The abolition of the Lupercalia – letter 100 of the Collectio Avellana

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I thought that I had blogged about this, but it seems I did not, or at least, can’t find it if I did.

The ancient festival of the Lupercalia was only abolished late in the 5th century.  Pope Gelasius wrote a letter to the senator Andromachus, justifying the move.  It’s found in the Collectio Avellana, which was published as CSEL 35.1 and 35.2 a century ago, as letter 100.  The letter is on p.453-464 of vol. 1, which is p.566-577 of the PDF. 

I think that would be an interesting letter to have online.  I’ve put out an enquiry in StudentGems to see if I can find someone to translate it.

UPDATE: I did.

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The third Vatican mythographer and the resurrection of Dionysus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

As I was saying earlier, J. G. Frazer in the Golden Bough made some claims (with references) about this.  In particular he said:

In other [stories] it is simply said that shortly after his burial he rose from the dead and ascended up to heaven;[1] … Where the resurrection formed part of the myth, it also was enacted at the rites, [7]…

[1] Macrobius, Commentarium in Somnium Scipionis i, 12, 12; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini tres Romae nuper reperti (commonly referred to as Mythographi Vaticani), ed. G. H. Bode (Cellis, 1834), iii. 12, 5, p. 246 [actually vol. 1 – RP [*]]; Origen, c. Cels. iv. 17 1 [see below], quoted by Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 713.
[7] Mythog. Vat. ed Bode, l.c.[*]

The Macrobius is not yet in my hands.  I have written something already on the Third Vatican Mythographer here.  But thanks to a kind correspondant, who emailed me a couple of pages in PDF, I now have the translation of the relevant parts of the Third Vatican Mythographer made in 2008 by Ronald E. Pepin in The Vatican Mythographers.  The text is actually medieval, and seems to be by Alberic of London, who was a canon of St. Pauls in 1160.

So, what does 12:5 actually say?

5. I recall reading nothing that I have judged worthy to be handed on as to why it is said Bacchus was born of Semele, one of the daughters of Cadmus, when Jove’s lightning shone before her. But I have decided not to pass over the fact that there were four sisters: Ina, Autonoe, Semele, and Agave. And, as Fulgentius says, there are four kinds of drunkenness: from wine, forgetfulness of things, lust, and insanity. The first is Ina, which means “wine”; second is Autonoe, “not knowing herself”; third is Semele, which means “unfettered body”; fourth is Agave, whom I pass over, because the meaning of this name happens to seem unsuitable, or it was unknown to the Romans. But we shall compare her to insanity because, as we read in the story, the drunken Agave cut off the head of her own son, Pentheus.

Furthermore, so that we might seem to go more deeply, the story says that the Giants found Bacchus inebriated. After they tore him to pieces limb by limb, they buried the bits, and a little while later he arose alive and whole. We read that the disciples of Orpheus interpreted this fiction. They asserted that Bacchus should be understood as nothing other than the world-soul. The philosophers say that though this soul might be divided among the bodies of the world limb by limb, as it were, it always seems to make itself whole again, emerging from the bodies and forming itself. Always continuing one and the same, it allows no division of its singleness. Also, we read that they represent this story in his sacred rites.

OK: ” rose from the dead and ascended up to heaven” has connotations which are not here, but the idea of resurrection is definitely present, as is the representation of it in the rites.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Bright sun and blue sky this morning, and little or no wind.   My cleaning lady came in at 8:30, and therefore I went out.  For if I remain, she talks (and talks) but doesn’t get on with the job.

I drove up to Norwich and pottered around in the sunshine.  I went into the Castle Mall shopping centre and had a baked potato.  I was amused to see attached to the food court what looked like a uPVC conservatory furnished as a sort of chapel, with a sign saying that weddings could be booked there.  I’m not sure who wants to get married in the food court of a shopping centre, tho.  Possibly it’s something to do, while waiting (and waiting) for service at the Burger King?

But after that I decided not to come straight back.  Instead I took the A47 down towards Great Yarmouth.

