Deb: thank you for the (by no means meagre) ibn Ezra reference. I was just reading Sela's translation of his Book of Reasons the other day, and wondering why there were so many references to Enoch. Glad to hear you vanquished the obstinate printer!

To dr. farr:
Thanks but you know I rely on sources that are available for everyone. I have neither JSTOR access nor unique manuscripts at hand, only a fairly good academic library and that is all. Information is in front of us, we must only pick it up.

To Martin:
Instead of hunting the outdated edition of Riess (which I do not have in copy), I would suggest you using the modern editions of Boer and Weinstock for Porphyry 38 in CCAG 5.4 (downloadable from Chris Brennan's webpage) and of Pingree for Hephaestio II 1, 2 and III 10, 5.
Regarding Yavanaj?taka, while all chapter 5 is about conception, which has a more direct link to Hellenistic theories is verse 19, as it seems to have a remark on the time of birth compared to conception. (Perhaps it is the source for Var?hamihira, B?hajj?taka 4, 21.) That is all why I picked it up. Anyway, I collected sources not only for the Trutine of Hermes but for issues on conception altogether, as they seem to be interrelated.

Deb wrote:Hi Martin
(I Have Meira Epstein's translation; p.8-12). He calls the technique "The Equations of Enoch" but Rob Hand states in a footnote that references to Hermes in the Latin are given to Enoch in the Hebrew, so these are essentially the same figures.

They were considered the same. There is an apocryphal Biblical book called "The Book of Enoch" which had several astrological references.

In Islamic circles, he was called "Idris". I know "The Picatrix" uses Idris and Hermes almost interchangeably.

Mithra6 wrote: They were considered the same. There is an apocryphal Biblical book called "The Book of Enoch" which had several astrological references.

In Islamic circles, he was called "Idris". I know "The Picatrix" uses Idris and Hermes almost interchangeably.

It should be some variant of the well known story about the secret knowledge of the Egyptians.

When Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of the Eden, they still had the memory of the knowledge they had received, so they passed it to their sons and sons of sons (Enoch is Adam's great grandson), and from their sons to Noah, and Noah sons it arrived in Babylon and in Egypt (Hermes Trismegistus).

This is the reason why they were so freaked to translate hieroglyphs during Renaissance, because they were sure that they hid the secret knowledge of the Egyptians - which from Eden directly arrived to us.

margherita

Osthanes wrote: Proclus in his Commentaries on Timaeus of Plato (vol. 2, p. 59 Kroll) cites not only Petosiris and the Egyptians but also (Pseudo-)Zoroaster. This latter is quoted again (vol. 2, p. 34). ...

After having just spent some time scouring through Proclus' commentary on the Timaeus I just wanted to point out that there is a typo in the above citation. These references occur in Proclus' commentary on Plato's Republic, not the Timaeus. Just pointing that out here to save other people some potential hassles.

Thanks for the reference though Levente.

Also, in case anyone was curious, there are French and Italian translations of this commentary, although sadly no English one, yet.

Hello Chris,

Chris Brennan wrote: Also, in case anyone was curious, there are French and Italian translations of this commentary, although sadly no English one, yet.

there is at least an Italian translation. Bompiani is a very good publishing house, Greek text and Italian version.

http://bompiani.rcslibri.corriere.it/bo ... roclo.html

Of the chapter about conception I have the part translated by Giuseppe Bezza in Arcana Mundi: "Now, the Egyptians and Zoroster state, referring to Petosiris, and Ptolemy agrees, that the horoscope in the conception becomes the place of the Moon at the delivery, while the conception Moon becomes the horoscope of the delivery. It this is true, knowing the place of the Moon at conception is possible to know the horoscope of the delivery and viceversa."

margherita

Thanks Margherita