Wine-Dark Sea in Homer

I had a university teacher of the grade known in German and Scandinavian universities as Lector, in Greek, who taught us Greek poetry and Homer.

He used to say Homer was using "wine dark" because he was giving us some kind of ... psychedelic expressionist description.

There is an actually far simpler answer than Staffan Fogelmark's.

I spilled some red wine on some of my papers, and now the stains are no more red but blue.

Red wines take their color from grape skin pigments called anthocyanins, ... Anthocyanins are also nature’s litmus test: Their color can be reflective of the pH of whatever they come into contact with. When anthocyanins are in an acidic environment (like wine), they're red, but if you introduce them to an alkaline solution (like water with a slightly elevated pH, or if cleaning products are added into the mix) they turn blue.

ASK DR. VINNY : What causes the blue tinge when I clean red wine out of my wineglass?
Nov 8, 2019
https://www.winespectator.com/articles/what-causes-the-blue-tinge-when-i-clean-red-wine-out-of-my-wineglass

So, presumably the phrase was fairly standard one for describing red wine stains on the Greek tunics known as χιτωνες. Any stain is darker than the white linen. The darkness or stain from wine after a while became blue in the washing process. As Dr. Vinny puts it:

You might also notice this phenomenon if you are trying to clean a wine spill out of your carpet or shirt: The stain might turn blue before (or instead of) disappearing.

Problem solved, next question!/HGL

PS, seems "dark" is only part of the translation ... but wine is there in the original./HGL

There are two ways of writing children's books

If you ask experts (including simply experts on curricula, like teachers) what children a certain age are likely to need to learn, and you know you can speak so children that age can understand you and you write a book to suit that need, well, you will very likely write a book that is fun for that age, but not quite as fun in an older age when the lesson is already well learned.

If you write books to suit your taste, including the taste you had back at a certain age as perceived in retrospect, you are likely to write works of art, which continue to enchant well after your "age back then" is reached by the readers, just as it did for you.

I don't think many Swedes would still as adults, unless when reading to children, admit to loving Alfons Åberg and spending hours reading him. I think very many Swedes would still admit loving and spending hours on Ronya or Mio or Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren (apart from pro-death ending of the last book mentioned, this includes me).

I think if you put a riddle into a childrens book, that the child does not solve and the adult does solve at 52, when looking back, this means your books fall into the latter category.

Now, look first at this paragraph on Autumn (a season some of you may better know as Fall). The compare the comparisons I give.

After a Summer sometimes too hot, Autumn comes as a liberation. With red hue and black trunks, with umbrellas and scarves, but still with lots of gifts: you huddle around the fire for a hot tea, you enjoy the honey recently harvested from the bees, all the fruits make the meals richer. As you sit by the fire and hear the wind lull you to sleep, you drowse and wake up to torrential rain, reminding of some back in spring, but sadder, since Autumn leads you on to Winter, and nearly betrays you to him ... but yet saves you, though not himself : Winter will take away the ruddy freshness and leave only grey and cold and his house totally disshevelled.

Now, look at Tumnus. Look hard at a line by Queen Susan to him:

Oh, Tumnus!

Do you see another name here? Well, Autumnus pronounced by an Englishman. He is the Roman god or divinity of Autumn. There is another Roman divinity with a name ending in Tumnus : Vertumnus. So, if in a Spanish book two characters, father and son, are called Vergilio and Oberon Toño, that is a fair parallel to the old man on the wall and his son in the leanchair.

Getting back to the line by Queen Susan, in The Horse and His Boy, Tumnus did liberate her from the excessive heat of Calormene "Summer". "After a Summer sometimes too hot, Autumn comes as a liberation."

Now, back to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Mr. Tumnus has black hair and horns and cloven hooves and is hairy all over the legs, but his skin is red. "With red hue and black trunks," as I said. He has a scarf and an umbrella and lots of gifts. "[W]ith umbrellas and scarves, but still with lots of gifts," I said. And his hospitality to Lucy matches "you huddle around the fire for a hot tea, you enjoy the honey recently harvested from the bees, all the fruits make the meals richer."

He takes up a flute and plays until Lucy falls asleep: "As you sit by the fire and hear the wind lull you to sleep, you drowse," I just said.

Lucy wakes up as the faun cries so as to leave a real puddle on the floor and Mr. Tumnus admits being such a bad faun, he was leading Lucy on to the White Witch. He admits his father would never have done such a thing. And I just said: "and wake up to torrential rain, reminding of some back in spring, but sadder, since Autumn leads you on to Winter, and nearly betrays you to him." Obviously the other Mr. Tumnus, the father, Vertumnus, would not have done such a thing, he would have been leading you on to Summer instead.

Tumnus saves Lucy by walking her back to the lamp post, and Autumn's harvests save us from starvation in Winter.

Mr. Tumnus pays a great price, his house is sacked, it is found cold, and he is turned to stone in the home of the White Witch. And as I just said "but yet saves you, though not himself : Winter will take away the ruddy freshness and leave only grey and cold and his house totally disshevelled."

Tumnus will of course be un-stoned when Aslan breathes on him, but he will not be taking an active part after his martyrdom. Why? As Spring has come and then Summer, Autumn is alive in his principles but not active in his own right. Since all processes leading up to a rich Autumn are already active from Spring on and throughout Summer. And next time Tumnus appears, and actively so, is of course for The Horse and His Boy, which is inside the last chapter of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, as delivering Queen Susan from what could very well be considered as "excessive Summer heat".

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Sts. Sulpicius and Servilian
Martyrs of Rome
20.IV.2021

Romae sanctorum Martyrum Sulpicii et Serviliani, qui, praedicatione et miraculis beatae Domitillae Virginis ad Christi fidem conversi, ambo, cum nollent idolis immolare, in persecutione Trajani, a Praefecto Urbis Aniano sunt capite caesi.

A badly needed shoutout to this video, which did the blunder of identifying Tumnus with Vertumnus, the "god of seasonal change" when in fact Vertumnus was the god specifically of spring:

Tumnus Isn't Who You Think | Narnia Lore | Into the Wardrobe
18th April 2021 | Into the Wardrobe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9QQva-5scU

Arma virumque cano in ASCII

"In case you were wondering, this is what the first four lines of the Aeneid look like in ASCII Binary."

Credits to Anthony Gibbins.

Instututio Arithmetica et son traducteur

Je vais prendre au parallèle (latin / traduction) deux passages de Boèce. 1, 1, 6 et 1, 32, 1. Dans chaque cas, je vais noter une faute de traduction, qui tient à un défaut de connaissance de l'histoire des idées et en tirer l'occasion de parler de cette histoire des idées. Mais aussi des choses qui sont correctement traduites par Jean-Yves Guillaumin (JYG dans le suivant).

Illud quoque addendum arbitror, quod cuncta uis multitudinis ab uno progressa termino ad infinita progressionis augmenta concrescit; magnitudo uero a finita inchoans quantitate modum in diuisione non recipit; infinitissimas enim sui corporis suscepit sectiones.		Il faut ajouter, je pense, que toute multiplicité a pour caractéristique une croissance qui progresse et augmente à l'infini à partir d'un terme unique; la grandeur, quant à elle, à partir d'une quantité définie n'a pas de limite dans sa division; elle admet des divisions de son corps à l'infini.
Hanc igitur naturae infinitatem indeterminatamque potentiam philosophia sponte repudiat.		Cette nature infinie, cette potentialité indéterminée, la philosophie la rejette spontanément.
Nihil enim quod infinitum est uel scientia potest colligi uel mente comprehendi, sed hinc sumpsit sibi ipsa ratio, in quibus potest indagatricem ueritatis exercere sollertiam.		Car rien de ce qui est infini peut être embrassé par la science, ni saisi par l'esprit, mais la raison en tire pour elle-même des objets sur lesquelles elle puisse exercer son habilité à chercher la vérité.
Delegit enim de infinitae multitudinis pluralitate finitae terminum quantitatis et, indeterminabilis magnitudinis sectione reiecta, definita sibi ad cognitionem spatia depoposcit.		De le pluralité infinie de la multiplicité, elle sépare la quotité finie, et, rejetant la division sans fin de la grandeur, elle revendique comme objets de connaissance des grandeurs finies.

En traduisant "ab uno ... termino" comme "à partir d'un terme unique" JYG a donc pris "uno" comme adjectif qualifiant "ex ... termino".

Je pense qu'il faut plutôt prendre "ex uno ..." comme la phrase de base et "termino" comme apposition la qualifiant. Donc, "à partir, comme terme duquel, d'un seul". Ou, "à partir d'un seul, comme terme". Le français va sembler moins fluide pour le lecteur moderne sans familiarité avec le Moyen Âge, mais il va être confronté à la pensée du Moyen Âge (et ici aussi de l'Antiquité tardive).

Les nombres, qu'on nomme de nos jours "nombres entiers" ou "nombres naturels", ça commence avec 1. Quant à 0, ce n'est pas un nombre. "Nombre relatif" d'accord, mais alors c'est "+-0" et le bon terme pour ceci serait "relation numérique" ou "relation entre nombres". Mais nombre en tant que combien (ce qu'on discute ici), non, le premier en est 1.

On voit bien que la mathématique n'est pas une seule entité, mais deux disciplines différentes, l'arithmétique concernée avec nombres et la géométrie concernée avec grandeurs. En d'autres endroits, on va aussi repérer que la musique et l'astronomie font partie de ces disciplines, musique comme "nombres en motion" et astronomie comme "grandeurs en motion".

Ni l'arithmétique ni la géométrie se concerne avec un infini actuel. À chaque pas, le nombre en procession d'un seul reste un nombre fini, la procession est juste infinie en puissance, en tant que chaque nombre très haut pourrait être moindre qu'un autre nombre encore plus haut : ce qui ne garantit pas que celui-ci existe. Et les grandeurs diminuent par des sections, mais aucune section est garantie d'avoir lieu, que ce soit conceptuelle par le mathématicien ou physique par le couteau, donc, à chaque pas, les parties d'un corps sont en nombre finie et en taille finie et positive. Pour Boèce ici, ça pourrait être une convention du scientifique : pour St. Thomas plus tard, c'est la nature même du nombre et des grandeurs.

Notons à ce propos, il y a 180 manuscrits de l'œuvre de Boèce, et 29 en se trouvent à Paris, dans des Bibliothèques diverses. Quand on sait que St. Thomas enseignait à Paris, et que donc il y avait une Université avant qu'il commence, et aussi qu'il cite Boèce, on peut conclure que Boèce était le texte d'enseignement de l'arithmétique à l'Université de Paris.

