Christian Texts and History • Re: M. Smith/ G.Scholem on Anagogy

Any potted biography of Smith stresses the influence of Gershom Scholem while Smith studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 1940-44. Smith helped polish the English text of Scholem's 'Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism' (1941); made a draft translation of Hekhalot Rabbati while there; and in his 1963 article on that text, made an early sketch of its application to a theory of Christian origins. ....

But neither of these {Swedonbourgianism or Scholem} influences account for Smith's distinctive trait, the emphasis on a ritual to achieve ascent, and thus divinization. Most particularly, and perilously, that the 'mysterion' of Mk.4.11 referred to a rite, not simply esoteric teaching. This was not initiated by Scholem. While fully aware of the experiential component of 'mystical' writings, his focus was on the development of images and ideas; there are only sparse, rather disdainful, references to 'techniques' in 'Major Trends'. Much later, when at the end of his Goldstein lectures (1957, published 1960) he finally confronted 'The Theurgic Elements of the Lesser Hekhaloth and the Magical Papyri', it's still at arm's length, for others to research. Whereas Smith, in an enthusiastic review, picked this out as the most important material.

However, also among Smith's mentors in Jerusalem was Hans Lewy. Recently uploaded onto Internet Archive was the original 1956 edition - (of a 1945 typescript; Lewy died in July that year) - of his 'Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy'. In his introduction, Lewy writes :

"The author wishes to express his thanks to Dr. S. Pines and Dr. Robert Morton Smith who have translated the bulk of the manuscript and revised the translation of the other parts."

The act of translation entails a deep engagement with the text. The central part of Lewy's book is an attempted reconstruction of the theurgists' rituals, including that of ascent and immortalization, achieved by extensive use of the Greek magical papyri. This is the same template, and the same method, that Smith eventually applied to disparate NT material to achieve his reconstruction of Christian origins, involving baptism as a magical rite of heavenly ascent.

Smith implicitly acknowledged this by describing his and Lewy's work in similar terms.

Of Lewy (1983) : "From the preserved fragments of the Oracles and the neoplatonists' occasional remarks about the Chaldaeans' practices,... [and the] magical texts found in papyri, especially the so-called 'Great Paris Magical Papyrus'... their rituals have been ingeniously reconstructed by Hans Lewy, who was the first to point out that his reconstruction was necessarily conjectural. That is not a serious objection, since all history is necessarily conjectural. The important question, in each case, is whether the conjectures are probable and well grounded. Lewy's conjectures were carefully based on texts and extremely cautious."

Statistics: Posted by billd89 — Tue May 28, 2024 7:27 pm