Kircher and his Œdipus Ægyptiacus
Before the French philologist Jean-François Champollion, Egyptian hieroglyphs were an unsolved mystery, an arcane wisdom waiting to be deciphered.
Then there was Athanasius Kircher the 17th century Jesuit scholar, with his magnum opus Œdipus Ægyptiacus that purported to decipher the hieroglyphs, as Oedipus had solved the riddle of the Sphinx.
But nothing is further from the truth. Kircher never actually decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs. He regarded the hieroglyphs as pure representative of ideas, instead of sounds. To take a very frequently quoted example, he (mis)translated glyphs Dd wsir, “Osiris says” as “The treachery of Typhon ends at the throne of Isis, the moisture of nature is guarded by the vigilance of Anubis”.
Therefore, after the real meaning of the hieroglyphs is known, Kircher is often ridiculed. He had even been called as “an impostor” or “a charlatan”. This is an unfair accusation.
Just like Kircher misinterpreted the hieroglyphs, many modern writers misinterpreted Kircher himself. Many of his modern critics never actually bother to look at his Œdipus Ægyptiacus. If only one could actually read this book, one would really start to admire his eruditeness.
Kircher is a product of his own age and time, and he was one of the last of his kind, and after rationalism took over Europe, the vivid renaissance ideals are eclipsed by the cold reasons and logics of modern world. He was well versed in various languages, arts and sciences. He was, just like Leonardo Da Vinci, a polymath and a true uomo universale. Although his interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphs is faulty, his knowledge of hermeticism and neoplatonism is very genuine; and he was well learned in the Kabbalah (or as some might argue, it should be spelt as Cabala) as well. His hermetic and cabalistic renditions of the Sigillum dei Ameth and the 32 Paths of Wisdoms related to the Tree of Life are still of an interest of many modern occultists.
His interpretation of Egyptian hieroglyphs was largely based on the allegorical interpretation. As the 3rd century Plotinus said, “These pictures (i.e. the hieroglyphs) were not merely ordinary images of the things they represented but were endowed with certain symbolic qualities which revealed the ideal world of the soul.” This is a legacy of the clash of the civilization of the Egyptian civilization and Hellenism, where the Greeks and later the Romans tried to interpret Egypt in a way that they could understand. Kircher is one of the last men to inherit this legacy.
By looking at this allegorical, the same kind of interpretation applied by Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, he consistently interpreted the recurring glyphs with the same meaning and able to produce lengthy Latin prose based on a group of Egyptian texts. We must remember that Kircher’s interpretation of the hieroglyphs was not based on linguistic, but hermetic and neoplatonic cognition. Lacking a device like the Rosetta Stone is also often cited as a cause of this kind of interpretation.
View in this light, his “translation” is no more as absurd as it might had seen, and we will able to understand the reason behind his seemingly baroque and extravagant interpretation.
Kircher argued that an understanding of the philosophy and religion of the Egyptians is indispensable in interpreting the hieroglyphs. To some extent, he was right, his understanding of the philosophy and religion of the Egyptians was misguided according to our own standard, but it made perfectly logical sense in his own days. Kircher was a neoplatonist and a hermeticist, and he tried to make this prisca theologia compatible with the Catholic weltanschauung, and the result is the bizarre, surrealistic version of Egyptian history.
The real value of Œdipus Ægyptiacus is not egyptological, but philosophical. While it is true that Kircher’s interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphs is nonsensical in our modern understanding, his interpretation is meaningful in its own way. Discarding our prejudice shadowed by rationalism, we can see the beauty of his interpretation despite its seemingly error and absurdity.
For an online original copy of the Latin text, Bill Heidrick generously provide pdf version of the Œdipus Ægyptiacus on his website: http://www.billheidrick.com/Orpd/AKir/AKOeAeII.htm
Then there was Athanasius Kircher the 17th century Jesuit scholar, with his magnum opus Œdipus Ægyptiacus that purported to decipher the hieroglyphs, as Oedipus had solved the riddle of the Sphinx.
But nothing is further from the truth. Kircher never actually decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs. He regarded the hieroglyphs as pure representative of ideas, instead of sounds. To take a very frequently quoted example, he (mis)translated glyphs Dd wsir, “Osiris says” as “The treachery of Typhon ends at the throne of Isis, the moisture of nature is guarded by the vigilance of Anubis”.
Therefore, after the real meaning of the hieroglyphs is known, Kircher is often ridiculed. He had even been called as “an impostor” or “a charlatan”. This is an unfair accusation.
Just like Kircher misinterpreted the hieroglyphs, many modern writers misinterpreted Kircher himself. Many of his modern critics never actually bother to look at his Œdipus Ægyptiacus. If only one could actually read this book, one would really start to admire his eruditeness.
Kircher is a product of his own age and time, and he was one of the last of his kind, and after rationalism took over Europe, the vivid renaissance ideals are eclipsed by the cold reasons and logics of modern world. He was well versed in various languages, arts and sciences. He was, just like Leonardo Da Vinci, a polymath and a true uomo universale. Although his interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphs is faulty, his knowledge of hermeticism and neoplatonism is very genuine; and he was well learned in the Kabbalah (or as some might argue, it should be spelt as Cabala) as well. His hermetic and cabalistic renditions of the Sigillum dei Ameth and the 32 Paths of Wisdoms related to the Tree of Life are still of an interest of many modern occultists.
His interpretation of Egyptian hieroglyphs was largely based on the allegorical interpretation. As the 3rd century Plotinus said, “These pictures (i.e. the hieroglyphs) were not merely ordinary images of the things they represented but were endowed with certain symbolic qualities which revealed the ideal world of the soul.” This is a legacy of the clash of the civilization of the Egyptian civilization and Hellenism, where the Greeks and later the Romans tried to interpret Egypt in a way that they could understand. Kircher is one of the last men to inherit this legacy.
By looking at this allegorical, the same kind of interpretation applied by Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, he consistently interpreted the recurring glyphs with the same meaning and able to produce lengthy Latin prose based on a group of Egyptian texts. We must remember that Kircher’s interpretation of the hieroglyphs was not based on linguistic, but hermetic and neoplatonic cognition. Lacking a device like the Rosetta Stone is also often cited as a cause of this kind of interpretation.
View in this light, his “translation” is no more as absurd as it might had seen, and we will able to understand the reason behind his seemingly baroque and extravagant interpretation.
Kircher argued that an understanding of the philosophy and religion of the Egyptians is indispensable in interpreting the hieroglyphs. To some extent, he was right, his understanding of the philosophy and religion of the Egyptians was misguided according to our own standard, but it made perfectly logical sense in his own days. Kircher was a neoplatonist and a hermeticist, and he tried to make this prisca theologia compatible with the Catholic weltanschauung, and the result is the bizarre, surrealistic version of Egyptian history.
The real value of Œdipus Ægyptiacus is not egyptological, but philosophical. While it is true that Kircher’s interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphs is nonsensical in our modern understanding, his interpretation is meaningful in its own way. Discarding our prejudice shadowed by rationalism, we can see the beauty of his interpretation despite its seemingly error and absurdity.
For an online original copy of the Latin text, Bill Heidrick generously provide pdf version of the Œdipus Ægyptiacus on his website: http://www.billheidrick.com/Orpd/AKir/AKOeAeII.htm
posted by Nishiki at
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