Ceci a une certaine importance en discutant les preuves Thomasiennes de l'existence de Dieu, parce que St. Thomas dit que les causes conduisant à un certain effet en se conduisant les unes les autres doivent être au nombre fini. Une cause (motrice, en général, de l'existence même) doit être la première. Et 1, c'est le nombre qui est premier avant les nombres dits premiers, ce n'est pas simplement un nombre n'importe quel entre 0 et 2 ou entre - 1 et 3.

Pour St. Thomas ceci est important et citable en discutant en quoi Dieu est "infini" et en précisant que l'infinité de Dieu, étant une infinité actuelle, ne peut pas être une infinité mathématique, de nombre ou grandeur, car celle-ci est toujours une infinité potentielle, jamais réalisée.

J'ai cette idée, le Moyen Âge ici avait raison, les Modernes ont tort.

Ajoutons ici partie d'une note par JYG, de la note 23:

L'idée selon laquelle l'infini est inconnaissable est commune à toute l'antiquité. [...] Cette idée sera reprise plus loin par Boèce (début de 1, 32). Cf. aussi Boèce, In Categ., 1, PL 64, col. 160 B: sed infinitorum nulla cognitio est, infinita animo comprehendi nequeunt*.

J'ai omis les citation non boéciennes, à commencer par Platon. Cette note me conduit au passage suivant:

Restat autem nobis profundissimam quamdam tradere disciplinam, quae ad omnem naturae uim rerumque integritatem maxima ratione pertineat.		Il nous reste à transmettre un enseignement d'une grande profondeur, qui concerne au plus haut degré la nature tout entière et la totalité des choses.
Magnus quippe in hac scientia fructus est si quis non nesciat quod bonitas definita et sub scientiam cadens animoque semper imitabilis et perceptibilis prima natura est et suae substantiae decore perpetua, infinitum uero mailitiae dedecus est, nullis propriis principiis nixum, sed natura semper errans a boni definitione principii tamquam aliquo signo optimae figurae impressa componitur et ex illo erroris fluctu retinetur.		On tirera un grand profit de cette connaissance, à condition de bien savoir ce qui suit. C'est le bien, fini est constituant l'objet de la science, et que l'âme peut toujours percevoir et imiter, qui est premier par nature et éternel dans la nature de sa substance, tandis que la laideur du mal est indéfinie, ne s'appuie sur aucun principe qui lui soit propre, et, toujours errante par nature, n'a de composition qu'en tant qu'elle est informée par le principe du bien, qui est fini, comme par un sceau de très belle forme, et arrachée aux tourbillons de l'erreur.
Nam nimiam cupiditatem iraeque immodicam effrenationem quasi quidam rectae animus pura intelligentia roboratus adstringit, et has quodammodo inaequalitatis formas temperata bonitate constituit.		Car le désir et ses débordements, la colère et ses déchaînements sans mesure, sont étroitement tenus par l'âme qui est comme une sorte de conducteur et qui est fortifiée par l'intelligence pure; et c'est elle qui, en les tempérant par le bien, règle ces sentiments qui sont en quelque sorte des formes d'inégalité.

Selon C. S. Lewis, Abolition of Man, la partie Men without Chests, l'Antiquité et le Moyen Âge considéraient l'âme quasi tripartite : comme le corps moins les extrémités avait trois parties essentielles, tête, poitrine et estomac, l'âme avait aussi trois parties, intelligence (νους), esprit (θυμος), passions (τα παθη) ou appétit.

La tête ne dirige pas les intestins directement, mais à travers la poitrine. L'intelligence ne dirige pas les passions directement, mais à travers l'esprit.

Dans ce contexte, les mots émotion et sentiment sont post-médiévaux, et si émotion peut signifier ce qui se trouve dans l'esprit comme ce qui se trouve dans les passions, sentiment signifie (d'abord, au moins) ce qui se trouve dans l'esprit. Le plaisir est une passion, le courage est un sentiment.

C'est très récemment, et pas du tout boécien, plutôt Kantien (domaine où je ne suis nullement expert), que de mettre dans un sac les passions et les sentiments comme "émotions" parce que, contrairement aux contenus de l'intelligence, indicatif avec simple point à fin de phrase ne les exprime pas, parce qu'on préfère pour les deux soit un indicatif ou un subjonctif du désir, soit un point d'exclamation.

Donc, je blâme la traduction "l'âme qui est comme une sorte de conducteur" : pour Boèce ce n'est pas le cas de l'âme entière, mais de la partie médiane, de l'esprit, qui se trouve entre intelligence et appétit.

Je blâme aussi le résumé de colères et désirs comme "ces sentiments" car, si Boèce aurait dû traduire en une langue ayant tellement le besoin de résumer, à cause de courte haleine, il les aurait résumé comme "ces passions" ou "ces appétits".

Encore une note : quand Copernic considère les épicycles (genre Tychoniens) nécessaires pour tenir compte des mouvements des corps célestes dans un cadre du géocentrisme comme inexplicables, ceci n'est pas par rapport aux causes mécaniques (genre gravitation ou inertie), mais parce que les mathématiques de son temps n'avaient pas l'habitude des les visualiser. Il les tenait donc pour le mal dans l'infini non expliqué par les maths, et non pour le bien rationnel et défini.

Nous avons, depuis, inventé le Spirographe, et s'il avait eu l'habitude de les visualiser comme "courbe de Spirographe" il les aurait tenus pour étant dans le bien rationnel et défini, donc, il n'aurait pas ressenti le besoin de l'Héliocentrisme pour sauver la réputation de Dieu comme artiste avec du goût. Car, c'est bien ça qui l'agaçait, et pas la question quel genre de cause pouvait produire ce genre de courbes.

Hans Georg Lundahl
St. Maur
Sts Prote et Hyacinthe**
11.IX.2019

* Mais des choses infinies, il n'y a nulle connaissance, l'infini ne pouvant pas être capté par l'esprit.

** Romae, via Salaria veteri, in coemeterio Basillae, natalis sanctorum Martyrum Proti et Hyacinthi fratrum, eunuchorum beatae Eugeniae. Hi, sub Gallieno Imperatore, deprehensi quod essent Christiani, sacrificare coguntur; sed non consentientes, primo durissime verberati sunt, ac tandem pariter decollati. / À Rome, dans la vieille Via Salaria, dans le cimitière de Basille, naissance (céleste) des saints martyrs Prote et Hyacinthe, frères, eunuques de la bienheureuse Eugénie. Ceux-ci, sous l'Empereur Gallien, arrêtés en tant que Chrétiens, ont été forcés de sacrifier, mais parce qu'ils ne consentirent pas, d'abord tabassés très durement, et à la fin décapités en pair.

Where do Pagan Mythologies Come From?

Tolkien and Barfield - especially the latter, if I got him right (but didn't read him myself, so far) - seem to have considered language as involved.

Once one sees grass is green as well as grass, once you see the difference between grey and yellow, cold and hot, you can imagine grey lead turned into yellow gold or the cold reptile as breathing hot fire. Each language has some unique aesthetical twinge on each word and explicitating that in a story has a mythical quality in that community because it reflects the genius of the language so well ... and so on.

Well, one must grant that the aesthetic appeal for us of Homeric Greek is tied to Iliad, Odyssey and Theogony and later even Argonautica - but also to Works and Days. And one must also grant the aesthetic appeal of these stories has something to do with the language. But this doesn't mean that all the myths of Hera came from reflection of "cow-eyed" or that all the legend of Ulysses came from either "wily" or "many-things-bearing" (polytlas).

The fad probably started with Max Müller - to whom mythology was a sickness of language, to which Tolkien replied language, especially modern languages, could as well be seen as a sickness of mythology. But there is only so much a language will do to form a myth. Let "sun" and "moon" be masculine and feminine, and if there is a sun-goddess and moon-god in that mythology, I'll be surprised. In other languages "sun" is feminine and "moon" masculine, and this is the case with Nordic languages, where Norse myth has sun as a woman and moon as a man. But - not as gods. In Finnish, neither sun or moon have gender per se, as the grammatical gender is absent from Fenno-Ugrian, but both sun and moon have goddesses, the moon goddess named Kuu, which means moon, also Kuutar, "lady moon" and Päivätär is "lady daylight". But moon is also related to "Kave, ancient god of sky, later the deity of the lunar cycle. Father of Väinämöinen. Also Kaleva." Basically, in fact many of them, sylphs. Literally, they are called "narrows" as in narrowing the face of the Moon.

In the case of Finnish, I don't think personification (if only a figure of speach) can be blamed on grammatical gender, as Müller would have had it. There isn't any in Finnish.

Now, they went even further, not only is Helios a sun myth, but so is Hercules. Chesterton joked about it, someone having considered St. Francis of Assisi a sun myth.

I actually think it is better to divide not just Paganism, but also Pagan myth into the categories : God, gossip of the gods, demons, philosophers. And of distinguishing "myth" proper from "heroic legend" or "mythological history". The source of the latter would be mainly historic, even if it included false gods. My view of Krishna is like some Atheist views of Jesus. He probably really was a friend of the Pandavas, enemy of the Kauravas. But he was no god. The story as told, or most details in it, don't demand his being so. The bigger difficulties in Hercules is not whether he was son of Zeus - he wasn't - or how one came to think that - probably his contemporaries, even he were deluded by demons or over impressed by his strength - but more like what were the Centaurs?

I disagree with Carl Wieland's answer restricting their observation to Greek mythology in his feedback answer from 10 February 2013. As his more learned questioner knew, they were known in Egypt too* (biography of St Anthony the Great, episode when he goes to visit St Paul the First Hermit, shown the way by a Centaur), I also disagree with what I presume his attitude to Greek mythology to be. That centaurs in general came from Ixion impregnating Nephele or Cheiron from "the god Saturn's" paramours is as it stands impossible, but we also would need to account for the stories of Hercules and Jason - as biographies, not as fantasy novels.

But apart from the cases of such a hero or such a "monster" being known from history, from stories, as observed reality, we need to ask what the conception of the gods came from. These usually not observed. Krishna may have been observed, but Vishnu who he is supposed to be an avatar of wasn't. Ulysses was observed, but Athena as such, not by others than he. He may have been detained by an observed Calypso, but the detainment ended after a non-observed conference on Olympus.

Now, these non-historic or not-strictly historic details, the "theological" interpretation of the events, and version of pre-human events, this is what is most aptly called "myths" when distinguished from history, since unlike Ulysses' homecoming the non-observation by human observers (or by many independent ones) is fairly clear.

Part of it comes from memories of the God their forefathers actually knew - one who withdrew from them more and more, concentrating on Hebrews after Babel. In Job He intervenes among non-Israelites, but to Greeks and Hindoos, He would have been distant. In some way this is reflected by Babylonian Anu or Greek Uranus. But they were wrong to conclude God had withdrawn, and sometimes still wronger in guessing why He had done so.

