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Tag Archives: Lucian

Lucian of Samosata, Concerning Sacrifices.8

16 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Greek, Lucian of Samosata

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Ancient Greek, Greek, Greek Translation, Lucian, Lucian of Samosata, New Testament Background, NT Background

The previous post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/lucian-of-samosata-concerning-sacrifices-7/

Enough of such things! Let us ascend to heaven, in a poetical flight along the same path as Homer and Hesiod, and there let us see how everything has been arranged.

It is brass on the outside, as we had heard from Homer, but peering a little over this, and simply turning your neck, the brightest light appears and pure sun and radiant start and the ground is gold.

Upon first entering there are the Hours, for these are the gates. After this we find Iris and Hermes, the servants and message bearers for Zeus. Next is Hephaestus with his forge and every sort of contrivance; after this the dwelling places for the gods and the palace of Zeus – all these spectacular things Hephaestus appointed.

 Greek Text and Notes:

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Lucian of Samosata, Concerning Sacrifices.5

22 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Culture, Greek, Greek Translation, Lucian of Samosata, New Testament Background

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Concerning Sacrifices, Greek, Greek Translation, Lucian, Lucian of Samosata, New Testament Background, NT Background

The previous post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/lucian-of-samosata-concerning-sacrifices-4/

The poets speak such eloquent words about the gods – a great deal about these most divine things when it comes to Hephaestus and Prometheus and Cronus and Rhea, nearly the entire family of Zeus.

When they begin, they call upon the Muses to sing with them, and so inspired of the gods they sing of how Kronos castrated his father Uranus, then ruled in his place. He, of course, like Thyestes of Argos did latter, devoured his own children.

Or Zeus: saved by the fraud of Rhea (his mother) who substituted a stone (his father tried to eat him); later exposed on Crete; raised by a goat; he drove off his father and threw him in prison; married many women; and just like the Persian and the Assyrians, he married his own sister. Or what of his erotic dealings, his gushing lust, recklessly filling heaven with children: some were gods; but many were bastards bred with mortals upon earth: he came as a noble shower of gold, once a bull, once a swan, once an eagle – he was more changable than Proteus! Once he sprouted Athene from his head; conceiving her right in his own brain. Finally, they say when Dionysis was half-done, and his mother was on fire, Zeus snatched out of his mother, buried him (Dionysis) in his thigh until he cut him out, because the gestation was finished.

Greek Text and Notes: 

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Lucian of Samosata: Concerning Sacrifices.4

21 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Culture, Greek, Lucian of Samosata, New Testament Background

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Concerning Sacrifices, Greek, Greek Translation, Lucian, Lucian of Samosata, New Testament Background, NT Background

The previous post may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/lucian-of-samosata-concerning-sacrifices-3/

Since I’ve brought Apollo to mind, I am of the mind to mention something: something wisemen say about him – this doesn’t concern questions of misfortune in the matter of Hyacinth’s murder or his mistreatment of Daphne – but rather the condemnation and order of exile from heaven for the Cyclopes’ death. He was sent to earth to share in human luck. Then he became a menial for Admetus in Thessalia and for Leadmon in Phrygia – in this he was not alone: Poisden was with him. They both made bricks and built the wall. And, they didn’t even receive their full wage, they say the pair are still owed 30 odd Trojan drachmae.

Greek Text & Notes: 

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Lucian of Samosata: Concerning Sacrifices.3

21 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Culture, Greek, Lucian of Samosata, New Testament Background

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1 Clement, Concerning Sacrifices, Culture, Greek, Greek Translation, Lucian, Lucian of Samosata, New Testament Background

The previous post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2014/12/20/lucian-of-samosata-concerning-sacrifices-2/

It was like this, I suppose, for Chryses – so holy and so advanced and so wise concerning divine things – after he leaves Agamemnon, without the win. Chryses pleads a return for all the bribes he had given to Apollo. He has absolutely no shame in saying,

“O Great Apollo! How often I have dressed your unadorned temples, and burned thousands of bulls and goats on your altars. But you ignore my sufferings: the ‘Benefactor’ counts these as nothing.”

So by these words he shames Apollo, who grabs some arrows, drops himself in the harbor and rains plague upon the Achaeans and on their donkeys and dogs.

Greek Text & Notes 

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Lucian of Samosata, Concerning Sacrifices.2

20 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Culture, Greek, New Testament Background

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Concerning Sacrifices, Culture, Greek Text, Greek Translation, Lucian, Lucian of Samosata, New Testament Background, NT Background, Pagan

The previous post may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/lucian-of-samosata-concerning-sacrifices-1/

What about those Ethiopians: blessed and thrice happy, as some might says, as they remember joy of Zeus partying with them for 12 days straight – that time he took along all the other gods.

So nothing, so it seems, will the gods do without getting something back: they will selling any good thing to human beings. It is possible to purchase good health for a calf; become rich for four cows; to rule 100 cows; to safely return from Ilios to Pylos, 9 bulls; Aulos to Ilion? A virgin princess. Heccuba paid 12 cows and a robe to Athene tso that the city wouldn’t be destroyed.

It seems that a rooster, a crown or even frankincense will each buy something.

Greek Text and Notes: 

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Brotherly Love as Something New (Comment on Hebrews 13:1)

07 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in Church History, Hebrews, New Testament Background

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brotherly love, Church History, Hebrews, Hebrews 13:1, Love, Lucian, New Testament Background, NT Background, William Lane

Hebrews 13:1 provides, “Let brotherly love continue.” Now, the culture may broadly state that brotherly love is a good thing. Yet, we must recognize that such an idea (to the extent that it actually exists), derives from Christianity. This point can be seen in the comment by William Lane, from his commentary on Hebrews:

It is important to appreciate that this was something new. In the second half of the second century the satirist Lucian of Samosata explained to a correspondent, Cronius, that the relationship among Christians is unusual; they are to regard one another as “brothers.” He illustrates his point by calling attention to the Christian attitude toward material possessions and grounds in the teaching of Jesus their willingness to share what they own with one another:

Moreover, their original lawgiver persuaded them that they should be like brothers to one another.. … Therefore, they despise all things equally, and view them as common property, accepting such teachings by tradition and without any precise belief (Peregrinus 13).

Lucian’s remarks indicate that an educated person in the second century was quite unprepared for the Christian notion of φιλαδελφία expressed in the admonition, “Keep on loving each other as brothers.” The expansion of the term to include men and women beyond the immediate family was considered ludicrous. Ironically, Lucian’s choice of the Christian attitude toward personal property to illustrate Jesus’ teaching is insightful. It is precisely a willingness to share possessions unselfishly that is characteristic of the relationship among members of the same family. New perspectives concerning familial relationships will inevitably have implications for attitudes toward personal wealth (cf. 13:5) (see Lane, PRS 9 [1982] 270).

Hebrews, 510.

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