Hermetics of John Estobeo-Iohannes Stobaeus

 

Hermetics of John Estobeo-Iohannes Stobaeus

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes. 

'Apart from the Corpus, the Stobaen fragments and the Vienna and Nag Hammadi papiri, we have three other sources of information about the Doctrines of philosophical Hermetism.' (1)

The Hermetic Tradition has valuable documents and fragments—Oxford and Vienna—which begin to shed light on unknown Books of Hermes that include Zosimus of Panopolis the Pseudo Manetho and others. 

Clement of Alexandria describes processions of Egyptian priests carrying the Books of Hermes (2 Books of Music and Hymns and 4 Books of Astrology) and states, there are 42 Books of Hermes, 36 containing Egyptian philosophy and 6 of medical treatises. 

Let us remember how in the first centuries of the formation of the Church, Christian scholars and doctors invoke as faithful witness, together with the Sibyls, of the birth of Christ, ancient hermetic manuscripts announcing the arrival of Christ. 

Lactantius, recalls the 'Gentile' Hermes, visonary and prophet who is ahead of Christianity being older than Plato or Pythagoras. 

Lactantius calls Hermes the 'Prophet of the Gentiles'. (2)

Iamblicus states that there were many people who wrote under that name of the Hermes. 

In fact, Manethon argues that Hermes had 36,525 volumes of books and manuscripts and Seleucus raises the existence of 20,000 books. 

Surely here in the current and millenary tradition of Thoth, which are discovered and developed in Hermetic writings and original source of the fragments of Estobeo, Cyril, the Suidas and Lactantius. 

The treatises of Estobeo's or the Hermetic Stobean is a school of treatises of hermetic-technical philosophy in the form of dialogue. 

Needless to say, John of Estobeo derives his name from Stobi in northern Greece in Macedonia. 

It is likely that already early in the fifth century AD, he managed to compile his anthology and fragments. (3)

That anthology according to Photius (Patriarch of Constantinople in the 9th century), was divided into 4 Books: Fragments, Sayings and Precepts which are later regrouped into 2 titles and in the Florilegium = Anthology of Stobaeus.

Likewise, the writings and treatises are classified in a heterogeneous body of philosophical, magical-theurgical, astrological, theological and alchemical nature. 

They are not all uniform as they stem from Egyptian, Greek, Gnostic and Jewish ideas.

'We have a good example of such an anthology in the work of Stobaeus(early fifth century?) -though the Anthologium's forty Hermetic texts, including as they do such lengthy items as the Koré Kosmou(S.H.xxiii), almost deserve to be called a collection in their own right.' (4) 

This tradition is united in a chain of gold by strengthening relations with mystery spiritual sources: Greek, Neoplatonic, Roman, Gnosis and Plato. 

(Persian, Stoic and Alexandrian influences)

On the other hand, Cyril of Alexandria mentions 15 Books of the 'Hermaic' that were composed in Athens. 

Likewise, Plato expresses that he does not know if Hermes is a god, a daimon or divine Man, and that he had discovered mathematics and astronomy. (5) 

Cicero expresses that it was the Thoth Hermes who bestowed upon the Egyptians their laws and letters. 

For the ancient Egyptian tradition is Thoth lawyer, scribe advisor, magician and physician, God of writing and magic-theurgical. 

For the Greeks at a certain time, he was a messenger and interpreter of messages and certainly... sly. 

'The one who [made] the four quarters of the heaven and the four foundations of the earth.' (6)

Hermes is the Logos, reason, word and verb of God following the trajectory and tradition of the Thoth-Hermes, called 'the heart of RA, the tongue of Atoum and the throat of God', in that very place... whose Name hides. 

Curiously, Hermes-Logos-Word already appears as the creator of the world in the Strasbourg Cosmogony. (7) 

That hermetic philosophy that is transmitted teacher-disciple is the dialectical exercise that John of Estobeo uses for the teaching= (Stobaei Hermetica), of his son and student. 

Let us remember that formally it is Hermes who initiates his disciple Asclepius and his son Tat. 

As we have seen Thoth-Hermes expresses the divine Word and sacred Word of power that comes from the mouth of Thoth-Hermes and his mercurial tongue. 

'Thoth will come before us later as god of script and magic, and as guardian of the dead.' (8) 

A pedagogical form of transmission of wisdom and way of attaining 'gnosis' and ascetic life. Tradition of Thoth the Trismegistos, Termaximus:

'What burns from his heart has inmediate existence; what he pronounces exists for Eternity'. (Temple of Denderah, mid-first century CE) 

Thoth Hermes teaches the Sacred Word and for Iamblicus:

'Hermes, who rules the Word, is, according to ancient Tradition, common to all priests; it is he who directs the true science; he is the One in All. That is why our ancestors attributed all the discoveries to him and put his works under the name of Hermes.' 

(Iamblicus) 

Correct Way of Life through the transmission of 'philosophical texts'. 

It is a dialogue between them, in which the adept-learner recognizes their path to spiritual enlightenment. 

John of Estobeo=Iohanees of Stobi (in Macedonia), is known or almost unknown, for his immense anthology work of ancient texts of philosophy, history, oratory, Greek poets and public figures.

It includes its Anthology works by Iamblicus, Porphyry and the Hermetics, excluding 'all' Christian authors. 

The famous Stobaei Hermetica. 

Undoubtedly, an immense anthology of fundamental information from Greek poets, historians, speakers, doctors, public figures and philosophers to achieve the formal and spiritual education of your child. 

A teacher-disciple pedagogical method for the rigorous instruction of his son Septimus.

'Although specialists do take them all into account, the recent English translations of the Corpus Hermeticum do not include the important and substantial Greek excerpts of Hermetic dialogues found in the Stobaean Anthology.' (9) 

There are five groups of Hermetics and Sacred Books of the Thoth-Hermes= (Greek: Ἑρμῆς), which are unknown to many within the Corpus Hermeticum. 