Part of it comes from "gossip of the gods" ... while Sun and Moon seem fairly clearly to be moved by intelligent movers, considering them as "brother and sister" is kind of pushing it, as is also considering them as "wood and wooer". It's the impulse of "tell me more, tell me more ..." at work.

Part of it comes from philosophy - attributing intelligent movers directly to all celestial bodies or to Sun and Moon and five more "planets" and to "Heaven in general" (with fix stars glued to it) is simply a good way of dealing with why. One which to me has not needed debunking because of Newtonian physics. Here is probably where Max Müller, so used to considering sun and moon as dead objects moved only by non-living physical powers, came up with the idea of mythology as a reflection of language, specifically gendered nouns for sun and moon.

And part of it comes from the demons. If Hercules had some visions of Zeus acknowledging him as son, those visions were demonic. If Hesiod did not make up the backstory to simply give "supernatural allure" to his version of origin myths, he saw nine muses, and these could be either witches, voicing the promptings of demons, or demonic apparitions. Though I have also thought some nature spirits could have cooked these stories together to mock the gods of the myths, and given them to Hesiod and then before God's judgement saying "we never thought they would actually fall for that, sorry!" - but considering they also sang hymns to "Kronos of the crooked thoughts" - probably Satan - this is less likely.

In other words, for non-historical myths, exeunt Tolkien and Barfield**, enter Chesterton. For more or less history-like "mythological history" or "heroic legend", again, Chesterton : real facts, plus probably some fan-fiction added (how he dealt with Trojan War in Everlasting Man or with King Arthur elsewhere).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Marguerite Audoux Library, Paris
Dedication of St. Peter in Chains***
1.VIII.2019

* And in India, where they are a class of "spirits:"

In Hinduism, the Gandharvas (Sanskrit and Hindi: गन्धर्व; Assamese: গন্ধৰ্ব্ব, gandharbba; Bengali: গন্ধর্ব, "gandharba", Kannada: ಗಂಧರ್ವ; Telugu: గంధర్వ) are male nature spirits, husbands of the Apsaras. Some are part animal, usually a bird or horse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandharva

** On the parts of philosophy, gossip of the gods and for that matter fan fiction on heroic legend, narration of language specific word connotations may have some small impact, but I don't think this is the main source of myths.

*** Romae, in Exquiliis, Dedicatio sancti Petri Apostoli ad Vincula. Antiochiae passio sanctorum septem fratrum Machabaeorum Martyrum, qui, cum matre sua, passi sunt sub Antiocho Epiphane Rege. Eorum reliquiae, Romam translatae, in eadem Ecclesia sancti Petri ad Vincula condita; fuerunt.

More Language Questions on Quora

Language questions on quora · More Language Questions on Quora

I

Which numbers replace which letters in Proto-Indo-European?

Hans-Georg Lundahl, amateur linguist

Answered 9m ago

One other man guessed you are asking of “the sounds represented by symbols h₁, h₂, h₃ and so on”

I’ll go with that. On the theory or one explicitation of it, h₁ would be normal h, the unvoiced version of any adjacent vowel or, lacking such, of ö, h₂ would be ach-laut, also unvoiced, and h₃ would be voiced (for once) version of it, with added labialisation.

The reason you write h₁, h₂, h₃ is that this is not definitely agreed fact, and these symbols are useful standins, in case someone else would come up with other sound values.

So, H1 leaves a following e as e, H2 makes it an a, H3 makes it an o, and they all disappear.

H1e > e H1a > a H1o > o
H2e > a H2a > a H2o > o
H3e > o H3a > o H3o > o

If the laryngeal (technical name for these) comes after vowel instead of before, they also make the e longer (long vowels are marked with following :).

eH1 > e: aH1 > a: oH1 > o:
eH2 > a: aH2 > a: oH2 > o:
eH3 > o: aH3 > o: oH3 > o:

A N D if there is no vowel next, they become e, a, o, like this (C=any consonant):

CH1C > CeC, CH2C > CaC, CH3C > CoC

These formulas are closer to solid fact (they aren’t solid fact even themselves) than identification with h, χ, γw.

One reason to have H3 as γw, voiced, is, some unvoiced C become voiced next to H3.

Note, all this is a theory on exactly how certain words none of which contain any proven different H1, H2, H3 in any language, while Hittite version of one or two of these is h (whatever that was), came to have the exact relations that they have between languages of the family today.

One more thing, one theory related to this one says that a did not exist in Proto-Indo-European apart from H2.

II

Would a Latin speaker from the beginning of the Roman Empire understand a speaker from the end of the Roman Empire and vice versa?

Hans-Georg Lundahl, knows Latin

Answered just now

Written Latin, rather easily. That’s why Latin written language is conservative, so later readers can understand earlier writers.

Especially from Caeasar’s time on. From Punic Wars or just after, with Plautus or Ennius, there would be some gap.

On the pronunciation side, arguably it would be at least as difficult as for a Swede to understand Danish. Prounciation changed, and the most radically changed pronunciations are not taught when teaching Latin, they are more relevant for understanding how French and Spanish arose (Iordanes who wrote in Spain and Gregory of Tours who wrote in France are best examples of Latin written as wrotten form of this pronunciation). Btw, we are not concerned with end of West Empire, or supposed such, we are more concerned with beginning of Carolingian one. The date 800 led to a “language divorce”.

Before : traditional pronunciation of Latin was given traditional spelling of Latin.
After the whole process : traditional pronunciation of Latin was spelled with a new spelling, as Provençal or French, traditional spelling, or a bit more arcvhaic, was now spelling of an archaising, restored pronunciation.

476, 4th September, when Romulus Augustulus is deposed, did not mark any linguistic revolution. 800 - 813 did, at the end of which part of above process was completed : written Latin then had both a popular/local and a learned/international pronunciation.

III

If someone is perfectly fluent in multiple languages and gets amnesia is it possible to forget they know the languages but still be able to speak and understand them?

Hans-Georg Lundahl, amateur linguist

Answered just now

Probably yes.

They would be amnesiac about learning, but rediscover fluency.

IV

Can a dead language be reconstructed from the substratum influence it imparted upon other speeches?

Hans-Georg Lundahl, amateur linguist

Answered 7m ago

In some linguistic aspects, those that are preserved in other languages as substratum.

For those who count Greek as descended from Proto-Indo-European rather than Indo-Europeanised in an Indo-European Sprachbund, “thalassa” is substrate from pre-Greek. According to this theory (the first), words in -tta / -ssa and some other ones (-ssos, -enai, -nthos) come from the pre-Greek language. So, you have reconstructed three, four endings from toponymy, along with a few roots.

Other option is of course, “thalassa” (or previous versions of word) always belonged to Greek and Indo-European traits of Greek were either borrowed from Greek to other IE, or from other to Greek.

The bottom line, languages can be reconstructed depending on two factors, the one is, how much trace they left, the other is, where they were related to the preserved languages. And that latter is sometimes a guess.

Nibelungen verse project

1) I'll give you wondrous hearsay · which olden tales us tell
of praising of the heroes · of deeds perfected well
of joy and festive season · of crying and of sorrow
of noble men at fighting · so your eager ears I wish to borrow.

2) There grew in Burgund · a truly noble maid
who in all lands no fairer · than her was truly said.
She was ycleped Kriemhilt · and fair to make one grieve
Wherefore of gallant warriors · so many had their flesh to leave.

3) Most lovable the maiden · deserved the love of all
the brave for her took efforts · none enemy, each thrall
and beauteous without measure · that was her flesh so fair
but virtues of this virgin · are fair for women everywhere.

4) Three kings of her were caring · of nobility and might
Gunther, even Gernot · such warriors were right
and Giselher, the young one · a choice and noble man
the lady was their sister · the princes care as best they can.

= 4) Ir pflâgen drî künege edel unde rîch:
Gunther unde Gêrnôt, die recken lobelîch,
und Gîselher der junge, ein ûz erwelter degen.
diu frouwe was ir swester. die fürsten hetens in ir pflegen.

dead link, previously about Nibelungen:
http://www3.nd.edu/~gantho/anth1-163/Nibelungenlied63-81.html

The project had to be abandoned at least for this link, since after the last stanza I copied from it, I have no online Middle High German text to translate. Too bad!/HGL

I Failed J P Holding's Test - But Let's Look at his Criteria

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : With jpholding/tektontv on Inerrancy · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : I Failed J P Holding's Test - But Let's Look at his Criteria · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : Notification to Mike Licona (not answered)

The TektonTV Christian Religious Knowledge Test
tektontv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfuXk1HPgPA

I am here not commenting on intro, which is fairly basic.

TektonTV / JPHolding made an own test for religious knowledge, here I am taking the quiz.

• 1) In rhetoric the portion of an argument in which a writer like Paul provides examples of what he wants to prove is called:
  
  
  • a) peroratio
  • b) probatio
  • c) refutatio
  • d) exordio
  
  
  There is no such thing as is "called an exordio", since "is called" requires nominative and nominative of the word is exordium. a and d are probably the least likely place to see a list of examples, unless very reduced to simple namecalling - or if the speech (or epistle or whatever) is not very example based, it just possibly couldn't be there at all, as normally. Exordium is beginning of a speech or epistle, peroratio is ending. In exordium (in Latin : in exordio!) you usually want to just catch the hearers' or readers' goodwill. And in peroratio (in peroratione in Latin) you mostly want to drive through the main point with some emotional colouring, possibly highstrung. I recall a speech by Lysias and how the Greek Lector raised his voice at the final words, of which I still recall the "dikazete!" - "get on judging". An exordium can be high strung too. "Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? (...?) quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?" - "Hey, what do you think you are up to, punk!" (translated to JPHolding's vocabulary).*
  
  So, omitting the option which was omitted here, namely narratio - a kind of story telling intro to the main point, as JPHolding did with a narrative, but which can take the form of an inductio (a list of examples), the second most likely place to find lists of examples (or first?) would be either probatio, in which after stating the main point the speaker gives supporting evidence to the point of positively proving it beyond reasonable doubt if possible, or, refutatio, where he is doing the inverse about the inverse point.
  
  Giving full weight to the words "of what he wants to prove" this would narrow the possibility away from refutatio and down to probatio.
  
  
• 2) The Arian Heresy claims that Jesus:
  
  
  • a) had one rather than two natures
  • b) was a white man, not a Jew
  • c) was a created being
  • d) is the same person as the Father.
  
  
  Let's discuss each:
  
  
  • a) had one rather than two natures - nope : purely human would be ultra-arian, not arian. More Moslem than nearly Christian heresy. Purely divine would be either Docetist or Monophysite. A non-Arian couple of heresies.
    
    
  • b) was a white man, not a Jew - nope, you think of Aryan, with an y, an idea espoused by Deutsche Christen. In the form that Jews in His time were more "white" or "Aryan" than now, it is not even necessarily heretical.
    
