Classical Armenian ( Armenian : գրաբար , romanized : grabar , Eastern Armenian pronunciation [ɡəɾɑˈpʰɑɾ] , Western Armenian pronunciation [kʰəɾɑˈpʰɑɾ] ; meaning "literary [language]"; also Old Armenian or Liturgical Armenian ) is the oldest attested form of the Armenian language . It was first written down at the beginning of the 5th century, and most Armenian literature from then through the 18th century is in Classical Armenian. Many ancient manuscripts originally written in Ancient Greek , Hebrew , Syriac and Latin survive only in Armenian translation.
36-608: The Hellenizing school (in Classical Armenian : Յունաբան Դպրոց, romanized Yownaban Dproc̕ ), also called the Philhellenic School , was an Armenian intellectual movement of the Early Middle Ages (5th–8th centuries). It was characterized by significant attention to Greek texts and notable translation work from Greek to Armenian , often performing literal translations from Greek. It substantially influenced
72-520: A knowledge of both the material and the spiritual world, which rendered the writings attributed to him of great relevance to those who were interested in the interrelationship between the material and the divine. The figure of Hermes Trismegistus can also be found in both Muslim and Baháʼí writings. In those traditions, Hermes Trismegistus has been associated with the prophet Idris (the Biblical Enoch ). Hermes Trismegistus may be associated with
108-849: A particular interest in Platonic or Neoplatonic literature. Consequently, they translated Euthyphro , the Apology of Socrates , the Minos , the Laws , and the Timaeus . They also translated Aristotelian texts, such as On the Universe , On Virtues and Vices , the Categories , or On Interpretation . Additionally, translated works included the Hermetica attributed to Hermes Trismegistus , Zeno of Citium 's On Nature , or
144-499: Is a legendary Hellenistic period figure that originated as a syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth . He is the purported author of the Hermetica , a widely diverse series of ancient and medieval pseudepigraphica that laid the basis of various philosophical systems known as Hermeticism . The wisdom attributed to this figure in antiquity combined
180-571: Is from the early centuries AD) corroborate the view that Thrice-Great Hermes originated in Hellenistic Egypt through syncretism between Greek and Egyptian gods (the Hermetica refer most often to Thoth and Amun). The Hermetic literature among the Egyptians, which was concerned with conjuring spirits and animating statues, inform the oldest Hellenistic writings on Greco- Babylonian astrology and on
216-570: Is known to us as Hermes Trismegistus on account of being the greatest priest, philosopher, and king. Another explanation, in the Suda (10th century), is that "He was called Trismegistus on account of his praise of the trinity, saying there is one divine nature in the trinity." During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance , the Hermetica enjoyed great prestige and were popular among alchemists. Hermes
252-564: Is the Classical Armenian consonantal system. The stops and affricate consonants have, in addition to the more common voiced and unvoiced series, also a separate aspirated series , transcribed with the notation used for Ancient Greek rough breathing after the letter: p῾ , t῾ , c῾ , č῾ , k῾ . Each phoneme has two symbols in the table. The left indicates the pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA);
288-706: Is whom the Egyptians call Theyt ". The most likely interpretation of this passage is as two variants on the same syncretism of Greek Hermes and Egyptian Thoth (or sometimes other gods): the fourth (where Hermes turns out "actually" to have been a "son of the Nile," i.e. a native god) being viewed from the Egyptian perspective, the fifth (who went from Greece to Egypt) being viewed from the Greek-Arcadian perspective. Both of these early references in Cicero (most ancient Trismegistus material
324-552: The Book of Causes . Philo , John Philoponus , and Proclus were also authors translated extensively. David the Invincible , an Armenian philosopher writing in Greek during the 5th and 6th centuries, was translated into Armenian by this school. He, along with Anania of Shirak , is considered to be a part of this school as they wrote their works in Greek during the same period. The fact that
360-617: The Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth . Greeks in the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt recognized the equivalence of Hermes and Thoth through the interpretatio graeca . Consequently, the two gods were worshiped as one, in what had been the Temple of Thoth in Khemenu, which was known in the Hellenistic period as Hermopolis . Hermes, the Greek god of interpretive communication,
396-680: The New Testament into Armenian from Greek and Syriac sources, the Armenian Church undertook significant translation work. Initially, this involved religious literature, including liturgical and patristic texts, and later extended to Greek philosophical texts. In the pursuit of translations, from the late 5th century onward in Armenia, an intellectual movement called the "Hellenizing School" emerged. This school translated numerous works of Greek literature into Armenian. Some scholars consider that
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#1732872866571432-490: The dual or optative . The first works translated by this school were Dionysius Thrax 's Grammar, Aelius Theon 's Progymnasmata , the Book of Chries , a Christian version of Aphtonius 's Progymnasmata . The school also translated a significant number of works from Greek patristic literature, including Irenaeus , which only survived in Greek fragments but had a complete version in Latin and Armenian. The translators showed