I never go that way.  I don’t know that I have ever gone down that road.  But I found there was something incredibly cheering about driving in the sun down roads that I have never been before, to places I have never seen before.  The joy of the open road and places new is real, it seems.  When we find ourselves shut up in ourselves, perhaps we should consider whether what we need is some fresh scenes! 

I found myself at Caister-on-Sea, where one of the Roman forts of the Saxon Shore is visible — or its foundations anyway, in a little field or park.  Only part of the wall of the fort, as far as the gateway, plus a building with hypocaust, is visible.  The rest must be under the houses next door.

Then I drove down to Yarmouth.  Coming down the hill from a bridge, I saw a remarkable picture:

The day was hot, and I had my air-conditioning on. But there was no wind, and the giant fans were stationary, generating not a millwatt of power.   The scene was beautiful, for once.

I drove along the seafront at Yarmouth, a pleasure resort designed for the lower classes, or so I infer from what I saw.  Then I headed south towards home, and found myself on a dual-carriageway passing Gorleston and going towards Lowestoft.  The road was unknown, I knew not what lay ahead, and all the things that clamour for attention in my head were silent.

Half-hidden by a bush, I spotted a sign for Burgh Castle. I remembered, hazily, that this too was a Roman fort of the Saxon Shore.  Some considerable weaving around suburbs later, I came to the great field on the banks of the river Yare where three of the four the walls of the fort yet stand to a great height.

Two of the drum-shaped towers are visible in the above, the second one being the corner.  The gap at the left is the site of the gateway into the fort.

There’s nothing inside the fort.  One wall has fallen into the river, as the bank eroded.  Sixteen centuries of frost and rain have caused splits in the masonry.  Yet still it stands.

In the fourth century there was a considerable vicus or settlement outside the walls.  There is no trace of it now.  But not far away from the walls, to the right, across a field, stands a church, built before 1000 AD with a circular stone tower.  It may stand on the site of an earlier wooden church.  The name “burgh” tells us that the site was active in Saxon times anyway, when the fort was no doubt one of the more defensible places on the exposed east coast.

I took quite a few pictures, but they do not really give an adequate impression of the place.  While stood inside the gateway, I managed to get another visitor — an extremely nervous-looking man in office dress — to take a picture of myself.  When we look back on old photographs, it is not the pictures of walls and castles that we seek, but pictures of our younger selves.  There are few photographs of me, so I thought I’d get one more made.

After that, sadly, it was home time.  Another hour brought me back.  As I came onto familiar roads, the cares and concerns all returned.  I stopped seeing the road any more, and started thinking about this or that which needed attention.  I got back at 15:50.

A good day.

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The NIV translators get their just reward

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Readers will know that I don’t believe any ancient text should be given in an English version revised in accordance with a political programme.  It’s dishonest.  If I want to read Vergil, I want to read Vergil, not Vergil-as-some-old-hippy-says-he-should-have-written.

The editing of the NIV for “gender-inclusivity” — to conform to the political demands of those who have power today, in more honest language — would be disgusting and dishonest whichever text was involved.  But to do it to what purports to be the Word of God is an appalling blasphemy.

It was also stupid.  After all, if you believe it’s the Word of God, you can’t edit it.  Those who make demands for it to be changed to reflect a modern ideology cannot, do not, believe it is the Word of God.  It’s just a way for those in power to show their power (and their contempt) for a religion in which they do not believe.  To conform is to sacrifice to Caesar, to say “Caesar is God”, Caesar is the most powerful.  To conform to is earn Caesar’s amused contempt.

God is not mocked, however, and those responsible today got to enjoy some consequences:

PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is calling for a more animal-friendly update to the Bible.

The group is asking translators of the New International Version (NIV) to remove what it calls “speciesist” language and refer to animals as “he” or “she” instead of “it.”

PETA is hoping the move toward greater gender inclusiveness will continue toward animals as well.