    
  • c) was a created being - this would be the one.
    
    But misstated - it says He is a created being and therefore a created person. Christianity admits He is since about 2017 years ago a created being also - but remaining an uncreated person.
    
    
  • d) is the same person as the Father. Nope. This is an earlier and opposite heresy, called Patripassianism. Modalism. Also known - had to look it up for a reminder, in wiki - Sabellianism.
  
  
  
• 3) - Wrote a hand book of rhetoric. None of the following if you really meant your spelling.
  
  Otherwise, Quintilian, one L, is perhaps what 3 b is meant to allude to. De .... oratorica, forgot the noun. De praeparatione oratorica? Hmmm ... could check it in wiki. Institutio Oratoria - honestly did not check before picking the answer.
  
  Actually, I am not sure of Lucanus and Lysanias, but if they did, their works are clearly inferior in impact to Quintilian's work, which Erasmus was looking back to when he wrote Opus de Conscribendis Epistolis.
  
  
• 4) - I really and truly do not know enough Egyptian mythology to know which of the given gods is considered a hypostasis if any, but if so, it is in another than the Christian sense.
  
  Ma'at could be considered a personification, since she means a human quality.** I did not know there were people who said hypostasis instead of personification, if that is "who" you meant.
  
  And perhaps Osiris could be considered an Avatar of Ra, but also did not know avatars were called by some hypostaseis.
  
  So, beyond all guesswork, I don't know.
  
  
• 5) Which of these is classically associated with the thesis that Peter and Paul represented an early split in Christianity?
  
  Ruling out a) David Strauss and d) David Hume and narrowing down to either b) Baur (best known for Leben Jesu, a "demythologised" version of the Gospels) or c) Bultmann, illfamed for his participation in Higher Criticism (and duly denounced for that by C. S. Lewis in Fernseed and Elephants).
  
  
• 6)
  
  I Philo died AD 37 and II Josephus was born that year, while III (or IV?) Tacitus was born later. I don't know when Cassius Dio was born, but I think he was even later than Tacitus.
  
  
• 7) Death penalty reserved to citizens : a&b - beheading by sword.
  
  Since St Paul was a Roman Citizen, he was beheaded on one June 29, under Nero, same day as St Peter was crucified upside down.
  
  [That is, St Peter was not a Roman Citizen.]
  
  
• 8) Theodosius made Christianity the State religion, outlawing Paganism and confirming how Judaism got secondary status by Constantine.
  
  Constantine had not made Christianity the State religion in this sense, but made it legal religion, but also leaving pagan official cults legal. It was Theodosius who erased the Pagan temples and said "if you want to go on praying to Venus and Bachus and Mars and that rabble, do so at home".
  
  
• 9) In my view the leading writers on Christian Pacifism are Chesterton and C. S. Lewis - they rejected Pacifism and rejected its title to being Christian.
  
  If you want to know who is the leading misleading writer on it, arguing for it, I really can't tell between the four, that is not my Christian culture!
  
  
• 10) I knew beforehand book of Job WAS ANE dialogue literature, so guessed first that The Man Who Was Tired of His Life could be a modern novel. Nope, on wiki it seems it is a dialogue between a man and his ba, Egyptian religious sense, one of the souls.
  
  I don't know.
  
  
• 11) I really don't know what the difference between orthodox and heterodox preterism is.
  
  COULD BE authority of Apocalypse (an orthodox preterist admitting its inerrancy despite the difficulties in reading), could be timing of the final resurrection (but that is rather the difference between millennialism and amillennialism), could be nature of the parousia ... could not be the person of Jesus, since even a heterodox preterist would be a Christian and therefore have Christian views on the matter.
  
  
• 12) I don't know who authored the "premier study" on the word "soma", I know Bultmann was early, but not how early the other ones are.
  
  [Nor do I know if Bultmann made any kind of study on that word.]
  
  
• 13) I presume Biblical codices were used before the codex iuris civilis and contributed to them, unless it was liturgic books that did so.
  
  A codex is a book you turn pages in, as opposed to a volumen which you scroll down and up while reading, rolling out from around one and in around another pin. (Torah scrolls however roll sideways).
  
  
• 14) Sejanus [Was the benefactor of Pontius Pilate]. He was still in favour with Tiberius in AD 30, when Velleius Paterculus wrote book II of Roman History.
  
  
• 15) I had no idea there were any Greek words in the book of Daniel.

Checking my score:

Test Answers
Tuesday, May 15, 2012, on Tekton Forge
http://tektonforge.blogspot.com/2012/05/test-answers.html

1) b) probatio - got it I
2) c) Jesus was a created being - got it II
3) b) Quintillian, - got it III
4) a) Ma’at - gave it a one of two
5) b) F. C. Baur - gave it a one of two
6) Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Cassius Dio - got it except being unsure of placing of Cassius Dio IV
7) b) beheading - which was by the sword, so got it V
8) d) Theodosius - got it VI
9) b) John Yoder - I had no idea
10) d) The Wise Man, the Artisan, and the Slave - did not know
11) b) the timing of the resurrection - ok, was not sure
12) a) Robert Gundry - I had no idea
13) c) codex - I got it VII
14) d) Sejanus - I got it VIII
15) b) musical instruments - I might have thought of it ....salpinx? kithara?

So, score 8 out of 15.

If generous, 10 of 15, if you add the one out of two.

If severe, 6 out of 15, if you take away the got it when it was twice qualified.

Certainly not 12 out of 15.

My turn.

Classic languages and literary devices would certainly be useful knowledge for assessing what anything in NT refers to, if unclear.

Church history also. Whether difference between diverse heresies or what Emperor made Christianity a state religion.

Dito for simple Classical history and literary history, as with Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Cassius Dio.

Knowing Egyptian mythology might be useful if dealing with claims about Christianity borrowing from Egyptian religion (it is arguably easier to see ANE Paganism traced in Odinism than in Christianity, and I am, as most Swedes, knowledgeable on that topic).

But it is clearly less of a core issue.

Knowing exactly what academic high brow came up with exactly what kooky idea about early Church history is an asset, but I think it is sufficient to be able to state why they are wrong. No matter how much they may have contributed to studying a word like "soma".

Knowing what orthodox preterism is might be more interesting if you are very much into preterism. I am more into "through Church history" so that at the time of the final tribulation little is left to be fulfilled ... words of St Caesarius of Arles.

Knowing about Christian pacifism is perhaps more interesting if you are a Christian pacifism - as I said I am not and reject the concept. Avoiding wars if possible is a great thing - but not at any and every cost. Saying those who do war or self defense or executions of legally condemned criminals are sinners is another matter. As the doctrine is one I reject, its authors are less interesting to me.

And presence of Greek words in book of Daniel is supposed to prove exactly what? That book of Daniel was written after Persians had had their first contact with Greeks? Sure, but not sure how that could change anything unless you know from other sources when that was. Even if all other sources are later, which testify Greeks and Persians had contact, book of Daniel would simply be the earliest source testifying to such contact.

Or, perhaps that point is, it proves Daniel had been in Persia and not just Babylon?

Or, is Ma'at being a "hypostasis" relevant to Trinitarian and Christological quarrels of councils?

Let's check, if hypostasis was the Greek word for personificatio, and if council decisions had been only in Greek, perhaps so.

But in reality we have perhaps three meanings with two different words in each language of Latin and Greece.

• υποςασις (if so?) - personificatio***
• υποςασις - persona
• προσωπον - persona

The use of υποςασιςin Greek rules out the meaning of persona=προσωπον and the use of persona in Latin rules out υποςασις=personificatio.

We are not dealing either with Trinitarian persons or Incarnation being allegories for human states of mind, as in personificatio and we are also not dealing with them being masks or roles that a single υποςασις takes on as προσωπα. We are dealing with υποςασις or persona as single instances of a thing which can think and chose, know and love. There are three instances of that thing, but unlike men, where three instances of man are three different men, in God its three instances of the very same God.

Introducing υποςασις as other meaning personificatio (if that was an Ancient Greek meaning) could only be a blunder a very minor side issue to the debates.

So, if we divide my score into what I think relevant or less so or not at all, where I know in advance J. P. Holding disagrees, here is my division of the test:

• Relevant classical/ancient : 8 out of 9
  
  
  • 1) b) probatio - got it I, 1
  • 2) c) Jesus was a created being - got it II, 2
  • 3) b) Quintilian, - got it III, 3
  • 6) Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Cassius Dio - got it except being unsure of placing of Cassius Dio IV, 4
  • 7) b) beheading - which was by the sword, so got it V, 5
  • 8) d) Theodosius - got it VI, 6
  • 10) d) The Wise Man, the Artisan, and the Slave - did not know, 7
  • 13) c) codex - I got it VII, 8
  • 14) d) Sejanus - I got it VIII, 9
  
  
  
• Less relevant ancient knowledge 1/2 out of 2
  
  
  • 4) a) Ma’at - gave it a one of two, 1
  • 15) b) musical instruments - I might have thought of it ....salpinx? kithara?, 2
  
  
  
• Irrelevant modern knowledge 1/2 out of 4
  
  
  • 5) b) F. C. Baur - gave it a one of two, 1
  • 9) b) John Yoder - I had no idea, 2
  • 11) b) the timing of the resurrection - ok, was not sure, 3
  • 12) a) Robert Gundry - I had no idea, 4

You see, doing a real good job in relevant knowledge and doing a particular set of studies to acquire that relevant knowledge are two different things.

If J. P Holding means I have not done the same studies as he, he is right. And he has not done the same studies as I, either.° If from there he wants to conclude I am not qualified to discuss what I am discussing, that is an opinion which is fairly self serving with one who has been critical of him. Note, on very many issues he is even excellent. If I weren't sometimes obliged to recommend tektontv, as a fellow apologist, I would feel no relevance in criticising him either.

But even if he were to consider me as "not qualified", he could not call me an academic fraud°° : by discussing sth on internet you are not automatically claiming to have a certain background. Also, I don't like the general idea of dividing opponents into "incompetent"/"academic frauds" and "worthwhile". Someone who is real stoooopid as a ... well, I'm omitting comparisons ... will be worthwhile responding to if there are others sharing his stupidity.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Monday after
I:st Passion Sunday
3.IV.2017

* A more literal rendering is "whereunto, O Catilina, wilt thou yet abuse our patience, (...?) to what end will thy unleashed audacity vaunt itself" (not sure if the phrases are consecutive or I left sth out, check for yourselves in Cicero's III Speech against Catilina). ** A quality, which, though human, is not lacking in God! Measure! *** If hypostasis basically means persona, Greek terminology is terse enough for the word to be used for personificatio too - but I don't claim to know it is so used. ° "exordio" in nominative, "Quintillian" with double L = > NOT a Latinist. °° Actually, the test was made for atheists.