The first of these, which we will study briefly, is the group of the Stobaeus Collection characterized by elements of theology and philosophy and the essential doctrine of astrological Edecan's.

It is unfortunate that even for the most well-versed and learned researchers of the 'Academy' Hermes still follows, being an astonishing and total fiction = 'fictional character' and 'myth'. (10) 

It can also be assumed that they are basic and essential teachings of philosophical Hermeticism based on the ancient astrology of Thoth-Hermes. 

Indeed, let us remember that the Nile Valley reflected for the ancient priest-astronomers the 'Celestial Egypt', and the man and Son of Hermes constitute the same correspondences on the scale of an image of the macrocosm.

 'This picture of the world is developed, as far as the heavens are concerned, in Fragment VI of Estobeus, taken from the General Readings of Hermes, almost entirely lost.' (11) 

The Golden Chain of hermetic transmission has other valuable sources of doctrinal approximation and study. 

Apart from the Corpus we have the fragments of Vienna and those of Stobeo=Stobaeus= (early fifth century), the Papyrus of Nag Hammadi or the Kore Kosmou and the rich Armenian sources. 

As can be seen the Egyptian Tradition is assimilated with the Greeks and Romans of old Egypt.

'The Great Geometer and Worker has made the world, not with his hands, but with his Word. 

You have to represent it to you as Present and Always Existing, as the author of All, The One and the All, the one who has created the Beings by His Will.' 

HERMES El Crater or La Monada, Hermes Trismegistus to his Son Tat. 

There is an ancient and Ancestral Divine Operation or Primordial Tradition = Pistis Sophia. 

Truth and Reality. 

(Stobean Hermetica 2.A) 

An incorruptible Old Wisdom = (Prisca theologia), jealously guarded, tightly maintained and firmly held, beautiful Golden Chain through a close Ritual and Ceremonial Theurgical Relationship Ancient, Initiatory and Secret. 

It is the tradition that Estobean initiates to his son out of love for humanity and total devotion to God. 

(Stobean Hermetica 2.1) 

Devotion and humility to God is the way to know the truth and its nature. 

(Stobean Hermetica 1:3) 

In this way, it is a spiritual relationship with certain beings and spirits related to the same origin of the Primordial Origin of the Divine Light. 

In reality that Ancestral Truth is–essentially–Esoteric, Hermetic, Kabbalistic Tradition of noble and secure Orphic roots. 

A hermetic philosophy of continuous movement in two forms: movement of celestial and terrestrial bodies and soul energies. 

(S.H.3 of the soul) 

Poimandres proclaims: 'A Holy Word descended from the Light upon Nature and a Pure Fire rose from the wet Nature to the heights; it was subtle, penetrating and at the same time Active.' 

(Poimandres I)

Direct source of the Primordial Tradition that spiritually 'binds' that legendary Pure Theurgical Talismanic Magic of Divine Operation. 

The one that manages to be able to approach in a leisurely way the genuine process of transformation and ascension. 

It is the astrological and hermetic tradition that Estobeo inherits and that we see in his Fragment VI. 

'Fragment VI, handed down to us by Stobaeus, documents to close link between theology and astrology in Hermeticism. It includes a discussion of astrological themes in which Hermes advises Tat regarding ''the zodiac, which is also called the 'circle of animals,' the sun and the moon, and the orbit of each of them, ''and discussion continues with instruction on the thirty-six decans.' (12)

This ancestral wisdom is a formal part of the compilation of Florilegios that Estobeo gathers for the education of his son Septimus. 

However, it is licit to suppose that all those sublime and sweet characteristics of divine bonds, uttered among the songs and Theurgical Magic Spells of proven Primordial Secret Revelation, are gathered in it. 

In the end, we can say, it is Immaculate Ancestral Wisdom and framed within a proven and rigorous process of assimilation and reception. 

Old and Ancestral enviable model of intermediate tradition of sacred and traditional devotional knowledge. 

'He too was a Man, of great antiquity, and totally imbued with all kinds of learning, thus his knowledge of many things and Arts acquired for him the name of Trismegistos.' (13)

'Everything that exists in the Universe is under the Dominion of the Planets and from Them receives its particular quality.' (14) 

For Estobeo the movement of the soul is directed towards spiritual ascension and the refinement of the spirit and its energies through total surrender and devotion through study and meditation. 

'Hermes has discovered, I do not know how, almost the whole truth.'

 (Lactantius) 

Hermetics of John Estobeo-Iohannes Stobaeus 

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes. 

Bibliography: 

1. Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes, Princeton, 1986.p.9.

2. Lactantius:De ira Dei, XI. 

3. Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica:Introduction xxxii. 

4. Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes, Princeton, 1986, p.4. 

5. Plato:(Philebus 18b) 

6. P.G.M.Magic Greek Papyrus, 7.551-57. 

7. Hermes-Logos in: Seneca On Benefits:4.7; Justinian, first Anthology 1.22; Plutarch, Isis and Osiris,54(Moralia37b in David Litwa Hermetica II,p.4. 

8. Patrick Boylan, Thoth The Hermes of Egypt, Oxford, 1922, p.21.

 9. Kevin Van Bladel, The Arabic Hermes, Oxford, 2009, p.9. 

10. M. David Litwa, Hermetica II, Cambridge,2018, Introduction p.2. 

11. Jean Doresse, Egyptian-Secrecy, p.119. 

12. Florian Ebeling, The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus, Cornell, 12007, p.10. 

13. Lactancio,Div.Inst.,I,vi. 

14. Enrique Cornelio Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Natural Magic, Chapter XXX, p.129.