“When the Bible moves toward inclusively in one area … it wasn’t much of a stretch to suggest they move toward inclusively in this area,” Bruce Friedrich, PETA’s vice president for policy, told CNN.

Friedrich, a practicing Roman Catholic, said, “Language matters. Calling an animal ‘it’ denies them something. They are beloved by God. They glorify God.”

“God’s covenant is with humans and animals. God cares about animals,” Friedrich said. “I would think that’s a rather unanimous opinion among biblical scholars today, where that might not have been the case 200 years ago.”

Yup.  Let’s demand that other people’s bibles conform to policies we made up 5 years ago.   Let’s snigger as they scurry to rationalise conformity.

I wonder when the NIV translators will grasp that each surrender of principle leads to the next, and that, in kowtowing to Moloch, they are merely making themselves ridiculous?

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A system of invisible punctuation in papyri and medieval Greek codices

Posted on by Roger Pearse

How faithfully do medieval Greek manuscripts reproduce their ancient ancestors?  It’s a question that all of us ask ourselves, from time to time, and it can be hard to answer other than subjectively.  In some cases, however, we can compare ancient papyrus copies with much later medieval versions.  The accuracy can be uncanny.

Origen’s Contra Celsum is known to us from Vaticanus gr. 386 (=A), of the 13th century, plus some extracts in the Philocalia, an anthology of Origen’s thought by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nazianzen (=P).  A century ago there was a bitter argument among philologists as to which preserved the text better.  The GCS editor, Kotschau, believed that A was to be preferred, while his critics preferred P.  Which was right?

In 1941 a bunch of papyrus codices were discovered by Egyptian workmen in a gallery in the ancient quarries of Tura.  At the time thoughts were on Rommel and the Afrikakorps, and the workmen stole the lot, broke them up and sold them to dealers.  Among them was a papyrus codex of long extracts from books 1 and 2 of Contra Celsum, made by a learned monk who clearly had before him a complete text.  In the papyrus these are followed by extracts from Origen’s Commentary on Romans, and his Homilies on 1 Samuel.  The papyrus can be dated by paleography to the early 7th century.

This meant that the texts could now be compared with an ancient copy of the text.  Quickly it became clear that the papyrus was from a related but not identical family to A.

Now I would like to share with you a passage in the truly excellent volume by Jean Scherer which published the text of the Contra Celsum extracts.1  I will add a comment or two at the end.  As we pick up the discussion, Scherer is talking about the presence of mysterious blanks or gaps between letters in the otherwise continuously written text.  Note that the papyrus has no word division.  

Clearer still: on pages 30-34 and 56-59, the copyist reproduces in full some long passages of Contra Celsum without selection or omission: however, there are many blanks.

These remarks may appear futile, and we ourselves have been inclined to impute these variations to the whim of the copyist, until the day when we examined the Vaticanus gr. 386, which as we said earlier (p.6) belongs to the same family as our papyrus.  Here — a detail which P. Koetschau signalled in a rapid note in his description — the “blanks”, longer or shorter, are an important element of a system of punctuation in use in this manuscript.  They mark the articulations of the thought, separating and distinguishing the different steps in the argumentation.  Short gaps play a role analogous to that which is observed in the Dialektos.  And if one compares, from this point of view, the manuscript and the papyrus, we can say that, if the manuscript has blanks sometimes which do not appear in the papyrus, nevertheless all the blanks in the papyrus which do not mark an interruption are found in the manuscript. 

Sometimes the correspondance is so perfect as to be uncanny.  Thus in p.33, l.20, before μεμνημαι δε (which introduces a new development) the blank, in the papyrus, is extra long.  In the Vaticanus ms. it is is also extra long. 

Such coincidences cannot be accidental.  They show that, in both the Cairo papyrus and the Vatican manuscript, the use of blanks is not down to the initiative of the copyists.  These have done no more than follow their model here, or, better, beyond their model, the archetype, and beyond that, the editio princeps of the library of Caesarea.2 

This peculiarity is transmitted intact down to the 13th century.  But it was fragile all the same: the second copyist 3 of the Vaticanus did not retain it, and in the ms. Parisinus suppl. gr. 616, which is a careful copy of the Vaticanus gr. 386, the blanks have disappeared.

