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The Downfall of Classics - Part 2

Video: [link]

Resources

  • Danny and Dr. Ehrman - [youtube]
  • Classics majors at Princeton University will no longer be required to learn Greek or Latin - announcement
  • χράομαι - hopper - (use middle Liddell link) says "from the sense of consulting or using an oracle" - how christ goes back to the oracles, Homer, Medea
  • ἀμβροσία - hopper (use LSJ links)
  • χάρις - hopper (LSJ)

Notes

Euripides' Hippolytus 516 [scaife]

Φαίδρα
πότερα δὲ χριστὸν ἢ ποτὸν τὸ φάρμακον;

Phaedra
Is thy drug a salve or potion?

Surprised that christ was written in texts before the Old Testament? While looking at Euripides text, with xriw in it...

People, in life you're going to have to stand for something. Don't let them sway you. Always stand with her. Always stand with the muse. We are guardians of her song. And it doesn't matter if the consensus is "she's wrong". She is always right.

What is a christ?
What is a christ?
Christ is a drug.

Your greed is a lie.
And you are a lie.
(Said to the classics departments)

Let's look today at the oldest references to christ in the ancient pre-Septuagint texts

  1. HOMERUS Epic. Ilias {0012.001) (8 B.C.) Book 16 line 670
πολλὸν ἀπὸ πρὸ φέρων λοῦσον ποταμοῖο ῥοῇσι χρισόν τ' ἀμβροσίῃ, περὶ δ' ἄμβροτα εἵματα ἕσσον (670)
πέμπε δέ μιν πομποῖσιν ἅμα κραιπνοῖσι φέρεσθαι

  1. HOMERUS Epic. Ilias {0012.001) (8 Β.C.) Book 16 line 680
πολλὸν ἀπὸ πρὸ φέρων λοῦσεν ποταμοῖο ῥοῇσι χρισέν τ' ἀμβροσίῃ, περὶ δ' ἄμβροτα εἵματα ἔσσε· (680)
πέμπε δέ μιν πομποῖσιν ἅμα κραιπνοῖσι φέρεσθαι,

  1. HOMERUS Epic. Odyssea (0012.002) (8 B.C.) Book 1 line 262
φάρμακον ἀνδροφόνον διζήμενος, ὄφρα οἱ εἴη
ἰοὺς χρίεσθαι χαλκήρεας· ἀλλ' ὁ μὲν οὔ οἱ
δῶκεν, ἐπεί ῥα θεοὺς νεμεσίζετο αἰὲν ἐόντας,
  • pharmakon and chriesthai, ious
    • Christing a pharmakon onto his arrows

Children in Greece learned classics by learning Homer

Galen is 10% of all classic Greek texts.

  1. GALENUS Med. De locis affectis libri vi {0057.057} Volume 8 page 292 line 7
κατὰ τὰς ῥῖνας πόρους· ἐδίδουν δὲ καὶ πίνειν αὐτῷ φάρμακα, (5)
τήν τε μιθριδάτειον ὀνομαζομένην ἀντίδοτον, ἀμβροσίαν τε
καὶ ἀθανασίαν καὶ θηριακήν· ἀλλὰ καὶ οὗτος ἐνιαυτῷ ταῦτα
πίνων, ὁμοίως τοῖς φθισικοῖς ὕστερον ἀπέθανεν, ἴσως

  1. GALENUS Med. De methodo medendi libri xiv {0057.066} Volume 10 page 585 line 15
διατρίβειν τὰ πλείω καὶ πίνειν φαρμάκων ξηραινόντων τε καὶ
θερμαινόντων, ὥσπερ ἔνιοι μὲν τῆς θηριακῆς, ἔνιοι δὲ τῆς (15)
ἀμβροσίας, ἔνιοι δὲ τῆς ἀθανασίας, ἴσμεν γὰρ δήπου τὰ κα-
λούμενα πρὸς τῶν νεωτέρων ἰατρῶν φάρμακα τοῖς τοιούτοις
Galen... ambrosia pharmakon. More on this in a bit.

If you use TLG and start plugging in xriw with epi, eg, kata, anti, christing. You'll find many hits

One of the oldest examples of Christing that we have is Aphrodite being christed, with ambrosia

Homeric Hymns
Hymn 5 to Aphrodite [scaife][hopper]

60 ἐνθʼ ἥ γʼ εἰσελθοῦσα θύρας ἐπέθηκε φαεινάς·
61 ἔνθα δέ μιν Χάριτες λοῦσαν καὶ χρῖσαν ἐλαίῳ
62 ἀμβρότῳ, οἷα θεοὺς ἐπενήνοθεν αἰὲν ἐόντας,
63 ἀμβροσίῳ ἑδανῷ, τό ῥά οἱ τεθυωμένον ἦεν.
64 ἑσσαμένη δʼ εὖ πάντα περὶ χροῒ εἵματα καλὰ

60 There she went in and put to the glittering doors, and there the Graces
61 christed her with heavenly oil such as blooms upon the bodies of the eternal
62 gods — oil divinely sweet, which she had by her, filled with fragrance. And
63 laughter-loving Aphrodite put on all her rich clothes,

Christing with ambrosia

What is ambrosia? It's a food. A communion that I am going to eat. Why? Because the ambrosia makes me a god. What is ambrosia?

