The Pseudo-Hermetic Rebuke of the Soul in Premodern Arabic and Persian Manuscript Traditions

Date of Award

Spring 1-1-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Religious Studies

First Advisor

Zadeh, Travis

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the composition and manuscript reception of the popular Pseudo-Hermetic treatise The Rebuke of the Soul in Arabic and Persian from the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries. In the first chapter, I examine the doctrine of The Rebuke of the Soul and present evidence for the authorship of Afḍal al-Dīn Kāshānī (d.c. 610/1213-14) based on the close alignment of his philosophy with the treatise’s teachings. The second chapter surveys the extensive manuscript reception of The Rebuke of the Soul between the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries. I study the relationship between the manuscript miscellanies’ texts and their paratexts as a means of demonstrating communities’ diverse interpretations of the treatise. In addition, I investigate linguistic changes made to the treatise as it was transmitted in Arabic and Persian and Islamic and Coptic manuscripts and argue that the treatise’s doctrine remained stable in its reception across languages and confessional divides. My third and fourth chapters are case studies of the treatise’s manuscript reception in Copto-Arabic monastic miscellanies (chapter three) and a Shīrāzī encyclopedic majmūʿa (chapter four). The principal topics that I address in chapter three are how Copts incorporated The Rebuke of the Soul into monastic miscellanies whose texts offered diverse instructions on bettering oneself spiritually and morally; the process of Copts’ integration of Neoplatonic philosophy into their literature on self-refinement; and the diverging interpretation of the treatise between its reception in Coptic monastic and Coptic urban settings. The fourth chapter closes with a study of Köprülü 1589, a massive encyclopedic miscellany which contains The Rebuke of the Soul. I explore the contents and organization of the work; its provenance and patronage; its synthesis of diverse religious, philosophical, scientific, and practical disciplines from the ancient through medieval periods; and the manuscript’s reflection of a broader trend of book production for the ruling elite in 14th-century Shiraz.

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