Thus the variations of the papyrus explain themselves quite naturally.  To separate the extracts, the copyist on his own initiative started by using a double oblique stroke //.  But, under the influence of his model, he gradually started using the blanks, which in the complete text before him had the purpose of separating the parts of the discourse.  And finally he used only blanks, for economy of effort, because it was easier to copy the text mechanically than to substitute systematically one sign for another.

Finally let us note that in the extracts of the Commentary on the letter to the Romans we find numerous blanks and no “//” sign.  This is a clear indication that these extracts were copied, by the same scribe, after the extracts of Contra Celsum.

This is quite something, and also new to me.  I wonder how many editors would have recognised that these apparently random gaps in the text had a meaning, and would have tracked them down into the medieval copy?  Not many, I would guess.

But if this was a normal way to write a 7th century papyrus copy of a literary work, I do wonder what other texts, unrecognised, may have contained it.  It looks like a fingerprint feature to me — a way to detect relationships between manuscripts and papyri.  If so, perhaps editors and those working with papyri should be on the lookout for it.

1. Jean Scherer, Extraits des Livres I et II du Contre Celse d’Origène, d’après le papyrus no. 88747 du Musée du Caire, IFAO 18, Cairo, 1956.  See p.12-13.
2. A note in the papyrus indicates that the text was revised by Pamphilus at Caesarea.
3.  The Vaticanus gr. 386 was written by two copyists, who took turns.  The first was both  more elegant and more accurate than the second.

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The orations of Himerius and the resurrection of Dionysus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The name of Himerius is not one that most of us would instantly recognise.  In fact he was a pagan Greek orator of the 4th century, contemporary with Libanius and an ally of Julian the Apostate.  He was from Prusias in Bithynia, and ran a school of oratory at Athens.  His career is tied up with that of Julian.  When Julian passed an edict prohibiting Christians from teaching, the leading orator at Athens at the time was Prohaeresius, who accordingly felt obliged to resign.  It seems likely that this was a scandal which made Julian look bad in the eyes of the Athenians, for Julian tried to get Prohaeresius to accept a personal exemption from the edict.  Himerius remained at Athens; but when Julian died in 363, he found it necessary to leave Athens — one may suspect that he had become quite unpopular after the Prohaeresius episode –, and to stay away until Prohaeresius died in 366.  Thereafter he returned to Athens and remained there until he died.

In the 9th century a large number of his orations still survived, and Photius in the Bibliotheca, cod. 165 was able to list them from a copy before him, as well as giving long extracts in codex 243.  Today three manuscripts, the oldest 13th century, were used by Aristide Colonna, the first of which alone contains much of the material and is unfortunately damaged.  The mss are:

  • R — Parisinus bibl. nat. Suppl. gr. 352, thirteenth century.
  • A — Monacensis gr. 564, fourteenth century.
  • B — Oxoniensis Baroccianus gr. 131, fourteenth century.

The indirect tradition, besides Photius, consists of

  • Excerpta Neapolitana — Neapolitanus bibl. nat. gr. II C 32, fourteenth century.  This contains a set of excerpts from the orations.  See Schenkl, Hermes 46
    (1911), p. 414-30.
  • Lexicon Vindobonense — the Lexicon of Andrew Lopadiotes, fourteenth century.

In Frazer’s list of sources for the resurrection of Dionysus, one of the orations of Himerius is given as a source for the following statement:

…Zeus raised him up as he lay mortally wounded ; [2]

[2] Himerius, Orat. ix. 4. 

I linked to the Greek but Robert J. Penella has translated the orations in Man and the Word: the orations of Himerius, University of California Press, 2007.  This one is short, and I give it here.  The modern numbering of the oration is ’45’.