Look back above at the Galen...

  • ἀμβροσίαν (ambrosia) - see antidoton...? look at the word right before ambrosia! Theriac, Mithradates, Athanasian. And ambrosia! It's right in there with them. It's a drug similar to Theriac, that panacea immortality drug that Mithradates, Andromachus, and Galen were creating. Homer is writing about Ambrosia for Aphrodite

We want reality.
The texts give us reality.

Euripides' Hippolytus 516 [scaife]

Φαίδρα
πότερα δὲ χριστὸν ἢ ποτὸν τὸ φάρμακον;

Phaedra
Is thy drug a salve or potion?

Is this drug a salve/christ (christos) or a drink/potable (potera)?

Look above it for harin: [scaife]

Τροφός
εἴ τοι δοκεῖ σοι, χρῆν μὲνοὔ σ’ ἁμαρτάνειν·
εἰ δ’ οὖν, πιθοῦ μοι·δευτέρα γὰρ ἡ χάρις.
ἔστιν κατ’ οἴκους φίλτραμοι θελκτήρια
ἔρωτος, ἦλθε δ’ ἄρτι μοιγνώμης ἔσω,
ἅ σ’ οὔτ’ ἐπ’ αἰσχροῖς οὔτ’ἐπὶ βλάβῃ φρενῶν
παύσει νόσου τῆσδ’, ἢν σὺμὴ γένῃ κακή.
δεῖ δ’ ἐξ ἐκείνου δή τι τοῦποθουμένου
σημεῖον, ἢ λόγον τιν’ ἢπέπλων ἄπο
λαβεῖν, συνάψαι τ’ ἐκ δυοῖνμίαν χάριν.

Φαίδρα
πότερα δὲ χριστὸν ἢ ποτὸντὸ φάρμακον;

This is the nurses speech. 3rd line down. Philtron. I have a drug in the house, it's a Philter that changes your perception. Bamboozled the mind. 1800's classicists translated this to charm. Thelgo. What kind of mental charm is this? A charm of Eros. It is a sex drug. Phaedra needs it to use on Hippoletus.

Context is sitting right there.

At the bottom here. From this guy it's going to be necessary for us to take some sort of simeon (σημεῖον), witchcraft sorcery, medicine, coming together. You take these two and put them together and you make one Haris.

  • harin (χάριν) is "grace"

Grace and christing is intimately connected.
Earliest christings in Homer and Homeric Hymns, connect christing with Haris.

Do you know what's between Aphrodites legs? Pure communal grace. Literally.

What is the oldest discipline on the planet?
Classical Greek
Greek Philology Started it all

Homer. That's the oldest christing we have. First reference to christing in any of Greek literature. It's Odysseus and he's Christing this arrows with poisons.

Pindar Ode 4
TLG search...

  1. PINDARUS Lyr. Pythia {0033.002) (6-5 B.C.) Ode 4 line 221
καὶ τάχα πείρατ' ἀέθ'λων δείκνυεν πατρωΐων (220)
σὺν δ' ἐλαίῳ φαρμακώσαισ'
ἀντίτομα στερεάν ὀδυνῶν (221)
δῶκε χρίεσθαι. καταίνησάν τε κοινὸν γάμον
—γλυκὺν ἐν ἀλλάλοισι μεῖξαι.

  1. AESCHYLUS Trag. Agamemnon {0085.015} (6-5 B.C.) Line 94 λαμπὰς ἀνίσχει
φαρμασσομένη χρίματος ἁγνοῦ
μαλακαῖς ἀδόλοισι παρηγορίαις (95)

If you combine the root for drugs and drug making, you get Pindar Pythian Ode 4. It's about Medea.

More TLG search results:

  1. AESCHYLUS Trag. Prometheus vinctus {0085.018} (6-5 B.C.) Line 480
οὐκ ἦν ἀλέξημ ̓ οὐδέν, οὔτε βρώσιμον
οὐ χριστὸν οὐδὲ πιστόν, ἀλλὰ φαρμάκων (480)
χρείαι κατεσκέλλοντο, πρίν γ' ἐγώ σφισιν

  1. EURIPIDES Trag. Medea {0006.036) (5 B.C.) Line 789
κακῶς ὀλεῖται πᾶς θ' ὃς ἂν θίγηι κόρης·
τοιοῖσδε χρίσω φαρμάκοις δωρήματα.
ἐνταῦθα μέντοι τόνδ' ἀπαλλάσσω λόγον. (790)

Christ with drugs, Euripides Medea.