468-606: The liturgical language of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian Catholic Church and is often learned by Biblical , Intertestamental , and Patristic scholars dedicated to textual studies. Classical Armenian is also important for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language . There are seven monophthongs : There are also traditionally six diphthongs: In the following table
504-477: The Armenian language. The authors belonging to this school were involved in creating words and grammatical categories heavily inspired by Greek in Armenian. The translations carried out by the members of this school are interesting for philologists and modern researchers, as they preserved, in some cases, Greek texts lost in their original versions. Some Armenian authors writing directly in Greek, such as David
540-740: The Chinese cultural hero Fuxi were actually the Biblical patriarch Enoch . Various critical editions of the Hermetica have been published in modern academia, such as Hermetica by Brian Copenhaver . Antoine Faivre , in The Eternal Hermes (1995), has pointed out that Hermes Trismegistus has a place in the Islamic tradition, although the name Hermes does not appear in the Qur'an . Hagiographers and chroniclers of
576-704: The Hermetic writings must postdate the advent of Christianity, the whole of Renaissance Hermeticism collapsed. As to their actual authorship: ... they were certainly not written in remotest antiquity by an all wise Egyptian priest, as the Renaissance believed, but by various unknown authors, all probably Greeks, and they contain popular Greek philosophy of the period, a mixture of Platonism and Stoicism , combined with some Jewish and probably some Persian influences. The French figurist Jesuit missionary to China Joachim Bouvet thought that Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroaster and
612-550: The Invincible or Anania of Shirak , are considered to have been part of this school. In the first part of the 5th century , Armenian adopted an alphabet for writing its language, traditionally attributed to Mesrop Mashtots . Historical analysis of the reasons behind this choice varies, but is generally understood as an attempt to expedite and facilitate the evangelization of Armenia by ecclesiastical authorities. Until that moment, religious texts had been exclusively in Greek and Syriac . Following Mesrop Mashtots, who translated
648-518: The Ptolemaic Kingdom. Cicero enumerates several deities referred to as "Hermes": a "fourth Mercury (Hermes) was the son of the Nile, whose name may not be spoken by the Egyptians"; and "the fifth, who is worshiped by the people of Pheneus [in Arcadia ], is said to have killed Argus Panoptes , and for this reason to have fled to Egypt, and to have given the Egyptians their laws and alphabet: he it
684-450: The Temple of Esna , "Thoth the great, the great, the great." Many Christian writers, including Lactantius , Augustine , Marsilio Ficino , Campanella , and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola , as well as Giordano Bruno , considered Hermes Trismegistus to be a wise pagan prophet who foresaw the coming of Christianity . They believed in the existence of a prisca theologia , a single, true theology that threads through all religions. It
720-520: The alchemical procedure to make the Philosopher's Stone . This required a mixture of materials to be placed in a glass vessel which was sealed by fusing the neck closed, a procedure known as the Seal of Hermes. The vessel was then heated for 30 to 40 days. During the Renaissance , it was accepted that Hermes Trismegistus was a contemporary of Moses . However, after Isaac Casaubon 's demonstration in 1614 that
756-487: The early Armenian translations, including those by Mesrop Mashtots , are already part of this school and should be regarded as a "pre-Hellenizing School". This school significantly influenced the Armenian language, as the translators employed translation methods very close to the original Greek. Thus, they created Armenian words to translate certain Greek terms, devised prefixes and prepositions that did not exist in Armenian, and conceived of tenses and numbers , such as
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#1732872866571792-546: The epithet "thrice great" are in the Legatio of Athenagoras of Athens and in a fragment from Philo of Byblos , c. AD 64 –141. However, in a later work, Copenhaver reports that this epithet is first found in the minutes of a meeting of the council of the Ibis cult , held in 172 BC near Memphis in Egypt. Hart explains that the epithet is derived from an epithet of Thoth found at
828-539: The first centuries of the Islamic Hijrah quickly identified Hermes Trismegistus with Idris, the Islamic prophet of surahs 19.57 and 21.85, whom Muslims also identified with Enoch (cf. Genesis 5.18–24). According to the account of the Persian astrologer Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (787–886), Idris/Hermes was termed "Thrice-Wise" Hermes Trismegistus because he had a threefold origin. The first Hermes, comparable to Thoth ,
864-602: The major figures of the Bible and the Quran." The star-worshipping sect known as the Sabians of Harran also believed that their doctrine descended from Hermes Trismegistus. There are least twenty Arabic Hermetica extant. While some of these Arabic Hermetic writings were translated from Greek or Middle-Persian , some were originally written in Arabic. Hermetic fragments are also found in