45. A Talk (λαλιὰ) Given upon His Student’s [Recovery of His] Health

[1] The swallow opens the theater of its voice after the winter’s cold and does not hide the song produced by its beautiful tongue once it sees that luscious spring has bloomed again. Cicadas sing in the walks once the month hostile to budding passes, the month I have heard poets call “leaf-shedding.” [2] Thus it is not unfitting for me to play my appropriate role too and once again to greet those I love with song after they have been ill.

What a day that was that recently presented itself to me, when an attack of fever seemed to plague everything! I shared in the suffering, my friends; I got a taste of the disease through my love [of its victim]. I was not physically ill, but my mental suffering was worse than any physical suffering. And I cannot fault my mind for having been in that state [3]; for, as Demosthenes said, when the head is ill, every ailment suddenly befalls you. So too, when the helmsman is ill, the whole ship suffers with him; and when the leader of a chorus lies sick, the chorus remains joyless. So naturally at that time I beheld the sun rather dimly. The Nile seemed to me to be dejected, even though it was in flood. It was as though I had exchanged my present existence for the very dark life of the Cimmerians. But now we have dismissed the envy [of fortune], and festivity takes over the future.

[4] My friends, I want to tell you a story that has a bearing on what has happened. Dionysus was still young, and the race of “Telchines” sprung up against the god. Bacchus started growing up, and all the Titans were bursting with envy. Finally, not able to contain themselves, they wanted to tear the god apart. They prepared snares and readied drugs and the stings of slander against him and tried to trick him about who they were. They hated Silenus and Satyrus, I believe, and they called them sorcerers because they pleased Bacchus. So what happened as a result of this? Dionysus lay wounded, I think, and bemoaned the serious blow he had suffered. The vine was dejected, wine was sad, grapes seemed to be crying, and Bacchus’s ankle was not yet in any condition to move. But crying did not win out in the end, nor did victory go to the enemy. For Zeus the overseer had his eye on everything. He got Dionysus back on his feet, as we are told, and let the myths drive the Titans off.

I think we can all see that this is a very fine translation.  You can even feel the rhetorical colouring that Himerius gave to his words in the opening, the swaying of the emotions at which he was aiming.

But … this doesn’t discuss any murder of Dionysus, or resurrection; just an injury and a healing.  So I feel obliged to look at the Greek.

There is an interesting note at the bottom of p.560 on “Dionysus”:

Bacchus is meant, not the Theban son of Semele, but surnamed Zagreus, more ancient, son of Jove and Proserpina; whom the Titans and the Curetes, impelled by Juno, tore to pieces and threw the bits into the fire.  When from the fire emerged Apollo, Jove ordered that the bits be buried.  Ceres collected them, and Jove restored life, struck the Titans with a thunderbolt, scorching their mother the Earth.  This is related in Nonnus, Dionysiaca VI, 170; Hyginus fabulae 167 and 155; Diodorus III, p.137; Tzetzes Ad Lycophronem 208; Arnobius I, p.24 and V p.169; Firmicus Maternus p.9; Clement of Alexandria Paraenet . p. 11.

Now that’s useful also, and I need to consult those sources.  But back to the text, which comes with a Latin translation.  Unfortunately I don’t know the ligatures in the text, so pardon me if I get these wrong.  (I did find a list of ligatures here which helped.) 

Τί οὔν ἐπι τούτοις Διονυσος; Ἔκειτο μὲν αἶμαι πλαγεὶς καὶ τὴν πληγὴν καιρίαν ἐ?έναζεν·

Bacchus jacebat quidem lethali plaga ictus, et calamitatem suam deplorabat: … (Which I would render as: Bacchus indeed was lying, struck by a deadly blow, and mourning his misfortune: …)

Dionysus lay wounded, I think, and bemoaned the serious blow he had suffered.