What NOT to ask in Shakespear studies (with some gratitude to CSL)

Q

What influenced William Shakespeare to write?
https://www.quora.com/What-influenced-William-Shakespeare-to-write/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

studied at Lund University

Written just now

• 1) Are you God?
• 2) Do you think I am God?

God knows what influenced any writer to write, so does, more often than not, the writer himself, and if the writer has told anything in his writings, so do the readers of those autobiographic passages.

Since Shakespear did NOT leave us with any autobiographic passages telling us what moved him to write, there is precisely and exactly ONE clue we do have, about one category of his writings. Of his plays we can assume he wrote to get them played and wanted to get them played to get money.

Enjoying his plays, either as seeing them or as reading them in books is a perfectly licit thing, we can gather also from some of his plays some of his attitudes (he was for teen freedom in marital choice as opposed to parents imposing their choice, he was against usury). Those few attitudes which we can safely tie to him are such as he certainly shared with millions who didn’t write.

Therefore YOUR question is, unlike reading or watching Shakespear, a very useless exercise.

God could certainly know and want to know, because it will be relevant on Judgement Day, when God is judging Shakespear. However, God does not need to ask anyone who is not God [and not Shakespear either] about it, at least not absolutely. He could do so for a Shakespearean dramatic effect on Judgement Day, though.

Since I am NOT God, I am NOT someone to ask what moved Shakespear to write, and if you want God’s answer, I suggest you stay tuned for Judgement Day.

If you pretend to be a literary critic or an English teacher of any kind, I suggest you do penance for doing a shoddy intellectual work and start doing some cleaning up in the exercises you ask of yourself or of others.

Never, ever again ask “what moved Shakespear to write” or “what moved Homer to write” (unless you are prepared to take the Muse seriously). You may ask “what moved Tolkien to write the Hobbit” since he told us. On a day when he was correcting exams (with questions which, if posed by him, which they probably weren’t, were more intelligent than yours) an exam he was correcting had left one paper unwritten, he was seeking relief from the boredom of correction and started writing “in a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit”. This we are told in his letters and in a biography by Humphrey Carpenter who had access to his materials and close ones. We have no parallel information about Shakespear.

PS 1 : I regret to say that the wrath provoked by the question moved me to write a bit badly. I have now corrected the third spelling mistake I made after posting the original answer on quora. "asbolutely", "anc" and "usuary", looking to see if the one with superfluous g is till around .../HGL

PS 2 : I spotted one "Shakeaspear" too. A question as badly put as above actually makes me want to shake a spear myself, sometimes!/HGL

PS 3 : Bonus question for readers with C. S. Lewis affinities : which essays, letters or other writings by CSL have I just expressed an absolute agreement with? Has he written or contributed to a monography or debate book on the subject? Leave a comment, if you like!/HGL

PS 4 : I just saw I had forgotten to activate link to quora, that is how angry I was when answering./HGL

PS 5 : AND forgot a part of the html, I just fixed./HGL

Historians, Christians, Non-Christians

How different is history according to Christianity than history according to historians?
https://www.quora.com/How-different-is-history-according-to-Christianity-than-history-according-to-historians/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Own answer

Hans-Georg Lundahl,

History buff since childhood. CSL & Eco added to Medieval lore. + Classics.

Written just now

You have to clarify two points:

• 1 a) Do you mean pre-Roman history and pre-History or do you mean Medieval History?
• 1 b) Or, between them, Greco-Roman Antique History, including but not limited to life and times of Jesus?
• 2) What exact Historians do you mean? Do only modern historians count, or do Christian historians of pre-modern centuries count? Are you aware that many modern historians are Christians?

Meanwhile, assuming you mean only modern Historians count, I’ll give it a try for each of the periods.

• 1) In pre-Roman and pre-historic history, the difference is very marked, due to the fact that modern historians (including Christians) accept C14 dating and do not accept Genesis as a historic source.
• 2) In Greco-Roman antiquities, modern historians range from fully Christian to very anti-Christian, from those accepting Jesus Christ as God and Lord, over those who think the Gospels gave a human only rabbi a makeoever, to those who deny the Jesus of the Gospels even had a human model at all in the first place (the latter not being most typical). Not surprisingly, the topic on which they differ most is the life and times of Jesus and closely related topics.
• 3) And in Middle Ages, it is among the non-Christians (and Evangelical Christians) mostly non-professionals, non-historians who differ from the Catholic version of what happened.

Here is some more detail on the example of the Middle Ages.

For instance, all agree the Crusades happened, so pro- and anti-Catholic historians only disagree on whether they were justified or not. Same with Inquisition. Professional historians (outside East Block Communism and 19th C. Protestantism) tend to either think they were somehow justified or if not at least somewhat mitigated. BUT where versions of what happened differ, it is non-historians who disagree with Catholic Historians.

For instance, a Catholic Historian will say that Middle Ages had a Latin Liturgy and Bible because Latin was a vernacular in Late Antiquity and remained largely understandable to men starting to speak somewhat different even after Latin as now taught in school had gone out of use, partly also by adapting to popular pronunciation : in Church Slavonic, “of the lions” or the City which in German is Lemberg will be lvoov according to spelling (in Latin alphabet transcription), but in Russian it will be pronounced Lvoff and in Ukrainean it will be pronounced Lviv. So also with Latin a few centuries in into the Middle Ages.

This changed in 800, in the Empire of Charlemagne, because that is where Latin had been pronounced with greatest divergence. An Englishman who had learned Latin only as a “foreign language” in his country - but one which had been there for centuries as such - gave the Empire a much older pronunciation. Result, quickly noticed, people no longer understood if they were not clerks. Very quickly this in turn resulted in Sermons becoming mandatory, so nobody should miss what the Gospels was about. This happened in 813.

A professional historian of the Middle Ages (pro- or anti-Catholic) will not disagree with this.

The one who will claim that Latin was introduced or kept because or despite its being incomprehensible, is the Anti-Catholics who is NOT a professional historian.

Same as with claims the Catholic Church was against scientific research. Or that Columbus discovered the Earth was Round.

Curiously, when a fairly good historian who is an Atheist, like Tim O’Neill, corrects any of the urban legends about Medieval History, he is accused by non-historians of being a biassed Christian only posing as an Atheist. He is not.

After the Middle Ages, historians usually disagree more along lines of factions (including within Christianity) than about anything which is specifically pro- or anti-Christian.

One could say that Soviet historiography about Orthodox Church in Czar Russia was anti-Christian, and I think it ultimately is, so I will call it anti-Christian in that sense, but there are Christians, including Russian Orthodox, who actually agree with it, while there are atheist anticommunists who disagree with it.

How Not to Explain Latin / Romance shift - and My Correction

Quoting an article:*

All five of these languages** incorporate grammar, tenses and specific intricacies from Latin. Not coincidentally, each language developed in former territories of the Western Roman Empire. When that empire failed, Latin died, and the new languages were born. Part of the reason that Latin passed out of common usage is because, as a language, it's incredibly complex. Classical Latin is highly inflected, meaning that nearly every word is potentially modified based on tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender and mood. With no central power promoting and standardizing usage of Classical Latin, it gradually passed away from everyday usage. Vulgar Latin, essentially a simplified version of the mother tongue, survived for a while but diverged more and more as it folded in various local languages. By the end of the sixth century, people from different sections of the former empire could no longer understand each other. Latin had died as a living language."

Would a man from Bombay understand the English from Ozark region?

Is English dead because it is no longer strictly speaking unified? Or was it dead until Television and Cinema revived its pronunciation unity?

No.

Also, Classic Chinese is not dead because a Cantonese and a Mandarin speaker from Peking pronounce it diversely.

Nor Classic Arabic, because Egypt, Iraq and Morocco have diverging pronunciation, probably more so before Al Jazeera got going.

In order for a written language to die, it does not only to have pronunciation divergences making mutual understanding impossible***

It does not only to have substandard changes from the state it enjoyed during codification of standard.

One also has to exchange the written standard.

And this does not happen by gradual change.

It happened in these steps:

• Previous to Alcuin, Latin of Roman Empire had become an "old written language" - one in which the relation between pronunciation and spelling of a word was no longer straight forward, like today English, Irish, Greek.
• Meanwhile, Latin as used by Barbarians learning it as a foreign language had more or less preserved original pronuncitation, or the one current when each people had started using Latin as a Church language (and in later cases, perhaps tended to simplify the quirks away from spelling).
• The deviations from writing in pronunciation being different in diverse parts of Romance world, and worst in Gaul (at least as far as West is concerned), some visiting priests in 8th Century could not understand totally the liturgic language of Gaul.
• This led to a decision to reform Latin pronunciation in Gaul, for coherence over the Church. Alcuin did this reform in 800.
• So, previous to 800, in Gaul, there was one pronunciation and one spelling. After him, there was still one spelling and now two pronunciations, the everyday and the liturgic ones.
• The liturgic pronunciation which was perfectly understandable to priests from the rest of Roman world, was no longer so to the people. Add a few endings no longer in use (like the genitives in -i and -orum), OK. Omit article because it wasn't used in older times, OK. But pronouncing EVERY word different from what you were doing? No, the people were no longer investing learning efforts to keep up with that.
• Thirteen years later, 813, this leads to a decree one must after Gospel reading (in the newly more Classical and liturgic pronunciation) add an explanation of it, including a translation or exposé of it in the popular language (whatever the pronunication was, locally, basically).
• Priests trying to prepare for this new performance were now free to omit disused case endings (like genitives in -i and -orum) or in certain parts aleady perhaps all case endings except presence or absence of -s altogether, in order to read the "people's version" from the pulpit too. But these new spellings were occasional, and only partly crystallised. Now, from one writing and two pronuncitations, you start getting two pronunciations and two writings. But in court probably the people's pronunciation (with some moderation, if lower classes had already lost final vowels) and the Latin spelling of it were still used conjointly. However, a prince growing up in the German speaking East would probably be learning Latin in a more ecclesiastic way, more like Alcuin.
• In Strassburg a prince growing up among German speakers and not being fluent in the Latin of the Gaulish popular pronunciation had to swear an oath before nobles using precisely that. Clerks now used the spelling for their sermon notes to help him be understood.
• And now, slowly, the old coupling died off and about two hundred years later or a few decades earlier, the one spelling went with the one pronunciation and the other with the other one, they were two separate languages. Courts liking poetry and new pronunciation making old metres less and less likely to be rhythmic had something to do with this. Oldest works apart Strassburg Oaths in newer spelling (by now much further from Latin than the Oaths) were poems, like a sequence of Saint Eulalia.
• This process happened about 200 years later for each stage in Spain and Italy.
• Roumania took another road and had Church Slavonic as liturgic language up to 1500's. This means that the divergence of Walachic pronunciation from older Latin one was not steadied by any reference to Latin texts. Hence, Roumanian or Walachic is further off from Latin than other ones, in vocabulary. Example: "amator hominum" - an attribute of God in Eastern liturgy - is in Roumanian liturgy "iubitor ominilor". The verb stem behind the verbal noun is not from Latin amare, but from Slavonic lⁱubitⁱ. These and other things are so, because back then Roumanian started all over as a written language, it had been developing purely orally for centuries.

