresponding distinction between the ‘elect’ or spiritual people and the rest of society, though some systems introduce an intermediate grade.

2 A creator presented as imperfect or evil, though commonly identified with the God of Judaism, and sharply contrasted with the supreme divinity, who is his ultimate source. His existence is explained by various myths depicting events prior to the creation and claiming to show how evil dispositions arose by accumulated lapses among the heavenly powers.

3 The human spirit originated in the higher realm, but is now imprisoned in the form of a soul within the material body. Many Gnostic sects taught that the same spirit can live many lives. But it is often seen as predestined to salvation or the reverse.

4 The Gnostics’ aim was to liberate their spirits from all attachment to material things, and thereby return with the elect minority to ultimate happiness. Most Gnostic sects therefore adopted a puritan ethic, though some held that all physical actions are contemptible and approved licentious conduct as a sign of liberation.

2 Definitions, origins and dating

‘Gnosticism’ is a term coined by modern scholars. Ancient writers allude to ‘gnosis’, that is, knowledge, especially spiritual knowledge or enlightenment. St Paul speaks disparagingly of Christians who laid claim to it (1 Corinthians 8: 1), but it was nevertheless commended by Clement of Alexandria and others. Clement also uses ‘Gnostic’ to mean a devout and instructed Christian. The Gnostic sects themselves had no common self-designation parallel to ‘Jew’ or ‘Christian’, and were commonly named after their founders. Irenaeus (c.130-c.200), however, implies that the term was appropriated by several sects, and its use was soon extended to include all similar schools.

There has been much debate about the origins of Gnosticism, whether Greek, Jewish or Iranian. It now appears that the movement was too diversified for any single-source theory to be acceptable, and many forms of it clearly presuppose an amalgamation of different cultures. Its ablest exponents, including Valentinus and Marcion (fl. c.140-60), inherit the traditions of Hellenistic Judaism, incorporating Christian elements; the rest are unlikely to interest students of

philosophy.

The problem of dating has been complicated by ill-defined terminology. It has been claimed thatGnosticism originated in Iran before the Christian movement emerged. But it now appears that he emergence of systematic Gnostic teaching is roughly contemporaneous with a parallel Christian development, though many of the ideas found in Gnosticism were current earlier. Scholars, especially in Germany, now tend to reserve the term ‘Gnosticism’ for the elaborate systems described by Irenaeus around 180 AD, for example, using ‘Gnosis’ as an inclusive term for its constituent ideas.

Mandaeism, a small Gnostic sect unnoticed by Christian writers, has attracted some attention from scholars, as the sect still survives and has preserved sacred writings of great antiquity. Its claim to derive from John the Baptist is probably unfounded.

3 Sources

For many centuries Gnosticism was known only through the writings of its Christian opponents, notably Irenaeus, Tertullian and Clement, who did however embody quotations from the works they criticized. Some later Gnostic texts of dubious value emerged in the eighteenth century, supplemented by the important Berlin Codex 8502 (discovered 1901, fully edited 1955). But thesituation was transformed by the discovery of forty-four books in codex form at Nag-Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1944 (though once again publication was delayed). Most are Coptic translations of Greek originals, some of which probably date from the first century AD. Many of them introduce biblical characters, though strongly influenced by Gnostic assumptions. Three may be mentioned in particular: the Apocryphon of John, which abounds in fanciful mythology,but was apparently authoritative and survives in several copies; the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of sayings ascribed to Jesus, isolated from their settings and accompanying actions, but sometimes presenting variant forms of canonical Gospel texts; and the so-called Gospel of Truth (Evangelium veritatis), the one item in the collection which could without absurdity be annexed to the Christian scriptures; it has no marked heretical features and offers an original meditation on the passion of Christ.