And:

καὶ τὸν Διόνυσον ἐγείρας, ὡς λόγος, …

Bacchum, ut fama habet, resuscitabat, … (i.e. Bacchus, so the story has it, he reawakened)

He  got Dionysus back on his feet, as we are told, …

I think that Penella has rendered it differently to the Latin (and Frazer); but then I don’t have Colonna’s text before me, and there must be a textual change in this, I think.  Whether Dionysius had suffered a “fatal blow” or a “serious blow” seems to be up for interpretation.  Comments anyone?

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More thought police in Britain

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Another day, another sinister story.  It seems that mainstream conservative British magazine “The Spectator” is being ‘investigated’ — harassed, rather — by the police for a blog post.

The threat to British liberty.

It’s a funny old world. I have now been contacted by two journalists informing me that Bedfordshire Police are investigating The Spectator. Why? Because of the Melanie Philips blog where she referred to the “moral depravity” of “the Arabs” who killed the Fogel family in Israel. CoffeeHousers can judge for themselves if they agree or disagree with her language and views – but should this be illegal?

The Guardian has written this story up, claiming The Spectator is being investigated by the Press Complaints Commission. This is untrue. The PCC tell me that a complaint has been lodged, but that’s as far as it has gone.

And guess who informed against them?

1) Inayat Bunglawala, chair of Muslims4UK, gets angry about what he reads on Melanie’s blog.
2) Complains to the PCC.
3) Complains to the police.
4) Phones up The Guardian and says “The PCC are investigating The Spectator!! Story!! Police too!!
5) The Guardian duly writes it all up, on its website.
6) The Independent follows up The Guardian.

I don’t blame the police.  The police have no choice but to “investigate” a complaint from a Moslem, or a gay, or a Jew, or some other legally privileged group.  They’d be terrified not to.  Failing to follow up on “hate crime” (such a loaded phrase, redolent of the Stasi) would be grounds for career termination.  Blame Tony Blair and those who passed these laws.  Blame, above all, those in power who profit from them.  These laws are the creation of the political left.

Until the political left  feel threatened by the process they have created, they will continue to create and strengthen such laws.  For this is about power, and it all — at the moment — gives power to the dirtiest elements of the political left, and gives them the power to silence those they dislike. 

(Thanks to Curious Presbyterian for this one)

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Eusebius update

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Good news.  I have just submitted to Lightning Source the PDF’s for the hardback version of Eusebius of Caesarea: Gospel Problems and Solutions.  It’s now in the works.  I’ve ordered a proof copy — necessary mainly for the cover.  I’ll wait until I’ve seen that before I submit the paperback.  Intended real publication date for both is now 1st May 2011, but of course they may become available sooner.

In the meantime, have a look at the cover image:

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More sources on the resurrection of Dionysus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m still looking at J. G. Frazer’s list of sources.  The next one is this:

Where the resurrection formed part of the myth, it also was enacted at the rites, [7] and it even appears that a general doctrine of resurrection, or at least of immortality, was inculcated on the worshippers; for Plutarch, writing to console his wife on the death of their infant daughter, comforts her with the thought of the immortality of the soul as taught by tradition and revealed in the mysteries of Dionysus.[8]

[8] Plutarch, Consol. ad uxor. 10.  Cp. id. Isis et Osiris, 35; id., De ei Delphico, 9; id., De esu carnium, i. 7.

So, let’s look these up.  First Plutarch, Consolatio ad uxorem.   Bill Thayer again comes to our rescue with an online version here.  Bolding and paragraphing is mine.

10. Furthermore, I know that you are kept from believing the statements of that other set, who win many to their way of thinking when they say that nothing is in any way evil or painful to “what has undergone dissolution,” by the teaching of our fathers and by the mystic formulas of Dionysiac rites, the knowledge of which we who are participants share with each other.

Consider then that the soul, which is imperishable, is affected like a captive bird: if it has long been reared in the body and has become tamed to this life by many activities and long familiarity, it alights again and re-enters the body, and does not leave off or cease from becoming entangled in the passions and fortunes of this world through repeated births.