Part of the reason that Latin passed out of common usage is because, as a language, it's incredibly complex. Classical Latin is highly inflected, meaning that nearly every word is potentially modified based on tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender and mood. With no central power promoting and standardizing usage of Classical Latin, it gradually passed away from everyday usage.

There is no such thing as a gradual passing away of a language, except if it is gradually replaced by a totally different one.

Irish has during 19th C in many places, including Baile Áth Clíath / Dublin been gradually replaced by English.

But you can't say Latin was "gradually replaced by French" in northern Gaul, any more than you can say "Middle English was gradually replaced by Modern English" in England. As most standard non-Latin form of writing, Old English or Anglo-Saxon was replaced by Norman-French, after the Conquest, though some places the process took a century to complete (latest entries in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are from 100 years after Conquest or so), and then French-Norman was replaced by English, after the plague.

But English was not replaced by English when it evolved from a "Middle English" state to a "Modern English" state.

English uniting an essentially Middle English spelling with a Modern Pronunciation would be replaced by two new languages only if:

• 1) Old pronunciation of Chaucer were revived, so that "knight" and "night" were pronounced as if Germans spelled it "Knicht, Nicht";
• 2) New pronunciation was respelled, so that what Germans would spell "Neid" was, for both words, perhaps from Welsh spelling, "naet".
• 3) Fluency in the old combination became superfluous, since less relevant than the ones in either or both new combinations.

But what Latin was like in Gaul by the time of Alcuin is, a bit, as English is now. A bit more as if English had retained its basic spelling, not from Chaucer but from King Alfred.

Or, like what Greek was when written as Katharevousa and spoken in very various shades of Dhimotiki, starting with real Katharevousa pronounced like Dhimotiki, that is with Itacism. Or like what Church Slavonic is, namely pronounced differently by Serbs and by Russians and by Ukraineans.

Hans Georg Lundahl
in Nanterre University Library
on Feast of Our Lady of Mercy
24.IX.2016

* Linking:

Seeker : Politics : Sep 18, 2016 01:00 AM ET
How Did Latin Become A Dead Language?
by Jules Suzdaltsev
http://www.seeker.com/how-did-latin-become-a-dead-language-2008876974.html

** Listing:

In historical terms, Latin didn't die so much as it changed -- into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian.

One could add, Provençal, Catalan, Galician, Sardinian, Rheto-romance or Ladin - with some question marks on whether Catalan, Provençal and Ladin are three different or same language. At least there are three standards. These other three to five are indeed regional, not national languages.

*** Before schools and TV, a Scanian and someone from Norrland could probably not understand each other, unless both were fluent in a standard version, not their native tongue. Especially not if growing up as farmers.

How Historically Accurate was Iliad? A Guess of it being VERY accurate in circumstances

In 2013 Jack wrote Lita:
[ http://creation.com/bible-historical-reliable ]

And there are others who point out that if the Bible has a similar basis in fact to other ancient historical records such as, say, Homer’s Iliad, then it’s hardly a very good basis for determining the development of life on earth.

Why exactly so?

What is exactly unhistoric about the Iliad?

Details of small importance (which one can expect in merely human tradition), like mixing arms from own to those of recorded time (bronze arms more likely to be genuine than iron arms)?

Such small detail will not overthrow the overall history.

Choice of authorial viewpoint (in the tenth year, concentrating on a story of Achilles)?

Unless the story chosen is unhistoric (which would remain to be proven), this does not really affect historic accuracy of story related. It could affect accuracy of historical viewpoint - if biassed (which this one is not, story giving equal importance to Achilles and Hector) - unless there were balancing materials.

Figure of Hector, just to involve one decent character amid all cruel and lustful and vengeful and cowardly ones?

That is conjecture (it was in fact suggested by Walter Leaf), but cannot be proven. Iliad could be historically accurate on Hector too. Especially if Homer was descended from Astyanax. We know HE did not continue royalty in Troy iself and traditions diverge about his fate (Homer giving no version in Iliad) so they seem to be educated guesses (like we also have about Caesarion). Why not add Homer descending from him to these? Unless we prefer Homer descending from Ulysses - or from both. A guess on why Iliad would be accurate is as good as a guess on why it would be inaccurate.

Figure of Cassandra, a prophetess of Apollo who was always right but never believed, as cursed by that god for refusing his advances?

For one thing, I think her main importance is after Iliad, when horse is left behind by Greeks.

For another, she could have been a prophetess of the true God (not to the world, but to the Trojan community which missed a chance of listening to her) who refused to simply worship Apollo. I have a hunch that the "age of heroes" was an age in which the evil Apollo cult of Delphi (on its real evils, compare the voodoo mediums now and the poor slaves possessed by "a Pythonic spirit" - presumably Apollo in Pagan eyes - of whom at least one was exorcised by St Paul). Her story could be the story of someone really resisting (as Hippolytus son of Theseus could have really opposed unseemly evils of the Venus cult) but recalled by a community which was no longer resisting these evils.

So, though one can guess that some parts of the story are as standing unhistoric, it would be difficult to pinpoint something as "this we can dismiss" (beyond details of weaponry ... and we cannot even be sure iron was lacking, since if Troy find supposed to be relevant was carbon dated to 1290's and earliest iron find (among very nearby Hittites) is carbon dated to before 1100, weapons of iron could also be used. Homer could be as accurate about Trojan war's weaponry as Beowulf poet is, if not of Geatish at least of Old English weaponry.

The "personal" rather than geopolitical motive of the war could also be historic. Some say Iraq was invaded for purely geopolitical reasons, but Saddam Hussein being accused of accumulating weapons of mass destruction is even so a historic accusation. Troy could have been attacked after a personal affront, because Trojans were not providing a purely diplomatic one.

I have not watched or read Anouilh's play "La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu" but this would seem after my viewing resumés to be his thesis.

And ONE item I would agree to be unhistoric, or in my view or thesis TWO RELATED ones:

• Absence of reference to Hittites (identified as such);
• Presence of persons whose prowess was not at Troy.

I think Troy may well have fallen before Hattusha. If so, Hittites would have been more or less (at least diplomatically) involved in conflict.

We have the following scenarios on how the war relates to Hittites:

• Both Trojans and Achaeans + Thessalians with Achilles are part of Hittite Empire.
  
  This is Walter Leaf's notion.
  
  If so, Trojan War could have been part of the Hittite civil war which led to the fall of Hattusha.
  
  
• Trojans are so, but not Achaeans.
  
  Hittite and Egyptian texts tend to confirm (after what I gathered and recall) that Trojans were, at some time. We have no such confirmation about Achaeans, at least yet.
  
  
• Trojans were so before the War, but no longer during the war.
  
  A German scholar has argued that Luwians (including Trojans) destroyed Hattusha before the Achaeans did so with Troy.
  
  
• There were no Hittites - well, this is the only disproven notion. And all others involve SOME curious silence about Hittites on Homer's part.

My hunch is this, Hattusha was not destroyed just by Luwians being successful in a siege. Hattusha was abandoned and destroyed by those besieged (this hunch is from "Dark Lord's of Hattusha", another contemporary scholarly view in a documentary - Leaf is a few decades old).

If besiegers and besieged agreed to dissolve Trojan Empire, because seeing in the Civil War a sign "from the gods" that their world wide Imperial project (as the documentary considers they had) was not fated to succeed (but St Joseph descends from the wife of "Uriah the Hittite" through Solomon!), and they also agree to stop speaking about Hittites.

But of course plenty of the people who had ancestors fighting at Kadesh were still alive - so their exploits were by polite lying and compromise between personal honour telling stories and Imperial dishonour hiding overall stories - transferred to a smaller conflict one could still talk about. That smaller conflict being Troy.

If so, Ethiopians on the side of Trojans (not very prominent in Iliad) would imply Ethiopians were allied to Hittites at Kadesh. Egyptians on the side of Greeks - sorry, Achaeans - would imply Achaean forces at Troy were helping or continuing the Egyptian war effort at (now no longer mentionable) Kadesh.

This deliberate lying about the role of the Hittites - which by the time of Homer had presumably made him genuinely ignorant of Hittites - would be the only major departure between history and Iliad.

And such a departure would not have happened through the chosen people of God, from truth.

Therefore, the chosen wording would imply Genesis is "as accurate as the Iliad is, or would have been if they had not lied about Hittites, Apollo and Cassandra and been mistaken about their gods".

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Stigmata of St Francis
17.IX.2016

Two PS.

This post is, numbering also the drafts, 566. In actual published ones, when (and if) I do so in a moment, 546. But if 666 is Greek letters TEITAN, 566 is CEITAN (a fifth C Athenian spelling English pronunciation of Satan). You can conclude (as with posts or blogs having 666 in the numeric version of link (blog ID, post ID) that there is something Satanic about it. Or you can say on such a level these numbers are not relevant. Or you can conclude, as I do, someone is praying for me to "see" there is something Satanic about my approach to Paganism. I don't think it really is, but I do think those praying are not very attentive readers, and I wonder how I shall behave so as no longer have their prayers so relevant for me - unless they change their minds after reading a bit better.

Other thing, what the documentary on Dark Lords of Hattusha said (I think it was on BBC, I saw a video on youtube) about Hittite religion and sense of honour and laws suggests to me that heirs of Hittite culture could involve Greeks, Etruscans (mount Alverno is in Etruria) and Romans, but perhaps also Japanese (for which I think the figure of Puduhepa is suggestive both with regards to Venus Mater and to Amaterasu)./HGL

A third one, I tried to link to article on Puduhepa, but the admin here requires a second (usually not required) login for my continuing that search./HGL

Update, Our Lady of LaSalette day:

Link about Puduhepa (may God have mercy on her)./HGL

Recommended Reading : How the Holy Cross was Found

How The Holy Cross Was Found: From Event to Medieval Legend - with an appendix of texts
(Bibliotheca Theologiae Practicae - Kyrkovetenskapliga studier 47) Paperback – 1991
by Stephan Borgehammar (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/How-Holy-Cross-Was-Found/dp/B01HF0LLNW/ref=la_B001JXAQOM_1_1/159-1673716-9017426?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470251688&sr=1-1

Mythologies, erreurs et vérités

Ce message ou essai a été inspiré par deux faits. D'abord, j'ai trouvé un groupe de trois vidéos, intitulé La mythologie, à quoi ça sert, chaque vidéo prend trois fois une demi-heure pour trois mythes grecques par vidéo. Or, je n'ai pas vu les vidéos. Par contre, les mythes sont annoncés en dessous de chaque vidéo et sont aussi connus par moi en avance.

