The Spanish Hermes and Wisdom Traditions in Medieval Iberia

The Spanish Hermes and Wisdom Traditions in Medieval Iberia PDF Author: Juan Udaondo Alegre
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1914967097
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
A captivating study of translation, adaptation, and intellectual cross-pollination that situates the Castilian Hermes in the center of medieval Mediterranean cultural exchange Hermes Trismegistus, a Hellenistic conflation of the Greek Hermes (god of interpretative wisdom) and the Egyptian Thoth (god of wisdom) was considered by many in the medieval world as the father of culture. Between c. 300 BCE - c. 1200 CE various treatises were attributed to the legendary sage, becoming known as the Hermetica - a combination of diverse philosophical and spiritual systems, addressing subjects such as alchemy, magic, and astrology. The Hermetica circulated widely, with premodern translations in Latin, Hebrew, Syriac, Persian, Arabic, and other Eastern languages. Whilst these iterations have been thoroughly researched, little attention has been paid to the Castilian Hermes, the first rendition of the wisdom traditions of Hermes Trismegistus in a Romance language. This book follows the ways in which Hermetic knowledge was brought to the Iberian Peninsula, showing how Hermes became the philosophical and spiritual inspiration for Christian, Arabic, and Jewish scholars there. Udaondo Alegre unveils the pivotal role of King Alfonso X ("the Learned") of Castile (1252-84) in creating this Spanish Hermes. Through the meticulous tracing of source texts and literary influences, the author explores the myriad ways in which Hermes crossed religious and linguistic boundaries to embody a composite intellectual identity, emblematic of medieval Spain's multicultural ethos. Alfonso's court is revealed as the site for a unique convergence of translation and interpretation that shaped a distinctly "Hispanic" Hermes.

Sufism and Theology

Sufism and Theology PDF Author: Ayman Shihadeh
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748631348
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Sufism and Theology are two major currents in Islamic thought and religious culture, and over the centuries they have displayed immense diversity and intellectual richness. This book takes a flexible and inclusive approach to these trends, revealing both how Sufis approached theological traditions and themes and practised theology themselves, and how theologians approached different aspects of Sufism. Comprising chapters by leading specialists in the field, this volume is the first to explore the historically complex interface between these two major currents, highlighting key points of tension and interaction. Taking us through an array of subjects, including hermeneutics, psychology and metaphysics, light is shed on major intellectual trends and figures from the 12th century up to the modern period. These range from al-Hallaj, Ibn 'Arabi and Ibn Sab'in, to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Ibn Taymiyya, Haydar Amuli and Ibn Kemal Pasha, from the Ottoman context to the Safavid, and from Sunnism to Shi'ism

The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus

The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus PDF Author: Christian H. Bull
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004370846
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 548

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Book Description
In The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus , Christian H. Bull argues that the actual authors behind the treatises attributed to Hermes Trismegistus were Hellenized Egyptian priests in charge of small groups practicing spiritual exercises, initiatory rituals, and devotional hymns.

Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science

Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science PDF Author: Dmitri Levitin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107105889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 695

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Book Description
A groundbreaking, revisionist account of the importance of the history of philosophy to intellectual change - scientific, philosophical and religious - in seventeenth-century England.

Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain

Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain PDF Author: Mark D. Meyerson
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268087261
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
The essays in this interdisciplinary volume examine the social and cultural interaction of Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Spain during the medieval and early modern periods. Together, the essays provide a unique comparative perspective on compelling problems of ethnoreligious relations. Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain considers how certain social and political conditions fostered fruitful cultural interchange, while others promoted mutual hostility and aversion. The volume examines the factors that enabled one religious minority to maintain its cultural integrity and identity more effectively than another in the same sociopolitical setting. This volume provides an enriched understanding of how Christians, Muslims, and Jews encountered ideological antagonism and negotiated the theological and social boundaries that separated them.

The Western Esoteric Traditions

The Western Esoteric Traditions PDF Author: Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195320999
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This introduction to the Western esoteric traditions offers a concise overview of their historical development. The author explores these traditions, from their roots in Hermeticism, Neo-Platonism, and Gnosticism in the early Christian era up to their reverberations in modern day's scientific paradigms.

The City of Hermes

The City of Hermes PDF Author: John Michael Greer
Publisher: Aeon Books
ISBN: 1912807343
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
A collection of essays on magic and occultism. The essays and articles collected in this volume sum up the first not-quite-decade of John Michael Greer's career. While they cover a range of subjects, all of them share a common theme, and were shaped by certain experiences that remade his spiritual life just before the first of them was written. They record a remarkable period in the life of a scholar, and will provide inspiration and entertainment to students of the occult as well as anyone interested in magic or writing.

Handbook of Medieval Culture. Volume 1

Handbook of Medieval Culture. Volume 1 PDF Author: Albrecht Classen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110267306
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 706

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Book Description
A follow-up publication to the Handbook of Medieval Studies, this new reference work turns to a different focus: medieval culture. Medieval research has grown tremendously in depth and breadth over the last decades. Particularly our understanding of medieval culture, of the basic living conditions, and the specific value system prevalent at that time has considerably expanded, to a point where we are in danger of no longer seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. The present, innovative handbook offers compact articles on essential topics, ideals, specific knowledge, and concepts defining the medieval world as comprehensively as possible. The topics covered in this new handbook pertain to issues such as love and marriage, belief in God, hell, and the devil, education, lordship and servitude, Christianity versus Judaism and Islam, health, medicine, the rural world, the rise of the urban class, travel, roads and bridges, entertainment, games, and sport activities, numbers, measuring, the education system, the papacy, saints, the senses, death, and money.

Greek Wisdom Literature and the Middle Ages

Greek Wisdom Literature and the Middle Ages PDF Author: Francisco Rodríguez Adrados
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039117529
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
In 13th-century Toledo, King Alfonso the Wise fostered the publication of Castilian translations of certain Arabic works that had in turn been translated from Greek and Pehlvi. In this book, which is the revised English version of the Spanish original published under the title of Modelos griegos de la sabiduría castellana y europea, the author studies four of these Castilian translations - the Libro de los Buenos Proverbios, Poridad de las Poridades or Secreto de secretos, Bocados de Oro and Historia de la Donzella Teodor - works of sapiential literature that had an enormous influence in all of Europe. Their Arabic models had been translated from Greek in Bagdad at the instigation of the great caliphs of the 9th century and also in the Fatamid court at Cairo in the 11th century. The traditional view is that this literature is simply of oriental origin, but the author believes that the models were Greek Byzantine works discovered by the Arabs in Syria and Egypt in the 7th and 8th centuries. Their true origin is to be found in the Greek sapiential literature that developed around the figures of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Alexander in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine schools of philosophy; its influence can frequently be found reflected in authors of Christian literature. A detailed study of themes, vocabulary and expressions in the works themselves confirms these origins.

Dreams in the Western Literary Tradition with Special Reference to Medieval Spain

Dreams in the Western Literary Tradition with Special Reference to Medieval Spain PDF Author: Gabriela Cerghedean
Publisher: Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This book explores the fascinating topic of dreams in Spanish Medieval literature. It focuses on three interrelated aspects: the prevalent theories developed by different schools of thought from Antiquity to late Middle Ages, the Spanish treatises, and the legal and catechist documents regarding dreams as presented by influential authors, as well as the analysis of various literary dream accounts.