For do not fancy that old age is vilified and ill spoken of because of the wrinkles, the grey hairs, and the debility of the body; no, its most grievous fault is to render the soul stale in its memories of the other world and make it cling tenaciously to this one, and to warp and cramp it, since it retains in this strong attachment the shape imposed upon it by the body.

Whereas the soul that tarries after its capture but a brief space in the body before it is set free by higher powers proceeds to its natural state as though released from a bent position with flexibility and resilience unimpaired. For just as a fire flares up again and quickly recovers, if a person who has extinguished it immediately lights it again, but is harder to rekindle if it remains extinguished for some time, so too those souls fare best whose lot it is, according to the poet,

“Soon as they may pass through Hades’ gates”

before much love of the business of our life here has been engendered in them, and before they have been adapted to the body by becoming softened and fused with it as by reagents.

 Is it me, or is this about reincarnation or the transmigration of souls, rather than “resurrection”? 

Next, Isis and Osiris 35:

35. That Osiris is identical with Dionysus who could more fittingly know than yourself, Clea? For you are at the head of the inspired maidens of Delphi, and have been consecrated by your father and mother in the holy rites of Osiris. If, however, for the benefit of others it is needful to adduce proofs of this identity, let us leave undisturbed what may not be told, but the public ceremonies which the priests perform in the burial of the Apis, when they convey his body on an improvised bier, do not in any way come short of a Bacchic procession; for they fasten skins of fawns about themselves, and carry Bacchic wands and indulge in shoutings and movements exactly as do those who are under the spell of the Dionysiac ecstasies. For the same reason many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysus in the form of a bull; and the women of Elis invoke him, praying that the god may come with the hoof of a bull; and the epithet applied to Dionysus among the Argives is “Son of the Bull.” They call him up out of the water by the sound of trumpets, at the same time casting into the depths a lamb as an offering to the Keeper of the Gate. The trumpets they conceal in Bacchic wands, as Socrates has stated in his treatise on The Holy Ones. Furthermore, the tales regarding the Titans and the rites celebrated by night agree with the accounts of the dismemberment of Osiris and his revivification and regenesis. 

Similar agreement is found too in the tales about their sepulchres. The Egyptians, as has already been stated, point out tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysus rest with them close beside the oracle; and the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the shrine of Apollo whenever the devotees of Dionysus wake the God of the Mystic Basket. To show that the Greeks regard Dionysus as the lord and master not only of wine, but of the nature of every sort of moisture, it is enough that Pindar be our witness, when he says

May gladsome Dionysus swell the fruit upon the trees,
The hallowed splendour of harvest time.  

For this reason all who reverence Osiris are prohibited from destroying a cultivated tree or blocking up a spring of water.

 Again, how does this justify the claim made?

Next, De ei Delphico, 9 (On the word ‘ei’ engraved over the gate of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, from the Moralia).  This I was unable initially to locate online, but is in fact here.

IX. “If, then, anyone should ask, What has this to do with Apollo? We reply: It has to do not only with him, but with Bacchus, who has no less property in Delphi than Apollo himself.

We therefore hear theologians, partly in verse, partly in prose, setting forth and chanting how that the god, though by nature incorruptible and eternal, yet, as they tell, through some decree of fate, submitted to changes of condition, at one time set all Nature on fire, making all things like to all; at another time he was metamorphosed and turned into various shapes, states, and powers, in the same way as the universe now exists—but is called by the best-known of all his names.

The wiser sort, cloaking their meaning from the vulgar, call the change into Fire ‘Apollo,’ on account of the reduction to one state, and also ‘Phoebus’ on account of its freedom from defilement and purity: but the condition and change of his turning and subdivision into airs and water and earth, and the production of animals and plants, they enigmatically term ‘Exile’ and ‘Dismemberment.’ They name him ‘Dionysos’ and ‘Zagreus’ and ‘Nycteleos’ and ‘Isodi’; they also tell of certain destructions and disappearances and diseases and new births, which are riddles and fables pertaining to the aforesaid transformations: and they sing the dithyrambic song, filled with sufferings, and allusions to some change of state that brought with it wandering about and dispersion.