Les voici:

• Vidéo I
  
  
  • 1 ère partie : Début de l'Univers,
    comment les Grecs anciens voyaient-ils la création de l'Univers?
    
    
  • 2 ème partie : La guerre des dieux,
    des querelles incessantes opposent les dieux grecs.
    
    
  • 3 ème partie : Prométhée,
    l'histoire du voleur de feu pour servir les hommes.
  
  
  
• Vidéo II
  
  
  • 1 ère partie : La guerre de Troie,
    la grande épopée de la guerre entre Grecs et Troyens.
    
    
  • 2 ème partie : L'épopée d'Ulysse,
    la ruse d'Ulysse a permis aux Grecs de vaincre Troie.
    
    
  • 3 ème partie : La mort de la Méduse,
    comment Persée triompha de la mort elle-même.
  
  
  
• Vidéo III
  
  
  • 1 ère partie : Dionysos,
    il est le dieu du vin, du théâtre, de la fête mais aussi de la folie.
    
    
  • 2 ème partie : Oedipe,
    l'oracle avait prédit qu'Oedipe tuerait son père et épouserait sa mère.
    
    
  • 3 ème partie : Croyances et Religions , la société grecque,
    et Jean-pierre Vernant termine en parlant de son parcours personnel.

Sur le parcours personnel de Jean-Pierre Vernant, je n'ai, avant d'écouter ces choses, strictement rien à dire.

Sur les autres, oui. Mais d'abord allons à l'autre inspiration de mon article. J'avais une conversation dans le parc. Elle mène à aborder un peu de ceci, que la théologie des mythes payens est mauvaise, mais les récits vus par les hommes pas forcément tels.

La mythologie babylonienne a une théologie atroce.

Anou se serait retiré, ses deux fils se seraient quérellés, Enlil serait le seigneur, mais un dur et de mauvaise humeur (il aurait décidé le déluge parce que le vacarme des hommes lui cassait la tête), Enki serait l'ami des hommes, mais en tant que rébelle envers Enlil.

Le vrai Dieu ne se retire pas. Il est seigneur ET ami des hommes.

Entre Zoroastre et cette mythologie, il semble y avoir un rapport, quoique les rôles sont en peu plus chrétiennes pour Ormuzd (correspond grosso modo à Dieu) et Ahriman (correspond grosso modo au diable), mais comme Enlil et Enki, ils sont frères, et donc quelque part égaux.

Pour Gnosticisme et Manichéisme, c'est un peu Zoroastrisme réchauffé, épicé de quelques miettes du Christianisme, parfois, mais une rechute vers la pensée "Enlil/Enki". Bien que, comme chez Zoroastre, le Mauvais est rébelle, il est en même temps seigneur de ce monde matériel, et donc, le Bon, quoique en soi supérieur au Mauvais, devient obligé ici-bas d'être rébelle ou quasiment.

Rébellion reste le thème d'autres mythologies aussi, celle des Grecs présente leur "très-haut" comme rébelle envers son père, ce qu'ils mitigent en ajoutant que celui-ci l'était envers le sien.

Et pour les Hindous, Brahma s'endort en créant le monde, Vichnou le maintient, Chiva le détruira en éveillant finalement Brahma du sommeil, dont les rêves sont notre réalité. Encore une fois un conflit dedans le divin lui-même, et en plus (comme chez Gnostiques et Manichéens) la réalité matérielle devient une illusion.

Si la théologie proprement dite du mythe payen est généralement atroce, il y a d'autres côtés qui ne le sont pas.

Je viens de raconter comment le mythologie babylonienne rend compte du déluge et de Noé, et ça veut biensûr dire qu'il admettaient que le déluge ait eu lieu. Ce qui est bien. Les mythomanes et mythographes qui nient même le déluge sont, comme l'a noté Saint Pierre, dans son premier ou deuxième encyclique ou bulle papale, les moqueurs des derniers temps.

Le récit du Déluge selon les babyloniens est généralement assez proche de la Genèse, sauf pour la théologie de base et pour certains détails de théologie mythologique. Le dieu du soleil serait aussi le dieu qui ait rempli de pain ce qui correspond à l'Arche. À différence de la théologie de base, ceci est, pour un payen, plutôt un signe précurseur de la vérité chrétienne.

Jésus-Christ est appelé Soleil de la Justice - et Il est aussi le Pain venu du Ciel.

Le détail dans la mythologie babylonienne pourrait même être venu du récit de Moïse sur le traversé du désert, de la Manne. Ça dépend comment les choses son plus ou moins mal datés en arrière, avant Jésus-Christ, la chronologie biblique tient, mais est-ce que Moïse est contemporain de Amenemhet III et de Sésostris, ou l'est-il plutôt de Pépi?

En partie ça dépend en son tour sur la monté de Carbone 14 dans l'athmosphère. Dans mon essai "avec un peu d'aide de Fibonacci" j'ai modélisé de manière d'avoir Moïse comme un candidat possible pour Amenemhet IV, avant qu'il ne frappe l'Égyptien et se retire au désert. Dans une autre modélisation de la montée de carbone 14, j'avais trouvé qu'il devait être contemporain de Pépi et donc de Hammourapi. Ce qui m'avait fait conclure que mon modèle était faux - mais pourtant il y a des chrétiens qui vont faire même de Salomon un contemporain de Hammourapi.

En mythologie égyptienne, le début correspond assez bien au scénario juste après le déluge. Il y a de l'eau qui couvre tout, il y a ensuite de la terre qui se lève de l'eau. Comme Noé avait un corbeau à envoyer de l'Arche, le début égyptien comporte un faucon. Les deux oiseaux sont des oiseaux carnivores, et cadavrovores. J'ignore le rôle exacte du Condor dans la mythologie andine, mais il devrait en y avoir, et ça devrait remonter au même moment en fin du déluge.

Andine, venais-je de dire. Bon, dans cette mythologie là, deux choses sont remarcables : les Andes fonctionnent comme l'Arche. Les survivants sont un frère et une soeur, l'humanité après le déluge commence donc avec une relation qui aurait pu être considéré incestueuse.

Pour nous les Chrétiens, c'est au contraire la génération après Adam et Ève qu'on doit chercher pour les mariages entre frères et soeurs. Les trois fils de Noé ont pris des femmes qui n'étaient pas leurs soeurs. Mais ça pourrait commémoriser (en forme mitigé) l'inceste entre père et filles après la destruction de Sodome (Lot et ses filles se sont aussi réfugiés en une région montagneuse), et ça sert à justifier la coûtume des Incas d'épouser leurs soeurs.

Chez les Nordiques, le Déluge est avant les hommes.

Les victimes du Déluge sont les géants. Le survivant en est Bergelmer, un géant passablement gentil, par rapport aux autres. Les dieux qui ont tué Ymer l'ont épargné en l'avertissant que le sang allait noyer les autres géants, donc Bergelmer s'est réfugié dans un bateau (fait de quoi? les arbres sont aussi postérieurs au déluge nordique!) avec sa femme, avant de repeupler le monde de géants - fait sur partie du carcasse d'Ymer. Celui-ci, aussi épélé Ymir, maintenant on pourrait l'épeler aussi Imir (Y=I en icelandais moderne) est le géant ou titan primordial.

Si, pour ces nordiques, le déluge venait avant les hommes, comment les hommes savent-ils quelque chose du déluge?

La raison réelle, celle qui est valable pour les autres mythologies ayant un déluge ou une trace du déluge, c'est que l'humanité a été repeuplé après le déluge par les survivants du déluge. Par les trois fils de Noé et leur trois femmes, Noé et sa femme étant aussi encore en vie pour le regarder.

Mais au sein de la mythologie nordique, la raison allégué aurait dû être que les dieux ou les oracles des dieux disent ainsi.

Voluspá est un chant fait par une Sibylle probablement en état de trance, donc un médium comme les médium vaoudou.

Gylfaginning raconte comment Odin avec sa famille sont venus en Suède et ont trompé les gens à les prendre pour des dieux. Il aurait à l'occasion révélé coment il aurait fait (un peu plus jeune qu'alors) pour créer le monde.

Les deux sources qui ont pu servir aux payens nordiques ici mentionnées et autres pareilles dépendent donc en grande partie du témoignage d'un être surnaturel ou supposé tel sur des choses que les hommes n'ont pas vues.

Très autrement la Bible, quasi la totalité est, comme celle de l'Iliade ou de l'Odyssé, de l'Anabase et de Mémorabiles sur Socrate par Xénophon, des choses vues par des hommes et racontés à leur postérité.

Des premiers onze chapitres de la Genèse, le récit des six jours, jusqu'en partie du sixième jour, est "posé sur l'Olympe" (j'anticipe, voir plus bas) dans le sens de ne pas avoir de témoins humains. Le reste des onze chapitres, hormis le dit de Dieu en Genèse 6, en a. Et ce dit de Dieu a pu être, comme les six jours, révélé à un homme. Mais la plupart de l'histoire biblique sont des choses qui n'avaient pas besoin d'être révélés surnaturellement. Au contraire, c'est cette histoire, naturellement connue, qui révèle le surnaturel.

Si on retourne aux 8 mythes grecs, il me semble qu'il y a lieu de faire des distinctions là-dessus.

• Hors tout témoignage humain hormis les révélations tels que par Voluspá, ce qui ne renvoie pas à un témoin humain des faits, mais juste d'une intervention surnaturelle dans sa vie contenant un message donné par l'entité surnaturelle (ou par la trance):
  
  I:1 et 2 Début de l'Univers, La guerre des dieux.
  
  Un Chrétien n'est pas obligé d'y voir dedans que des soit purs erreurs, comme fausse théologie, soit vérités mises en tumulte, comme les déformations du récit du déluge.
  
  
• Vu par les hommes, hormis les scènes "posés dans l'Olympe":
  
  II:1 et 2, III:2 La guerre de Troie, L'épopée d'Ulysse, Oedipe.
  
  Un Chrétien devrait les accepter tels quels, ces récits. Hormis bien-sûr les scènes mises en Olympe (comme le débat entre Zeus ou Jupiter et sa fille Pallas Athénâ ou Minerve sur le sort d'Ulysse). Avec quelque réserve sur ce qui est possible d'être le fruit d'une vantardise où les écouteurs n'ont pas eu la possibilité de vérifier.
  
  Quand Saint Paul dit que 500 personnes ont vu Jésus ressuscité et la plupart en sont encore en vie, et quand tout le monde savait où se trouvait Jérusalem, là où il convenait de vérifier, il y a de la possibilité à vérifier pour ses écouteurs. Et de falsifier.
  