900-416: The newly developed practice of alchemy . In a parallel tradition, Hermetic philosophy rationalized and systematized religious cult practices and offered the adept a means of personal ascension from the constraints of physical being. This latter tradition has led to the confusion of Hermeticism with Gnosticism , which was developing contemporaneously. Fowden asserts that the first datable occurrences of
936-679: The number "two", երկու (erku) and was originally used as a mark for the dual number. There are no dual prefixes or dual plurals in Old Armenian. In the second and third person singular of the present, the pluralization suffix -k' can be noticed again instead of the final part of the original PIE ending. The first person suffix -em comes from the PIE suffix in athematic verbs *-mi . Nouns in Old Armenian can belong to three models of declinations: o-type, i-type and i-a-type. Nouns can show more than one model of conjugation and retain all cases from PIE except for
972-503: The plural shows again the pluralization suffix -k'. The instrumental plural has two possible forms. երկարօք (erkar ōkʻ ) < *dweh₂r óysu The adjective "long" shows the same sound changes of the numeral "two": PIE *dweh₂rós / *dwoy- > erkar / erku. Hermes Trismegistus Hermes Trismegistus (from Ancient Greek : Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος , "Hermes the Thrice-Greatest"; Classical Latin : Mercurius ter Maximus )
1008-414: The plural; not only do strong cases tend to converge in the singular, but most of the weak cases converge into -oy, perhaps from the PIE dative *-oey. There is no suffix for the dual number. Adjectives in Old Armenian have at least two models of declension: i-a-type and i-type. An adjective, provided that it is not indeclinable, can show both models. Most of the declension show a great deal of syncretism and
1044-507: The right one is the corresponding symbol in the Armenian alphabet . քառ (kʻaṙ) նոյն (noyn) < *no-ēn (adverbial suffix) *h₁nó-eyni- ("over there" +"that") The pluralization suffix -k', which since Old Armenian was used form the nominative plural, could be linked to the final -s in PIE *tréyes > Old Armenian երեք (erekʻ) and չորք (čʻorkʻ), which then can point to a pre-Armenian *kʷtwr̥s (< *kʷetwóres). Otherwise, it derives from
1080-508: The translators of this movement remain very close to the original Greek , which serves as a model for their translations, makes the school interesting for modern philology. Scholars can rely on their work to try to restore the history of certain texts and even reconstruct lost originals, both for studies related to ancient philosophy , the Church Fathers , or the biblical text . Classical Armenian Classical Armenian continues to be
1116-429: The vocative, which merged with the nominative and the accusative. All the strong cases lost their suffix in the singular; by contrast, almost every weak case in the singular keep a suffix. The cases are: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, locative and instrumental. The o-type model shows an extremely simplified paradigm with many instances of syncretism and the constant use of the pluralization suffix -k' in
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1152-613: The works of Muslim alchemists such as Jabir ibn Hayyan (died c. 806 –816, cited an early version of the Emerald Tablet in his Kitāb Usṭuqus al-uss ) and Ibn Umayl ( c. 900 – c. 960 , quoted and commented upon Hermetic sayings throughout his work, among them also a commentary on the Emerald Tablet ). Bahá'u'lláh , founder of the Baháʼí Faith , identifies Idris with Hermes in his Tablet on
1188-569: Was a "civilizing hero", an initiator into the mysteries of the divine science and wisdom that animate the world; he carved the principles of this sacred science in hieroglyphs . The second Hermes, in Babylon , was the initiator of Pythagoras . The third Hermes was the first teacher of alchemy . "A faceless prophet," writes the Islamicist Pierre Lory , "Hermes possesses no concrete or salient characteristics, differing in this regard from most of
1224-477: Was also strongly associated with astrology, for example by the influential Islamic astrologer Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (787–886). The "Hermetic tradition" consequently refers to alchemy, magic, astrology, and related subjects. The texts are usually divided into two categories: the philosophical and the technical hermetica. The former deals mainly with philosophy , and the latter with practical magic, potions, and alchemy. The expression " hermetically sealed " comes from
1260-418: Was combined with Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom. The Egyptian priest and polymath Imhotep had been deified long after his death and therefore assimilated to Thoth in the classical and Hellenistic periods. The renowned scribe Amenhotep and a wise man named Teôs were coequal deities of wisdom, science, and medicine; and, thus, they were placed alongside Imhotep in shrines dedicated to Thoth–Hermes during
1296-427: Was given by God to man in antiquity and passed through a series of prophets, which included Zoroaster and Plato . In order to demonstrate the verity of the prisca theologia, Christians appropriated the Hermetic teachings for their own purposes. By this account, Hermes Trismegistus was either a contemporary of Moses , or the third in a line of men named Hermes, i.e. Enoch , Noah , and the Egyptian priest king who
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