For Aeschylus says: ‘It is fitting the dithyrambus, with its confused roar, should accompany Dionysos: but Apollo, the orderly and sober paean.’ The latter god they represent in pictures and images as exempt from age and youthful; but the other, under many guises and forms; and, generally, to the one they assign invariableness, order, and unmixed seriousness; whilst ascribing to the other a mingled playfulness and mischief, gravity and madness, they proclaim him ‘Evius inciter of women, flourishing with frenzied honors, Dionysos!’—not wrongly taking what is the characteristic of either change.

For, since the duration of the periods of such changes is not equal, but that of the one which they call ‘Satiety’ is the longer of the two, and that of the oracle giving the shorter, they observe the due proportion here, and during the rest of the year they employ the paean at the sacrifices; at the beginning of winter they revive the dithyramb and put a stop to the paean, and invoke the god with the former instead of the latter chant for the space of three months: which makes three to one the space of time they believe that the creation lasted compared to that of the conflagration.”

Um.  Not much here either.

Next, De esu carnium i.9 (On eating meat — it seems to be i.7 in fact).  After rejecting eating the bodies of animals he goes on.

 Yet perhaps it is not unsuitable to set the pitch and announce the theme by quoting some verses of Empedocles. . . . By these lines he means, though he does not say so directly, that human souls are imprisoned in mortal bodies as a punishment for murder, the eating of animal flesh, and cannibalism.  This doctrine, however, seems to be even older, for the stories told about the sufferings and dismemberment of Dionysus and the outrageous assaults of the Titans upon him, and their punishment and blasting by thunderbolt after they had tasted his blood — all this is a myth which in its inner meaning has to do with rebirth. For to that faculty in us which is unreasonable and disordered and violent, and does not come from the gods, but from evil spirits, the ancients gave the name Titans, that is to say, those that are punished and subjected to correction. . . .

This seems again to be about reincarnation.  There might even be an implication of reincarnation into the bodies of animals in this.

So … do these passages back up the comments of Frazer?  It seems unlikely. 

The terms “resurrection” and “immortality”, loaded with Christian significance as they are, give an impression somewhat at odds with the comments of Plutarch.  Reincarnation, yes, into the bodies of animals and men, yes — resurrection,  no.  Immortality of the soul, yes — of the body, no.  We need not consider this portion of Frazer’s claims, useful though it is to see these passages.

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Oxford Patristics Conference again

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Apparently I’m not going to be staying in Christ Church — I’m going back to Queens again.  

This evening I had a call from Priscilla Frost, the organiser.  Fortunately I heard the phone ring and got to it in time. 

It seems that the website has confused quite a few people — exactly the same problem has affected all sorts of people, and she’s drowning in emails and letters.   Over 500 people have booked so far, which is remarkable, and most of them  have sent emails!  But the teething problems with the website are apparently causing severe delays in replying, so do be patient.  There is more accomodation than is indicated on the website.

After describing the problem we agreed a solution, which puts me back in Queens College, and restores me to the joy of an en-suite.  After all, few would wish to meet me, dressed in jimjams, in the corridor at 2am anyway, in my experience.  Few of us are as young and beautiful as we were. 

And even if the other person was indeed a beautiful young lady set on matrimony with a dark-haired, greying, distinguished-looking patristics enthusiast wearing trousers awkwardly over his teddy-bear pyjamas, I feel that I might not be looking my best for such an encounter.  Such witty repartee as I can command might not be that welcome, while queuing anxiously for the loo.

I suppose it is possible that the confusion will lead to people turning up thinking they have booked when they have not.  Perhaps I should have some cardboard ready, so they — or I! — can sit outside the conference with a sign:  “Hungry, homeless, and attending patristics conference”! 

If the worst comes to the worst, I can probably beg a room off my old college, so really I have nothing to worry about. 

I think it will all get sorted out, from the sound of it. 

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