Hermes in Sasanian Iran
2.5 Hermetica in the Time of Špr I There is more to be said about the era of Šāpu-r suggesting that it was a likely time for the transmission of Hermetica into Middle Persian.87 It is to this evidence that I turn now, but emphasizing from the outset that the result is a suggestion, not a sure proof. Five centuries passed between Šāpu-r I and the earliest Arabic account of his alleged support for translations. The intervening period is generally known today as late antiquity, during which the chief religions of Western Eurasia were organized systematically with canons of scriptures, new religious hierarchies, and their own law codes. By the end of this period, much of the process of selection for preservation of the ancient Greek texts that would be passed down to us had been completed. In order to test the hypothesis of a third-century transmission of Hermetic texts or of Greek literature in general into Middle Persian, one must search for evidence not in later accounts but in the third century itself. If Šāpu-r or members of his court 87. Because so little Middle Persian literature survives, some will perhaps even question even the existence of written literature of this kind in the Middle Persian language as early as the third century. Doubts along these lines seem excessively skeptical to me. Four pieces of evidence point to the existence of a lively culture of scribes capable of reading, writing, and enjoying Middle Persian written works in this period (a, b, c, and d as follows): a. several of the Middle Persian inscriptions surviving from the third century include references to scribes (including the “signatures” of the scribes of some of the inscriptions), references to individuals bearing the title dabīrbed (chief scribe), and mention of written records (see Ahmad Tafaz.z.olī, “Dabīr i. In the pre-Islamic Period,” EIr, 6.540a-541b, for references, and a full index to the occurrence of the words for scribe and writing in the inscriptions in Gignoux 1972 under the Middle Persian entries dpyr/dpywr ‘scribe’ and npšty ‘écrit’); b. Middle Persian graffiti and a Middle Persian letter on parchment have survived at Dura-Europos (captured by the Sasanians ca 257), written by scribes who were clearly able to produce writing readily and easily (see D. N. MacKenzie, “Dura Europos. ii. The inscriptions,” EIr, 7.593b–594a, for overview and references); c. And not least, Mani wrote his Middle Persian Šābuhragān (discussed below) for Šāpu-r, and there can be no doubt that he expected someone to be able to read it. d. Experts on the Avesta generally agree that the system of letters in which the Avesta comes down to us was not created until the fourth or fifth century. However, the earlier existence of a written Avesta, in Arsacid times as claimed by Zoroastrian book tradition, has long been debated (see J. Kellens, “Avesta,” EIr, 3.35a–44a, especially 3.35b–36b; also K. Hoffman, “Avestan Language i. The Avestan Script,” EIr, 3.47a–51a, especially 3.50b). It seems especially difficult to me to disregard completely Mani’s alleged statement, preserved by his students in the Coptic translation of the originally Aramaic Kephalaia, that Zarathushtra’s disciples wrote his words down “in (books) they are reading today” (J. Kellens, op. cit., 36a; cf. Henning 1942b: 47). The relevant passage is: . . . zaradhs sax jwme alla ne[f] / [machths etauei m]NNswf aurpmeue ausxei mnn . . . / [ . . . ] etouw¥ Mmau Mpooue mpr . . . (Polotsky and Böhlig, 1940: 7.31–33) = “but [ . . . / . . . ] Zarathushtra (did not) write books. Rather, hi[s / disciples who came a]fter him, they remembered and they wrote [ . . . / . . . ] that they read today [ . . . ].” (Gardner 1995: 13, slightly modified). Even though this probably does not point to a written rendering of the Avesta itself, but to other texts, it certainly must be regarded as evidence for books among Iranian magi in the third century (Mani lived 216–276), perhaps attributed to Zoroaster. Then again, the passage just cited from the Kephalaia may be a later invention attributed to Mani. For a few more traces of literacy in the Sasanian Empire of the third century, see also Huyse 2008: 145–146.