  Quand Ulysse apparaît seul devant Nausicaa et son père, chez les Phéaques, il peut prétendre qu'il a confronté Polyphème et que ses compagnons pouvaient à l'époque encore vérifier, mais il ajoute bien-sûr qu'ils ne le peuvent plus. Scylla et Charybde? Ou chez Circé? De toute manière, ses compagnons sont tous désapparus, il peut dire ce qu'il veut, personne ne risque de le contredire.
  
  L'histoire d'Oedipe ne présuppose pas que l'oracle de Delphes avait un vrai pouvoir de prophétie. Ses prophéties étaient des pièges, auto-accomplissants. Si Laïos et Oedipe n'avaient pas cru, ils auraient pu éviter d'accomplir ces malfaits.
  
  
• Possiblement en la plus grande partie le fruit d'une telle vantardise:
  
  II:3, la mort de la Méduse en est un peu suspect. Par contre, probablement la pseudo-prophétie delphique faite à Akrisios, grand-père maternel de Persée, est vraiment un fait.
  
  I:3 en est très suspect. Le libérateur de Prométhée est, comme on connaît, Hercule. Aucun d'autre homme (sauf les tous premiers qui n'avaient pas laissé des récits derrière eux, au moins pas aux Grecs) que lui seul a vu Prométhée. En plus, le récit de Prométhée enfin pardonné par Jupiter ressemble à une belle fin à l'histoire des frères Enlil et Enki - car Prométhée est un peu une figure d'Enki en miniature.
  
  
• Possiblement déformé après un récit biblique (ou ses faits, plutôt) autre que le Déluge et la Destruction de Sodome:
  
  III:1 Dionysos, car Moïse a pu être son modèle, de manière très indirecte. Certains faits d'Hercule pourraient aussi remonter à Élie (l'histoire de délivrer Thésée de l'Enfer ou de redonner la vie à Alceste).

Donc, pour moi, "mythologie" n'est pas une seule catégorie en soi, c'est une catégorie "par convenance", parce que, par exemple, les 8 récits sont surtout soit des hexamètres en dialecte homérien, soit en sénars iambiques en dialecte vieil attique.

Les mythes, comme on les appelle, n'ont pas la même valeur théologique, ni la même valeur historique. Pour déterminer la vérité qu'elle souit théologique ou historique chez un récit, il est donc fort inutil de se demander s'il peut être comparé à un mythe comme les énumérés ou non. Poser la question de cette manière montre une insensibilité à la diversité des mythes, même chez les payens.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre, BU
Veille des Saints Apôtres
Pierre et Paul
28.VI.2016

The Real Problem with that Nouveau Riche and his Invented Ancestry

LT (on a FB group's wall)

Invented ancestry.

The Latin reading blog : Ausonius on a nouveau riche.
http://thelatinreadingblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/normal-0-false-false-false-en-gb-x-none.html

HGL (my response)

Note very well that between Romulus and Remus and himself, he would NOT have dared to insert a lot of publically known persons, especially not recent ones.

The case is thus not a case against Romulus and Remus really having existed.

In fact, I can't see any reference to Romulus having had a son, so the nouveau riche was contradicting the known historic traditions. from precisely the time of Romulus and Remus.

That would to Horace and others who really knew ancient Roman History (Livy and Virgil spring to mind, and Horace at least knew the latter) have made the claim ridiculous in quite another way than it is to certain moderns considering "Romulus" a "myth".

It's not like claiming to descend from Charlemagne, it's like claiming to descend from a physical son of Jesus.

(Obviously, there could have been a legal son of Jesus among closest kin refusing to believe Resurrection law of levirate and all that).

How do we tell Romulus had no son?

Second king was a Sabine, Numa Pompilius.

Third king was grandson, not of Romulus but of a comrade.

Fourth king was grandson by his mother to Numa.

Fifth king was a stranger.

Sixth king was a freedman married to the stranger's daughter.

Seventh king was either brother or nephew in law to sixth, either son or grandson to the fifth.

None of the kings descended from Romulus.

And Romulus, like later Caesar (in a way "eighth king" - since no kings between Tarquin the Proud and himself - and "one of the seven", since deified like Romulus, since priest like Numa ...) was someone whose ancestry would have counted, had it been there. That is usually the case with people counting with a religion of their community as a god.

So, the nouveau riche was showing off his ignorance of historic traditions by the claim.

GWW vs Plato, HGL vs GWW

1) New blog on the kid : GWW got Aristotle and St Thomas wrong. · 2) HGL's F.B. writings : What Mechanism? Are "Angelic Movers Outside Natural Sciences"? · 3) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : GWW vs Plato, HGL vs GWW · 4) New blog on the kid : Was There No Celestial Mechanics for Tychonian System? Oh, yes! · 5) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : One More Quote, if I May, Please! · 6) HGL's F.B. writings : Sungenis Countering Flat Earthers - with Some Lacks in his Argument · 7) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Any Fathers NOT Supporting Round Earth? Any Authorities that DO support Angelic Movers? · 8) HGL's F.B. writings : Debating with Sungenis, Mainly

Same format as on GWW's take on Aristotle.

Popper

Copernicus studied in Bologna under the Platonist Novara; and Copernicus’ idea of placing the sun rather than the Earth in the center of the universe was not the result of new observations but of a new interpretation of old and well-known facts in the light of semi-religious Platonic and Neo-Platonic ideas. The crucial idea can be traced back to the sixth book of Plato’s Republic, where we can read that the sun plays the same role in the realm of visible things as does the idea of the good in the realm of ideas. Now the idea of the good is the highest in the hierarchy of Platonic ideas. Accordingly the sun, which endows visible things with their visibility, vitality, growth and progress, is the highest in the hierarchy of the visible things in nature.…Now if the sun was to be given pride of place, if the sun merited a divine status…then it was hardly possible for it to revolve about the Earth. The only fitting place for so exalted a star was the center of the universe. So the Earth was bound to revolve about the sun. This Platonic idea, then, forms the historical background of the Copernican revolution. It does not start with observations, but with a religious or mythological idea.

[Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, p. 187. Popper is referring to Dominicus Maria da Novara, a mathematician and astronomer in Italy. Indulging in a bit of anachronistic evaluation, Popper goes on to defend him, suggesting that even though Copernicus’ idea came before the observation, he was nevertheless correct and “not a crank.” More of Popper’s a-posteriori thinking appears later in the book: “The Copernican system, for example, was inspired by a Neo-Platonic worship of the light of the Sun who had to occupy the ‘centre’ because of his nobility. This indicates how myths may develop testable components. They may, in the course of discussion, become fruitful and important for science” (ibid., p. 257).]

p. 56

GWW

Popper, being a supporter of the heliocentric revolution, couches his critique of Copernicus in rather polite terms, but essentially he is saying that Copernicus’ brainchild had all the earmarks of originating from pagan sun-worship.

NOTE

Er, no. One can be, and there have been, Christian Platonists who agreed well enough with Plato on this one, but who, nevertheless, cannot be considered Pagans.

Take St Francis who said:

Citing Cantico delle creature

"Altissimu, onnipotente, bon Signore,

tue so' le laude, la gloria e 'honore et onne benedictione.

Ad te solo, Altissimo, se konfàno et nullu homo ène dignu te mentovare.

Laudato sie, mi' Signore, cum tucte le tue creature, spetialmente messor lo frate sole, lo qual è iorno, et allumini noi per lui. Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore, de te, Altissimo, porta significatione. ..."

HGL again

Confer how many lines there are between God and Sun-and-Moon in another canticle of similar thematics:

Citing Benedicite:

Daniel 3:[52] Blessed art thou, O Lord the God of our fathers: and worthy to be praised, and glorified, and exalted above all for ever: and blessed is the holy name of thy glory: and worthy to be praised, and exalted above all in all ages. [53] Blessed art thou in the holy temple of thy glory: and exceedingly to be praised, and exceeding glorious for ever. [54] Blessed art thou on the throne of thy kingdom, and exceedingly to be praised, and exalted above all for ever. [55] Blessed art thou, that beholdest the depths, and sittest upon the cherubims: and worthy to be praised and exalted above all for ever.

[56] Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven: and worthy of praise, and glorious for ever. [57] All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [58] O ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [59] O ye heavens, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [60] O all ye waters that are above the heavens, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all for ever.

[61] O all ye powers of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [62] O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. ...

HGL again

Compared to Shadrach, Mesach and Abed-Nego, St Francis was clearly agreeing with Plato (and perhaps with King David too), and some Puritans would, for this reason, probably accuse him of sunworship in a Pagan way.

Their Bibles (I think?) often have shorter versions of Daniel chapter three. But will they say the same thing of King David?

Citing Caeli enarrant

Psalm 18:[6] He hath set his tabernacle in the sun: and he, as a bridegroom coming out of his bride chamber, Hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way: [7] His going out is from the end of heaven, And his circuit even to the end thereof: and there is no one that can hide himself from his heat.

HGL again

So was King David agreeing with Plato? Or was it rather Plato who agreed with King David?

But in that case, perhaps Plato wasn't wrong.

Note, Plato was not a Heliocentric. Saying the Sun is the HIGHEST does not make it IMMOBILE.

Actually, when Newton makes Sun most relatively immobile part of "our Solar System" and this because Sun has "most mass" (i e is heaviest), very far from making Sun the noblest part, he is making Sun LOWER than Earth.

That is my own objection to Heliocentrism of the Newtonian variety.

It makes us look "up" in terms of solar system only at night, and it makes us get our daily light from below.

However, of this ghastly fault, Copernicus was as such not yet guilty. Nor was Kepler.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Tuesday after III Lord's Day in Lent
1.III.2016

PS, on God as mover of daily movement:

GWW

This very question had troubled the Greeks and Romans over two thousand years ago. Seneca, for example, writes a description very similar to what Born, Hoyle, or Hawking write today, only back then he didn’t have anyone to provide him a scientific answer:

Seneca

It will be proper to discuss this, in order that we may know whether the universe revolves and the Earth stands still, or the universe stands still and the Earth rotates. For there have been those who asserted that…risings and settings do not occur by virtue of the motion of the heaven, but that we ourselves rise and set. The subject is worthy of consideration…whether the abode allotted to us is the most slowly or the most quickly moving, whether God moves everything around us or ourselves instead.

Reference

Seneca, Nat. Quaest. vii. 2, 3. Cited in Aristarchus of Samos: The Ancient Copernicus, Sir Thomas Heath, 1913, p. 308.

p. 79

NOTE

A God who moves the whole universe around us, as we observe (unless assuming we could correct our observations from some other place of rest which we cannot) is the God who is Lord over all of the universe.

The God who turns only US around might be some only local God of this Earth.

Which is of course a kind of Satanism to presume. This is why philosophy is best if sticking to face value of observations, unless they are really proven wrong. Which they aren't./HGL